“You never quit smoking. You stop smoking.”
- My grandfather, who smoked for 30+ years.
I am impaired by conscience to compel anyone to cease smoking, as I myself struggle and wrestle so pathetically with it ; nonetheless, it is bad for our health, that is, ultimately against our nature. It is
sinful as a result, but it is not a sin. Oddly, much of the worst consequences of smoking are not caused by tobacco, but by the additives which make the nicotine delivery more potent. Nicotine and caffeine are of the same family of drug ; nonetheless, no one says drinking coffee will cause cancer and there is no campaign to end coffee drinking. While both caffeine and nicotine have consequences on our nervous systems, and are taxing to the health of that system in that regard, and also addictive, they are not in and of themselves utterly toxic or poisonous. It is virtually impossible to sit down and poison oneself to death with coffee or cigarettes, for example. It is the additives to these products that are ultimately what cause the most serious problems.
I would be much happier if the State spent half of the resources it presently spends combatting smoking (and its health defects), and rather spent that money on forcing the producers of these products to quit using known and dangerous toxins, additives, etc., in their ingredients that cause these products to be so extremely addictive, and even more dangerous to human health. Much more could be accomplished, quickly and easily and with less difficulty, by forcing producers to be moral and conscientious than by demanding citizens to all-together stop doing something that they, themselves, do nothing to prevent from being so difficult to actually stop doing in the first place ; i.e., being addictive and deadly.
Pax Christi,
Tim