Fumar Mata

A Spanish boy no more than 12 wanted the gate to the complex opened the other day. Forgot his keys he said in Spanish. But he had not forgotten his packet of Cancer Sticks, clenched firmly in his small hand. Cancer kills I said, "Que ???"  "Fumar  Mata "  "El Loco". he went off.

Spain's National Committee for the Prevention of Tobacco (CNPT) reports a significant 17% drop in the sale of cigarettes throughout 2011 sales in 2011, bringing the number of quitters up to an estimated 600'00.
A report by the CNPT also accounts for a total of 53'000 deaths in Spain every year attributed to smoking, with a further 3'200 deaths attributed to passive smoking - which amounts to around 162 deaths every day due to the effects of tobacco.

I never knew The Chelsea Player Juan Mata   was so deadly, 

his name appears on all cigarette packets .

I cannot understand anyone wanting to start smoking. The evidence is so clear for the literate that smoking kills.

This is something I am actually Government Qualified to talk about. One of my qualifications in my life is a National Health Service Smoking Cessation Advisor and Smoking Cessation Enforcement Officer.

Smoking makes you look 10 years older in time, takes 10 years of your life. Smoking will end your life slowly but true. Smoking will reduce your capacity to do things in later life. A smoking 20 year old young man will have the fitness level of a non smoking 35 year old man. Smoking will increase a man's impotence.

It's obvious to anyone with O level chemistry. Carbon Monoxide is one of the 69 poisonous gases emitted by a lit cigarette. Carbon Monoxide  CO readily combines with Oxygen   02  to form Carbon Dioxide CO2. Oygen is needed by the human body, it is carried around the body by red corpuscles in the blood.  If the body is starved of oxygen by smoking, the organs of the body suffer. The biggest organ is the skin. The epidermis needs oxygen to demonstrate vitality. Starve it of Oxygen and the skin will go grey, wrinkled , shrivelled.  The smoke in cigarettes will shrink and blacken the lungs and further reduce the body's ability to breath.

All of that is logical,indisputable, even by those in self denial about " I have been smoking for 50 years, nothing wrong with me!"  - "Have you got a mirror at home?"

"All got to die some time I don't care" "Maybe not, you have to be totally selfish and totally irresponsible to smoke, however your friends and family will miss you at your funeral, and it's a slow lingering, painful debilitating death you can look forward too." "Also every time you puff you send your death causing habit to those around you, how irresponsible and selfish is that".

I have heard all the excuses. Nicotine, does you no harm , other than raise your pulse rate and make you an addict to a habit, once formed is very difficult to kick, but not impossible. There are ways, methods, all available at the chemist, doctor, even me, yes even me.

I write this because, the Spanish smoke. The Spanish flick their cigarette ends, they drop their empty fag packets, Fag Ash Lill and Fag Ash Bill  are  translated into Fag Ash Manuel and Fag Ash Isabel. They are banned from smoking in public indoor places. They smoke in their homes, cars, streets inflicting their smoke on their young bambinos and making their growing lungs black shriveled and cancerous. What sort of irresponsible parent is that, to my mind the lowest of the low, despicable.

Restrictions do not work: Tobacco Products can ONLY be purchased at a tobacconist shop. Under Age sales controls  there then. 

                                                           .............................................

Spanish Manners.  Another example of something missing  despite the fascist General Franco .

Francisco Franco y Bahamonde (Spanish: [fɾanˈθisko ˈfɾaŋko]; 4 December 1892 – 20 November 1975) was a Spanish military leader who ruled as the dictator of Spain from 1936 until his death. He came to power during the Spanish Civil War while serving as the Generalísimo of the Nationalist faction. Franco led the Nationalists to victory in the civil war and went on to become the longest-ruling dictator in European history.

Don't tell me other country's populations smoke too. 

Yes they do. 

The incidence is very high here to the observer. 

Smoking is directly proportional to poverty levels and poor education. Strangely enough those that cannot afford it , do it, instead of eating, after all smoking destroys your taste buds. 

FACT: 25%  of Spain's under 25's are unemployed. 

                Spain has already been bailed out by Brussels.