So when you were like 8 years old and you went into the bathroom at 2 in the morning and saw your parents’ cigarettes you might try one out and wonder what was wrong with them.
Did this to one of my aunts. Never again, tried weed a couple months ago, also no thanks. Nothing against people who want to smoke weed, I voted to legalize it. I just can’t stand it.
It’s not for everyone–some people have very strong reactions to it, but they may also have strong reactions to alcohol and nicotine. Alternatively, most people get zonked out of their gourd from between many weeks and many months when trying antidepressants or anxiolytics. Weed is probably not different in that regard.
I hit a joint like 4 times. I didn’t really feel any effects, it just felt uncomfortable going in. I also downed a regular orange juice sized tall glass of whisky, took a while to take effect but oh boy did I feel that. I just don’t like not feeling like myself I think. Don’t like feeling under the influence of anything. I avoid meds for that reason too unless they’re necessary.
If you hit a joint 4 times on top of a cup of whisky and didn’t feel it, you didn’t smoke it right. No offense meant, it’s really common for people to not understand how to inhale smoke properly when they start.
Probably fair I tried inhaling with my lungs like I was told but I had no prior experience. I also don’t know how strong or good the weed was, as I understand it that can change how it affects someone, I assumed my girlfriend wouldn’t give me crap stuff. The whisky was way later in the day granted.
Yeah I figured that was the case. I have also not enjoyed feeling like I’ve lost control, which made it hard for me to get on to weed in the first place. I have since learned that it is a great medication for me and makes my life better, but I had to get through a lot of anxiety first. Now I don’t feel it at all.
I grew up in the 80’s / early 90s when smoking indoors was still common (restaurants, buses, etc). You just kind of got used to it.
Eventually I started smoking, and it was less of a bother 😆 (have since quit).
The thing I never could figure out, even as a smoker, was how people smoked in a car with the windows rolled up. It was unbearable even being the one smoking. Even in the dead of winter and negative one million degrees outside, I always had to have a window cracked.
Going on a long car trip in winter as a kid sucked so hard. Parents are in the front seats, you’re in the back. They’re smoking more often than normal because of boredom. You’re freezing your ass off because they’re cracking the window, and the smoke is awful.
Same here. My Dad was a smoker and I remember sitting on the top deck of buses with him whilst he smoked. Can’t remember ever noticing the smell really. I started smoking myself at 15. Quit about 10 years later. Now I can smell it so clearly. I can tell if someone is a smoker as soon as I get anywhere near them.
I live in a country where there are still bars where you can legally smoke indoors. One of my favourite bars is like that even though I am a non-smoker. I always feel like I can burn all my clothes after an evening there. And the hangovers are way worse.
Ha, I remember being a kid. I would be with my parents at a campground all Summer. We had a fairly small trailer. I remember one night there was a NFL(Patriots) game on and my parents and another couple were in the trailer watching. There was so much smoke that I felt like I was going to die.
I ended up screaming at them all. I think they were actually shocked at how angry and loud I screamed. They didn’t say a word. Turned off the TV, took a few things and left the trailer. They even made sure to keep the door open so the air would vent through the screen door.
My father died of lung cancer less than 10 years later in '89.
Ask my asthma. I dunno if there’s direct causation but being exposed to cigarette smoke from infancy damn sure didn’t help.
Same dude. I don’t know about you but I also had sinus and ear infections out the ass growing up, which I don’t know for sure was related but it sure seems like it would be.
Absolutely. I was constantly sick. Eventually had tubes placed in my ears and apparently I almost died on the operating table during my tonsillectomy. Fun times!
You grew up in it and didn’t notice.
But after the bans the first thing that stood out is you don’t need to bleach every piece of fabric you took outside every day. The first time I went out, woke up the next day and my clothes didn’t smell… you know, smoky I was very confused. Up until that point I assumed that was just what happened to dirty clothes, I didn’t realize it was all the cigarettes.
one of the first times I noticed was when it was banned on flights
There’s a local bowling alley I went to as a kid. I didn’t go back until 2-3 years after the indoor cigarette ban. Once I went in I immediately said “Something’s different…”
Then someone said there’s no more smoke, that was my Aha! moment.
