I got tagged on Facebook last night by Lecroix Kwdjer ( who lives in Spain, I believe):
Anger? C. C Frank Davis talks about anger but we need an even angrier attitude. Say no to pubs, restaurants and the like. Just say damn NO. Show governments what our wallets can do. A penny spent in a pub is a penny spent against those who enjoy smoking. Fight!
He also added, in a subsequent, unrelated remark, that anyone who sat drinking outside a pub was a dolt.
Oh dear.
I can see where he’s coming from. But I still do sit outside pubs, in exactly the way I used to sit outside them when there wasn’t a smoking ban: i.e. on warm, sunny days. On those days, pubs become what they used to be for me, places to go and relax. And on those days I can forget about the smoking ban.
And also I don’t want to punish the pubs. They didn’t introduce the smoking ban themselves. The government did. And in the UK, pubs that permit smoking are fined far more than smokers. They could have fought harder against the ban, of course. But, as things are, they’re stuck.
It’s a bit like people saying I shouldn’t buy overtaxed UK tobacco. I wish I didn’t have to. But I don’t know any Man in a Van. And right now I can’t get out of the country because I don’t have a valid passport. But even if I did, I don’t know where to go to buy cheap tobacco, seeing that the prices seem to have been jacked up all over Europe.
And anyway, is it possible to “show” the government anything? The following Sky News report says:
Fifty Pubs Closing Every Week, Research Says
And in the list of reasons it gives, it fails to mention the smoking ban at all. It’s only a few people in the comments who point out the obvious. There are a lot of people out there who really have managed to kid themselves that the smoking ban hasn’t been one of the major causes of pub bankruptcies. And it’s probably because they aren’t smokers, and so don’t know what the impact of the smoking ban has been on smokers (and maybe also don’t care). They simply can’t see it. Or they simply won’t see it. Even if it’s a big, hairy, grinning elephant in a tutu walking on a tightrope through the middle of the room, and singing Jumpin’ Jack Flash at the top of its voice.
Leggy was writing about anger a day or two back:
Still I say, drop the anger. Get cold and get calculating. Think before speaking and especially before acting. They won’t, so you have that advantage right at the start.
The Americans have a saying: “Don’t get mad, get even”.
There is sense in this. Don’t fall into the Government trap of ‘divide and rule’. Instead, use it. Turn their weapons on themselves. You cannot do this angry. You have to do it calm, calculating and cold.
And he’s quite right. And I know he’s quite right because extreme anger is actually incapacitating. I know it because after the smoking ban came in, I would sometimes spend entire days consumed with such fury that I was actually incapable of doing anything at all. And that’s no good to anyone. Anger like that is like a bonfire. What’s needed is a thin blue blowtorch flame, far hotter and more concentrated, that can cut through steel if it’s used by somebody who is calm, calculating and cold.
Despite saying that, though, I still have days when the fury wells up, and the red mist descends. And I sometimes wonder whether that angry man, Gian Turci, who died of a brain haemorrhage aged 58 (I think), was experiencing exactly such fury when he died. For I suspect that anger is not only incapacitating, but can sometimes even be lethal.
And in fact this may well be yet another way that the genocidal war on smokers is killing off smokers.
I’ve often said that this blog of mine is powered by anger. And it is. But it’s not a disabling kind of anger. It’s an anger that’s sufficient to keep me erupting in words every single day, and tossing out news and ideas and stuff (and plenty of hot air). Sometimes it’s even a amused anger. But it’s always there. And I think that it always will be there. It’s become part of me.
These days I even think that it’s a good thing to be angry in this way. A week or so back, when I was chatting with him on Facebook, Wiel Maessen said that it was despair that governed my blog. And I disagreed. Because despair isn’t something I’ve ever felt about the smoking ban. There’s no room for despair alongside the anger that I feel.
And, aside from the anger, I genuinely think that us smokers are going to win in the end. I’ll cheerfully agree that we’re nowhere near winning right now, but that doesn’t matter. This is going to be a long war. In fact it already has been a very long war. But in the end we’re going to win. It seems to me, in fact, that it’s perfectly obvious that we’re going to win. I don’t care if we’re up against the World Health Organisation backed by every government in the world, and all the electronic and printed mass media, and every single university: we’re still going to win.
And when we do, it’s going to be like the Day of Judgement.
