Hannah Rodriguez (FGCU): From one try to 22 years.

16. October 2009 by student.

One of my professors told my class a story one day about how she has been smoking for 22 years. (The story dealt with learning how to explain things with levels of meaning).  She continued on with the story telling us how she started buying cigarettes at age fourteen and that smoking then was mainly a social activity that everyone did.  She said that she has always loved smoking and she can’t quit. She’s tried using the electronic cigarettes but said it wasn’t that she needed to have something in her hands or anything like that, it just wasn’t the same and she still craved cigarettes. At FGCU, there are designated smoking stations and she said that she feels like these areas marginalized smokers and has pushed them all together and in her hometown, smoking is banned almost everywhere. She also told us that when she is grading essays, about every three papers she has to have a cigarette. She knows how bad this is for her but no matter what she tries she cannot quit.

I think smoking has and still is a major issue with today’s society and has even become socially acceptable to yell and be rude to someone you see smoking a cigarette. There are more warnings out there about smoking and what cigarettes can do to you with new research, but many people are still smoking even with these warnings. Some may think that just because one person died doesn’t mean that the same thing will happen to them until they actually become ill or develop issues related to the years of smoking. Also, when some teenagers turn 18, and I’ve witnessed this personally when one of my friends turned 18, they will buy cigarettes and try one just because they are legal and able to. Although this friend of mine did not smoke anymore, if they were to get addicted, they could develop an addiction or even an illness later on in life just because they wanted to smoke a cigarette because they finally could legally and it would never have been worth it.

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