At some point throughout the day, every day, I find myself saying “when did everyone turn into such lame-ass pussies?” Everything is so soft, equitable and goddamn it you hurt my feelings! I’m over it too. Go hiking, hit the gym, drink whisky, have a cigar, fight, yell at the moon, fuck, make some art. Live FFS!
Vancouver is where all the drugs are. It's also the anti- smoking capital of Canada. Coincidence? Possibly not.
Thank goodness for black markets! The tobacco one is a mere few blocks from the fentanyl one. Too weird. But I know which one I'd rather visit.
The puritanism around tobacco is indeed strange, especially considering how much more civilised we were when more people smoked. But civility isn't what they want anymore.
Jun 5, 2023·edited Jun 5, 2023Liked by John Carter
Maybe the Tobacco cartel fell behind on its membership dues?
Worth noting the medical system won't allow coffee or cigarettes on locked psych wards while feeding them lots of sugar and junk foods and pumping them full of mind altering drugs that destroy the brain and autoimmune system. When asked, the folks who run the ward say they don't want the consumers too stimulated and hyper.
Ah, another awesome article! Thanks! Especially relevant here, in South Africa, where our bloody minister of "cooperative governance" decided to ban booze and smokes (and flip-flops, amongst other) and locked us up for months. The moment lockdowns got extended I found myself a friendly blac market cigarette salesman. It was three times the price, but damn. How do you stay sane locked up with two toddlers without any vent? I've been occasional/social smoker since teens, and promise you - a smoke every now and then is way better than popping antidepressants, antienxiety etc. Not to mention the benefits of grabbing a smoke with colleagues and bitching about the boss.
Jun 5, 2023·edited Jun 5, 2023Liked by John Carter
I do think that the dangers of smoking are not exaggerated but it's a silver bullet for not focusing on other issues. All my great-grandparents smoked or chewed tobacco and lived well into their 80-90s. But they were from a time and place where you walked everywhere, ate fresh food, lived in a joint-family, had no tv( one of my maternal great-grandfathers funnily enough thought that cinema was anti-Christian and demonic), and a tightknit religious community. So using modern day logic, smoking made them healthy since all their progeny is fat and unhealthy. But actually they were healthy in every other area of life that smoking though unhealthy didn't really do much damage or maybe it did( they could have lived maybe to 100 instead of 80). If you give cigarettes to healthy people the effects are bad but not as bad as bad as giving it to absolute sickly people. And I do think the cognitive effects of nicotine were the reason why it was chosen as a scapegoat. Instead of focusing on people living in urban environments filled with pollution, or shitty food, or this stupid rat race, we can change on thing that will make everyone healthy and keep our bottom line( as well as make everyone stupider).
Edit: I realized I kinda of repeated what you said lmao, but these were thoughts I've had for the longest time
I had a 40-a-day habit 25 years ago. Hand-rolled, no filter. I quit cold turkey over night because I liked being able to walk up stairs better. Paternal grandmother smoked until she died, 2 packs a day. When the doctor tried to wheedle her out of it by saying she could maybe live a year or two longer, she shot him down: "What? Live hooked up to machinery with all my insides removed piece by piece? No way. Nurse! Roll me out into the yard, I need a cigarette to calm down!"
Dad used to smoke, then switched to snus since you can't smoke when wearing ABC-masks in the field during combat.
Long as it's a choice, and you don't blow smoke in my face, I'm okay with it - I mean, I don't lean over and chew spruce-resin in your face, yes?
(Spruce-resin is a wonderful substitute for chewing gum - just make sure it's not from one of the poisonous kinds of spruce!)
I think gub'mints are so dead-set against smoking because by now, anyone working in them in any capacity has grown up during the age of "smoking equals Hitler", so it's so entrenched the only thing that they can do is amp it up, up, up no matter reality. Opioids can be semantically sorted under "medicines" as you note, and Fentanyl is relatively new as dope, and comes from the pharmaceutical industry too, so it gets the same free pass - you have made a very important discovery and distinction there, and I hope it manages to get spread around, that gub'mint actions against substance abuse and addiction has very little to with pragmatism or practicalities, but is instead all just policy, agendas and make believe.
