h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Generous smokers can embalm the internal organs of their nearest and dearest, or even total strangers, simply by lighting up one of their sticks of dried tobacco in company.
While you are waiting for death, thanks to the generosity of the smoking population, you can enjoy the new aroma of all your clothes.
However, unless you take up the habit yourself, you'll not get the authentic yellow teeth (excessive consupmtion of black tea may help) or stained fingers (try a yellowy brown felt tip).
At least you can console yourself with the money you've saved - although perhaps you should consider contributing it to your pension for those extra years ahead.

How about something along the lines of:

A ritual performed by only one species on Earth - the supposedly superior Humans. Just how superior they are must be questioned when one examines this ritual closer.

To smoke one must:

1. Take some dead leaves: either by themselves (called a 'cigar'); or stuffed into a 'pipe' (dead wood) or a 'cigarette' (a different kind of dead wood).

2. Set fire to the leaves and suck in the smoke.

3. Tell everyone around you that you could 'give up tomorrow if you wanted to'.

Smoking is practised by all ages, the younger ones often start the ritual with the words 'Did the earth move for you love?', while older smokers prefer 'Pass my oxygen mask will you dear'.

I have only one thing to say:
Us non-smokers chose not to smoke, yet by the means of uncaring and selfish others we are made to when we sit next to them - it probably does just as much damage to you as to them. I don't want to smoke; but why should i have to?

I like smoking, so there. Bet you drive a car and make people other people breathe in noxious exhaust fumes. How much worse is that? Of course, if you don't drive a car then my apologies and congratulations on your laudable environmental conscience.

Lets face it is hard and it is cool. Otherwise why is it that all the most attractive, funny and interesting
people smoke cigarettes. So lets stop all this silly fussing about things being bad for us and get out
our fags and start smokin'.

And anyway, in a few years we will be able to grow ourselves new lungs so what's the problem.

'In a few years'? Are you sure you're from Earth?
I exepct to be long dead before extra lung growth in humans becomes standard.
I suppose it's only one step on from the cell growths we call cancerous tumours, which, to complete the circular arguement, may be caused by smoking.
But if we didn't risk getting cancer from smoking we wouldn't need to grow extra lungs as the old ones wouldn't be cancerous.
On the other hand, we'd have to grow the lungs as we'd stimulated the cell growth through smoking.
Smokers would end up being suffocated by the proliferation of their own respiratory tissue, which we might call cancer.

Yeah, but what a way to go!

The British Government would go bankrupt if smokers didn't smoke.

Actually they are already shooting themselves in the foot by constantly putting up the duty on cigarettes and Alcohol.Its seems ridiculous that us smokers now regularly buy smokes on the black market so the Government gets nothing.Bring down the price.smokers are not going to give up if you put the price up-just get cheaper fags elsewhere.I say freedom of choice.
If you don't like smoking go to non-smoking places.
I respect people's wishes by not smoking in trains plains and nearly
everywhere else theses days so if you don't like it don't go to pubs
clubs etc-maybe someone should have a non-smoking pub?that would be a first.I certainly would not be there.Smoking and drinking go hand in hand.

Hear hear! Non smoking theme pubs with horrid play areas outside for people with kids. Filter out the clean-living middle-class moral-majority riff raff. Then we can get down to the real business of pickling our livers and clogging up our lungs in the real pubs.

Nobus, you seem like a decent, right-thinking individual. How about I take you out for a drink and we can share views on how to improve the world at large? How come you've got nothing on your home page incidentally?

Is Nobus your alter ego you mention on your home page?

Jonny, are you trying to chat me up?
I don't normally go out for drinks with strange men.

I most certainly am not.

That's not what I've heard.

Bobby Magnum put me up to it. He often goes out for drinks with strange men.

Everyone's going to stop there, then? No nice large arguments?

"Probably as much as etc"? Get real. Someone living in London gets about three fags' worth daily of shite in their lungs from non-fag sources such as large unmaintained buses, industry and the ubiquitous car. Shite in the lungs might as well be admitted to the body by a nice means.

Quite right. Smoking is the least of our worries. I'm all for the abolition of cars from central London. Nasty filthy things, crawling along everywhere at 15mph and disturbing the peace by constantly hooting at each other when they snarl up the junction between North End Road and Talgarth Road.

The best way to irritate cars is by calmly cycling through them all. Do not weave in the manner of the cycle courier - they are wrong to do this and the drivers are right to shout at them. Abide the rules of the road and the drivers will not have a wheel to sit festering on. Alternatively, pretend to be one of those nutters that wanders in to the traffic and makes it stop.

Are we talking abou smking tobacco or cannabis!
It is to be noted that although smoking tobacco may preserve the internal organs
smoking marijuana can only:-
improve your lung function
improve your outlook on life
save the world
fuel the world for transport and power
clothe every body
make oxegen to breathe
bring health and reliev from pain for many people