L.A. Boondoggle

NEWSFLASH!!!! Smoking cigarettes causes cancer!!! Well, maybe. . . Do we know what causes cancer in general? I’ve heard cell mutation does and it sounds like a good explanation to me. What causes cell mutation? Cigarettes? Well, not all the time, maybe there’s something else in this puzzle. We don’t know exactly if the chemicals in cigarettes cause cancer 100% of the time in all test subjects in a lab designed to simulate everyday scenarios. What we do know though is that some people that smoke cigarettes get cancer and somehow that gives self-righteous, hypocritical assholes the right to infringe on the rights of smokers.  So what’s the average person really know? He knows that cigarettes and cancer are directly related somehow and therefore he shouldn’t smoke cigarettes or let anyone else smoke cigarettes for that matter. A far cry from the days when the average person knew that cigarettes were a great substitute for candy, helped you lose weight, and went great with coffee, cocaine, and whiskey. You could ask an anti-tobacco proponent how cigarettes cause cancer but they’d be hard pressed to since they don’t like to dabble in things like science or common sense. I don’t know about you, but I prefer the old days. Now anti-tobacco supporters would like you to not know anything more or less about the case but being that I used to be self-conscious about the fact that I was a smoker, I’m not about to let that happen. Sir Walter Raleigh wouldn’t tolerate what’s going on now and I’m sure as hell not going to either! This is the first in a multi-part series that I call “Assault on America: Uncovering the Plot to Kill Fun Forever”.

In case you haven’t figured it out, Part 1 is on smoking and why it kicks ass and is essential to our freedom. Not that smoking in general is being directly assaulted. I’m pretty sure that anti-tobacco proponents wouldn’t mind you smoking in certain situations so long as you’re not outside, in public, or around any non-smokers; owning a walk-in closet is pretty much like having a smoking license in their eyes. This is all fine and good but I think I have the right to annoy people with my vices just like everyone else. A Harley-Davidson motorcycle owner can annoy the fuck out of people with his insanely loud exhaust. A pet owner can annoy others by walking his barking, shitting, territory marking dog in public. The homeless can beg for change, Christians can pass flyers out in public, street musicians can butcher songs, and Rosie O’donnel has her own show. . . None of these things seem to be majorly villified, at least not in the form of national campaigns. Smoke a cigarette in line at a movie theater and people will look at you like you just took a shit in their holy water while wiping your ass with pages from the bible and burning an American flag. Well, maybe they’d be pissed if you did all that, I’ve found that people tolerate almost any sort of behaviour so long as you wear a smile and an eye patch while you’re doing it. The point being that the minute someone sees second hand smoke in the air they immediately morph into the surgeon general and try to enlighten you on how that smoke is not only killing you, but everyone around you as well. These are the same idiots that believe the Toyota Prius actually gets 60 miles per gallon of gasoline. Why? Because the EPA told them so.

Taking a closer look at what the EPA told them yields some shocking results. They did do a study, which is somewhat interesting because I think if those that worked at the EPA actually studied when it counted they might have gotten better jobs in the private sector, but let’s not get sidetracked. In 1997 the EPA did a report claiming that second hand smoke(SHS), also known as environmental tobacco smoke(ETS), kills more than 53,800 people a year. The EPA felt that doing all that boring science stuff was a waste of time and came out with the figure by taking the midpoint death tolls of heart disease, lung cancer, and other illnesses of non-smokers, regardless of whether or not these people had been exposed to second hand smoke. In that same way I can guestimate safely that over 1.5 million people die each year due to complications related to chronic masturbation and that figure doesn’t even include statistics on second hand masturbation related deaths, it’ll only be a matter of time before Jergen’s and Kleenex are taxed heavily.

The EPA even saw the logistical errors in their numbers and decided to do some “science” to get a more accurate one. Their “science” consisted of little more than a Time Life survey of 31 different reports, compiled and averaged to yield a number of 3,000 deaths caused by undefined circumstances. A similar survey would also cut my chronic masturbation number down to around 4,000 deaths per year, I think we’re starting to see who the real killer is. Normally I wouldn’t spoil the ending so soon but the World Health Organization did their own environmental tobacco study and found no measurable relationship between ETS and any form of illness. Soon after the EPA and the World Health Organization both agreed that science sucks and they’ll never try it again and they’re really pissed that I just told everyone that Snape kills Dumbledore. As for the Toyota Prius, that piece of shit gets around 44 mpg, still good but not really worth the markup in price or being called a pussy for driving such a gay car. At the end of the day who would you rather trust? A lazy branch of the government that’s easily manipulated by special interests or a multi-billion dollar corporation that encourages us to believe that it’s okay for a camel to wear sunglasses, drink, smoke, and have sex with women? I think the asnwer is obvious.

