The Great American Smokeout is Today…

…celebrate by noting

a) the voluntary nature of the event (and the immediate health benefits of not smoking):

Every year, the American Cancer Society dedicates the third Thursday of November to those ready to give up cigarettes for just a day in their lives in the hope that this might help them stop permanently. The organization wants smokers to ask themselves what it would take them to quit, and to try it out for a day to see how kicking the habit feels like.

Medically, there are great benefits a smoker would have even from the very first day of quitting. More exactly, doctors believe that a smoker's blood pressure and pulse rate drop to normal within 20 minutes of his last cigarette. Breathing becomes easier within 3 days. Circulation improves, walking becomes easier, and lung function increases up to 30 percent within 2-3 months. Also, risk of coronary disease will be cut in half within a year.

b) the ham-fisted, involuntary nature of outright and total smoking bans that have proliferated over this sweet land of liberty over the past decade. I'm no fan of smoking, but I'm less of a fan of smoking bans that run roughshod over individual choice, property rights, and much more.

c) Watching this new (released just last week) reason.tv extravaganza, Just Can't Quit: How far will smoking bans go? (go here for embed code, related articles, and a great 2002 documentary produced by reason's Paul Feine and Jesse Walker called Talking Butts).

Comments

[Mark]

I'll mark the occasion by lighting up a cigar tonight!

[BDB]

I never understood the allure of smoking. I tried once, as a teenager, and got sick.

[Lamar]

Am I the only one that thinks the word "smokeout" means the opposite of not smoking? And I'm not really talking about tobacco.

[Episiarch]

Am I the only one that thinks the word "smokeout" means the opposite of not smoking?

Hotboxing! All right!

[Bob]

I usually celebrate this day by buying a pack of cigarettes and offering them to the "non-smoker for a day" crowd. And of course to anyone who goes around pushing this event. Here, Mr. Gillespie have a non self righteous smoke on me.

[phalkor]

11/20 isn't 4/20 guys. Today is the day cashiers bitch at you if you try to buy cigarettes. Well, they sell them to you, but with a reminder that it's a "no-no" 'specially on the third thursday of November. *gasp!

[Mike]

I'm very disappointed this article is not about barbecue.

[Warren]

I quite smoking eight years ago. Quitting for one day would have been counter productive. When I did quit for good it was three months before I had a day without craving a smoke.

[Jennifer Wyatt]

I hope MANY people today find the will to quit smoking!

jess
http://www.Ultimate-Anonymity.com

[anarch]

That spambot is the first person since the Marlboro Man to incline me to smoke.

[Xeones]

Really, anarch? What about Joe Camel? Or our joe?

[Xeones]

I, too, was disappointed in this post's distinct lack of barbecue-relatedness.

[Lefiti]

I can see Gillespie's point. First they came for the smokers; then they came for the morons... What if they ban moronic political ideologies? Shit!

[kwais]

ha Lefiti

[SPELLING BEE MAVRICK]

Lefiti, please, it's spelled morans.

Here I'll use it in a sentence.

GET A BRAIN MORANS!!!

[kwais]

Hey Lefiti, I don't imagine you smoke do you?

How about Joe?

The reason I ask, is that I wonder if everyone has a certain part of their ideology that runs counter to their personal interests.

For me it is the smoking bans.
Ideologically I understand how they are wrong, freedom of association, and freedom to do with your body as you please and whatnot. But on a personal level, as a world traveler, I hate sitting next to a smoker in a cafe. I hate coming home from a bar, and my clothes smell like an ashtray.

Sorry I had to confess. I don't mean to piss off any of the smokers here that are my friends.

And I will continue to support their rights.

I am just confessing being against smoking bans in restaurants and bars is one of the harder libertarian things for me to support on a personal level.

[sage]

I quit on October 11, 2000 after numerous attempts. About five years later I had one in a moment of weakness. About a year later I quit again, and I've now been smoke-free for two years, two months, and twenty days. Feels good. Most of the time.

[Episiarch]

I think Lefiti would require a lot of smoking because he's clearly tough and stringy. I don't know if even BBQ could make him taste good.

[SugarFree]

I had double pneumonia that forced me to quit. It was easy, except for the coughing up blood part.

[WileyX]

About five years later I had one in a moment of weakness. About a year later I quit again,

That's a long moment.

[JW]

Given the ACS' habit of pushing smoking bans everywhere, I would think they'd just make it mandatory, with ACS Strike Teams roaming the streets with squirt guns in order to squash any remaining dissent.

[Xeones]

Epsiarch: if you marinate him in pineapple juice for a couple of hours it would go a long way toward softening him up. A friend of mine did that with some kebabs, and the steak was basically melting off the skewers. Tasty, too.

For pork (or longpig -- assuming Lefiti is human) you could use orange juice instead, and marinate overnight for a Cuban flavor. Accompanied with a Cuban cigar, naturally (to get back on topic...)

[cunnivore]

Today is the day cashiers bitch at you if you try to buy cigarettes. Well, they sell them to you, but with a reminder that it's a "no-no" 'specially on the third thursday of November. *gasp!

Where the heck are you buying your cigarettes? I've worked at a few gas stations and convenience stores in my day, and I'm certain any cashier who did that would be looking for a new job.

[Episiarch]

For pork (or longpig -- assuming Lefiti is human) you could use orange juice instead, and marinate overnight for a Cuban flavor

Interesting idea, though I think I would prefer lime because it's less sweet. In my past preparations of longpig, I tended to just make a stew.

