I'm sick and bloody tired of the same old 'we all know smoking is bad for us' mantra.
Do we, indeed?
My opinion - the result of trawling through far too many scientific e-journals
and sheer, first-hand experience - is that smoking in moderation, like drinking alcohol in moderation, is a damn good thing. It isn't just great for oiling the party wheels (which they both do); it isn't just great at relieving stress (which ditto). People who don't understand tobacco or its role within society tend to focus on its ability to provide some kind of solace or relief to the smoker during episodes of stress. Why something that provides solace or relief for stress should be considered 'a bad thing' is beyond me. You would have thought anything that can make death by firing squad seem at least bearable would be considered a good thing. Isn't stress supposed to bad for us?
Apart from that, what they also fail to understand is tobacco's other great role, which is that of extending happiness.
Perhaps the best example of this comes from a time when the community wasn't so sharply delineated between smokers and non-smokers. Whether he smoked or not, dad traditionally celebrated each new arrival with a cigar. Or how about: 'A drink before and a smoke after'. You can fill in your own event. In either case, tobacco is used to perpetuate a sense of well-being.
So.... (quite apart from some well-documented, scientific evidence that tobacco has measurable, physical benefits) all those moments of acute stress alleviated by tobacco, and all those happy moments, magnified by tobacco add together to make a lot of stress-free living!
Smoke and be happy