Nicotine Addiction

I usually meander down the stairs and check the TV news while I toast a couple of crumpets first thing, a good way of starting the day before popping out for newspapers or cranking up the laptop. This morning I saw the latest celebrity bullshit programme being plugged, and I use the word celebrity loosely.

This one is a programme following a bunch of misfits giving up fags. Wow, that will be rivetting viewing. They include the daughter of a couple of TV presenters, a Scouser who talks to the dead and some other bloke who seems to be famous for lying in bed being interviewed by the BBC on a Monday morning. It seems to have gone beyond z-list and left the alphabet completely.

I gave up the weed nearly three years ago, after more than thirty years on twenty a day, forty or more in my nightclubbing days. The main reason was starting to feel vulnerable to killer diseases (probably an age thing), so I wanted to minimise the chances of self-induced illness, especially after spending a night in a hospital which wasn't pleasant but that's another tale. I did it because I wanted to and didn't ponce about with patches, gum or some poxy NHS course. I certainly didn't do it on telly.

One of the things I don't miss, but it still angers me, is the self-righteous twat of a non-smoker who starts coughing and spluttering if he sees somebody light up fifty yards away, wanker. I still oppose the smoking ban, don't feel the urge to wash my hair or my clothes when I've been in the company of smokers, and urge visitors to my house to smoke if they want to. There you are, I'm all self-righteous in the oposite direction.

What I do object to, and it gets me very angry, is the state, in the form of the glorious NHS, putting expensive adverts on TV with kids whining about how mummy or daddy is going to suffer a long, lingering, painful death in front of said infant if they don't give up fags. That's not what I pay taxes for.

I also object to my taxes being spent by the state, in the form of the NHS, on courses and expensive kits to get smokers off nicotine. Then you hear some halfwit from the local NHS Trust telling us how they don't have the money to treat people with heart disease, MND or some other disease that requires expensive medicines.

Smoking, like chopping off your willy and growing breasts, is a lifestyle choice. NHS money should not be spent helping people change their lifestyles, use your own money not mine.

Here is the Libertarian Party policy on health.

I feel better for getting that off my chest, no pun intended.