Frank Davis 
Sure we’re going to win! And that moment may be nearer then you think, Frank.
I receive so many positive signs which I cannot publish because publishing would interfere with our strategy of not alerting the enemy before we suddenly hit them right in the heart.
Exactly weil,we are going to win!
We are going to win EVERYWHERE!!!!
Gosh, Wiel, I hope that you are right!
My own view is this:
The Holy Zealots have had their own way for many years. As a result, smoking bans have proliferated throughout Europe. However, that has only been possible because of a lack of resistance. The lack of resistance has definite and accountable reasons. Principally, the lack of resistance among politicians derives from cowardice, in the sense that they would rather not rock the boat. The lack of resistance by publicans and such derives from the fact that they simply did not know what to do. There would have been no lack of resistance from individuals were it not for the previous two statements. As an example of the last statement, I can describe the situation at Royal Bolton Hospital. There, the ‘area’ is described as a ‘smokefree site’, or a ‘non-smoking site’. But there is no enforcement at all – nothing at all. Patients and visitors smoke right in front of the notices and nobody gives a damn. That situation reveals quite conclusively that the whole ‘verboten’ situation is a confidence trick. If publicans had said, “NO! We shall not enforce your threats”, the whole thing would have fallen apart. Why did they not have leaders of their associations with the courage to say that in the first place? More cowardice, you see. Is it cowardice that persuades smokers not to light up in a pub? Well, NO! The reason is that there simply is no point in doing so since the publican has no advantage to be gained for ignoring what you do. That is, there is no financial advantage to him, but there is an awful threat.
Wherever these laws have been ignored, as in Greece, no serious consequence has ensued. How can there be any such consequence when the imposition of such a law is just a confidence trick?
For this reason, once the confidence trick is exposed and certain groups of people realise how they have been conned, the bans will simply be ignored eventually. Smoking rooms in pubs will appear de facto, and smoking bars will appear (apart from the despicable pubcos). It follows as night follows day. But it will only happen when everyone gets pissed off with Holy Zealots, as they will eventually. Having said that, the process can be accelerated by constant challenges (as you are doing, Wiel).
The pity in the UK is that these challenges did not start right away in 2007.
I think Gian was closer to 61 than 58, but whatever his exact age was, yes, I’m sure that his anger and frustration in fighting a lobby so much more powerful than what he, with his strong and considerable talents and drive, was able to muster must have contributed to his death. Very sad… he lived and breathed this fight for many years.
In terms of sitting outside the pubs and “don’t get mad, get even,” I’ve dealt with my occasional springtime/summer sit-outside return visits to old favorite pubs by always bringing along some appropriate hell-raising literature and turning the visits into political action. I use my “Lies Behind The Smoking Bans” booklet along with some flyers and a copy of Brains, but the general trick is to have something really solid that someone might enjoy sitting for a half hour with, and something briefer (The Lies, or ABC’s of ETS, etc), and a selection of a few flyers with your website/email on them as well as some aspect of replies to the arguments you run into out there.
:)
MJM
About politicians. It’s not quite that simple. They’re also blackmailed and since there’s no political danger in supporting bans, and organized smearing if they dare to oppose them, they’re spinelessly brought to their knees.
Here’s Stanton Glantz, on a long-ago TC website, instructing his troops:
“In each state one or two politicians seem to be taking the lead in pushing the industry’s position (at least publicly).As soon as these politicians start floating trial balloons, they should be attacked publicly. If they can be bloodied, it could well scare the others off. Fear is a great motivator for politicians.”
Here’s that philosophy at work– but one example of doubtless thousands:
According to his emails as released by an local newspaper, when then-Governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee, was singlehandedly pushing a statewide ban, his first move was to prevent public hearings because “You only want legislators hearing your side of the story,” and when, after badgering legislators with daily lobbying, he still wasn’t sure of a Yes from all hands, he urged his top aides to slam the recalcitrant legislators publicly: “…calling these guys out individually will scare them to death… watch them sweat… wear their butts out publicly. My recommendation ? Fry their asses. HARD. If we don’t embarrass and separate them, we won’t win. Go for the jugular and make them bleed where it hurts worst, in their home districts with their own constituents.”
Then there’s this in New York: When his opponent for mayor tepidly talked about softening the then-existing ban , Bloomberg immediately tarred him as –verbatim– “the pro-cancer candidate.”
