sweet sweet tobacco

I love cigarettes.

Why? Because they're fucking great.

For some reason, however, the world doesn't want me to smoke. I turn on the TV and get told not to smoke. I go to the store to buy cigarettes in this ridiculous state called Massachusetts, and the 6.50 they're charging for a damned pack of Marlboro reds tells me not to smoke.

If I had my way, I'd smoke Gauloises all of the time. They're strong, they're delicious, and I like reading the health warnings in French and German. They don't sell them here anymore. It's cruel.

I also really like Lucky Strike filtered cigarettes. They were the first cigarette I ever really got into. I was 15. My film geek friends and I took the LA public transit down to Little Tokyo, to a store called Family Mart, and the bravest of us went in and bought a pack of Luckies. I'd smoked before, but most of them hadn't. I distinctly remember my friend D, probably the most pretentious of the bunch, coughing and hacking while asking "Do I look cool?"

He didn't. I don't think smoking necessarily makes you look cool. If you already look cool, and you're smoking, then yes, you will still probably look cool...unless you're coughing and asking whether or not you look cool.

I guess I first tried smoking because I thought it would be "cool" of me to try. I was 14 and ditching gym class. I was still in my phys. ed uniform in a nearby residential garage, crouching behind a car smoking Virginia Slims someone had stolen from her mother.

I kept smoking because I liked it. I keep smoking because I like it.

It's really unhealthy though, which I try to justify with the fact that so many things I do are unhealthy. My shrink would rather I gave up pot than cigarettes, just because Nicotine doesn't cause brain damage. She has a one track mind.

I hate the anti-smoking propaganda. It's so damned preachy. Those truth. ads, for instance, fill me with rage. They're just so smug.

What gets me the most are the absurd cigarette taxes in some states. What Americans smoke? The young and the working-class. How many middle-aged bourgeois smoke? Not too many. How many middle-aged rich people smoke? Not too many. I think it's a classist tax masquerading as a protective measure. It wasn't always this way, but now it really is. In Germany there are high taxes on cigarettes as well, but there's also a much higher income tax on the rich. And everyone gets health insurance. Where is our cigarette tax money going? I don't know, but certainly not towards treating the lung cancer or emphesyma we're going to have later. It's not even helping little poor kids with leukemia.

A bunch of it probably goes to anti-smoking education. Which is paired up in our schools with the War on Drugs. Anti-drug education in schools is a disaster. These are the drugs they taught me about:

-cigarettes
-alcohol
-marijuana
-pcp

Does anyone see a problem with this, other than me? First of all, they did it in some kind of least harmful to most harmful order that doesn't really make sense. They also seemed to skip cocaine, heroin, mushrooms, speed and lsd. (but maybe I'm just not remembering things right)

I went to public school in one of the most affluent sub-cities of Los Angeles. To make us not want to smoke, they just made it sound like it was something poor people did. "Smoking is dirty and stinky. You'd have to be stupid and uneducated to smoke, because it's so bad for you and makes your lungs and mouth dirty."

For alcohol, it was beer makes you fat, it all hurts your liver, and that drunk driving kills. But the bottom line was just that we weren't old enough. Alcohol leads to so many more horrible things to young people than cigarettes. When was the last time you heard:

"oh man, do I ever regret that. I had unprotected sex last night with a stranger. I need to get the morning after pill and then get tested for STDs. Yeah, I know it was stupid, but I'd had like, half a pack of cigs, I didn't know what I was doing anymore."

Or what about this sad story on the news:

"Today tragedy struck the parents of little Sally Mason, a carefree seven year old girl. Her life was cut short by a car of teenagers under the influence of nicotine."

Never. This is problem number one with anti-smoking education. It's paired up with anti-teen drinking education, when they are two completely different issues. Smoking may be bad for you, but chances are, it's not going to change your life in one night. And when teens get drunk for the first time and don't do something they regret the next day, they might start to wonder how many other things had been a bit exaggerated in their education.

Which brings me to drug number three: marijuana. Oh sweet sweet marijuana. Those poor bastards don't know what to do about you. They can't lie outright anymore like they used to because our parents smoked pot and it's ubiquitous in our popular culture, even moreso than cigarettes. And when they teach us, we're so young, and they want us to keep our faith in the laws of our country. Well, here's the million dollar question: Why shouldn't I smoke pot?

Well first of all, it's illegal. This point is true. Even in California, where it's decriminalized to the point of being on par with jay-walking (no pun intended), things are different if you're a minor. Your school will put you through some dreadful mandatory rehabilitation program, or they'll expel you.

But why is it illegal?

This is where it gets tricky. It's a drug, but so are cigarettes and alcohol, which are legal. It supports terrorism, but so does putting gas in our cars. It...is...bad? It makes you stupid! Yes, that's the answer. Marijuana makes you stupid. It kills your braincells, you drop out of school, you become a vegetable...a HIPPIE vegetable. AND it leads to harder drugs. Why, did I ever tell you about the time that little Jennie smoked marijuana...LACED WITH PCP!!!!??!?!

And then they continue to tell horrible stories about PCP. Marijuana is not PCP. And when kids smoke pot for the first time, it probably won't have PCP in it. In fact, I've been smoking pot for six years, and I've never encountered PCP.

So if alcohol and pot aren't as bad as everyone said they were, maybe cigarettes are worth a try as well.

All I'm saying here, is that if I'm going to pay 6.50 for a pack of smokes, I want that extra money to go to something worthwhile. And that kids need to be better educated about illicit substances.