On Smoking

I used to smoke. I started in my last year of high school. I didn’t start with cigarettes, though. I started with cigars. I’d stop at the convenience store on my way to the bus stop and pick up a pack of Phillies Blunts, pop them into my back pocket and I thought I was the man. I can recall vomiting up sausage biscuits after the first attempt at finishing a cigar, but that didn’t stop me from climbing right back on that horse.





While in college, I switched to cherry Black and Milds. They were, well, milder, and sweet. At this point, I still only smoked occasionally — standing outside my dorm room between classes and waiting for my crew to show up.



After college, I got a job at Books-A-Million. Back when I worked there, it was OK to smoke in the store. There were even ashtrays in the magazine area. Not only that, but smokers were allowed two additional 15-minute smoke breaks. This is when I moved to cigarettes. After this, I was off and running. Newport was my brand because I liked to taste my cigarettes. Regular smokes didn’t have a taste. They were bland. I liked the fresh and minty taste of a fiberglass-filled mentholated Newport.

Now, I was never a two-packs-a-day kind of guy. I didn’t even smoke one pack a day. Perhaps I smoked two packs a week. If I happened to be at a party or out drinking, I’d smoke more.

I loved to smoke. After a good meal, or a particularly sweaty session of “getting it on”, nothing hit the spot like a Newport. I needed a cigarette to talk on the phone or to wait on the bus. I just really liked to smoke. But, I never needed to smoke and that is where I consider myself lucky. When I finally decided to quit for good, I just did. I smoked the last Newport in the pack and I was done.

I won’t say that I don’t miss smoking because I do — but I don’t think about it
everyday or pine for it. I’ll see a group of people sucking down that sweet, sweet poison, and I’ll wish that I could join them. But the fact that I already have so many factors against me health-wise, and the fact that throat cancer must really be a son of a bitch, helps me to keep my cravings at bay.



Now that I don’t smoke, I can see how annoying smokers can be. Lord knows I took every opportunity I could to get a smoke, but when you’re not smoking, you realize how often everyone else is! Always wanting a smoke break, always looking for the briefest pause in activity or conversation so you can flee to the smoking area. Getting dressed in the dead of winter to go out and smoke. Being angry at restaurants that won’t allow you to blow your smoke across other people’s food. Sweating the nicotine through your pores. What’s even worse is relighting the stale butts of previously smoked cigarettes — which, if you don’t know, smell like absolute shit. I avoided the addiction part of being a smoker, so I can only partly understand the compulsion to always have a cigarette in your mouth. I was lucky enough to walk away cold turkey. I’m not going to get on a high horse and talk about how disgusting smoking is now that I’ve quit because I knew it was disgusting when I did it. And when someone would tell me it was disgusting while I was doing it, I’d always tell him the same thing. “I know, but it’s cheaper than Prozac.”

I don’t really have anything against Mary Jane or the people that seem to be so reliant on it. Even though it is an illegal substance, I tend to maintain a “whatever” attitude towards these things when they don’t affect me directly or aren’t really hurting other people. I won’t lie, I’ve received a small bit of the Devil’s lettuce in my time, but the experience wasn’t nearly exciting or life changing enough for me to start speaking in horribly obvious codes about 420 or buying cases of Visine. My experiences, limited as they were, led to me feeling bored, groggy, lethargic and wanting it to be over — all feelings I don’t need the left-handed cigarettes to feel, thank you very much.

And while I truly don’t see the real problem with the weed, I do have a problem with the “legalize it and the world will be a better place” theory. Too many times, I’ve heard someone propose that if “everyone got high, everyone would be so mellow that there would be no war.” Gag. All right, listen up, hippies, because you’re about to do your growing up. Weed isn’t magic. It’s not like the Care Bear stare. People aren’t going to smoke weed and forget that they hate each other. Sure, they might forget where their keys are or try to talk to you about how “Onions and dolphins are the same, man!” but, people’s hearts aren’t going to suddenly grow three sizes!

You know what’s going to happen when they “legalize it”? Dealers are going to have to move on to other illegal things to sell, and you’re going to want that instead. Why? You’re going to get bored with this legal, non-outlawed weed and you’re going to move to crack because people always want what they’re not supposed to have. And, no, not everybody is going to suddenly become a pothead just because weed is legal. We’re just going to be more annoyed when we’re having conversations about politics and you can’t explain why the wars aren’t all suddenly over because of weed.

Here’s a little fact for you, Moonfrye: You know what gang-bangers do before a drive-by? Guess. Come on... They get really high. Discuss amongst yourselves. Try not to get high first, so your arguments will make sense.



Stories by J’Mel Davidson appear in every issue of Birmingham Weekly. Write to jmel@bhamweekly.com.