That’s very interesting. But, if that’s the the way they set about things, then it can work the other way round. The antis can be made to sweat too.
Walt, yep! They’ve also displayed the anti-ban candidates in ads with big “surgeon generals warning” stickers plastered across their photos and warned them in advance that if they voted the wrong way they’d be pictured at election time as supporting Big Tobacco and cancer instead of Health and medical people and institutions. Plus of course there’s the always popular innuendo that anyone voting against bans etc is somehow secretly “in the pocket of Big Tobacco” and rolling in payoffs for their votes.
– MJM
It was a specially angry day, Frank. It’s been raining like crazy here for two weeks, windy and cold. And still people congregate outside the bar to smoke. They pay to be punished and that makes me angry, specially angry, because they look exactly as antis want to depict them: desperate for a smoke. I just can’t understand why anyone pays to stand in the rain. To top it off, some friends in facebook keep posting about the excellent cuisine of this or that restaurant, as if nothing had happenned. Something has happened! One can’t smoke in any restaurant anymore! My blood just boils when people simply shrugg and keep going. It makes me mad. It makes me mad that the conservative party said it was against the ban, yet now says it will not be amended. It makes me mad that not many bar or restaurant owners put up posters against the ban. Most merrily go about their bussiness expecting people to pay to be discriminated. I do support bars and restaurants, but only those that express their disgust with the ban, or those that simply allow smoking inside.
I am angry Frank, and summer is coming and smokers will flock to the sunny terraces and accept the criminal smoking ban as if nothing is happening and I will get angrier. I just can’t understand why most people don’t.
“They pay to be punished and that makes me angry, specially angry, because they look exactly as antis want to depict them: desperate for a smoke.”
Quite, that’s the real reason for insisting that people stand outside, denormalisation. If you are going to pretend that the smoke from a fairly ordinary plant is a deadly threat and turn a fairly common plant chemical eaten everyday by most everyone, into some exotic drug for which there is no safe level, you have to make a lot of people act as if it really was.
Of course dutifully obeying the law by shivering in the cold and rain, hunched under a dripping garden umbrella, gives precisely the effect required.
I agree about standing in the rain. In fact I agree with almost everything you say.
What I don’t agree about though is getting angry with other smokers. And I think you’re getting angry with them because you don’t understand them. And it’s important to understand them. Because if you are ever going to rouse them to action, you must understand what makes them tick. Because if you don’t, you will rub them up the wrong way.
So please try to understand other smokers, and not just condemn them. And I think that when you do understand them, one thing you’ll find is that, actually, they are angry. The truth is that all smokers are angry. It something I realised last year. It wasn’t just me who was angry. They’re angry too. All of them. But they keep it bottled up, for one reason or other.
I haven’t figured out yet how to release that anger. But I know it’s there now. And it’s a source of energy waiting to be tapped. I guess I just haven’t understood them well enough yet.
Looks like the Welsh are catching up.
Could carbon monoxide be beneficial for health?
“In a final article from the first group of Welsh Crucible researchers, Dr Bill Wilkinson explains why he’s interested in how a poison can be beneficial to human health
FOLLOWING its import from the Americas in the 16th century, tobacco was considered a useful medicine.
Physicians and religious leaders since the ancients believed in the healing power of smoke from various aromatics such as incense. The belief in the healing power of tobacco smoke was an evolution of this superstition. ( ? )
( Medicinal Smoke Reduces Airborne Bacteria
“Absence of pathogenic bacteria Corynebacterium urealyticum, Curtobacterium flaccumfaciens, Enterobacter aerogenes (Klebsiella mobilis), Kocuria rosea, Pseudomonassyringae pv. persicae, Staphylococcus lentus, and Xanthomonas campestris pv. tardicrescens inthe open room even after 30 days is indicative of the bactericidal potential of the medicinal smoke treatment.”
http://www.agri-history.org/pdf/Medicinal%20smoke.pdf )
“It may surprise you that 17th century physicians administered tobacco smoke not only via the lungs, but also via the rectum in the form of a tobacco smoke enema.
A tobacco smoke enema was prescribed for a wide range of ailments, including drowning.
The practice reached its zenith in the 18th century, but continued well into the 19th century due to success in treatment of gut problems.”
“But we now understand that a different poison in the smoke, carbon monoxide, may have been responsible for the beneficial effects.”
