Maybe this is just a St. Edward’s thing, but for some reason, Freshman pick up smoking cigarettes the minute they set foot on campus. No, you didn’t time travel it is still 2017. I honestly don’t know if it’s hilarious or terrifying that 19-year-olds are seeking out an expensive habit that has no redeemable qualities whatsoever. Maybe so they can bask in each other’s edginess. ;)
Let me spill some facts for you…
Guessing the average pack of cigs costs $7 (frankly idk but that sounds right), so if you smoke a pack a day after one year you’ll save ~$1,660.75, in 10 Years ~$21,890.01 and in 20 Years ~$61,091.67 !!! Hey in 20 years you could pay off 4 years tuition and have thousands to spare if you don’t smoke. HAHAH who am I kidding our tuition will probably rise up to $4M tomorrow, that’s a different topic of conversation… But if money isn’t an object for you, which I have to wonder if it is considering your entire wardrobe is from various thrift shops, but I see you drinking $10 juices for all meals so whaT IS GOING ON. You claim to be so health conscious, but PSA lung cancer isn’t a conspiracy and-
If you go to St. Edward’s and picked up smoking freshman year, then I have to make the assumption you’ve made it your mission in life to lecture everyone you meet about how using water bottles is satanic. Your cigarette butts don’t exactly disappear like your pocket money does-
To be fair, we can’t put all the blame on the kids when the media continues to link cigarettes with being fashionable; last time I checked high fashion labels also glamorized skinning animals and wearing their corpses as coats. Those coats are damn soft though.
I’m not innocent either- I’m not a vegetarian, I do use plastic water bottles more than I should, and some of the stuff in my wardrobe came from Urban Outfitters (I think I heard a St. Edward’s student collapse in the distance). All jokes aside, no one’s perfect no shit. But you should know “tobacco’s minor use of land denies 10 to 20 million people of food. Where food has to be imported because rich farmland is being diverted to tobacco production…for governments of developing countries is that the net economic costs of tobacco are profoundly negative—the cost of treatment, disability and death exceeds the economic benefits to producers by at least US$200 billion annually with one-third of this loss being incurred by developing countries” (The Impact of Transnational Corporations on the World’s Poor, Zed Books).
^That’s not an industry that should continue to profit because you feel out of place in college and want to fit in- and on this campus that means ditching your shoes, picking up a pack of camels and not giving a flying f**k. I personally like the last one best. But just in case you hadn’t noticed it is not cute, it’s not edgy, and it is actively hurting not only your organs but the world and everyone living on it. So no, I do not want to hear it. And I don’t think I’ve laughed harder than when I overheard Sophomores talking about how hard it is to quit. Bruh. Is that news to you, what did you think those patches were for? Feeling cool after college?
Anyways…make your own choices and maybe start by making a pros and cons list, my guess is it’ll look a little something like:
pros:
cons:
- Tobacco kills nearly 6 million people each year (1 every 6 seconds)
- trouble breathing, so yikes you can’t enjoy your sunset hikes without hacking halfway through…
- terrible breath jus sayin’
- Sudden infant death syndrome (known as SIDS or crib death)
- erectile dysfunction :)
- poor vision
- premature aging- I mean yes like fine wine we get better with age, but do you really want to save money on a fake id that bad you’ll look 35 at 19? nah
Increased risk in getting cancer in any of the following:
- Bladder
- Blood (acute myeloid leukemia)
- Cervix
- Colon and rectum (colorectal)
- Esophagus
- Kidney and ureter
- Larynx
- Liver
- Oropharynx (includes parts of the throat, tongue, soft palate, and the tonsils)
- Pancreas
- Stomach
- Trachea, bronchus, and lung
If that didn’t make you cringe, I think the cringiest thing I could do to persuade you to stop before you start, my fellow hilltoppers, would be to say you would be a human parody of that OneRepublic song, so that’s how I’ll sign off.