Hi Nightlight, thanks for that. Very very interesting. yep, there are most definitely two sides to this and I feel it's the degraded version of cigarettes we now have that are causing the problems. The stuff they add to them, they are a perverted version of what was once used as you mentioned.

perhaps the old style plain smoking tobacco wasn't so bad, but certainly what is out there now on our shelves are just sticks of poison. I know someone who raises tobacco, he farms it and told me that if people knew what was done to this stuff, they'd not touch it!

So as usual, it seems once it's interferred with and added to enough with whatever poisons, it is no longer what it was and then of course, it's blamed for causing the problems, when it's what they do to it that is most likely the issue.

I enjoy a smoke, but certainly after what happened, I am unlikely to ever be able to. though maybe one on occassion would be ok. I don't want to become a smoker though, but I don't see the harm in the occasional one, if it's of the variety you have mentioned. The ones that do not contain the garbage they add to them on the supermarket shelves.

I too have heard some benefits of smoking, but the stuff on the shelves with what they do, wuold far outweigh any benefits and the amount of toxins in them now is just ridiculous.

My Mother smoked for years and gave up due to getting a pain in her chest. The pain gradually went after giving up. My father smoked and developed a cough, the cough was worsening as time went on and the longer he smoked, the worse it got. He gave up and the cough went. There is NO denying that there is a very bad downside to this stuff and in our country, we are forking out for people with lung cancer because of their smoking. Some are lucky enough to improve after giving up smoking before things have gotten that bad.

There are those who have smoked so heavily, they've had to have a plug like device put in their throat to talk out of. Let's not forget these cases!

I think the old style smokes certainly may have some benefits as you have mentioned. No doubt about it, but where is the middle line? I think the occasional smoke may have benefits (if it's the right kind), but unfortunately most people are smoking whatever they get on a supermarket shelf and smoking a lot of them.

But I thank you for sharing all that with us, because it's really interesting to read. It does give me food for thought, but I'd never take up smoking regardless. I "may" try the good kind on occassion (in moderation) oneday though, but I think it's a case of people becoming easily addicted and then sadly moderation goes out the window and they find their spend a lot of their earned money on smokes and can't get through a day without them.

But again, after what they now do to them and what they contain, is it any wonder there is a addictive element, because that is what the makers want.