“The immediate association of carbon monoxide as a poison is an accurate one.”
“Fifty people in the UK die each year from carbon monoxide poisoning, so having a carbon monoxide detector fitted in your house is a good idea.”
“However, it is less well known that carbon monoxide is also produced in tiny amounts naturally in the body.
It is made by enzymes breaking down the red haem molecule (found in haemoglobin in red blood cells) into green biliverdin and yellow bilirubin molecules.
You can see this process take place when a red bruise turns a mixture of green and yellow before healing completely.
For many years carbon monoxide was considered a waste product, which served no purpose in the body.
But we now know that naturally produced carbon monoxide has important effects in the body.
My research is concerned with identifying some of the proteins affected by carbon monoxide and in particular how it affects ion channels.
Ion channels are the proteins responsible for the electrical activity in cells such as neurons but they are also found in the gut.
( Carbon Monoxide Gas Is Used by Brain Cells As a Neurotransmitter – 1993
“THE simple gas carbon monoxide is used by nerve cells to signal each other, researchers have found in a discovery that could open the way to a new understanding of how the brain operates.”
http://www.nytimes.com/1993/01/26/science/carbon-monoxide-gas-is-used-by-brain-cells-as-a-neurotransmitter.html )
( Carbon monoxide plays role in orchestrating digestive tract function
“They showed that cells in the digestive system manufacture tiny amounts of carbon monoxide, which then regulates muscle contractions. The contractions occur with great precision to properly move food ahead through the stomach and intestines”
http://www.post-gazette.com/healthscience/20030617carbon0617p3.asp )
“In many models of disease, carbon monoxide production appears to be beneficial and this has led to idea that carbon monoxide may be a potential medicine in the future.
It may also explain the benefits observed from 17th century tobacco smoke enemas.”
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/health-news/2012/04/02/could-carbon-monoxide-be-beneficial-for-health-91466-30672203/
Carbon Monoxide May Help Lungs – 2001
“Scenarios in which low dose carbon monoxide may be tested might include lung transplantation, stroke, heart attack, severe bacterial infections or before surgery when there might be an interruption in blood flow, such as coronary artery bypass grafting, he added.”
“Pinsky explained that when a cutoff of blood triggers the clotting process, the body’s own clot-dissolving machinery is suppressed by a natural protein called PAI-1.
“Carbon monoxide significantly reduces the body’s production of this suppressor protein, and therefore, promotes dissolution of the clot,” he said. “This relieves the obstruction in small blood vessels and permits blood flow to be re-established to the organ.”
The body’s own production of carbon monoxide probably evolved to protect the blood flow to vital organs, and providing extra carbon monoxide by inhalation seems to give an added boost, Pinsky said”
http://www.intelihealth.com/IH/ihtIH/EMIHC000/333/20792/317857.html
And a lot more besides.
Rose, you are so right. It troubles me when smoking, due solely to smoking bans, looks as the activity of “addicts”, desperate for a “fix”. Antis want us looking that way and I will not comply. I do not need a smoke and surely will not ever look like I need it just because antis leave me few choices. I´ll smoke while I walk down the street so they can see my free will.
Of course Frank you are absolutely right. Nothing is gained by being mean to fellow smokers, quite the opposite. My feelings, my wrath, gets the best of me when I see certain behaviors and then reason takes a back seat. I am not like that when I play chess, just to give an example. I think of myself as a person that understands strategy and long term thinking. But… I just can´t help it when it comes to the smoking ban and the behavior of some smokers. I have clear thought when I deal with trolls in a blog, or when I write to a political party about the ban. But when I see someone smoking outside bar under the rain I just think and almost sometimes blurt out: “you are a moron sir, a big moron and I despise you for looking so needy and moronic.”
I will try to improve, the get a hold of my reactions under such circumstances. That is the most adecuate strategy, anyway.
But then again, my outburst maybe did stir up the pot a bit. I am all for that even if I may look unhinged, let’s say, in the process. Anything is better than indolence when it comes to fighting the smoking ban.
I’m a great believer in stirring the pot.
If you google “Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, smokeless states program”, you will see that, from the very beginning, “social change” is the main purpose of the bans. That goal is now evident as more talk about “social smoking gatherings outside” is emerging.
