Obama and Smoking

[question everything]

I did not understand why Brokaw went after Obama about smoking. But then, even though I am not a smoker I do not understand the jihad war against smokers.

The WSJ had a "Notable and Quotable" from PsychologyToday.com and I cannot find it there, so I am posting from the WSJ:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122930159960705319.html

Tom Brokaw grilled Obama on Meet the Press about his furtive smoking. Obama answered that he had quit, but that he falls off the wagon sometimes. Brokaw pounced: "Then you still smoke!" Obama replied, "I have done a terrific job under the circumstances of making myself much healthier."

C'mon, we all recognize denial when we see it -- and it ain't a river in Egypt.

On the other hand, casual smoking is customary around the world -- but you know how ignorant those Europeans are about addiction! In America, we know that casual smoking is impossible.

But what about Obama -- he's well educated, has a pretty good career (!), and has a lovely family. Is it possible that some of those with good overall control of their lives due to education, social support, and career success are able to control their smoking?

(snip)

Of course, smoking any number of cigarettes regularly is harmful; but smoking fewer cigarettes is less harmful.. Or, at least that's what Barack Obama's example and statements would indicate. Barack Obama is obviously a great believer in harm reduction -- of reducing addictive drug habits to less dangerous levels. Thank goodness, since this means he would never pick some all-or-nothing, disease advocate, zero-tolerance, 12-step nut to be his drug czar!

[BlooInBloo]

1. Clearly Obama is working for the deaths of all non-smokers.

[QueenOfCalifornia]

21. Obama

is the smoking-anti-christ. It's just that simple.

[RB TexLa]

2. How could it be any of brokaw's business?

It's certianly none of my damn business.

[question everything]

33. Certainly is not. And it was really rude the way he pushed him

as if there were not other topics to discuss.

Or, at least, suggest that Obama can be a role model for people to at least try to stop smoking - if they want to.

[Sanctified]

3. I don't see the problem with Smoking.

If it clouded his judgment I could see a problem, we all know what it's like to have a President who's judgment was clouded by alcohol. But seriously smoking, it's only hurting himself if he smokes responsibly (basically go outside away from others) and it's not like it prevents him from being a good leader.

I wish Brokaw would have done a little more investigative reporting on the current President falling off the wagon.

[GentryDixon]

9. What about Miss Laura and her cigarette habit?

That doesn't seem to be a problem with the MSM.

[pretzel4gore]

4. brocawcaw's a well greased media slut

that arse peddling fool should just shutupshutupshutup...lol

[gollygee]

5. He isn't the first president to smoke

by a LONG shot.

Not news.

[roamer65]

6. I don't mind at all if Obama smokes.

Sometimes a "smoke break" can become a "timeout" to think problems through.

[wuushew]

7. Given the unlimited access to tax payer funded nicotine gums and patches

the choice of imbibing a flaming stick for nicotine would be proof positive of poor decision making from the President.

Also the negative symbolism undermines other programs like the Presidential fitness program for kids.

[Taverner]

10. Yes but have you ever been addicted to such a readily availble, cheap and effective stress control?

Method that is

Stress Control Method

Granted I'm 3 years without smoking (I last had one in NoLA a few months ago, but was sickened after the first puff and had to put it out)

[TahitiNut]

11. Yeah .... after all, GW Bush has been a far better example, huh?

:eyes:

[wuushew]

13. I never said he had to give up the legal drug nicotine

only that it would please me to a greater extent not consuming it via the Marlborough man.

If any flaming sticks are lit on the Whitehouse premises I rather it be a joint.

[taterguy]

12. When was the last time you went on a 90 mile bike ride?

If the answer is "never", STFU about cigarettes and physical fitness.

You should also be aware that not all smoking cessation drugs are effective for all people

[wuushew]

16. I did 120 in a day several years ago

I much prefer 15-25 miles a day more frequently.

I get plenty use out of my bike. Remember that if you see me on an anti-suv/car thread.

[taterguy]

19. OK, when was the last time you hiked 18 miles in the desert in one day?

And smoked a pack of cigarettes while doing it?

[tech3149]

28. I'm with you tater

If that pic is you, I've got a few years, maybe decades, on you. I've been smoking since I was a kid, mostly a pack a day or less. When I was a kid I was a runner, the knees and ankles can't take it anymore. I don't bike in this area cause there aren't bike lanes and the hills are killer. I did do some sectional hikes on the Appalachian Trail the last couple of years. I don't think there's anything tougher than covering rough terrain with extreme elevation changes, but I kept up with my kid sister and niece.

