Smoking and peer pressure

Your sitting or standing around with your friends and their lighting up their cigarettes, they offer one to you. You know you shouldn't be smoking but yet you don't want to look 'uncool' to your friends, what do you do? While the easiest thing may seem to just 'go with the crowd', that doesn't mean it's the right choice. If these people are really your friends they'll still be your friends whether you smoke with them or not.

Throughout your life you'll be faced with choices, and you're becoming an adult so now is a good time to start learning how to make the right choices. You don't have to 'follow the crowd', you do have a choice. Make the right one now and you'll thank yourself down the road, I promise you.

When your friends say its ok, you should, too. When they describe the myriad joys to be had from cigarettes, it's time for you to take a drag. Hold it for a moment. Don't exhale immediately. Are you getting a little dizzy? Aren't you about to cough? Is this really what your poor throat needs?

Tell Mac. Tell him that the smoke doesn't go down like syrup-it stings like you-know-what. Let's break that image, too. Cigarettes aren't honey and champagne and sweet cider and pure spring water all in one. They burn.

When you hear someone say that cigarettes are great, add a few choice words to them. If Flubbs says that it makes you look mature, you can then volunteer interesting information about the other things cigarettes give you. For example, the fellow who smokes two packs or more a day has a seventy times greater chance of lung cancer, according to one unbiased source, than the man who doesn't smoke anything. Tell them about that-do you think they know it?

Don't let them try to convice you to smoke because the cigarettes have filters. So much happens so fast that it's hard to remind the people that while filters are really swell and probably a great improvement, they don't quite catch all those nasty ingredients. They don't even seem to filter out the stuff that makes you cough, snore, and clear your throat. Tell Mac that you're puffing away on a filter-tip right now, and describe your sensations. Do they match his?

If he glowingly describes the icy qualities of his mentholated brand, you'd better remind him that the smoke entering your mouth is still pretty hot, produced at a burning tip hot enough to char paper and wood. And no matter what, hot smoke raises the temperature of your lips and mouth. "Mac," you should say, "please get the facts straight. I'm beginning to lose faith in you." Poor Mac-you may be getting him confused. But you'll be setting yourself straight and who knows maybe you'll actually convince your friends that this nasty habit is not cool at all!