I think that you shouldn't have to care about your health. If I did smoke, I'd rather die at 70 having enjoyed cigarettes than 75 being a miserable bastard.
Seriously? Cigarettes are more important to you than ALL of the other pleasures of life? You're also assuming that cigarettes will "only" take away five years, and you seem to be assuming by implication that they won't drastically reduce your quality of life for many years. Those are optimistic assumptions. Edited to add: My mother was almost entirely well and healthy and could likely have looked forward to another fifteen years or so--and then she died, within a year of diagnosis, of a condition that the doctors attributed to her smoking in the past. My father lost most of the quality of his life for the last ten or fifteen years of his life. And then he, too, died earlier than he needed to. And I'm moderately sure that the very early deaths of my father's parents, the deaths that resulted in his development being stunted and affected his entire life, and affected my life due to being raised by a dysfunctional father, were connected to smoking. (My dysfunctional mother? That, I don't blame on smoking. That was other things.) I didn't love my parents all that much. But I would still make cigarettes completely and totally illegal, if I could.
What "other pleasures"? The fact that at least half of those (masturbation, drugs, seeking social interactions, alcohol) are about sedating oneself and forcing the release of dopamine into the brain says a lot about life. I'm not assuming anything. I'm fully aware of the effects of cigarettes. A packet of twenty a day would remove about ten years. So what? I'd rather die at 70 happy than 80 miserable. It can help you deal with stress (which can quite easily kill you, or make you depressed), is proven to help against ulcers and Parkinson's disease. It doesn't deteriorate one's quality of life any more than a number of other common things. Besides, there's not too much of a point in smoking anymore, given the harmless alternative: the e-cigarette. You get your nicotine without the battery acid, tar, rocket fuel and other carcinogenics. EDIT: You're looking at this emotionally and not objectively. Over a billion people smoke and are fine. It's a choice to smoke. To ban something because you don't like it or because it's a risk (that the people smoking are fully aware of) is abhorrent. It'd be like banning contraceptives since abusing them can give you vaginal cancer or block the fallopian tubes. It's ridiculous, if you do something stupid (smoking, overusing medication) there are repercussions.
I figure if people confine the health effects to themselves, fine. Don't force others into it. There's one restaurant here that has a smoking room (rare in CA) with its own separate ventilation and servers do not serve people inside - you have to come out to get your food or drinks. That doesn't bother me, nor does someone smoking in their home unless they're subjecting kids to the smoke like my dad always did.
Nonsense. There are countless other pleasures. If you're depressed and are unable to perceive them, the solution isn't cigarettes, it's dealing with the depression. You act like that's a contract. It's not a contract, it's an average. Some people will lose nothing. Some people will lose forty years. You really want to play that game of Russian roulette? Being unable to walk because you can't gather enough breath doesn't deteriorate one's quality of life? Dragging oxygen around doesn't deteriorate one's quality of life? Not being able to leave the house without a caregiver to deal with the wheelchair and the oxygen doesn't deteriorate one's quality of life? Taking a regimen of pills and breathing treatments throughout the day, every single day, doesn't deteriorate one's quality of life? Tuning one's diet ever so carefully to slow down the progression of the deterioration to one's heart function doesn't deteriorate one's quality of life? You delude yourself all you want. I'm done.
There is no correlation between secondhand smoke and cancer². It's an annoyance at most. ²Journal of the National Cancer Institute
No, I'm not with you here. I'm usually in favor of freedom to hurt oneself, but not in this case. Tobacco is just too addictive. I want it outlawed. Oh, I might be OK with grow-your-own, just to reduce the pressure of the inevitable illegal trade that would occur otherwise, but I want the sale, for anything but prescription use, to be outlawed. Pot? Legalize it. Cigarettes? Outlaw them. That's my vote.
What "countless other pleasures"? I listed the main ones. It's not an average. I'm studying biology in university, I have first-hand knowledge of how this works. The argument of "it varies" is silly. I've eaten amoretti biscuits, eating several kilos of them would kill me from arsenic poisoning. Should biscuits be banned? Again, you're using emotional arguments equivalent of "think of the poor kids in Africa". You're behaving completely irrationally. Your unwillingness to discuss this properly is a major part of why people still smoke. Which is a form of fascism. Which is ridiculous. Weed is far worse than tobacco.
Nonsense. Sheer unadulterated self-deluding nonsense. https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/tobacco/second-hand-smoke-fact-sheet#q4
All you're doing is shifting the blame which should be put on the individual abusing known carcinogenics instead of the carcinogenics themselves. It's usually misused, but it's the same argument as "guns kill people, it's not people that kill people". It isn't. This isn't a peer-reviewed paper, last time I checked.
I have been lucky in terms of never becoming addicted to cigarettes. I can smoke a pack a day for a week and not touch another cigarette for a year. But if you are like me it is almost a soothing sort of activity. Something that you can focus on to put the world around you in perspective.... If I were in your shoes, I would find something that you can replace smoking with. A musical hobby? Taking a walk? Candy or toothpicks like others have already suggested. My friend stopped smoking cigarettes and went to vaping. Seems to be working for him. Not 100% sure how healthy vaping is for someone, but from what I read it is "better."
I agree it is addictive, but these days anyone of age knows that when they start. I don't smoke anymore. Over the years I quit for various long periods of time, once for 8 years, once for a little over a year, cold turkey both times. When I finally stopped for good it was also cold turkey. Not that I didn't feel the cravings, because as you said it's addictive and you feel it. But then, I knew it was addictive before I ever smoked my first cigarette. I do find it problematic that many start smoking as children, though, before they can really make a choice as an adult.
Nonsense. There's really not even enough logic in this to address--except to note that I very much doubt that you've taken any science classes.
It's actually frightening how deluded you are on the matter, I've seen Young Earth creationists more rational. I have, actually. I got through it without whining each time I saw a bird that had gotten a shit hand from natural selection, though now I clearly realise I should have moved to outlaw genetic mutations since they hurt animals.
I think that even now, most people start smoking when they're not old enough to make a valid judgement about whether it's a good idea to start smoking. Sure, they see the warnings, but at 16 or 18 or even 22, there are plenty of people who just aren't ready to make a good life choice.
You're the one who threw the citation out there. If you lack sufficient information to provide a true citation, then don't include one. It just makes you look desperate.
And you're bigoted. Please, someone who is 16 fully understands the implications and risks. You americans let people drive at 16, yet not vote or smoke?
Or genes can give you a much worse hand, see Walter White. Yes, since I don't smoke and don't have to "writhe on the floor attached to a drip" or whatever it is you said.
Someone's going to go the way of the S~A~W and the Denegroth, species once seen in these fertile lands of the imagination, but no longer.