The point of my post isn't to defend smoking, I just want to enforce the idea that you can still be healthy and fit in spite of unhealthy practices. I don't know if it's genetics or lifestyle, but some people can deal with different challenges to their physiology better than others.

[Waiting For Everyman]

14. Since when are gums and patches taxpayer funded?

That's news to me. All I'm aware of, is cigarette taxes funding governments.

[wuushew]

15. Who pays the President's salary and healthcare?

Is it not you and I :shrug:

[Waiting For Everyman]

18. Maybe they're free for him, but not for everybody else.

If the non-smoking citizens of this country really cared about stopping smoking, wouldn't you think that the tremendous amounts of money that is raised off of punitive cigarette taxes would go FIRST to make gum and patches FREE for any smoker? After all, it is THEIR money which is being taken, to do NOTHING for them, but instead to balance state budgets for the self-righteous OTHER "taxpayers".

Most states see smokers as a damn ATM machine.

[Raksha]

24. I totally agree. Obviously, I'm part of that ATM machine.

Re If the non-smoking citizens of this country really cared about stopping smoking, wouldn't you think that the tremendous amounts of money that is raised off of punitive cigarette taxes would go FIRST to make gum and patches FREE for any smoker? After all, it is THEIR money which is being taken, to do NOTHING for them, but instead to balance state budgets for the self-righteous OTHER "taxpayers".

Most states see smokers as a damn ATM machine.

And that's a damned good question, why NOT fund nicotine patches and gum free for any smoker who wants to quit? I guess the states like having a captive tax base.

[question everything]

58. Ironic, isn't it?

We have all those "sin taxes" and if people will, indeed, stop smoking or drinking or driving - funds will dry up real quickly. We've seen this in the past year with the gasoline tax that is supposed to pay for road constructions.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

41. NYS distributes nicotine patches and gum to anyone who requests it. This is a free service.

[apocalypsehow]

37. Just about the time I think I've seen DU's DUMBEST. POST. EVER., another one comes along

and claims the title.

Congrats. :thumbsup:

[wuushew]

38. Are you a smoker?

n/t

[apocalypsehow]

39. No. n/t.

[stillcool]

43. Tax payer funded?

Where? I smoke..so I'm a really bad person, but I didn't know that there was access to that stuff.

[Umbram]

8. Now the smokers are going to be outraged? Fun times at DU.

[QueenOfCalifornia]

20. Have you ever

seen the anti-smoking craziness here? Mention smoking and it becomes a flamewar within minutes. The only reason this thread hasn't been inundated with anti smoking nazis is they are all over ad GDP ranting about that *other* topic.

This place loves to go insane over an issue like smoking... The lectures and the medical advice is something you would normally have to read in a medical journal.

[Waiting For Everyman]

22. Actually it's kind of similar to

that "other" topic, in that it's the majority making laws that persecute people they disagree with over personal lifestyle issues. Oh, there's always a rationale for it.

But it's the same thinking process... feeling self-righteously empowered to legislate how other people live.

[TahitiNut]

25. It does have that same zealous feel to it.

The self-righteous sure have their work cut out for them ... poor babies. :shrug:

[Mari333]

29. being gay isnt a lifestyle. you can choose to smoke. you cannot choose to be gay. nt

[Waiting For Everyman]

40. I didn't say it was changeable, did I? You're deliberately obscuring the point.

Maybe because the shoe fits.

[Mari333]

45. just pointing out the def of lifestyle. nt

[Ron Green]

57. I dunno, the people on my caseload might have an easier time changing their sexual orientation

than quitting smoking. It's the most pernicious form of slavery in my service delivery area, that's for sure.

[rainbow4321]

36. The county hospital I work turned into a tobacco free campus last month

It was first announced this past summer that it was starting Nov 20. For about a week or so after the initial announcement we had nonsmokers walking past us smokers making smarmy comments "what WILL you all do".
Funny how those making those comments always were the ones choosing to walk right thru the smoking section of the sidewalk despite having mulitple other ways to access where they were headed.

Why was this smoke free campus started? Because our local ABC news channel did a "special report" saying that as a taxpayer paid for/funded campus and a provider of healthcare, the entire campus should be smoke free. A few other local privately owned facilities/campuses had gone smoke free and it made the news, so our county campus was now the target of some overzealous reporter.

One thing the brass didn't think about, I guess...that the CITY street that runs right next to our little part of the hospital is just that..A CITY street and not a hospital owned street. So we all have now moved over about 30 feet from where we used to gather to smoke. Except now all the world can see us hospital workers smoke instead of us being hidden discreetly behind the building. Not a damn thing the hospital can do about it, cuz as long as we stand on the never-any-traffic cul-de-sac that still counts as "a city street", they cannot tell us to stop.

