TO SMOKE OR NOT TO SMOKE

TO SMOKE OR NOT TO SMOKE

(Intended for smokers and non-smokers)

By Tikum Mbah Azonga

Frankly, I have often wondered whether smokers know what harm they are doing to themselves and society at large when they smoke.

A smoker smells of cigarette and everything and anything they touch smells of cigarette. When they shake hands with you, they leave that strong smell of smoking in your palm. When they leave an area in which they have been smoking, the smell they left behind lingers on and becomes offensive to the innocent people in that place. The clothes and other belongings of smokers always smell of tobacco. Worse, still, when they smoke near you, you also “smoke”, unknowingly and innocently by inhaling the smoke they exhale. In the long run you the innocent bystander at the time of the smoking act, still pay the ultimate price.

It`s easy to spot a smoker, even if he or she is not at that moment in the act of smoking. Their body looks dehydrated, rough and unfriendly. They look thin and frail. Sometimes their lips go red after being “burned” by the hot smoke of the cigarette, of they go black. Excessive smoking also blackens the smoker`s teeth. Smoking greatly damages ones health and even kills eventually. Then, imagine the poor relatives the smokers leaves behind, after unduly hastening his or her death by smoking.

Sometimes smokers leave a meeting during the most important part of it to go out just to smoke. Some have even been known to leave church during the homily in order to go out and smoke. 

Smoking as an act is usually considered as “dirty”. Strangely enough when non-smokers ask smokers whether they too should start smoking, the answer is something like: “No, don`t! It`s a very bad thing! In fact I wish I could stop it!” One reason why smoking is a bad habit is that it is the kind of habit which should not be recommended to young ones, they who are the leaders of tomorrow. The hitch is that most adults, who smoke, still do so even when they are in the presence of little children.

So, when shall we learn to say, “Goodbye to smoking!”?