To: Jacques Chitte who wrote (26531 ) 5/30/1999 1:55:00 AM From: Neocon Read Replies (2) | Respond to
My experience, and that of numerous friends and relatives, is that it is irksome to quit, but not as difficult as is commonly understood by the term "addiction". Even those who assert that nicotine is addictive seem to acknowledge that it is only so for some people, and that the causality is poorly understood, which leaves open the question of whether it is primarily physiological, or primarily psychosocial. We readily label all kinds of things addictive nowadays, from sex to the Internet, and I am tired of it, because it ultimately undermines personal responsibility. Are you a womanizer? Well, then you have a sexual addiction, and so cannot be blamed. Do you neglect your family because of being on- line? Poor baby, you are the victim of an addiction. Does that mean that there are no genuine psychological problems associated with such behavior? No, sometimes there are. But see how an excuse for making little or no effort to amend one's behavior is provided...Anyway, the addiction label is being used as a rationale for making smoking a "save the children" issue. Obviously, it is the safest to smoke in one's youth. Most of the hazards of smoking are sharply reduced if one quits at about 40, especially if one were not so heavy a smoker in the first place. Without the assertion of addiction, there would be little rationale for targeting teen smoking, and without that, there would be little reason for turning the whole thing into a crusade against the evil tobacco companies, since older people are assumed to be more responsible in their choices. If one has a reasonable opportunity to quit by the time one is 40, instead of being "snared", then the whole thing evaporates. One more crusade bites the dust...Then we can concentrate resources on your friends, i.e., those who need special help...
