People might smoke a lot, have for a long time and all their friends may smoke too, but I can never use the word "normal" to describe what they do. There can be nothing normal about getting yourself addicted and regularly sucking on a hells brew of carcinogenic chemicals.
Much tak about bus fumes.....
Two years back a party of four of us tackled the Kungsleden trail in the Arctic mountains. One of our party had been battling to give up smoking for 6 months prior, and mostly failing. Swore he would not take cigarettes with him on the trail. So there we are, at a convergence of two snow melt rivers going over a waterfall. The sky was crystal blue, the low scrub trees in full leaf, the air so clean the visibility seemed to go on to the curvature of the earth, the water tasted delicious, no need for purification. Just drink it direct.
It was magical. almost spiritual, and then it hit us. The stench of a blaardy cigarette coming from the low scrub where he clearly thought nobody would ever know, or care. In fact all three of the party were furious at his stink ruining the moment and I went over to where he obviously was, just in time to see him flick that fag end in to the river. When I said "well, that fag end or at least a dilution of all the poisons it contains will now likely end up in someones water bottle", he said "I never thought, just habit".
Cleanest air in the World, cleanest water in the world, and one smoker in the habit of just flicking his fag end anywhere he fancied.
He's given up now, pretty much forced to by a new girlfriend. I mentioned that incident to him only a couple of weeks back. He said he was horrified by his own thoughtlessness and had no idea just how offensive cigarette smoke was to others (no matter how many times he was told) until he had given up for over a year, then he understood. And that is the problem, all the while they smoke they will never know.