Funniest thing about our "relocation" is that it was a hospital/city police officer (the ones who have been given instructions to write us tickets if caught smoking on campus) who gave us a heads up about the "city street" loophole. City street and city street sign = not hospital property, even if it is a cul de sac or side street.

[Mari333]

17. obama's gotta do what hes gotta do.

[The abyss]

23. I Love it!!

ROFLOL

[TahitiNut]

26. Wow ... a gal after my own heart.

:rofl: Gotta LOVE that attitude! :rofl:

[pleah]

27. Bravo!

Love it! :smoke:

[bemildred]

30. Props.

:thumbsup:

[SammyWinstonJack]

31. .

:thumbsup:

[Synicus Maximus]

34. Love it

[Fumesucker]

32. Obama thinks drug addicts should be forced into treatment..

Nicotine is roughly as addictive as heroin and clearly Obama is addicted.

[stillcool]

44. "forced into treatement"?

Got a link for that? I'm a recovering addict and I'd be really interested in reading his views about addiction. I still smoke cigarettes, and I have to say..it isn't the same thing at all. Life is a whole different ball game.

[Fumesucker]

46. Will this do?

http://www.jointogether.org/news/features/2008/obama-and-mccain-where-they.html

Expansion of drug courts, meanwhile, shows up as a priority in Obama's civil-rights agenda. "Obama will give first-time, nonviolent offenders a chance to serve their sentence, where appropriate, in the type of drug rehabilitation programs that have proven to work better than a prison term in changing bad behavior," the Blueprint states.

A choice between prison and treatment is hardly a free one.

If quitting cigarettes is so easy, why are you still smoking? I don't mean this as an attack, I'm actually interested in your thoughts.

[stillcool]

47. au contraire..

I think that prison is the 'hitting bottom' moment for lots of us...the time when you are open to even the idea of living life without drinking or drugging. I had the passing thought to stop but the environment I was living in didn't lend itself to being drug free. And who can afford treatment? I moved away and got cleaned up, and never went back.

[Fumesucker]

48. So you have been to prison?

Not snark, I can't tell for sure from your post.

And I'm still interested in why you don't stop smoking cigarettes.

Also, keep in mind that when Obama speaks of "addicts" he's also talking about pot smokers, not just people on meth or H or coke, and pot is far less addictive than alcohol or nicotine.

[stillcool]

49. Oh please..addicts are not pot smokers...

and the only times I was in prison was to visit relatives, friends, or chair an NA meeting. I don't quit smoking basically because I want to smoke more than I don't want to smoke. And, I'm afraid to. I've known people who had a really hard time quitting smoking after a number of years clean. I really don't think people can understand what it's like to live your entire existence in an alcohol drug induced haze, and then quit. Any thought, of going back to what I went through in those first 2 years is enough to keep me smoking till I die. But..I quit everything else, so maybe I'll be ready someday.

[Fumesucker]

50. I didn't say that pot smokers were addicts..

I said that Obama thinks that, or his policies indicate he thinks that, what he actually thinks I have no clue.

Keep in mind pot is a Schedule I drug, right up there with H and Meth, from the legal perspective it is considered highly addictive, even more so than coke which is Schedule II.

http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/pubs/scheduling.html

It's also instructive to realize that the drug war is largely a war on pot, most people arrested for drugs are arrested for pot.

I find it fascinating that you are afraid to quit smoking, it must have a tremendous hold on you, which kind of makes my original point for me, that nicotine is roughly as addictive as H or coke.

[stillcool]

51. No I think you miss the point..

Quitting drinking and drugging blew my mind..literally. I think people assume that there is some kind of life that you have, that you can return to after you stop. For me there wasn't. To compare smoking pot, or smoking cigarettes to the life of a drunk and druggie is insane. When you constantly numb yourself, day in and day out with whatever is there, it kills everything. It is not a life worth living. And to tell you the truth, it is pretty cheap to compare cigarette smoking to the horror that is drug and alcohol addiction.

[Fumesucker]

52. But nicotine is about as addictive as heroin

You say "drug addiction" but you exclude cigarettes from addiction while clearly you are addicted, just as Obama is.

For those who are not habituated, nicotine is a pretty powerful drug that will give you a strong but rather brief high. The fact that habituation is rapid doesn't change the nature of the drug. Nicotine was actually used as an insecticide until it was banned by the EPA because it was too dangerous, a single drop of pure nicotine on your skin can kill you.

If nicotine and cigarettes as a delivery system were a new phenomenon there is not an iota of doubt in my mind that it would be added to the list of currently banned substances, just as would alcohol.

