I don’t know how you afford it in the UK anyway $15.81 a pack. Here it’s between $7 and $8, which is still too expensive. 
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We all know that where there’s a will, there’s a way Danny.
I remember that in the past I had a choice between buying food for the day or a packet of ciggies. I lost a lot of weight back then, especially when my car broke down and I had to walk to work, to the shops etc etc. Needless to say, the reason I couldn’t afford to get the car fixed was that I needed the cash for cigs.
Madness, eh?
Thank God that NZ is taking such a big step to try and prevent youngsters having the same life of slavery and misery!! Good for them.
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Well done Danny on giving up three months’ ago, if my own experience is anything to go by you should feel healthier and reap the benefit of many other things and never regret it.
Smoking is another drug like any others you care to name, it will always take precedence over the necessary things in life. That is what people do to afford it. I’ve no idea nowadays of the cost of a pack of cigarettes but whatever it is just think of all that could be bought with that money, what’s required is the will to give up, that’s the hard part. Once the decision is made it’s up to that person, nobody else can do that for you.
Keep up the good work Danny, be proud of now being an ex-smoker, it’s well worth it.
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Totally agree Baz. I stopped smoking for a few years a few years ago. I’ve never been into sports, but I did notice that when I went swimming for the first time a few months after quitting, breathing was way easier!!
Am looking forward to getting back to that sort of level when the weather improves. Might even reignite a blog I’d started a few months ago on here, depending on (ahem) how things pan out!!
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Oh I dunno … have you ever seen a drunk driver? Or a drunk husband battering his wife?
Too much alcohol impairs judgement and most people don’t realise just how low an alcohol intake can affect them.
I don’t. I miss having a fag … it’s hard to explain.
I don’t miss the cigarette, I don’t even fancy one so it seems pointless starting again … but I miss smoking like a pair of favourite comfy slippers.
It was nice whilst it lasted.
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After over 10 years I still miss smoking. I wouldn’t start again, but sometimes after a meal I yearn…
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I never yearn or even fancy one … I guess I just feel lost without some kind of vice.
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Not really a problem for me, I have plenty of others ones, I can spare a few for you if you like. What do you fancy, sloth, avarice greed… take your pick.
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Morticia you know I am glad you stopped smoking, but I think you stopped because nobody told you to, apart from yourself ! 
It is an irritating habit that is hard to stop and, if you stop because you want to, it gives you a boost because you did it for your own reasons !
We all knew that smoking was bad for us , but it is good to know we are strong enough to change bad habits when we want to.! 
But I didn’t want to stop … only to cut down.
I blame my aneurysm, I really do … I went in hospital a smoker, came out indifferent to the things and instead, a ravening chocoholic … which is nice but now I’m fat. 
Sloth please … 
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You have to look at it this way! When you know you are suffering health problems you realize that it may be a choice between smoking or breathing & that changes how you think.
I gave up for 12 years, but started again as I spent time with somebody that smoked. A few years later I was diagnosed with cancer and from the moment they told me I have never had another cigarette…and honestly never wanted one again!
I have never been convinced that an addiction to nicotine made me smoke, I think it was just a habit that was hard to stop!
I gave up 15 years ago, and was so surprised how easy it was. I soon realised that the hardest part was making the decision to do it. Once that resolution was firmly in my head it was all downhill.
Not sure about that Baz - I started smoking when I was about 15 and at that age you feel invincible. You know - “it’s not going to happen to me”. Just like getting old, that wasn’t going to happen to me either 
.
When I was around 13-14 or so we had a visit at school from the local police (why the police, I’ll never know!) to give us a talk about the dangers of smoking. They brought with them two sealed specimen jars - one with a third of a healthy lung, the other with a whole lung, both preserved in formaldehyde. They were the same size. I remember being utterly shocked that this was what smoking could do to my lungs. A year or so later I was smoking 
. Oh, I wasn’t going to carry on smoking, oh no! I was just going to try it for a while, and if I could feel myself getting addicted I would stop . It took over 40 years for that to happen.
Well done @Danny and @Dextrous for quitting - it’s a great feeling isn’t it! 
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I had a similar experience, but it was about the danger of drug taking, after the talk I couldn’t wait to start experimenting.
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It’s all because we can only learn from our own experience, not others’.
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No I misunderstood .I see they will never be able to smoke that it’s a good ruling but how will they enforce it ?
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I have never smoked or taken or even been offered drugs .
I find smoking disgusting and drug taking inexplicable.
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Ah but Muddy maybe you didn’t have that talk by a policeman, he had slides of “drug takers”, gorgeous long haired guys in afghan coats and girls with flowers painted on their faces and I thought they look like they’re having fun.
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I just missed that era I would have liked to have been a hippy .
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