skaters, cigarettes and stamina

This actually happened to a friend's acquaintance (I wouldn't say "friend" because my friend, who is a nurse, didn't think highly of this person): The old lady was a heavy smoker with a severe lung illness. She would puff on her cigarette, put it down, took a breath from an exygen pump and puff again. Rinse, repeat...... until one day the pump blew up in her face when she forgot to put down her cigarette first.

I currently live in Michigan and enjoy the smoking ban because I can now go into any restaurant or bar and enjoy myself without smelling the smoke. The only exception to the ban is the casino. I went there last spring for a battle of the bands and was sick in bed for two days after breathing in the smoke.

Any smoking ban proposal in Indiana, my former state, is quickly shot down. People there love their smokes, especially middle school and high school students. It's normal to see 13-year-olds smoking in my former town.

I feel so furtunate that I live in a place where I won't have to smell any smoke if I don't want to day in and day out. Thanks to the smoking bans and the campaigns against smoking! One of the things I love North America.

Nadine said:

I haven't read this thread, but to address the title of this thread, I say it's his/her own body, if they want to be a human garbage can, let them!

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The problem is that smokers aren't human garbage cans. They're human exhaust fans. They can make the people around them sick. I notice the difference in the air now that smoking isn't permitted in workplaces where I live. When I am around a smoker now, I wonder how I stood it in the old days. I had a supervisor who used to sit in her office smoking--it was very hard to go in and confer with her--and she demanded the one electronic air purifier we had because, get this, she had allergies. And that was just one smoker. I can't imagine spending time in a place like that casino you went to, Johar.

Bluebonnet said:

I think in North America, the campaign against cigarette smoking is the strongest which is applausable. I went to Paris a couple of years ago. In those a few days, I inhaled second-hand smoking much much more than I inhaled it in North America in over 10 years. In London, there was much less smoking, but still, cigarette butts are easy to be found on the sidewalks.

I believe if there is/are smoker/smokers in a family, the children in that family will pick up the habit much more easily because the kids have been exposed to that smoke smell from very young. Of course, it doesn't mean that all the children in a smoker family will pick up it. Johnny Weir's mom is a smoker. It doesn't surprise me at all that he is too, even though he doesn't smoke as much as his mom does.

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I thought Paris had banned smoking indoors in public places. In Mexico City too

It's so nice. but people here still smoke a lot so you have to deal with second hand smoke in outdoor cafes and when passing taco stands and such. And when you step onto the elevator at work during lunch hour. They're not smoking but it REEKS of smoke from all the smokers squeezing in. I hate it.

Smoking resumption becomes statistically unlikely at the one year point, but, short of being locked up to be forcibly stopped, only 1 out 3 female addicts and 1 out of 6 male addicts will reach the one year point on their own. The government needs to weigh the comparative monetary costs of providing terminal care(via Medicare) for terminally ill lung cancer or emphysema patients versus the cost of locking up juvenile tobacco addicts and letting them panic to stop.
I've had two relatives die from substance abuse: a step-grandmother who died at 82(in 1994) from smoking and boozing, and a cousin, a 20-year old young lady who died(in 1971) from an injection of hard core drugs. People of my parents' generation think that there's some moral difference between someone who destroys their life with legal poisons and someone who destroys their life with illegal poisons, but if you check the gravesites of my step-grandmother and my cousin, they are equally dead.

I honestly wouldn't know about what it's like to smoke, I've never smoked in my life, nor drank, or did any of those vices, but then again I'm not a simple-minded follower that goes with the crowd. Only the weak give in to temptation, and I make a conscious *choice* not to be weak. It is an individual choice after all, and how this relates to skating? is that each skater has the choice to smoke or not to smoke. However, I do admire those that do not, not just for themselves, but for society/human kind as a whole.

Nancy Reagan said it best, JUST SAY "NO"!

I think almost everywhere in Europe I ve been, it is banned indoors, even in Moscow it was. The best smoke free city is Tallinn by the way. But in Greece I learnt they forbid smoking in public areas as cafes etc the last month, third time they try to pass the law btw, and people prefer sitting outside.:sheesh: We are very disciplined people...

I'm in college and LOTS of people (particularly girls) smoke. I smoked one cigarette last year and decided then and there - never again. It wasn't a good idea anyway. The theory is it makes stress go away, but there are much better ways to get rid of stress. I've heard rumors of several skaters not mentioned in this thread smoking, but don't know if it's true.

Very few young people in the US smoke nowadays (at least in California) but in Europe it is still very much in vogue. Even in the US smoking is popular among dancers, i think as a means of appetite and stress control. I understand it lowers stamina, but usually that effect occurs over time, and as the majority of skaters are in their mid 20's or younger, that isn't so much an issue for them now.

