Public Comment

I began smoking cigarettes before this act became socially unacceptable, and I think the year was 1990. I was in my twenties, and medical repercussions seemed very distant. I was off medication, I was relapsing, and I smoked and "decompensated" listening to my brother's Jethro Tull album, and I used up all my brother's cigarettes.

Then, I was an inpatient at a locked ward at Herrick, and one of the staff members kept loaning me his cigarettes. (And an additional note about Herrick in the nineteen-nineties: I spoke to a woman there who was terrified, she said, of "going upstairs." She might have been getting shock treatments.)

But that was the start of my smoking. I was unwary. I assumed I would be strong-willed enough so that I would always be able to quit smoking. Could someone like me be hooked and unable to quit? Certainly not me! I was age, I think, about twenty-five. 

I returned to my apartment. When I was ill, I hadn't been working and hadn't had any money to live on. However, by the time I got home, money was waiting for me in the form of a retroactive check from Social Security. I was able to get caught up on rent, I was able to pay the utilities, and... I could eat. I'd lost considerable weight because of starvation--being too ill with psychosis to be organized enough to get free food. (I didn't get back to a normal weight until at least ten years later.) 

I'd been released from Herrick. I was at home, I had necessities paid for, and this was without the need to go to work. It was quite a relief to know I didn't need to work to survive. And cigarettes were very appealing. I'd wake up and sit around and have cigarettes and coffee all morning. That's what mentally ill people once did in times of basic freedom--before we became controlled to the extent that we are. Nowadays, such indulgent lifestyles are rarely allowed. 

In 1990, cigarettes were about a buck a pack.  

Fast forward thirty years... 

I'm still smoking, and it is illegal to do so in many, if not most places, by virtue of multiple ordinances and rules. Smoking is highly frowned upon, and it is thought of as stupid. It is a foolish activity for fools. That's a simple fact. If you don't smoke, don't start. After the first one, you're a goner. 

I'm making another attempt at quitting, and we will see how this goes. Nothing is for sure, and when addicted to nicotine, anyone can fall "off the wagon." I'm transitioning to a modern-day substitute that is widely criticized. 

Even tobacco companies are quite aware of the problems with smoking and the strength of the addiction, and the tobacco companies' executives don't smoke. 

The tax on cigarettes means that I should be buying Beluga Caviar instead of smoking--at ten dollars a pack, cheapest. How do you pay for that? Sometimes, it is a matter of having a choice between smoking vs. eating and having a roof over your head. It could go either way. You could have a five-dollar miscalculation or a fifty-dollar unanticipated expense, and you're out on the street. But guess what, have a cigarette on me.