The Quislings get rounded up…

(Internet keeps cutting out so this will be somewhat more focused than my usual babble).

Remember all those mighty cannabis smokers who so happily joined in the hate against tobacco smokers?

Remember when those pot-cafes in Amsterdam allowed cannabis to be smoked but not tobacco? Some American states have legalised cannabis while still moving towards tobacco prohibition. Gets the hippies on-side for as long as they are needed.

All that talk of ‘cannabis is safe, it should be legalised, those filthy tobacco smokers should be the criminals’. Remember that?

They thought that by siding with the antismokers they could get a free pass. So did the vapers at first, although more are coming to realise what a stupid idea that was. Some still don’t.

Well now it’s time for the Puritans to round up their quislings and add them to the fire. (thanks to Chris via email for the link)

The comments are full of ‘But, but, but, this wasn’t supposed to happen. It was the baccy brigade, you said they were the ones we should go after. Not us’.

It also has an increasing number of the ‘we hate smokers no matter what they smoke even if it isn’t really smoke’ brigade showing their true faces. Look on those faces, pot puffers, and see your friends in their true light.

They still think there is a way out.

“We consistently encourage all cannabis users to consider vaporizers instead of smoking implements. Anyone hanging around cannabis users should certainly avoid smoke-filled rooms and encourage all their friends to vaporize rather than smoke,” Earleywine added.

Yes, cannabis users are encouraged to switch to Electrojoint instead, because then the haters will leave them alone… you might want to talk to the vapers (the sensible ones) about how that’s likely to turn out.

The only way out of it is to totally repeal the smoking ban. As long as that stands, its tentacles will reach ever further. It will never end.

Think the pot puffers are ready to hear that? Nah. Many vapers still won’t hear it and they’ve been getting the same shit as they did when they were smokers. Still can’t see it. Some never will.

Vaping is here to stay now. Vapers do not need to join in the smoker-hate. Smokers are not their enemy. Some of us have a few Electrofags of our own, alongside the burning leaf. Hey, it’s quite an experience to smoke a coffee or a brandy or a roast chicken, but some of us still want the real flame too.

So we could have a future with non-smoking venues, vaping venues (no real smoke) and smoker venues where everyone is welcome. Or we can have the grey world where nobody is allowed to do anything outside strict health controls. Do you really think you’ll never die? You will. Of boredom.

Smokers have never tried to influence anyone else’s choices. We simply do not care if you don’t smoke. We have no interest in encouraging you to take it up. We do not profit one penny if another person smokes. It is entirely irrelevant to us how you choose to live.

Smoke pot, vape, inject yourself with things or slip well-lubricated watch parts into your anus if you want. We don’t care. Live however you want. We are not interested in controlling you.

And yet we are the enemy? We are the ones you must eradicate with denormalisation and bans? Your friends dictate how you must live while your enemy leaves you alone. What kind of fucked-up war are you fighting here?

And what do you do when you are declared the enemy too? You’ve already alienated those who would be true allies. You are on your own and easily picked off. The divide part is over. It’s time for the conquer.

I think those grey aliens aren’t real aliens. I think they are a subconscious recognition of the grey lives of those who want us all to be grey too.

There is one thing I always encourage nonsmokers to do. I do not encourage them to smoke. That is a personal choice. But this one thing, I encourage all nonsmokers to do in the full knowledge that a true grey antismoker could never do it.

When the doctor asks if you smoke, say yes. Or say you gave it up a year ago.

Smoking is not the only cause of cancer and it’s looking more and more as if, in this modern world, it isn’t even a significant cause. Yet if you say you have never smoked, the doctors will rule out cancer at once.

And then you die.

Even the medics (well, a few) are starting to notice this.

I have to visit the NHS tomorrow. Last time it was for two cracked ribs and a bashed kidney but because I smoke, I had all kinds of tests and scans and a chest X-ray. They are looking for cancer. Tomorrow’s test is looking for cancer. They are really, really looking for cancer because I smoke. If I have it even in the very earliest stages they will find it. They will check every mole and every wart. They will hunt down a single cancerous cell because then they can call it a ‘smoking related cancer’ whether it is or not. So I’m not worried because I know they are going to find any early-stage rogue cells long before they turn nasty.

So far, no sign, but I’m getting older and cancer becomes a little more likely every day you’re alive whether you smoke or not. It’s good to be one of those who gets checked all over whenever the docs get their hooks in.

If I was a nonsmoker I’d have been sent home with paracetamol and an ice-pack for the ribs and forgotten about. This is no exaggeration. If I was a nonsmoker there would be no poking and prodding tomorrow. I’d have been dismissed as being obviously at no risk.

One grandfather died in his sixites (pneumoconiosis from the coal mines), the other died before that (lingering war damage), one grandmother died late sixties of chroinc roundness and inactivity and the last one died of being 84. My parents are in their late seventies and not at all well. There are two smokers in that lot. One is my father.

Statistically then, at 54, I might or might not have a lot of time left. Should I live on tofu and mung beans, teetotal and smokefree, and add a few years that will feel like centuries? Sod that. If I have a decade or so to go I am damn well going to enjoy every minute of it and when I turn up at those Pearly Gates and am asked to account for my life, I will have to admit that I don’t remember much.

I am denormalised. Resistance would have been futile even if I had cared to put up any resistance. Denormalise away. It makes no difference.

I watch those new ones resisting now and wonder why they bother. The denormalised already outnumber the ‘normal’ and our ranks grow daily.

We each have a vote, you know. We can wipe the political slate clean. We don’t even have to like each other to do it. If each of us voted for a party that does not hate us, that’ll be all the main ones gone in one election.

What would be next? Why would we, the denormalised, give a fuck what comes next?

We’re already the outsiders. Revel in it.

Remember, we’re the ones having all the fun.