For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for February 20, 2013

Me too, Mike. Me too.

I once saw a kid who never smoked but wanted to make an impression to some people. He looked so ridiculous the way he puffed on his cigarette it was enough to turn anyone off from smoking/

I used to pretend that I was smoking too, but never had an urge to actually smoke a cigarette.

does anyone remember the Candy Cigarettes of the 50’s. We used to get them and we would pretend we were smoking like mom and dad. I never smoked a cigarette in my life, never really wanted to once I grew up enough to know what they were. I hated the smell most of all. My mom smoked for 50+ years and quit cold turkey in 1993 and lived the next 13 years with all kinds of smoking related problems.

I’m with lightenup, although I did try a cigarette once because my boyfriend smoked. It was disgusting.

I quit in 1985 after 22 years of smoking.

My newspaper this week is running a different story line in FBFW. They have a hamster that Mike is taking care of from school that got loose in the house.

that’s a cooold day in Ontario!!!!

I smoked about a half pack a week the last two years of high school. When I was a freshman in college, there was a big jump in price (from 30cents a pack to 45 cents) so I quit, almost cold turkey.I took an opened pack of unfiltered cigarettes in my desk drawer. If I craved a cig, I took out one. I never got past a few puffs. And, I never finished the pack.

There is nothing worse than a stale unfiltered Camel.

Now kids are taught about the dangers of smoking in health class. One wonders why they ever start smoking, but many do.

My mom started smoking in college to look “cool”. She quit 25 years later when I was 10. Watching how hard it was for her to quit was enough to keep me away from tobacco for life.

29 years later, she died of lung cancer.The fact that it was lung cancer broke her heart and probably brought the end quicker. (Her older brother, who never smoked, outlived her by 15 years.)

So even if you quit and think you “beat it”… don’t count on it.

Real nice choice of friends, Mike.

I tried 3 weeks to smoke Lucky Strikes without the filters. I was 19. And I learnt one thing. Smoking is Always a BIG Mistake!

My dad quit cold turkey when I was about 9 years old. He just toughed it out and never spoke of it again unless it was to tell others how much he hated the smell of cigarette smoke.

I tried smoking, but was permanently cured when I tried one of the cigarettes I had hidden in a small cedar chest. Cedar flavored cigarettes are NASTY!

I never smoked. One of my jobs at home was emptying and washing the dirty ashtrays from my parent’s smoking. Yuk. And frankly, kissing a smoker has all the appeal of licking a dirty ashtray.

“That stupid idea that smoking is “cool.” Just a means of mass mind manipulation to get people to start smoking. Get them young and you get them forever.”***************************************AMOST forever………I escaped from their clutches 10 years ago. Smartest thing I ever did!

I remember the candy cigarettes too! Also the chocolate ones. Both my parents smoked and I started smoking at 14. Quit April 1, 2001 at 49. On Advair and Combivent to prove it! :( Luckily both inhalers help. :)

Tell me again, why it isn’t illegal to make and sell tobacco products?

Coffee-Turtle: Because most legislators are addicts. I have been know to smell smokers at 50 feet indoors with no perceptible air currents.

Remember those bubblegum cigarettes that cost a penny back then? They were covered with a thin powder to keep them fresh then wrapped in waxed paper. We would blow into the paper, and a puff of powder would come out. It looked like we had the real thing in our mouths. I never tried a real cigarette since smoking killed my father.

When my older brother decided to smoke in the bathroom (with the window wide open) and threatened to Kill me if I told, I decided then that if it was so much trouble it wasn’t worth it and I never even tried to smoke a cigarette. Still hate the smell of cigarette smoke and I’m 75 now.

I was born in 1978, I remember getting Candy Cigarettes even back in the 1980’s, Both my mom and Stepmother smoke, but even with all that I’ve never once tried a cigarette.

Nothing cool about smoking, babies sometime,s need something in their mouth,i guess many never grow out of that.