Yes, yes, it’s true I tell you. I jest not.

Guardian readers are piling into the comments sections as we speak, in support of smoking. They are armed with endless faux information as to how it isn’t damaging to your health, could bring in much needed taxation for the support of hard working God fearing families, is a harmless pursuit, alcohol is more dangerous, car exhausts emit more chemicals, is a natural product, unlike the output of ‘Big Pharma’ – it is a joy to read.

Who could have imagined that so many Guardianistas would have been converted overnight into smokophiles? There are even calls for government owned shops to sell the accoutrements required to take up this harmless pastime. What scientific evidence there is to prove the harm that it can do is demolished by their well thought out arguments, indeed there is a suspicion of the hand of Jewish/Rothschild/Green lizard/Republican funded chicanery in the clinical studies that might go against their support for the practice.

Mr Puddlecote is going to be in terminal shock when he catches up with them all…he may never need to blog again!

Not a single word is said about dead babies piling up in the corridor as Mothers-to-be catch a crafty drag in the doorway within two miles of an infant, not a word.

Why? Ah, that is because some idiot has dared to publish a survey stating that smoking cannabis four times a week for 25 years might render you less than employable……they are utterly outraged! The comments are magic. The Telegraph did well with a similar story published late last night, just in time to catch the 4am American readers, or rather those of them that are still wide awake and spouting nonsense as they cruise the Internet at 4am – they were similarly appalled that their ‘harmless pastime’ might have even a teensy weensy downside.

Single Acts of
Tyranny August 29, 2012 at 04:35

Maybe it was because my peer group didn’t really do it or maybe it was
because my teen rebellion involved more lager and football-related tomfoolery
but I never really saw the point. Even at university I was more interested in
persuading girls to take their clothes off. That and it seemed to make people
a bit like giggling toddlers or delusional clowns who later experienced a
sugar crash (anyone in a late night garage buying about £10 worth of chocolate
seems to me to be incriminating themselves).

Engineer August 28, 2012 at 21:12

Smoking…..foxhunting….businesses making profits…..company directors earning
bonuses……the cry from the massed ranks (well, small huddle) of Guardianistas
is, “You can’t do that, we don’t like it!”.

Take mind-altering substances that may cause you to endanger others (eg.
driving whilst stoned), and it’s, “You can’t ban that, we like it!”.

Intellectual pygmies.

Lilith August 28, 2012 at 18:43

One of the first things you learn about smoking dope is that it renders you
unable to do your maths homework. I doubt this is really news even to Guardian readers.

Mudplugger
August 28, 2012 at 20:58

I never found it rendered me incapable of doing my maths homework, rather
it made me less likely to give a shit whether that quadratic equation was
ever solved by anyone, as the whole exercise then seemed irredeemably
pointless.
The maths master’s comments on marking my submissions, usually
received in the ‘unenhanced’ light of day shortly afterwards, seemed to be
coming from another place altogether. Still passed the exam though.

Lilith August 28, 2012 at 21:07

Well done for submitting something in spite of the ennui…very hard to
get past.

right_writes August 28, 2012 at 15:29

I don’t smoke any more, however unlike many smoking fascists, I couldn’t
care less what other people do, they can blow smoke into my face and I won’t
bat an eyelid… The passive smoking thing is utter bollocks.

However, if there was a campaign to kill each and every “common purpose”
mouthpiece/representative, I would personally volunteer to operate the
incinerator.

Pompey Cowboy
August 28, 2012 at 16:23

Right_writes
You seem on the wave length. I dont smoke myself either,
but once they get rid of smoking what next?
They never tell you about the
Billions smokers pay in VAT and Excise duty, and also the savings that are
made in pensions etc as they will tend to die younger.

As for “However, if there was a campaign to kill each and every “common
purpose” mouthpiece/representative, I would personally volunteer to operate
the incinerator.”— well thats a bit naughty– the extra CO2 caused by the
emissions could cause our planet to reach tipping point…….. err actually
thinking about it your right burn the bastards ( this is a joke before
anyone goes whining to the rozzers)

Dick Puddlecote
August 28, 2012 at 14:25

D’oh! Why do these things always pop up when I’m on another continent?

Plenty to catch up on just in an hour’s lobby browsing, I notice. Taxi to
the airport please, concierge!

Demetrius August
28, 2012 at 13:23

Its all smoke and mirrors.

GildasTheMonk
August 28, 2012 at 13:06

I suppose this will be an example of Guardianistas doing intellectual
summersaults that would flatter Beth Tweddle when it comes to defending the
habits, privileges and customs of the Afro Caribbean “Yoof”, which is, along
side obtaining vast wealth and living far away in Tuscany, one of their High
Gods.

Anna
Raccoon August 28, 2012 at 13:43

They still have a long way to go to rival the summersaults they did
whilst defending rapists in deference to free speech – ala assange!