Then again, having lost six friends to drugs, I'm quite biased. When I say lost, I mean they are dead. Started with pot, ended with horse. People importing, storing andselling heroin ought to be shot on the spot pretty much sums up my stance.
Just when you think that they (the regime) cannot sink any lower they manage to do just that. Enabling school kids to access opioids beggars belief. It probably has some linkage to sexual predation because young junkies without trust funds would presumably end up selling themselves.
The dynamic of therapeutic ideology and iatrogenic malice mirrors the passive-aggressive nature of anarcho-tyranny itself.
It is worth noting that prisons are full of drugs and gaolers like it that way. Drugs make people controllable.
Years ago I read William Burroughs, who argued that drugs were an instrument of control, and I thought that he was over the top. Today I'd have to say that he was spot on. Back in the 90s there were a few suspicious souls who suggested that the appearance of MDMA ('ecstasy') was very convenient for Thatcher, given the persistence of mass unemployment. IMO it is reasonable to assume that the regime's escalating enthusiasm for drug use is linked to anxieties over populism.
Fucking excellent! The nanny-state overlords have as much credibility with "public health campaigns" as Bernie Madoff would have if he went around asking for money for a nonprofit to fight financial fraud. Or a convicted sex offender would have who wanted to lead workshops for children to train them how to avoid pedophiles like himself. And as for warning labels, I'm reminded of the Bill Hicks bit where he encourages people to smoke the cigarettes that have the warning about "low birth weight."
This was excellent. Inspirational, even! I feel positively rallied.
I remember reading a twitter thread a while back, posted I forget by whom, noting the regime's obsessive regulation of nicotine content, with multiple studies commissioned to emphasise the harms of the drug itself, rather than tar or the additional chemicals created and released by cigarettes ever-more adulterated, ironically to comply with said mandates, and that the flavourings and sweeteners thereby added changed the profile of cigarette smoke from something harsh, pure, masculine, and ascendant, into a more digestive, food-adjacent, feminine experience.
I don't smoke, but I agree wholeheartedly. Well, I do like cigars, so I guess that counts.
Some interesting facts about tobacco and nicotine that I didn't know. I have always had the same suspicion as you that the health damage of cigarettes is wildly exaggerated. Wildly. Meanwhile, the health benefits of other things also wildly exaggerated; e.g. vegetables, vitamins, the weirdly both ignorant and egomaniac idea that food is just a breakdown of proteins, carbs, fats, and whatever else they put on those nutrition labels, so now you "understand" nutrition. I like how you diatilled down to their focus, the things they DO allow: anything that makes you weak, stupid, confused, angry, and/or afraid. Meanwhile, meat and cigarettes are going to kill you, especially if you switch from their processed sludge to real food. Even as you quickly see and feel yourself looking and feeling healthier, they suddenly are worried about your health, when they said nothing as you guzzled 2L of soda pop per day.
I keep telling everyone, fear is the real disease.
Funny, the peak lung cancer death rate in 1990 was 30 years after the peak in atmospheric nuclear testing blasts. (death rates for the disease through 2020 have declined by 58% since 1990 in men : https://www.cancer.net/cancer-types/lung-cancer-non-small-cell/statistics) Some how, dusting tobacco with plutonium, cesium and strontium, setting it on fire, and inhaling he smoke appears to not be a great idea.
I swear up until about five minutes ago a meatless diet was called vegetarian and no one had ever heard of the term "plant-based". The artificiality of the term is quite obvious over here in German speaking lands since supermarkets etc. didn't bother to invent an equivalent new word in our language
there is also the evidence to suggest that tobacco makes people less susceptible to propaganda and other mind control techniques. I suspect this is the Uber reason why they have declared tobacco to be unacceptable.
A population of fit, jacked, energetic, quick-witted beasts of prey is much harder to control than a herd of clinically depressed ungulates.
