So, I was working yesterday, and all of a sudden the fire alarms go off, which meant that an entire building had to evacuate in the middle of all of their work–out into a 40-degree, misty day. We had to wait for the fire department to arrive and check everything out before we could get back in there. We all suspected it was a false alarm because we couldn’t see any smoke coming out of the building, but what we didn’t expect is that the entire cause of everyone’s disruption was some idiot vaper who decided to get their nicotine fix by using one of the bathrooms instead of putting on their coat and going outside to the smoking area, like every other smoker does.
News flash, genius: smoke detectors don’t just detect smoke–and “vapor” isn’t just really small H20. There’s particulates in that shit and when they cross the smoke detector and destabilize the ionization plates, they go off just like if you were smoking a cigarette. So, if you need your nicotine, go outside like everyone else. If you don’t want to go outside, then either pop some Nicorette…or just suck it up. You’re not immune from being treated like every other smoker, so stop acting like it.
Christ.
…amen…& cyclists can push that bike if it suits them to be “pedestrian” to jump the lights or whatever
…meanwhile you & I can bide our time watching the pigs fly by?
I use a bike about half the time and I am ALL FOR cyclist protection and everything, but people mistake me for some sort of asshole when I simply ask that other cyclists follow the fucking laws. I have nearly run over so many who are breaking traffic laws. Here we even have bike lanes that have an arrow on them telling the cyclist which way to go, and some people will ride on the opposite side going the opposite fucking direction!
Speaking as a former cyclist, I am terribly embarrassed/enraged when I see people doing shit like that.
We can have lunch while watching the flying pigs. I’ll have some dry white toast while you have your four fried chickens and a coke.
THIS. Smokers have been praying for something to allow them to continue behavior they now know is dangerous without repercussion. For years, people would ask me if vaping is better than smoking. My professional opinion was that the data aren’t available yet, but intuitively, it is at best a lateral move and at worst, it is more destructive. Then young people started dying. This is where in my head, I cue up “Hate To Say I Told You So” by the Vines and turn it to 11.
Listen: any time you take a chemical from one state of matter to a different state of matter then inhale it, you’re doing damage. And whatever heating element is doing the work is also giving off material.
Frankly, I could care less if you, Average Adult Who Doesn’t Live Under My Roof, smoke, drink, do drugs. To each their own. My issue is with the delivery system. If you NEED nicotine, chew the gum or get the patch. If you NEED cannabis, it’s 2020. There are many better ways to get your needs met.
But then again, as a pulmonologist, you’ll see me one way or the other. Your choice.
I am no doctor or scientist of every kind, but my instincts are always like…you’re not smoking air. It can’t have zero consequences. I think the main thing I’ve seen – I know a lot of smokers – is that people I know would try to use it to quit smoking, and then now they just vape for all the minutes of the day they’re awake, when before they were maybe smoking a few cigarettes a day. They aren’t stupid – they’re aware that isn’t what they wanted to happen. And look, I’m not a smoker and I have no experience being addicted to nicotine so I’m not going to be like JUST QUIT IDIOTS. But anyone who thinks they find a magic easy solution to these timeless, difficult problems is kidding themselves.
I actually have a very good friend who used vapes to wean himself off of cigarettes and as soon as he accomplished that he reduced his vape consumption until he was able to get by without that as well. The problem is that too many people aren’t looking to escape smoking, they just want to get off the cigarette. Replacing one habit for another isn’t a solution.
82 days without a cigarette today. I had my first cigarette at age 7, was a daily smoker by age 12, and a pack a day by age 16. I’ve been on this earth for 41 years and I’ve been a smoker for 34 of them.
But 0.2 of those other 7 years have happened since the week before Halloween, and I’m off of the patch now as well.
It sucks and was/is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. But I’ve tried to quit at least 6 or 8 times in the past and have never had remotely this much progress.
This isn’t a humblebrag. It’s a brag brag. I am actively patting myself on the back so hard I may leave a mark. But as a cynical self-loathing nihilist, I think I can have this one thing. 🙂
Congratulations! Quitting smoking is so hard.
I actually had a hard time becoming a smoker. Tried several times and never got past a pack a week.
Nah, quitting is easy. I’ve done it hundreds of times!
Congratulations, I commend you!
Hey that’s awesome. Good for you.
Brag away! Keep up the good work.
And stop assaulting me with those huge clouds of sickly sweet, fake overripe strawberry shit you’re blowing out the window while I’m driving behind you, you cretins.
OMFG. There’s this one asshole who rides my train and he stinks to high fucking heaven. He literally vapes right up until he steps onto the train and his stench just permeates the whole place.
This amazes me about smokers and vapers. They seem to think that they don’t smell, I guess because it damages/deadens their noses. I used to work at a company where the president was a smoker. People would ask where she was, and I could track her through the hallways by the lingering smell. It actually impressed people — I felt kind of like Wolverine. Being close to a smoker/vaper is torture for me — I generally have to leave.
