Only Healthy People Smoke

Only healthy people smoke. This statement isn’t against the warning printed on every box of cigarettes: “Smoking may cause cancer, heart attack, impotence, and harm pregnancy and embryo.”

A friend, who is a ‘locomotive’ smoker, always says, “Only healthy people smoke,” anytime someone criticizes his way of smoking. “What do you mean?” I asked, after listening to his defense, one day.

“Only healthy people smoke,” he explained. “When someone is unhealthy and he still smokes, he must be stupid.” He doesn’t mean that by smoking someone may be healthy. What he means is that if someone wants to smoke, he must be in good health; and he shouldn’t smoke when he is in bad health.

One day, this locomotive was sick. A friend and I went to his house to give a visit. The first fifteen minutes, he didn’t smoke. There were no cigarettes or an ashtray on the table. It was a surprise. We thought that he had stopped smoking because of his illness. We didn’t light any cigarettes just in order to ‘appreciate’ him. “What are you doing, men?” he asked while taking out a pack of cigarettes and an ashtray from under the table. He still smoked although he wasn’t in good health. “So, you’re a stupid man,” my friend reminded him. “I am not,” he argued. “I am really in good health.” What a stubborn.

This locomotive smoker has his own reasons to smoke. “Without smoking, I cannot think very well,” he usually says. Many smokers have the same reason, “smoking helps people to think very well.” As we all know, people use brain to think. And, God creates the brain to be able to think without tobaccos. When we say that without smoking we cannot think very well, it means that we insult God who creates the brain.

“Besides,” he added. “Smoking can make me socialize with people easily.” Can it? Why don’t people socialize with non smokers so they needn’t smoke?

The facts that the government gets lots from cigarette tax and that many employees work for cigarette factories are the other reasons for him to continue smoking. “If nobody smokes, the cigarette factories will be closed, and many people lose their jobs, and ….” What can we say?

However, only healthy people smoke. If you aren’t healthy and you stop smoking, you are wise. If you are healthy but you don’t smoke, you are much wiser. Which one are you? (By David Solafide)

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