My wife tells me that when she used to go clubbing she would come home with burn marks/holes in her dresses all the time.
Got one on my brand new t-shirt I had bought with my student loan money… That was fucking annoying.
Man, it was rough.
At family friends you’d take a break to get some fresh air or a bathroom break, as they smoked indoors and you had to be nice.
At restaurants I would push my parents for non smoking. One time they skipped that option and it impacted me so much I threw up all over the back seat.
They no longer opted for the smoking section ever again.
Man smoking in restaurants was wild in hindsight. It was always disgusting but it was normalised. The thing that always bothered me the most was that when i was out with my family as a child was that we were like 12 people and one guy smoked, we usually sat in the smoking section. That was also the case when i was older, that one or two smokers out of 10 people were always the cranky bitches.
Or sitting in a restaurant where the non smoking tavle was next to the smoking table. So you would sit back to back to a guy who was smoking while wou were eating. Wild times, glad that shit is overIt’s still a thing in most of the world.
I’d probably say “in much of the world” unless you want to take the time to prove your claim.
You can say as you wish, the limitation on smoking is a first world concept.
This is completely incorrect. In fact when I studied Spanish in college, one assignment had us reading about an anti smoking campaign in Argentina from the early 2000s.
Okay? There was one here in Southeast Asia, yet everyone still smokes indoors. Some assignment you did in a language class about a campaign in a country you haven’t visited is irrelevant.
I then moved to Argentina, so there’s that…
You are totally right, it’s crazy to think back to it. I was that 12 year old once or twice.
Even more screwed up was there were smoking sections with walls or without. Without… well, it’s smoke. So it’s going into the non smoking section. With walls? It was like an aquarium.
It was disgusting. You could only deal with it. No choice. As soon as someone smoked, I noticed right away. I would get coughing fits if anyone smoked near me at a restaurant. In bars it was horrible. In one particular case my throat was feeling like it was burning due to how thick the cigarette smoke was in the bar. And all your clothes would smell and it reeked in your room or apartment for a couple of days until you cleaned them. I don’t miss that time at all. I’m so glad smoking is banned everywhere now.
If only they would ban smoking in apartment or condo buildings next. It shouldn’t be allowed when you live in close proximity to other people and your smoke gets into their home.
Same way we’re doing smog?
The same way people survived “gardyloo!” days. When you’re surrounded by shit it probably didn’t seem quite as bad as it would to us today.
I didn’t like all the smoke as a kid, but it is more noticeable and horrible these days since it is much less common, in my view anyway.
TIL about gardyloo
Childhood asthma, unfortunately. I was born in 1982 and basically everyone smoked everywhere here in the Netherlands. If you had a birthday, you couldn’t see across the room due to the smoke.
Because of it I had childhood asthma, which cleared up immediately when my parents stopped smoking. In the early 90’s, things got a lot better with smoke-free environments. We eventually got full on smoking bans, thank god. As far as I can tell, it didn’t do any permanent damage.
I still absolutely HATE smokers and smoking. It is and was an antisocial thing and children should never have been exposed to it like we were.
I thought smoking was still very common in Europe?
Well, Europe is a big place. The percentage of smokers differs from country to country, as well as the anti-smoking legislation and when that was introduced.
In the Netherlands, you cannot smoke in the workplace, restaurants, cinema, on public transport, near a hospital, etc. Sale of tobacco products is illegal to anyone under 18 and we’ve banned things like flavoured vapes.
Because of all these measures, ‘only’ 19 percent of the Dutch population 15 and older smokes, with people lower on the socio-economic ladder smoking more frequently. That’s below the European average of 19.7 percent.
Now, compare that to other countries like France (22 percent), Spain (23 percent) and Bulgaria (28 percent).
Now, those countries have anti-smoking legislation as well. But because they had statistically higher numbers of smokers, it takes longer to see the overall effect.
So depending on where you are in Europe, your perception of smoking habits could vary wildly.
Interesting. Years ago before I quit I rolled my own and the best lose tobacco I could find in the States was Dutch.