Most athletes here in the US would never touch a cigarette, a know a guy who freaks out if he gets close to second hand smoke (he is a track and field athlete). But as I mentioned, smoking is widely practiced among professional dancers, some of whom have insanely good stamina.

Tinymavy15 said:

a know a guy who freaks out if he gets close to second hand smoke (he is a track and field athlete). But as I mentioned, smoking is widely practiced among professional dancers, some of whom have insanely good stamina.

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I am one of those people who freak out and hate second-hand smoke. I don't think it is fair that just because smoking doesn't greatly affect some people (we are all different), some smokers think it is OK to expose other people to it, especially around entrances to buildings or while walking on a sidewalk

In my childhood I had asthma. My caregivers were my paternal grandparents who, unfortunately, were not aware of how bad it could be for children. They brought their friends over and chainsmoked in a small apartment without the windows open. When I was 4, even, my grandmother let me take a puff of her cigarette. My mother also, to this day, smokes, but only about 2 cigarettes a day and thankfully she does it only in a particular washroom, with the window open, and our house is moderately large.

I never had asthma again after I stopped being babysat at my grandparents' apartment. I had spirometry performed just this Monday and my lung function/capacity is excellent--it looked about 15% better than the average person of my age and height, etc.

I am still torn on my attitude towards smokers in general, however, since it must be tempered by compassion as a health professional. I know many who want to quit smoking and try to, but find it extremely difficult to stop. I am bewildered when it comes to talking to patients about it, though, because I cannot rationally justify it. It costs money, damages your health, and ages you prematurely (for those who care about what they look like.) Blahdeeblah, I hear arguments about how many other habits aren't good for your health e.g. fast food, but even fast food has some nutritional benefits. Smoking is also a "hot topic" for me about which I feel passionately about, because here in Canada we still have a mostly public, universal health care system. All the health burdens on individuals caused by smoking costs the whole society, regardless of how much tax dollars are earned from tobacco sales. Cancer drugs are expen$ive, not to mention all the adjunctive care and loss of productivity and life.

Those publicly-funded health advertisements in my elementary school days were successful in "brainwashing" me about how cigarettes, alcohol, and drugs are generally bad. For the last 7-8 years I noticed that there were less of those programs being promoted here in Ontario, but it has picked up again in the past 2-3 years. I think there was a resurgence of the need to do it, as I read some statistics about how the downward smoking trend was rebounding a little.

End of rant and off my soap box. :/

My dad attempted to smoke in the house. Then when he discovered his cigarettes in the toilet, he stopped and only smoked outside or in his car. When he discovered a certain little brat, who'll remain unnamed, would throw his cigarettes out the window every time he attempted to light them, stopped smoking them in the car around the brat.

He eventually quit, though this was after said little brat grew up and moved out.

ImaginaryPogue said:

My dad attempted to smoke in the house. Then when he discovered his cigarettes in the toilet, he stopped and only smoked outside or in his car. When he discovered a certain little brat, who'll remain unnamed, would throw his cigarettes out the window every time he attempted to light them, stopped smoking them in the car around the brat.

He eventually quit, though this was after said little brat grew up and moved out.

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LOL

If prettykeys had been as bold as the above brat, she would probably have been beaten. Verbal requests not to smoke in the house in the olden days were met with rage about how little ones should not dictate how parents live in their own homes. She still was required to do science projects from grades 4-6. Her 6th grade topic was on smoking. Presentations included questions from the audience like "How did you get cigarettes to do your experiment on the plants?" and somebody was embarrassed about it. teeheeheehee

He'd complain to my mom.

My mom was a nurse. In a cancer ward.

Guess who's side she was on?

ImaginaryPogue said:

When he discovered a certain little brat, who'll remain unnamed, would throw his cigarettes out the window every time he attempted to light them, stopped smoking them in the car around the brat.

He eventually quit, though this was after said little brat grew up and moved out.

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I vaguely remember my father smoking. He quit when I was 7 or 8.
I never actually smoked myself. My babysitter gave me a puff off her cigarette when I was just a toddler.

my whole family smoked when I was younger... in the house and out... "back then" it was acceptable to do so. Then the 90s hit, second hand smoke was the big evil, and parents were encouraged to smoke away from the kids.

my dad stopped smoking after he had medical issues (and I came along, he wanted ot be around for a long time lol) but mom still smoked until 1993 when my aunt's health declined rapidly. My grandparents followed suit (though gma is back to smoking again even after the stroke! UGH) and it was so much better. Now I can't be around a smoker at all without having to keep myself from visibly gagging.