cheers lappie..... I'm 70 now mate. I appreciate your thoughts as I get your intention. with thanks.
the issue is the taxation of smokes causing the blackmarket and alternative sources of getting nicotine.
I've nursed people dying many times and seen smokers live into their 90's and some non-smokers with lung cancer. all the photos on the packs are dishonest representations of people with multiple factors, the guy who died. my very first cancer patient looked just like that guy.... only he'd never smoked in his life. he died 40 odd days after diagnosis, came into hospital looking reasonably healthy and lost all weight in hospital.
even emphysema depends on whether one has kept exercising, breathing deeply and hard while riding, running or other cardiac exercise rate. elasticity is lost in non-smokers too who don't keep working hard. its a matter of clearing the lungs regularly of all pollutants.
we get more damage to the lungs living on a main road or near a coal mine or power plant where particulate dust floats in the air and effects people up to 5km away. I'm not just a Joe who doesn't want to give up smokes. I know the problems from inside and outside.
I'm made many efforts to chuck the fags into the bin. I even managed to abstain for 8 years at one stretch, when I put on weight despite my exercise regime. the obesity nearly killed me. one night a mate was smoking and I could no longer resist, then the weight fell off me till I got back to 90kg then fell off more slowly to today. I now use the clinical rip off of high priced nicotine spray, albeit at half the price of smokes, and still can't manage to stay off the tobacco when stress levels rise.
there are many factors involved in addictions too. its not merely weakness of will.
