Kilts & Pipe Smoking

[Riverkilt]

I agree with Graham.

Its so sad for me to see so many addicted to corporate tobacco. And sad that one is/was me.

Pipes were part of the mix for me...cigs, cigars, pipes...always as some sort of connoisseur of tobaccos. I managed to quit after years of trying back in 1974.

Addiction is a disease that tells us we don't have a disease.

Today there are healthier ways of getting a tobacco fix (losenges, gum, patches, inhalers, etc) than through smoke. The problem isn't as much the nicotine as the delivery system.

I watched my father and his three sibs die from tobacco use. I watched the most spiritual man I've ever known die of lung cancer 8 years after he quit smoking.

I've assisted at more autopsies than I could count and seen first hand the effects of smoke on lungs.

I sat with my father while he died of suffocation from years of smoking.

I've taught smoking cessation classes for the American Cancer Society.

I watch pregnant women continue to smoke because they "can't quit" even when they know their new born baby will have to quit as soon as he/she's born.

Anytime I see a fellow nicotine addict who is still getting their nicotine fix via smoke I am saddened because it means death.

Is there anything sadder than a stove up old smoker...even smoking a pipe?

And saddest of all...smoking - even if the smoke is sucked through the finest, most expensive, most beautiful, pipe in the world is gonna shorten most people's life span - and if they're a kilt wearer - cut down on the number of years they have to wear a fine kilt.

I'm no zealot. I began smoking my parents butts at age 6 and was picking up butts out of the gutter to smoke by age 10, then stealing packs as a teen. I scored a pipe somewhere, probably from my grandfather's extensive collection, and would break up the cig butts to make tobacco for the pipe. I lived in tobacco country for many years. I know both sides of the controversy.

Today, I can no longer argue with the painful deaths of loved ones due to their tobacco use. I can't deny what I've seen when bodies of smokers were opened up by coroners. My beliefs are hard won from what I've seen and the loss of dear ones.

I am saddened that friends are still prisoner of their nicotine addiction and corporate sales/advertising staffs that glorify such a painful way of death.

And, sadly, in my work as a chemical dependency counselor I see the same glorification of crack pipes, and methamphetamine pipes, and marijuana pipes and bongs among those addicts. Paraphernalia is part of the addition.

Ron