Both of these:
Anger? C. C Frank Davis talks about anger but we need an even angrier attitude. Say no to pubs, restaurants and the like. Just say damn NO. Show governments what our wallets can do. A penny spent in a pub is a penny spent against those who enjoy smoking. Fight!
and
Still I say, drop the anger. Get cold and get calculating. Think before speaking and especially before acting. They won’t, so you have that advantage right at the start.
The Americans have a saying: “Don’t get mad, get even”.
There is sense in this. Don’t fall into the Government trap of ‘divide and rule’. Instead, use it. Turn their weapons on themselves. You cannot do this angry. You have to do it calm, calculating and cold.
are right in my humble opinion.
The greater our diversity, the harder it is for the anti-smoking zealots!
Sure, the pub trade has suffered tremendously and the damage is continuing. Once there is a NICE, COMFORTABLE smoker’s room there again, we all can go back to what we used to do.
Lucking forward to this day!!!!
Lecroix and Frank, I believe that most smokers, because they see nothing substantial to the contrary, have simply come to believe the lies about the “deadly threat” of secondary smoke and THAT is why they so peacefully accept being thrown outside. That’s why I push the idea of printing/sharing the Stiletto booklet — http://kuneman.smokersclub.com/PASAN/StilettoGenv5h.pdf — because it DOES blow those lies away and it does so in a format that is PERFECT for bar/smoke-pit reading: big print, simple points, important stuff bolded, and yet contains enough detail to satisfy anyone who might otherwise dismiss the arguments as just being rants of an advocate.
There’s also another factor at play, one you can’t do much about unfortunately: The Antis were clever enough to make the owners/workers the fall guys by illegally conscripting them, without pay, without training, without insurance, without specific rules of engagement, and without protection, to act as law enforcement personnel. Smokers don’t want to make life difficult for their friends, the bar personnel, so they just cooperate. The pub owners were GREATLY at fault for not fighting back more strongly from the start when they were told to throw their friends outside.
– MJM
P.S. Frank, why doesn’t the “Facebook share” seem to work here or at Leg’s? Or did I simply neglect to click on something?
Perhaps because my blog is already shared on Facebook. I suspect the same is true of Leg-iron.
Ahh! OK! Didn’t know that. They don’t let me out of my email bin much…. ;>
People that enjoy smoking are not a homogeneous group, of course. They are no more homogeneous than people who eat cheese, lets say. So Michael is right in pointing out that there are smokers who happily comply with being thrown out, since they believe themselves to be a danger. I think nonetheless that they must be a minority among people who smoke. Most smoke outside simply because they have no choice left. And are not happy at all about the ban. I want them all to awake and fight, just as I was awoken by Javier in Fumadores por la Tolerancia in Spain first, and then further by Frank, and then by Audrey in C.L.A.S.H. and then by Zayats in Smokers Agains Discrimination…and so many others. Now I have high hopes placed on HorecaClaim and Wiel as well. I wanna fight the good fight.
BTW, it’s still raining like crazy here, on and off, on and off. I have behaved and refrained from heckling those who smoke outside the pub. But today is saturday and at noonish (the prefered time for tapas in this part of northern Spain), bars were empty. My favorite pub, where I met my girl before the ban, sported a new heater, along with the huge outside area they hurrily built after the ban. But no one was there to enjoy tapas and wine and a cig. I could not see the girl in charge, inside. We used to be friends, but since I told her I would not visit until the ban is over, she has not texted again. A few meters later, I waved hello to the owner of my favorite bar, as I passed by. He knows I’ll never come in as long as the ban remains. It’s been almost 16 months now since I do not visit his or anyother bar. I think his smile meant he holds no grudge, that he understands. It’s a small bar, but was hugely successful in the past thanks to their huge, free, delicious tapas and their small village sized prices (and their sunny disposition too!). The owner, I believe, remains at his post just because his old waiter is close to retirement. Once his waiter is retired and has his pension, I am sure he will just sell the bar. Let the next generation try to make a dime out of the place. But we both know that under the ban, it will never be the same.
All in all, today was a good day, maybe perversely so. I am not perfect.