You nailed it. This is how we hurt them. A good rule of thumb is to do the exact opposite of what mainstream medicine advises.
At some point throughout the day, every day, I find myself saying “when did everyone turn into such lame-ass pussies?” Everything is so soft, equitable and goddamn it you hurt my feelings! I’m over it too. Go hiking, hit the gym, drink whisky, have a cigar, fight, yell at the moon, fuck, make some art. Live FFS!
Vancouver is where all the drugs are. It's also the anti- smoking capital of Canada. Coincidence? Possibly not.
Thank goodness for black markets! The tobacco one is a mere few blocks from the fentanyl one. Too weird. But I know which one I'd rather visit.
The puritanism around tobacco is indeed strange, especially considering how much more civilised we were when more people smoked. But civility isn't what they want anymore.
I think you may have nailed it, sir.
Maybe the Tobacco cartel fell behind on its membership dues?
Worth noting the medical system won't allow coffee or cigarettes on locked psych wards while feeding them lots of sugar and junk foods and pumping them full of mind altering drugs that destroy the brain and autoimmune system. When asked, the folks who run the ward say they don't want the consumers too stimulated and hyper.
Ah, another awesome article! Thanks! Especially relevant here, in South Africa, where our bloody minister of "cooperative governance" decided to ban booze and smokes (and flip-flops, amongst other) and locked us up for months. The moment lockdowns got extended I found myself a friendly blac market cigarette salesman. It was three times the price, but damn. How do you stay sane locked up with two toddlers without any vent? I've been occasional/social smoker since teens, and promise you - a smoke every now and then is way better than popping antidepressants, antienxiety etc. Not to mention the benefits of grabbing a smoke with colleagues and bitching about the boss.
I do think that the dangers of smoking are not exaggerated but it's a silver bullet for not focusing on other issues. All my great-grandparents smoked or chewed tobacco and lived well into their 80-90s. But they were from a time and place where you walked everywhere, ate fresh food, lived in a joint-family, had no tv( one of my maternal great-grandfathers funnily enough thought that cinema was anti-Christian and demonic), and a tightknit religious community. So using modern day logic, smoking made them healthy since all their progeny is fat and unhealthy. But actually they were healthy in every other area of life that smoking though unhealthy didn't really do much damage or maybe it did( they could have lived maybe to 100 instead of 80). If you give cigarettes to healthy people the effects are bad but not as bad as bad as giving it to absolute sickly people. And I do think the cognitive effects of nicotine were the reason why it was chosen as a scapegoat. Instead of focusing on people living in urban environments filled with pollution, or shitty food, or this stupid rat race, we can change on thing that will make everyone healthy and keep our bottom line( as well as make everyone stupider).
Edit: I realized I kinda of repeated what you said lmao, but these were thoughts I've had for the longest time
I had a 40-a-day habit 25 years ago. Hand-rolled, no filter. I quit cold turkey over night because I liked being able to walk up stairs better. Paternal grandmother smoked until she died, 2 packs a day. When the doctor tried to wheedle her out of it by saying she could maybe live a year or two longer, she shot him down: "What? Live hooked up to machinery with all my insides removed piece by piece? No way. Nurse! Roll me out into the yard, I need a cigarette to calm down!"
Dad used to smoke, then switched to snus since you can't smoke when wearing ABC-masks in the field during combat.
Long as it's a choice, and you don't blow smoke in my face, I'm okay with it - I mean, I don't lean over and chew spruce-resin in your face, yes?
(Spruce-resin is a wonderful substitute for chewing gum - just make sure it's not from one of the poisonous kinds of spruce!)
I think gub'mints are so dead-set against smoking because by now, anyone working in them in any capacity has grown up during the age of "smoking equals Hitler", so it's so entrenched the only thing that they can do is amp it up, up, up no matter reality. Opioids can be semantically sorted under "medicines" as you note, and Fentanyl is relatively new as dope, and comes from the pharmaceutical industry too, so it gets the same free pass - you have made a very important discovery and distinction there, and I hope it manages to get spread around, that gub'mint actions against substance abuse and addiction has very little to with pragmatism or practicalities, but is instead all just policy, agendas and make believe.