"I found your Private Reich up there...or what was left of him. You didn't finish! Well, I can't blame you; he was tough. But then, a good soldier ought to be."

[Lefiti]

kwais

I used to smoke. The dimunition of liberty that results from smoking bans is a perfect issue for a politically irrelevant right-wing cult to take up. For some it's a real issue. In Gillespie's case, it's just his bread and butter. Donate now!

[Xeones]

Try this, Epi: dry-rub the meat with salt, black pepper, red pepper, cumin, paprika, chili powder, and a little bit of cinnamon. Let it hang out for a while, and then put it in a dish with orange juice, diced garlic, minced onion, and oregano. Keep it in the fridge overnight and either grill it or pan-fry it next day. I like it with a side of mashed sweet potatoes.

Lime sounds pretty awesome too, though you're probably right that nothing could make Lefiti have good taste.

[Episiarch]

dry-rub the meat with salt, black pepper, red pepper, cumin, paprika, chili powder, and a little bit of cinnamon. Let it hang out for a while, and then put it in a dish with orange juice, diced garlic, minced onion, and oregano

I actually do this almost exactly with boneless pork chops already, but without the orange juice and onion, and then I pan fry it in a mixture of olive oil and butter.

But I am intrigued by the addition of the juice. Thanks; I'll try this.

[rhywun]

Today is the day cashiers bitch at you if you try to buy cigarettes.

I can see it happening at the kind of galactic-sized supermarkets that reign supreme in places like upstate NY. I've worked at a bunch of these places and they're really into the whole "being a good corporate neighbor" thing. Now I get my smokes at corner delis run by Arabs and Chinese--who are often smoking at the counter themselves.

[Xeones]

and then I pan fry it in a mixture of olive oil and butter.

Oh yes, butter is key. Bronzes the outside of the chops and locks all the juice in.

In my fridge right now i have a couple of steaks sitting in a mixture of honey, dijon mustard, coffee (seriously), red wine, vinegar, Sriracha, soy sauce, fresh rosemary, garlic, onion, sea salt, and some kind of "fajita mix" with citrus peels and whatnot in it. I cannot wait to get home and grill the fuck out of those shits.

[JW]

Fuck. Now I want some grilled and smoked meats and there aren't any BBQ joints around here.

[SugarFree]

JW,

Where you live that you are so bereft? I'd move.

[J sub D]

You all are aware that the president elect is a tobacco addict?

I expect the nanny state leftist anti-smoking zealots to be bitching about the bad example he sets for American youth, demand that the smoking ban be applied to the White House and otherwise continue their hypocrisy free campaign to stamp out the greatest preventable killer in the observable universe.

Oh, wait ...

[stubby]

I like to light up occasionally with a cocktail, and it's getting harder to find bars with outdoor smoking areas. But I can live happily without cigarettes.

My hub, on the other hand, just completed two whole days without a cigarette - he's on Chantix - I am very proud and grateful he's doing it, and I told the kid that if it got too bad we'd go live with my sister for a week or so.

[anarch]

I'm with kwais @ 10:26, to the extent of wondering what's the difference between second-hand smoke and those smiling salestrons that used to assault customers in department stores by spritzing unsolicited samples of cologne on their clothes, provoking enough allergic responses to suppress the practice legally.

[R C Dean]

Now I want some grilled and smoked meats and there aren't any BBQ joints around here.

I drive past a barbecue joint every day on the way home. You pick your slab o'protein right off the grill. Pork chops an inch and a half thick, smoky fabulousness falling right off the bone. Baby back ribs as tender as a supermodel's torso, only with more meat, of course.

Damn, is it lunch yet?

[stubby]

J sub:

If Obama does it, it's not bad.

[Dello]

A whole day of not mashing my right foot to the floor? Awww...and gas is so cheap,too.

[D]

You all are aware that the president elect is a tobacco addict?

Not to be a pain, but didn't he quit to get elected? Then again, he did a whole bunch of things to get elected that he doesn't have a ghost of an intent to follow through on when he's sworn in, so never mind.

[JW]

Where you live that you are so bereft? I'd move.

Oh, there's plenty of joints outside of DC, there's actually one near my house that's s'OK, but nothing I could go to easily for lunch while at work. And the wife doesn't dig on swine (or succulent, juicy beef brisket....allgglglglgg...mmmm) the way I do, so that reduces my pulled pork opportunties.

Yeah, I know move and get rid of her too. I hear ya...

[PC]

"continue their hypocrisy free campaign to stamp out the greatest preventable killer in the observable universe."

Government?

[cunnivore]

D, judging by the ruckus that followed the last use of tobacco products by a Dem president, Obama better keep quitted.

[rhywun]

I can't wait to see the first leaked photos of him smoking. All the better if it's in the White House.

[Lamar]

Here's the part where I recommend Cigarettes Are Sublime by Richard Klein.

[Big Green Monkey]

I smoke about 2 or 3 CIGARETTES (not packs) a day. Not a terrible habit, just something that I enjoy a few times a day. In honor of Nick posting this, I'll abstain for the day (but I'll probably light up right at midnight).

[Brandybuck]

I quit several years ago. But if I see anyone smoking, I'll bum a smoke and join them. It's my little way of protesting creeping nannyism.

[Matthew]

Monkey,

If that's all you smoke per day, your tobacco related health risks are pretty low. Although, don't expect any health organisation to tell you that.

If I could do that, I'd start up again. (sigh)

[kwais]

Hey!

Lefitis comment is gone. Is reason taking a stronger anti-troll approach?

I had a good retort for him too.