Funny how things change.
Well we are proud of Dutch manufacturing in general. We like to make good products, even if they might be bad for you: for decades, we had the best weed in terms of THC content. And the Netherlands is also a highly regarded global producer of XTC pills and amphetamines. There’s only so many tulips you can export…
So yes, loose tobacco is one of our fine export products. We Dutch also loved it; it was really popular to use in joints (see: Dutch weed) and rolling your own cigarettes tended to be cheaper than buying packs (we Dutch are notoriously cheap). These days people prefer a vape, or pure joint. And with smoking in general on the decline, loose tobacco is a rare sight here these days.
Oh god, the bowling alleys. The stink of cigarettes, soggy fried food, and machine oil that didn’t just destroy your clothes, but actually permeated your soul.
Both of my parents smoked. My two brothers and I would take a pair of scissors and cut the cigarette in front of their faces when they would go and light up.
I don’t remember how long it took to get them to quit, but they finally did.
It’s just not the health aspect, but smoking is just absolutely disgusting. A smoker just stinks to high heaven and they make everything around them stink long after they leave. How they are not completely mortified by that, I will never know.
Then add the expense and the deleterious health impact.
It begs the question…
What the actual fuck?
How they are not completely mortified by that, I will never know.
I once heard a claim that they just can’t smell it themselves. I can believe it, because our senses tend to filter out sensations that are continuous.
The smoke itself also just clogs up your sense of taste and smell so you can also not notice other scents even if they aren’t constant.
I was going to say this, too, but I was too lazy to fact check so I left it out. c: In other words, I’ve heard about this too.
Growing up in the 1960s, my father was a chainsmoker. I never noticed. It was the water that little fish me swam in.
He quit when I was, I dunno, maybe 12 or 13. Suddenly, I noticed tobacco smoke when I encountered it, and it was revolting. I deeply resented having to work in an office in the 1980s that allowed smoking. I deeply resented restaurants with “smoking sections” that were just a half-wall separating me and smokers. I hated flying, with the stench from the “smoking section” filling my air.
How did I survive? Resentfully.
I think one thing a lot of people don’t know now is that back then there was a WHOLE LOT of denial about the detrimental effects of smoking. I think this was mostly the tobacco industry’s propaganda, but it worked. I remember talking with someone in the 90s that had some sort of cancer and had been a smoker most of his life. “No way to know if it was the cigarettes” that caused the cancer, he told me.
We are much, much more aware of the downsides of smoking now. The cat is out of the bag.
Your logic is why I give people in generations before me a bit of a pass. I’m born in '87 and I was alive to remember smoking in cars and restaurants at least, and so if you’re older than me, you may have been told it was okay. But if you’re my age or younger, we have had it slammed into our heads since youth that smoking kills, and so when I see you smoking a cigarette it just hits a little different than our older counterparts.
I appreciate your reasoned approach.
One of the ingredients is how bloody emotional of an addiction it is. You feel personally challenged if somebody berates your behavior. I know, in a quite rational human being, but I’d feel troubled by posts and papers on the downsides of the addiction.
When you stop you stay to see and smell it too. I want to think it stinks, but somehow somewhere it does still smell nice. I know for a fact that even though I’m through all this, is fall for it again immediately.
It’s such a deep seated thing, if you never had addiction it’s hard to grasp.
We were just used to it, even as non-smokers. I grew up with my Dad always smoking and just always recognized the smell, but it was just so common that I didn’t think anything of it. It wasn’t until my state banned indoor smoking that it really hit me how everpresent it had been. It was like a few weeks after the ban went into effect that I really noticed it like, “Holy shit, I never realized how much I hate that smoke, it’s so much better now!” I was working at a bar/restaurant at the time, so it just cleared the fucking place up and I was so happy.
We just sat in the non-smoking section.
Cigarette smoke is very clever and is sure to respect a small piece of red rope strung across the restaurant.
And the real answer is we were all just used to the smell of cigarettes. Going for a meal or going to see grandad? Put on some old clothes that can be put in the washing when you come home because they’ll stink. It never seemed to occur to anyone that they could just stop letting people smoke indoors.
