smoking
© bureaucrash.com
"Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves." - Abraham Lincoln
I was born in Iran in 1985 when the country was recovering from the effects of the 1979 revolution and the fascist take-over of the Islamic Republic. That, however, is not what I want to write about today. I'm writing about my experiences throughout my life with smoking and anti-smoking, and how closely the anti-smoking lobby, and the social attitudes it has produced, resembles fascism.

My father was a smoker, and my mom was not. In fact, after my parent's divorce, my mom became a complete anti-smoker. One reason was perhaps because she associated smoking with my father, whom she had begun to dislike. I had a different idea of smoking. Most of my father's family smoked, and I had nothing but fond memories from smokers - especially my father. The smell of tobacco on his clothes when he held me, the look of pleasure when he lit up a smoke after a nice meal and the hours of conversation that was spent between adults around the hookah.

My first experience with the anti-smoking lobby came one day at school, when my school (which, I should mention, was a complete by-product of the Islamic Republic's religious belief system) dedicated a whole day to inform children about the harmful effects of smoking and how we should all convince our parents to stop smoking if we wanted them to live. They even gave us stickers to take home with us that said, "Dear parent: do you want to live to see me grow up? Then stop smoking now!"

I remember being quite shocked and scared after that 'lesson' about smoking. I cried thinking my dad was surely going to die because he smoked a lot! My parents had divorced at that time, so when I went home I waited for my dad to come pick me up from my mom's house for our daily visit. When I returned home, I was still quite upset so my mom asked me what was the matter and I told her that I thought my dad was going to die because he smoked. She didn't say much except that smoking was indeed very bad and to go ahead and give my dad the sticker. When my dad came to pick me up, he was shocked to see my sad face and my puffy eyes from crying all day. I told him what had happened, gave him the sticker and begged him through tears to stop smoking. He became upset too, and in a low voice he said, "I'll try." But that wasn't good enough for me. I told him, "But don't you want to live to see me grow up?" He said, "Of course I do, but life is more complicated than that." Then he faced my mom and asked, "What kind of crap have they been teaching her in school?!?" My mom replied, "I happen to agree with what they taught!" And he replied, "Since when do you agree with the fascists of Islamic Republic?" My mom went silent and said nothing else.

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Coloured smoke art: River deep, by Graham Jeffrey
Shortly after, my mom and I emigrated to Vancouver, Canada and my dad stayed in Iran. I was 10 when we left and the new world seemed so grand and, by most accounts, better than Iran. It was 1995 then and although people smoked, the smoking population was scarce compared to Iran's. I remember in the shopping malls and restaurants there were dedicated smoking sections. Of course, we'd always eat in non-smoking areas and my mom would always make a comment or two to me about the stink of tobacco as we walked by the smokers.

But I also notice that in schools and many other places the anti-smoking lobby had been hard at work.

My dad came for a visit, and during his stay he made a couple of comments about how anti-smoking was so bad here, but I didn't really pay attention.

In my early teens I started smoking and I hid it from my mother. In fact, I hide it from her to this day because I believe she doesn't have the capability of understand why I do it. She's so mind-programmed about it and once openly admitted to me that she's an anti-smoking fascist. It happened when we were having a discussion about how happy she was that they were banning smoking in parks and beaches in Vancouver, and that smokers have to be five meters away from any retail store if they want to smoke. I told her that I thought this was pure fascism at work, and she said, "Well, if being an anti-smoker is being a fascist, than I guess I'm a fascist!"

By this time I was a fully grown adult and, being a regular reader of SOTT.net, I began to study many things, from psychology to the benefits of smoking and the similarities between anti-smokers and the totalitarian mind-set.

Before I go on, I want to share with the reader just some of the articles I've read in the past that discuss the benefits of smoking.
smoking
© unknown
Health Benefits of Smoking Tobacco

Smoking Helps Protect Against Lung Cancer

Smoking does NOT cause lung cancer, in fact it just might protect you from nuclear fallout

Lies, Damned Lies & 400,000 Smoking-related Deaths: Cooking the Data in the Fascists' Anti-Smoking Crusade

5 Health Benefits of Smoking

Does Smoking Help Protect the Joints?

Long-Term Smoking Protects Against Parkinson's, Study Confirms

Warning: Nicotine Seriously Improves Health

Let's All Light Up!

So, as we can see, smoking tobacco does indeed have benefits for some people. But most people, even those who are well educated and hold the highest degrees (like my mom) can't arrive at the simple fact that smoking could be good and not what it has been propagated to be.

I've noticed some readers of this site comment on smoking articles by stating how smoking tobacco makes them cough, and that it is not good for them, so I want to emphasise that smoking is beneficial for some, but not all. Smoking is like anything else in life; you do it if your body doesn't object. Everyone's genetics and bodies differ from one another so it is up to you to decide through research and experimentation whether or not you are someone who can benefit from smoking. Neither I nor anyone is stating that you should start smoking if you never have, or that you should return to it if you have tried it and it doesn't go with you.

All I want to do by writing this article is to point out that smoking tobacco does have benefits for some and that the government and anti-smoking lobby has gone out of its way in trying to stop people from realising this.

Why?