Pompey Cowboy
August 28, 2012 at 16:15

I think the Guardianistas got a “Gold Medal” for the Assange display

Single Acts of
Tyranny August 29, 2012 at 04:26

Anna, I am shocked at you ~ conviction ahead of trial?

c777 August 28, 2012 at 12:53

Always a crowd puller the “Bob Hope” story eh?
Of course not many
Guardianistas will get the parallels between this piece of junk science and
the anti smoking variety or even worse junk science, climate change.

nisakiman August 28, 2012 at 18:22

Yes, it’s quite amusing how righteously indignant many people get in
defence of dope, whilst being supremely oblivious to the paradox inherent in
their condemnation of tobacco. How times change!

Personally I have no time for any and all the junk science being foisted
on us nowadays. I have smoked, and enjoyed smoking tobacco for more than
fifty years, and I have absolutely no intention of forgoing that formidable
pleasure for the foreseeable future. (Oops – that was verging on the
alliterative!) I also used to smoke industrial quantities of dope (forget
the Notting Hill Rastas, they’re just pussies) for thirty years or so, and
the only reason I eased off that was because I moved to a country where
tobacco is totally acceptable but dope is most definitely not! Plus (to be
brutally honest) I’m getting a bit long in the tooth for getting totally
blasted on either dope or alcohol. Despite my internal protestations,
gravitas is imposing itself upon me with my encroaching years. (Oh Jeffrey
Bernard, where are you in my hour of need…?)

Yes, there was a good turnout in the DT comments section – 1400 or so
just now, and 950 on the Beeb site.

Hugely successful, this prohibition stuff…

Frankie August 29, 2012 at 01:09

Anyone who smokes ‘dope’ is… well – a dope! That it has only now,
reportedly, been shown to have a detrimental effect upon the user’s IQ is,
to my mind (uncluttered by the evil weed) a statement of the bleedin’
obvious!

Likewise Fags. Cigarettes, I mean… Anyone who genuinely believes that
smoking isn’t bad for your health and for anyone else’s in your immediate
vicinity is extremely foolish, not to mention selfish, for inflicting
their smoke upon others who do not possess the inclination. Fatheads
all!

While I am ranting, how about dog owners, who annoyingly allow their
pampered pooches to jump all over their reluctant visitors; many of whom
visibly recoil at the prospect of being licked/covered in dog hair before
entering the abode – all to no avail… Or have the owner’s cute cat leap
into their lap from goodness knows where? Personally, I am quite blunt
these days. “… I just don’t ‘do’ dogs sir/madam.”

I do have a genuine reason. Being extremely allergic to our four legged
feline and canine friends is more curse than blessing, as I genuinely like
animals, but I wonder at the expression on the faces of these people when
I make my pronouncement. They just don’t get it. They cannot see that
someone may have a contrary view of their particular vice or interest,
just as, I suspect, is the case with cigarettes and ‘whacky baccy’.

nisakiman
August 29, 2012 at 07:10

” They just don’t get it. They cannot see that someone may have a
contrary view of their particular vice or interest, just as, I suspect,
is the case with cigarettes and ‘whacky baccy’.”

Reading your comment, I would say that you are the one guilty of “not
getting it”. You come across as intolerant, bigoted, ignorant,
humourless and arrogant; just the sort who would impose his world view
on everyone else in the erroneous belief that he is righteous and right.
You very obviously know absolutely nothing of which you speak, but
having got your information from “The Daily Rag” think you know it all.
Your attitude, like that of ‘Nanny Statists’ everywhere is what is
grievously wrong with the world today.

One day, perhaps you will come to the realisation that we are not all
drones, to be shoved into little boxes of your choosing. But somehow I
doubt it. The mind of the self-righteous usually remains closed.

Frankie
August 29, 2012 at 19:58

“…having got your information from “The Daily Rag”… I rarely read
newspapers – I find their content to be largely based upon incorrect
facts or upon general ignorance of the subject, but I aver that it is
an indisputeable fact that abusing drugs will, of necessity, adversely
effect the user to their general detriment. There is no arguing with
science.

Other than this, I have little humour to waste on the ignorant, who
insist that their right to enjoy their vice and to hell with how it
may effect everyone else around them… If this is what you mean by
being intolerant, bigoted, humourless and arrogant then you are
absolutely correct,
however, I should point out that when one is
reduced to making ‘ad hominem’ remarks then one is generally
acknowledged to have lost the argument…

Richard August 28, 2012 at 12:52

You assume that people who comment on the Guardian website are ‘Guardian
readers’. I don’t think that is necessarily true except in the narrow sense
that they ‘may’ have read the article they are commenting on.

Ian August 29, 2012 at 08:59

What is a ‘Guardian reader’ if they’re not reading a Guardian article on
the Guardian website?

Richard August 29, 2012 at 10:47

I think I covered that. They are someone visiting the Guardian site
specifically to comment on an article.

I occasionally comment on the Daily Mail site but I wouldn’t describe
myself as a ‘DM reader’.