The problem isn’t helped when groups like the ironically named “thetruth.com” run ads using the EPA’s make believe statistics and stir shit up in order to encourage people to vote on smoking bans. No one seems to think that if they don’t want to smell smoke in a restaurant, they can simply go to a different restaurant. Instead we have to make laws banning smoking in restaurants. Well why not take it further? Make it illegal to be fat, being fat is visually annoying to others. Or we could just outlaw eating in public for obese people, I think that’d definitely cramp Rob Reiner’s style. And no, it’s not a thyroid problem, asshole, and I’m tired of going into the bathroom at work after some fat asshole releases their “thyroid problem” all over the place. The same logic applied to different situations just doesn’t pan out. Father Mac Burton had this to say about it: “The bottom line is that special interest groups are selective in their application of moral culpability, and thus they are hypcrites. Anti-smoking groups are outraged by RJ Reynolds for advertising to underage consumers, yet are perfectly willing to drive their child in their Ford car to McDonalds, let them indulge themselves in Ronald’s Playland and let them consume Coca-Cola products. All of the above companies want to make their products recognizable and desirable, and want children to associate their products with good feelings long before they are able to be discerning consumers. Why single out Big Tobacco when the products of any of the three companies mentioned above, as well as hundreds of others, may kill their child?” The bans only hurt small businesses and undermine our freedom to choose and I’ve done an EPA style scientific study or two and come to the conclusion that listening to anything that the Ad Council has to say severly shrinks your testicles.

So let’s dig a little deeper and create some spin of our own! You might be suprised to find that smoking has some health benefits. . . a lot of them. So brace yourself for the locomotive of truth that’s about to hit ya. It’s been observed that smoking reduces the incidence of endometrial cancer, Parkinson’s disease, ulcerative colitis, hypertension of pregnancy, and Alzheimer’s disease. So basically, if you spin like a thetruth.com guy does, you could say that anti-tobacco lobbyists hate women and old people. There’s plenty more that anti-tobacco lobbyists hate as well. Smoking improves human information processing and motor performance. Smokers are thinner in general than non-smokers while still ingesting more calories due to nicotine increasing metabolism levels. Smokers have been found in studies to have less gingivitis, plaque, and tooth mobility than non-smokers. Smokers have lower instances of postoperative deep vein thrombosis than nonsmokers. Smokers have less hypertension than nonsmokers. A smokers red blood cells have more glutathione and catalase and protect lung endothelial cells against dioxide metabolites better than red blood cells in nonsmokers(I have no idea if that’s good or bad but it sounds kickass). Smokers working with asbestos have fewer immunological abnormalities than nonsmokers working with asbestos. This one is a nice kicker: in Australia, smokers over the age of 45 get heart disease less than non-smokers and ex-smokers. I mean shit, I think I’m gonna go light one up now. So what do we know now? If you want to be a fat, toothless person who shakes and forgets shit all the time and dies of heart disease, go ahead and stay smoke free.

If you want to die of lung cancer, go ahead and smoke. I’ve even got a cool campaign cartoon for our new ad campaign. I asked His Nastyness if he knew of any smoking benefits and he had this to say, “Smoking reminds you that you’re alive. I mean hell, if you haven’t smoked you haven’t really lived now have you. Sure you might cough every now and then but who doesn’t? And as far as that limp dick shit goes, I have yet to experience that. I have boners on a daily basis and now that I smoke, in my fantasies the girls with cigarettes actually like me.” Take that American Heart and Lung Association!

I suppose for the final stake in the bullshit coffin we’ll just let it all ride. Over the last 30 years the smoking population has been cut in half but life expectancy hasn’t gone up like it should. Smoking has been on decline but childhood illnesses related to it such as asthma and ADD are rapidly rising still. Cigarettes contain 4000 chemicals, there’s around 10,000 chemicals in your daily diet. And as for the smoking gun for cigarettes that linked them to lung cancer. . . larger quantities of arsenic can be found in a glass of tap water than in one cigarette. That’s right, now consider this: Only a certain percentage of those who’ve gotten lung cancer have had cigarettes. . . they’ve all had water and in the male demographic nearly all of them have masturbated!!!! I’m not even gonna say what that implies but I think a certain general of the surgeons owes a certain multi-billion dollar industy an apology.

So what does it all mean in the end? Well, allow me to do your thinking for you and assert that smoking is still a a great substitute for candy, helps you lose weight, and goes great with coffee, cocaine, and whiskey. You may get cancer from smoking but you also might get cancer from your cell phone, eating grilled meat, or masturbating so quit being a dickhead and light one up. In the words of Father Mac Burton “It’s time these anti-smoking pussies stopped blaming the industry and started blaming the individuals who overindulge in things that many of us can casually enjoy. Stop ruining it for everyone else you assholes!” I dig it, brother! Stay Smoking America, You Deserve It!