My point is that Obama wishes to force pot smokers (in particular) into treatment that you agree with me they don't need while he himself is obviously addicted to a far more powerful drug. Obama is a strong willed person, he couldn't have possibly gotten where he is without that character trait, and yet he cannot bring himself to stop smoking cigarettes, how much more evidence do you need that cigarettes are highly addictive?

I find it interesting that we can have this conversation on a thread with many smokers and no one else is jumping down my throat telling me I'm wrong.. One thing I know about DU is that you *will* get told off if you are saying something stupid.

[stillcool]

53. "Strong willed person"..."Character trait"..

You must be one of the cruelest son of a bitches around. Go read up on child abuse/mental health/ and drug and alcohol addiction. Then take a cigarette and stick it somewhere.

[Fumesucker]

54. LOL, you make my point for me..

You could quit drugging and drinking but you can't quit smoking, that shows just how powerful an addiction it is.

And in fact I have a mental health problem of my own, I'm pretty strongly bipolar and there are times it has screwed my life up to the point I contemplated suicide, you don't have to drug to be fucked in the head, it comes natural to some of us.

I'm an old hippie, I've done just about every drug there is so I speak from personal experience. Pot helps my bipolar condition better than any of the near dozen prescription drugs I've had from the shrinks over the years and it pisses me off that Obama is going to do nothing to make it legal.

Which is a major reason for my posting on this thread.

[stillcool]

55. ah..now you're even a crueler..

son of a bitch than I thought you were. You see addicts at the mental health facility you go to? Have you ever been to jail? And yeah..I've got my scripts here. So what? You think people that are addicts might not have some underlying condition there? You know maybe something to do with being an orphan who was raped, beaten and neglected? You know how many of me there are out there in the world? And you want to compare that shit with smoking a frigging cigarette? And you are familiar with mental health?

Oh yeah..we've decriminalized pot here. Guess what? Obama had nothing to do with it. Oh yeah..we have gay marriage here..and guess what? Obama had nothing to do with it.

[Fumesucker]

56. Obama was raped, beaten and neglected?

I did not know that.

/Johnny Carson

I have a great deal of sympathy for addicts, but I really have a problem with those who will not admit they are addicted, as apparently you won't admit you are addicted to cigarettes.

I'm going to point out again that if I was wrong this thread full of smokers would be jumping my ass big time and it's not happening.

I've been hospitalized for bipolar, I'm told it took five cops to get me strapped down and in the ambulance, that's how whacked I was.

What's pissing me off is that Obama is opposed to me having a safe and legal supply of the med I know from lengthy personal experience works by far the best for me while he himself is an addict. I either take stuff that turns me into a literal zombie, risk going back to the nuthouse or obtain the med I know works illegally.. The situation sucks and I don't see it changing within what is left of my lifetime.

And then of course there is the issue of people on chemo, people with AIDS and MS and quite a few other conditions that pot would help who are going to be stiffed by Obama while he happily puffs away on his own addictive drug legally.

[stillcool]

59. So I take it your state...

is not de-criminalizing marijuana, and Obama smokes a cigarette and that pisses you off? And you want the next President to de-criminalize pot because you want him to? And you're right I have a hard time using the word 'addicted' with cigarettes. Whenever I quit, I won't get the DT's..I won't have convulsions, and I won't have to go away. When I smoke I don't forget what I did. Smoking does not prevent me from working at a job, and keeping that job. There is a huge difference and it's pathetic to even have this conversation with someone who is using the issue of addiction as a tool to use against a person you have issues with. And as far as getting raped, beaten, and abused..this stuff is way too personal for me. And obviously not at all to you.

[Fumesucker]

60. Decriminalization does nothing to help assure a legal and safe supply..

What if sales of cigarettes were made as illegal as selling pot but possessing say, ten cigarettes was deemed to be worthy of only a ticket, but if you had more than ten you were subject to the full penalties of law?

How much would a pack of cigarettes cost in that case? Fifty dollars, a hundred?

And you brought up rape and abuse, I was just following your lead on that.

I'll also point out that a huge percentage of psychotics smoke, there was a post here on DU a while back about it, nicotine apparently helps ameliorate the effects of psychosis and something like 90 plus percent of psychotics smoke cigarettes.

[tilsammans]

35. How come nobody in the MSM mentions GWB's years of cokin' it up, and . . .

. . . his born-again boozing?

:rant:

[marlakay]

42. I don't smoke but I have my own vice--chocolate!

Tell me I could never have it again and I might kill over it!

Things are hard to quit. I have trying to quit sugar for over a year now but I am hooked. and especially on stressful days.

Obama has one heck of a stressful life. I honor him for even trying during the hell he was put thru.