[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by HayashiTakara

All addictions are psychological and habitual, thats why its part of the definition of addiction. Nothing else causes withdrawls? I've seen people who haven't get their daily fix of WoW go through withdrawls its not a pretty sight. Every addiction causes withdrawls if taken away from the source. There was a thread on here about anime addiction and how people were saying that they were going through withdrawls when they don't watch anime for a period of time. You're deluding yourself if you truly believe other addictions don't cause withdrawls.

I understand you're reacting very defensively because most anti-smokers act as though they're leading the next crusade against you in person, but please don't give me the same treatment. Re-read my post. There are multiple forms of addiction, but the one behind smoking is a physical addiction. Your body begins to develop a dependency to nicotine, not to cigarettes. For this reason many products that claim to help people quit smoking consist of nicotine-related products, whether in the form of patches or gum. The idea is to do what Solace is doing: slowly decrease the amount of nicotine that the body is exposed to in order to minimize symptoms of withdrawl.

If it were smoking in general that were viewed as terrible then items like water pipes (hookahs) would also be looked down upon. As far as I know water pipes do not contain any addictive substances. If anyone becomes addicted to water pipes it will be a psychological addiction. While psychological addictions are no less serious than any form of addiction, you simply can't compare the two equally in the manner that you're doing. Yes, they're harmful to your life, we agree on that. But the withdrawls that people experience are not going to be the same.

Video Games, are a major problem in asia, its a major cause of death among young people. They would get so addicted that they ignore personal hygene and even forget to eat, drink and sleep, and eventually would just die in front of their computers. Morbid Obesity is worse than smoking, sorry. Smoking shaves off 6 ~ 7 years off the end of your life, while eating potato chips and hamburgers 24/7 in front of the computer screen/tv screen cause death at the age of 30 from cardiac arrest.

A major cause of death, is it? I've heard the stories of people dying by videogames in the manner you described. The fact that it makes headlines each time means to me that it's still a unique manner of death. When's the last time you heard of someone dying in a car accident on world news? You don't, because it is unfortunately all too common.

Furthermore, your reasoning about what way of dying is worse is, frankly, ridiculous, and please don't feel insulted by that. I'm not endorsing an unhealthy lifestyle of eating potato chips and hamburgers, and to say that videogames/television cause cardiac arrest because poor eating and television go hand in hand is nonsense. I don't particularly want to die by a cardiac arrest at age 30, nor do I particularly want to die while struggling for breath on a breathing machine. It's easy to be high and mighty about smoking and stating how you're willing to face the consequences, but trust me on this - when people are at the end of their (shorter than expected) life and their lungs are failing on them, they all too rarely have that haughty attitude.

And no, not everyone who smokes gets addicted, I've known many people who have smoked and never got addicted. Social smokers are a good example, they only smoke when they around friends who smoke, otherwise they don't have the urge to light one up.

I made a mention of this in my post, and WanderingKnight is our living example of someone who isn't addicted to smoking but does it in social situations. Yes, it happens.

But this isn't what happens to the majority. If it were, how do you explain the prominence of all of those programs and products designed to help smokers quit? If it were so easy for people to quit, or if there weren't so many people struggling with the addiction, then such businesses should be pretty small and low-profile.

The reason I continue to respond to your posts is because I feel that you're doing everyone who reads your posts a disservice. You're essentially telling them that they shouldn't feel bad about harming their bodies because there are worse things in the world; that the addiction caused by smoking isn't so bad or is overblown; that there are worse ways to die than lung, lip, or throat cancer (in your opinion); that you should ultimately do what you want and not let others tell you otherwise.

If a person smokes and they know what they're doing to their body, they know that they're lowering their quality of life, they know that they're risking addiction to a very expensive habit, they know that they may be harming the lungs of those around them - if they know all of that, I am very sorry for them, but I can't say anything to them. It's your decision if you want to take up such an activity. Yet there are countless people who get into the habit without fully realizing the implications of what they are doing. My posts are for the people who would fall into that category. I have to wonder whether many of the pro-smoking posters don't fall into that category, as well, as I have yet to see many of them endorse smoking while simply admitting that what I'm posting is true and that they can accept it. HayashiTakara, trying to tell me that there are worse addictions is no different than bbduece saying that there are worse air pollutants in the world than cigarette smoke - it attempts to sideline the issues around smoking or make them seem insignificant compared to a different issue. If I am factually incorrect about smoking, then please correct me. If I'm correct, don't try to show the facts in a different light so as to mitigate them. Leave that to the marketers of the tobacco corporations.