Then again, having lost six friends to drugs, I'm quite biased. When I say lost, I mean they are dead. Started with pot, ended with horse. People importing, storing andselling heroin ought to be shot on the spot pretty much sums up my stance.
Just when you think that they (the regime) cannot sink any lower they manage to do just that. Enabling school kids to access opioids beggars belief. It probably has some linkage to sexual predation because young junkies without trust funds would presumably end up selling themselves.
The dynamic of therapeutic ideology and iatrogenic malice mirrors the passive-aggressive nature of anarcho-tyranny itself.
It is worth noting that prisons are full of drugs and gaolers like it that way. Drugs make people controllable.
Years ago I read William Burroughs, who argued that drugs were an instrument of control, and I thought that he was over the top. Today I'd have to say that he was spot on. Back in the 90s there were a few suspicious souls who suggested that the appearance of MDMA ('ecstasy') was very convenient for Thatcher, given the persistence of mass unemployment. IMO it is reasonable to assume that the regime's escalating enthusiasm for drug use is linked to anxieties over populism.
Fucking excellent! The nanny-state overlords have as much credibility with "public health campaigns" as Bernie Madoff would have if he went around asking for money for a nonprofit to fight financial fraud. Or a convicted sex offender would have who wanted to lead workshops for children to train them how to avoid pedophiles like himself. And as for warning labels, I'm reminded of the Bill Hicks bit where he encourages people to smoke the cigarettes that have the warning about "low birth weight."
This was excellent. Inspirational, even! I feel positively rallied.
I remember reading a twitter thread a while back, posted I forget by whom, noting the regime's obsessive regulation of nicotine content, with multiple studies commissioned to emphasise the harms of the drug itself, rather than tar or the additional chemicals created and released by cigarettes ever-more adulterated, ironically to comply with said mandates, and that the flavourings and sweeteners thereby added changed the profile of cigarette smoke from something harsh, pure, masculine, and ascendant, into a more digestive, food-adjacent, feminine experience.
Nice one.
I don't smoke, but I agree wholeheartedly. Well, I do like cigars, so I guess that counts.
Some interesting facts about tobacco and nicotine that I didn't know. I have always had the same suspicion as you that the health damage of cigarettes is wildly exaggerated. Wildly. Meanwhile, the health benefits of other things also wildly exaggerated; e.g. vegetables, vitamins, the weirdly both ignorant and egomaniac idea that food is just a breakdown of proteins, carbs, fats, and whatever else they put on those nutrition labels, so now you "understand" nutrition. I like how you diatilled down to their focus, the things they DO allow: anything that makes you weak, stupid, confused, angry, and/or afraid. Meanwhile, meat and cigarettes are going to kill you, especially if you switch from their processed sludge to real food. Even as you quickly see and feel yourself looking and feeling healthier, they suddenly are worried about your health, when they said nothing as you guzzled 2L of soda pop per day.
I keep telling everyone, fear is the real disease.
::Standing applause::
Funny, the peak lung cancer death rate in 1990 was 30 years after the peak in atmospheric nuclear testing blasts. (death rates for the disease through 2020 have declined by 58% since 1990 in men : https://www.cancer.net/cancer-types/lung-cancer-non-small-cell/statistics) Some how, dusting tobacco with plutonium, cesium and strontium, setting it on fire, and inhaling he smoke appears to not be a great idea.
I swear up until about five minutes ago a meatless diet was called vegetarian and no one had ever heard of the term "plant-based". The artificiality of the term is quite obvious over here in German speaking lands since supermarkets etc. didn't bother to invent an equivalent new word in our language
Everything that weakens and demoralizes us, they promote. So something that sharpens and strengthens us, they must of course deny us.
Time to pry the vampire squid off our face.
there is also the evidence to suggest that tobacco makes people less susceptible to propaganda and other mind control techniques. I suspect this is the Uber reason why they have declared tobacco to be unacceptable.