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    Dave Hamilton Nolan
    6/20/16 9:23am

    Wait, what about weed? I thought that was good for you? It has Vitamin C in it or something.

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      DavidPuddyDave
      6/20/16 9:26am

      No no, it has Vitamin K. That’s why it’s green.

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      FreshlyShavenDave
      6/20/16 9:26am

      Doesn’t cause cancer or emphysema. Does contribute to periodontal disease.

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    BoogerFace2Hamilton Nolan
    6/20/16 9:22am

    Are these doctors selling cigarettes?

    What better way to say “don’t worry about quitting,” than a doctor hinting that- at this point- it doesn’t matter if you do?

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      kamla deviBoogerFace2
      6/20/16 9:28am

      No, this is the last paragraph of the story from the NY Times:

      Most critical, of course, is for smokers with or without symptoms of lung disease to quit smoking, which can reduce the severity of respiratory symptoms and slow the decline in lung function, Dr. Regan’s team wrote. However, the team added, quitting smoking “does not eliminate the risk of progressive lung disease,” which means that the lungs of former smokers may need to be examined periodically.

      Smoking fucks you up, but quitting is still the right thing to do.

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      BSTrainerkamla devi
      6/20/16 9:53am

      I doubt most smokers would get to the last paragraph before saying, “fuck it, why bother quitting” unfortunately. My dad quit after smoking heavily for 40 years and the change in his health is incredible. It’s totally bizarre for me to visit him now because after about 5 years smoke-free his skin is a completely different colour than it was for my entire life up until this point. He’s so pink! His skin had a greyish cast that seemed totally normal up until the point he no longer looked like that. He’s a completely different guy now. He also seems so much happier now, leading me to wonder how much those years of oxygen deprivation affected his emotional life. The emotional changes were a welcome, but unexpected, side effect - he was depressed for years before quitting.

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    Sid and FinancyHamilton Nolan
    6/20/16 9:29am

    “patients are encouraged to walk as fast as they can for as long as they can, rest, then walk some more.”

    So, quit smoking and live in New York? I am going to live forever!

    (Seriously, cowboy up and quit, people. It’s not that hard.)

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      crouching tigerSid and Financy
      6/20/16 9:36am

      I bike commute, and I bet that’s equivalent to a few cigarettes per day. All that smoke and dust can’t be good, especially on an elevated and deep respiratory rate.

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      FrakesOverdriveSid and Financy
      6/20/16 9:45am

      For sure, weekdays are easy. Weekends are tough, once the booze starts flowing god damn brain starts liking lung cancer for some reason.

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    LindaHamilton Nolan
    6/20/16 10:30am

    The thing I don’t get is all these people in their 20s & 30s that smoke. You have grown up knowing that it is basically sentencing yourself to COPD, lung cancer, etc.

    It’s one thing for my and my parents’ generation who grew up being told smoking was cool, but you guys have known better since birth.

    What gives, youngs? Death wish?

    FYI, I have never smoked. My mother smoked from age 18 quit in her early seventies and still died of lung cancer at age 78. If you’ve never seen a person live the last year of their life with lung cancer, the fear, the sickness from chemo, your hair falling out, radiation, and yeah the pain. She was in so much pain that the doctor told me the drugs she was on would have put two people in a coma and they were barely eliminating the pain she was suffering.

    Enjoy!!

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      gigglestickierLinda
      6/20/16 10:49am

      Smoking was a thing I took up extremely briefly — I was extremely bad at both it, and looking cool, which is why I tried it.

      But yeah, young folks. A girl in my office (early twenties) announced she had just started smoking that weekend. I practically had to stop myself shaking her and searching her purse.

      WHYYYYYYYY!!? Has the adult world’s erasure of smoking from popular culture gone for nothing?

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      SirIanMcKellenIsDangedTerrificLinda
      6/20/16 11:07am

      Unfortunately, saying how bad it is and how it will kill you just made it seem cooler to some kids. Kids are morons.

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    stacyinbeanHamilton Nolan
    6/20/16 9:28am

    Oh well, those were some delicious cigarettes. (Non-smoker for 21 months now.)

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      c'est-a-direstacyinbean
      6/20/16 9:50am

      Congrats - I’m at almost 27 months and there’s still a moment in just about every day I think I want one

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      kamla devistacyinbean
      6/20/16 9:53am

      Congrats! The first three weeks are the hardest - you’ve pretty much kicked it at this point!

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    The Dread & Fear of KingsHamilton Nolan
    6/20/16 9:26am

    Counterpoint: be the Marlboro Man, live to be 95% of the average male life expectancy, and get to be the fucking Marlboro Man along the way.

    http://gawker.com/fifth-former-m…

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      Flying Squid (I hate me more than you do.)The Dread & Fear of Kings
      6/20/16 9:30am

      Only a few people get to be the Marlboro Man. The rest of them get to be guys like this.

