Are you a smoker?
I notice that all the philosophers and philosophy students I know smoke. The better they are at philosophy the more likely they are to smoke. So I was wondering do you?
The better they are at philosophy? 
Is it a sport now? 
Don’t smoke, never once tried it; I’m allergic to cigarette smoke.
maybe you should vote then, anyway this is just from my subjective part of the world.
I smoke about 4 cig’s a day now. I’m trying to quit. Stupidest thing I’ve ever done was start smoking.
why?
It’s the lung cancer, stupid! 
It’s true here too. Smokes and philosophers tend to go together. I can think of a few reasons:
Ciggarettes are cheaper than food.
Philosophers tend to talk to their compatriots for long hours- smokeing is often part of that practice.
Ciggaretts have been shown to alleiveate mild depression which maybe sometimes either a cause or effect of philosophy.
ect.
because I’ve recently discovered I actually enjoy breathing. I know 40 year old men who have smoked for 20 years, they walk a flight of steps, and they are dying, they hack non stop, seriously its gross, they sound like they are dying
And I also know people in their 40’s who have never smoked, or who actually quit, and these people look way younger, and have 100% better quality of life. They are more often then not more succesfull, and seem to be happier.
I must confess I’m baffled by smoking. I’m sure everyone’s experiences vary, but I’ve never met one person who enjoyed their first cigarette. Almost invariably, the experience is awful and leaves the newbie smoker choking and gagging. Yet they keep hammering away at it until they manage to get used to it. Is the only pleasure derived from smoking the lack of withdrawal symptoms? If so, then how much sense does smoking make?
In America, cigarettes are well over $3 a pack, and apparently over $4 for many popular brands. Most of the people I personally know that smoke also drink, so the combined habit can really get expensive. And that’s not even counting the health costs associated with the habit.
Smoke if you will, I’m just saying I don’t really understand how anyone starts. Peer pressure is the obvious initial cause, and I know it’s very addictive…I guess I’m lucky that I’m allergic.
Phaedrus, for me I never liked smoking at first, I mean I think I tried it a couple of times in highschool, but I hated it. For me what happened was I became a major pot head. So I had already been accustumed to smoking, just not cigarettes. Then one time someone gave me a smoke, after I had smoked up, and thats when I started.
Smoking increases the high by 20%… or at least it prolongs it , tastes great to after a joint, and a beer.
Anyways so now I don’t smoke pot all that much anymore, but still smoke cigarettes. Again only about 3-4 a day now, and am trying to quit.
I smoke as often and for the same reasons I drink wine, not very often, perhaps once or twice a month… I can’t seem to understansd the ‘addiction’ part of smoking. I also enjoy the way certain tobaccos/wines taste, therefore I will smoke, drink them… the more foten these products are taken, the less special and good they are.
Addiction is just plain illogical.
Try telling that to a herion addict. 
Many people here started on the clove ciggarettes which are undeniably enjoyable.
But really, the situation should be no harder to understand than coffe. Most people don’t like their first coffe, but they do like the increased heartbeat and such. The pleasure isn’t just lack of withdrawl, but the effect of the drug.
Smokeing is expensive if you are a pack or more a day person. But if you are more like two packs a week person and use it as a replacement for meals, thats cheap liveing.
Take a 5$ pack divide by 20 that’s 2.5 cents. Compare that to a sixty cent can of coke. Moderate smokeing is cheaper than the alternative- and aproximately as life threatening.
I smoked for four years and gave it up nearly a year ago.
I reckon the thing Phaedrus pointed out earlier, that the first first cigarette always tastes like you want to vomit, is so very true. Peer pressure is the main reason I guess; I too think that this was my reason starting smoking.
First it’s like it’s only few cigarettes but it gets more and more so fast and you do not want to recognize that the point of easy-stopping has yet passed.
That’s how it was like for me…
The reason for giving it up was not only my true love to breathing 
; but I just found it so annoying to be dependent on smoking in certain situations. These automatically lighted cigarettes are soo annoying when you start thinking about them.
The thing that you can’t handle pressure-situations without cigarettes as good as when you smoke. Before you started you could but when the point is reached you cant be that calm without them, and that is soo annoying because you recognize that - with smoking - you just reduced your own abilities.
In a way every human being wants to be independent, so it’s really shitty being dependent on cigarettes.