Another good question we might ask ourselves is; when has the government and Big Pharma EVER told the truth? When have they ever had the people's best interests at heart? If the answer to that for you is "never", then why would the anti-smoking campaign be any different from any other lie they've ever told?

It is also worth mentioning that as a result of my research into smoking, I've discovered that the true benefit of tobacco comes with smoking organic tobacco. Not mass-produced cigarettes which contain many chemicals that are harmful to the body. This gives pause when thinking about cancer caused by smoking. In truth, the cancers associated with smoking, assuming that they are causally related, most likely result from ingesting all the harmful chemicals added to cigarettes, not the actual tobacco!

So let's speculate a bit on why your government doesn't want you to smoke. As the writer in one of the articles above wrote:
Every year, thousands of medical doctors and other members of the "Anti-Smoking Inquisition" spend billions of dollars perpetuating what has unquestionably become the most misleading though successful social engineering scam in history. With the encouragement of most western governments, these Orwellian lobbyists pursue smokers with a fanatical zeal that completely overshadows the ridiculous American alcohol prohibition debacle, which started in 1919 and lasted until 1933.

Nowadays we look back on American prohibition with justifiable astonishment. Is it really true that an entire nation allowed itself to be denied a beer or scotch by a tiny group of tambourine-bashing fanatics? Sadly, yes it is, despite a total lack of evidence that alcohol causes any harm to humans, unless consumed in truly astronomical quantities.

Alas, the safety of alcohol was of no interest to the tambourine-bashers, for whom control over others was the one and only true goal. Americans were visibly "sinning" by enjoying themselves having a few alcoholic drinks, and the puritans interceded on behalf of God to make them all feel miserable again.

Although there is no direct link between alcohol and tobacco, the history of American prohibition is important, because it helps us understand how a tiny number of zealots managed to control the behavior and lives of tens of millions of people. Nowadays exactly the same thing is happening to smokers, though this time it is at the hands of government zealots and ignorant medical practitioners rather than tambourine-bashing religious fanatics.
Consider the cold hard fact that the world is currently run by psychopaths. Leaving aside the health benefits of smoking, smoking should be a free choice irrespective of what it does to our minds and bodies! In this day and age however, we have steadily been giving up our basic rights as humans. This is why I say that the anti-smoking lobby is essentially a manifestation of fascism. The psychopaths are practicing their control over us (and getting great enjoyment from it too) by preventing us from smoking.

I have spoken to many old timers in my city who told me that they used to be able to smoke in theatres, buses, trains, planes, restaurants, bars and pretty much anywhere. Now, some of us can't even smoke on sidewalks! And the anti-smoking fascism isn't limited to the US or Canada. It has literally taken over the world!

We could even speculate further about why the psychopaths in the government/Big Pharma don't want you to smoke.

If we go back to the health benefits of smoking, we can clearly see that smoking helps cure or at least prevent diseases like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. Now think to yourself, how many thousands of people suffer from those diseases? How much money does Big Pharma make on prescription drugs and 'treatment' for these diseases? Why would they not want people to know about what actually helps their health and stops their ailments? Because, simply put, there is no profit in it. Big Pharma is not in the business of curing people. It is in the business of making profit off of people's sickness. More sick people equals more profit. Without good health, we're walking sacks of money to those psychos; just healthy enough to run the machines and do their work for them, but so worn down by the stress of modern living that we can barely function, let alone pay attention to the rapidly changing reality. That is another good reason why good health is important.

smoking
© unknown
I was inspired to write about all this because I have been travelling through Europe (mostly Italy) and it has been a breath of fresh air (pun intended) to be able to smoke in so many places freely. Mind you smoking is still banned indoors even there, but outside, everybody smokes! And no one judges you. In Canada (specifically Vancouver) anti-smoking has taken over people like nothing I've ever seen. If you smoke and a non-smoker walks past you, they begin coughing out loud, even if you're standing 5 feet away from them, giving you a look of disgust. I know because my mom does it to people, and strangers have done it to me. They make you feel like you're less than human because you smoke. Is that any way to treat one another?

I began writing this by explaining about the place I grew up which was (and to be honest, still is) a blatantly fascist state. From how my own mother's mentality went from someone who disliked smoking to someone who openly admits that when it comes to smoking, she's a fascist. From witnessing the world around me in Canada change, year by year to a more authoritarian place. And all because of what? A selected few who get their jollies by controlling others. Did you know that politicians in both the US Congress and the European Parliament exempted themselves from smoking bans in Washington, D.C. and Brussels?! This means that the lawmakers who passed the laws banning smoking in the US and EU are allowed to smoke while us subhumans can all go eat cake. The hypocrisy, lies and disinformation are so rampant and glaringly obvious but most people simply refuse to acknowledge it, preferring instead to pretend that they are free in a world where they have no real choices.

I think a quote from George Orwell's Animal Farm best describes the situation:
"All animals are equal. But some animals are more equal than others."
Psychopathy is truly a fast-acting and fast-spreading disease. Take a look around you, at all the things psychopaths have done to our world. Inform yourselves and others about psychopathy. We have to do something, before it's too late and all our liberties are taken from us. I think just knowing about it could a tremendous step in the right direction.
"The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it." John Stewart Mill
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