What’s also gotten bad in my state, which now has legal pot, is how many people are smoking their dope in public areas. Hey, guess what? Not everybody shares your love for smelling that shit. Hell, even when I used to smoke it I fucking hated the smell.
Man, I hate when I’m out in public and someone standing next to me has just finished smoking pot. They reek every bit as much as a tobacco smoker. Worst of all is going to a movie theater and having one of them sit down next to you.
You must be around people who do it a right before they come into contact with you? I have a loved one who’s sensitive, so I stay well away, and she complains if she’s downwind.
I still have an sensitive nose, and hate cigarette smoke. Sucks to be in fragrance-infested world; that’s why I tend to avoid those fakey-fruity perfume-y vapes.
It’s both. There are people who smoke it and stink of it, but there’s also people just plain smoking it outside, or smoking while they’re driving with the window down. I’m not generally fragrance averse, but there are certain smells which I cannot abide. Pot is certainly among them, but another biggie are the people who bathe in cologne or perfume before inflicting their choices onto the world outside their home.
I live in Louisiana. The weather is fine. I worked in a building where we were on the ground floor (it was an old house even, not an office building where you had a process to get in and out). This lazy fuck refused to go outside to vape and kept going in THE WOMEN’S RESTROOM to do it because it was slightly further away from the bosses. After he’d been told to stop. Like 25 people worked there. We knew it was him. If you don’t vape, you can smell it.
I confess that I vape, but I apply the same rules I did as a smoker: ask those around me if it bothers them if I vape (I let them know ‘it’s just nicotine’ because everyone asks); I do it well away from doorways and entries (duh, vacuum doors suck everything IN); don’t do it in businesses, cars, peoples’ homes, walking past crowds of people – the normal asshole things you don’t do.
I haven’t had a cigarette in 4 years, can’t tolerate the gum, there isn’t a patch in a low enough mg nicotine for me, and they’re coming for my vape fluid because the GOP and FDA are in Big Tobacco’s pocket, and the only tobacco company wise enough to get into the vape fluid game early was Pall Mall (Naked 100) [stopped using the day I discovered].
Also, the ‘vape lung’ disease from vaping was from vitamin E acetate used as a thickener in black market THC cartridges:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/sep/13/vaping-deaths-in-the-us-what-do-you-need-to-know
And the faux-concern for the children is truly touching, but they still sell candy- and melon-flavoured booze, no? And that’s also only for sale to those of the age of 21 and up?
I quit cigarettes using a vape too. The trick was starting with a low-nicotine fluid, and then getting a zero-nicotine fluid and slowly adding less and less of the nicotine to the mix. I still vape sometimes, typically when I’m drinking, but like you, I’m not an asshole about it. And I can’t stand those fruity-smelling liquids. Mine smells a bit like hazelnuts, and way better than cigarette smoke.
Yeah, I’m not about all those gross ‘like’ candy or breakfast cereal flavours – gross! Cremes and desserts (nuts, too), in a 3.
I’m a smoker. I like it. I have 1 in the morning going to work and that’s about it. I might have as many as 2 or 3 on a Saturday or Sunday but not always. I tried a life of clean living and it sucked so I gave in to the vices I enjoy and decided to regulate them. Food was the hardest and when I was diagnosed with gout I had to give up so much good stuff that it was drving me crazy with stress.
I don’t think it will help me live longer but it has made me happier the last 15 years or so than I was the previous 10 years. I was never a big partier or binge user but I’d could eat 2 large pizzas in a single sitting or double that #6 biggie size from Jack in the Box no problem. Then there was the sodas…the real killer out there IMHO.
Once I cut out the sodas everything got better for me. Sleep, work, sex, everything was better without sodas.
Sodas will kill you. Good on you for cutting them out!
Soda really is a serious problem, and one that a lot of people refuse to acknowledge. Diet soda can have more problems than the regular kind. I lost 60 pounds once, and the first 10 was just from eliminating soda. I’ve never had more than a sip or two since. I drink water (unless I’m drinking alcohol).
Funny thing is, I can’t stand soda now. It tastes syrupy and sickly-sweet to me, even diet soda.
I quit diet about…20 years ago, when I figured out Nutrasweet was causing my migraines. That knocked out a whole world of reduced-calorie, reduced-sugar, and sugar-free foodstuffs and beverages; and added another ingredient to my list of things to avoid.
I really need to quit soda completely. I cut back on it a lot a few years ago but there are certain times when it’s really hard for me not to have one. The movie theater, for example. And certain days when I’m just tired as hell and I need something to get me through the work day. I’ve been trying to find a replacement but carbonated waters do nothing for me and they won’t let me drink alcohol at work.