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      nappingatdeskThe Dread & Fear of Kings
      6/20/16 9:30am

      You mean this guy? Yeah, sure...no regrets at all.

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    WeaselsareUsHamilton Nolan
    6/20/16 12:28pm

    I smoked for over 30 years. I would start again in a minute if I could afford them. Really what’s the point? Some people eat themselves to death, other people are seriously considering putting a complete moron in the White House; we pick our poison. I have no access to healthcare anyway....

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      The6thZombieWeaselsareUs
      6/20/16 1:47pm

      That’s something that rarely comes up—how much we (insert terrible thing here) and it’s going to kill us. First, women could have 1 drink a day to stave off breast cancer (the only cancer that counts!) Then it was NO drinks. Then if you drank anything EVER your liver’s kaput! Then it was coffee. I’m pretty sure that tomorrow will bring something else for us not to eat/drink/do. Why don’t they just tell us that breathing will kill us? (It will, eventually!)

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      WeaselsareUsThe6thZombie
      6/20/16 1:50pm

      Yes. But the main reason I want to start again is it actually helps some of my heath conditions. It really helped with IBS and there has been recent medical studies noting this. I also helped my depression which I’ve had all my life.

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    otterbirdHamilton Nolan
    6/20/16 11:58am

    I lost an uncle at 60, an aunt at 64 and my dad at 69- all smokers since they were teens. My dad’s and uncle’s dad, who quit smoking in his 50s, lived to 89. My aunt’s parents, neither of whom ever quit, both died at 65. It shortens your life. It really does.

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      dogzillaotterbird
      6/20/16 2:38pm

      God, I certainly hope so. The idea of living until 80 or any point thereafter just makes me even more depressed (which is why I smoke in the first place). That’s no way to live. I don’t want that.

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      otterbirddogzilla
      6/20/16 2:50pm

      Neither is spending your last few years in and out of a hospital, suffering progressive heart failure (my aunt) or endless bouts of bronchitis and pneumonia (my dad).

      My grandfather, on the other hand, was a genuinely happy and active person well into his eighties, (until my grandma died). And when he was in his 60s, the decade my aunt and dad didn’t live to see the end of, he and my grandmother flew to New Zealand, Scotland, and all over this country- soooo much travel. Hell, he worked until he was 80 because he liked his job. And yeah, he ended his life in a nursing home, but it wasn’t a long decline, like my aunt and dad had. And he had 20 years more of travel and family and adventures than my dad. My son, who is five, likely won’t remember my dad, but oh, do I remember my grandfather and how much I adored him.

      But I don’t discount how hard quitting is. I hope you try and I wish you all the luck at succeeding. It’s okay if it takes several attempts. My dad’s younger sister didn’t manage to quit for good until her late 50s. She’s almost 70 now, and incredibly busy.

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    CleverUsernameHamilton Nolan
    6/20/16 9:29am

    I feel like, in my lifetime, I’m going to see cigarette smoke reacted to the same as farts.

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      ninjaginCleverUsername
      6/20/16 10:38am

      That’s pretty much how it is now.

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      RoboBorealisCleverUsername
      6/20/16 10:58am

      With histerical fits of laughter?

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    DolemiteHamilton Nolan
    6/20/16 9:39am

    I never smoked, but I have a feeling that I’m probably in the same boat as a smoker. Both parents smoked, and about 75% of my family smoked, and there was smoking in restaurants all around me, so I was in smoke-filled cars and rooms much of my adolescent life.

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      MimbleDolemite
      6/20/16 11:06am

      That’s me as well. Both parents smoked nearly two packs a day when until I hit about 13 or so. Dad quit first (cold turkey - holy shit was he ever nasty for a couple of weeks), and Mum quit about a year later.

      She said she almost puked when she washed the drapes in the living room - the yellow-brown colour that washed out of them was unbelievable, not to mention the smell.

      They were quit for 20 years or so, and now smoke again, though far less than they did and never in the house or their cars and, for smokers, they are really quite considerate about ensuring it doesn’t blow all over you.

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      What? Me Worry?Dolemite
      6/20/16 12:20pm

      Been there, done that. The good ol’ days when the parents would both smoke in the car, with the windows rolled up tight. I still have memories of breathing as shallow as I possibly could. It was just awful.

      Remember when smoking was allowed on planes and buses? And the non-smoking section was separated from the smoking section by nothing more than imaginary line? For a time, travelling was torture if you were a non-smoker.

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