People who smoke are just that : people. We must stop using the label the antis have deliberately pinned on them: Smokers. In both people who smoke and those who don’t, there are obedient ones, there are rebellious ones, there are apathetic ones and others who are actually happy with smoking bans because it forces them to smoke less. There are those who can see the forest from the tree and those who will always only see the tree. Two of my best friends could care less about bans and are even thankful for them because they smoke less. They didn’t stop going out, they didn’t stop spending and it doesn’t matter what I tell them they won’t change their mind and get angry about them. They just go about their daily life as if nothing happened. So, no, I disagree that all people who smoke are angry. They might be annoyed at first but they get used to the situation quickly and adjust unless you ask them and only answer what they think you wanna hear depending on who asks. It is unfortunate especially when we think of all the precedents such complacency and apathy is setting, but such is human nature. This is why we have to expose the more serious problems with anti-tobacco. Not having a cigarette with one’s beer should be the least of our worries as compared to old age people freezing outdoors, psychiatric and other patients avoiding to seek help because they will be unable to smoke in hospitals, people being refused employment, housing, foster and custodial rights because of smoking and all the uglier elements this social engineering has brought. All the while not forgetting that the obese are next (at least in North America). One can always hide their smoking habit, but how does one hide from their own body?
Lecroix I understand your anger but you can only do so much to drive a horse to water, let alone making him drink.
Iro
Not having a cigarette with one’s beer should be the least of our worries as compared to old age people freezing outdoors, psychiatric and other patients avoiding to seek help because they will be unable to smoke in hospitals, people being refused employment, housing, foster and custodial rights because of smoking and all the uglier elements this social engineering has brought.
I agree that the latter face more serious problems, but when not having a cigarette with one’s beer means that social occasions cease to be enjoyable, and the result is the disintegration of communities, then while the individual damage may be slight, the sum total of social damage is colossal.
It’s the difference, if you like, between one person who is robbed of $1000, and a million people who are each robbed of $1. The sum total of the second is far greater than the first.
And I don’t agree about that some smokers are indifferent. They may say that they are, and they may even believe that they are. But I don’t think that there were all that many Jews For Hitler, and if there were they must have been delusional, and fooling themselves in some way. There are a lot of people who are pretending to themselves that everything is okay, when it isn’t.
So right, CAGE Canada. Firstly, I like that you understood that I avoided the word “smoker”. I think such a word serves the purposes of antis and not ours. In my mind, I translate the word “smoker” to the word “drinker”, for example. Am I a “drinker”? What is a drinker?. To me, a drinker is a person that is not in control of their liking for alcohol. It is a person that has been overcome by a desire to consume alcohol (a dipsomaniac) and whose desire creates trouble with family, job and/or the law. On the other hand, a person who likes drinking, is a very common kind of person. A person who may overindulge occasionally, but is not driven by a need for alcohol and has not run into trouble (at least more than once) because of drinking.
By the same token, a “smoker” can only be a person that has so much abused his/her liking for tobacco, that is running into trouble because of it. And I have never met such people.. Maybe they exist. But I have never met them. Therefore, I am no longer a “smoker”, but a person who enjoys smoking. It is hard to avoid the word “smoker”, but it must be done, for it is as imprecise as the word “non-smoker”. Antis are not non-smokers, their are antis, just that. Crazy people. Non-smokers are regular, tolerant, nice people. Our friends, family or even life partner.
Thanks for understanding my anger. It does come and go, but today is a good day. Yes, not all of us who enjoy smoking are angry. But I think most are. If it helps, I follow anything Tom Selleck does. He sure does not like the nanny state.
Frank, the only way I succeeded in posting a comment here is through my twitter account and even with this I can’t reply directly under your reply to mine, so I am sorry for posting this separately.
I agree that smoking bans in the hospitality industry are as much a tragedy to some people (and societies) as some of the more serious problems. Perhaps my choice of words ”should be the least of our problems” was poor. The point I was trying to make is that complaining about being unable to have a ciggy with a beer does not get much public sympathy even with some people who smoke. I am convinced that this cause can rally more support from all people when the worst problems which are actually totally inhuman are exposed and denounced. Then again different continents, different contexts and I can only go by my local experience and I repeat that the Canadian public is so far brainwashed about smoking that even those it affects directly (those who smoke) are not mostly angry. Some even feel they had it coming to them for being so persistent in continuing smoking. And I am not holding this just from strangers, but even from people I love and trust that they tell me the truth about their feelings. Are they repressed feelings? Possibly, but what good are those for turning the current anti-smoking climate around?
Lecroix, don’t lose too much of your anger LOL, anger is good when canalized properly ;-)
Iro
You betcha, CAGE. :)