31-05-2002 09:33									#1
	How many of you smoke? Got spare money?

ATHENS, Greece (AP) - The old joke had it that the best way to find a gathering of Greeks was to listen for the noise and watch for the cloud of cigarette smoke. The Health Ministry wants to make the old saw passe, at least so far as the cigarette smoke goes.




European Union (news - web sites) figures show 44.9 percent of Greeks over age 15 smoke daily, the largest percentage among member countries and among the highest in the world.

"It is about time laws are actually upheld in this country. ... (about freaking time - general statement) Things have gotten out of hand," Health Minister Alekos Papadopoulos, himself a smoker, said Thursday.

He announced restrictions that would ban on outdoor tobacco advertising beginning in 2003. In October, no-smoking sections must be available in restaurants, coffee bars and many other public places — normally thick with tobacco smoke. Lighting up in taxis also will be outlawed.

"By general admission, Greece has delayed implementing anti-smoking programs," said Papadopoulos, whose announcement came on the eve of the U.N.'s World No Tobacco Day. "Compared with other European countries, these measures are minimal."

But one restaurant owner, Dimitris Papageorgiou, was unimpressed.

"These measures will not last. They'll be forgotten tomorrow," predicted Papageorgiou, whose Athens restaurant has four indoor tables.

"Segregated areas? Whoever wants to smoke or not smoke can do so," he said. "If they don't like it, they can go to McDonald's."

The French are next after the Greeks in the percentage that smoke at 38.3 percent. Sweden ranks last in the 15-member bloc at 22.1 percent.

Greeks are also notoriously wary of government restrictions. One newspaper cartoon this week showed smokers being exiled to a labor camp on a barren island.

Current smoking bans for public servants and in hospital waiting rooms are widely ignored. Papadopoulos said those laws would now be enforced with the threat of a three-month jail term.

He said he would ask charities, government agencies and Greece's powerful Orthodox Church to back an anti-smoking campaign in schools.

"We do not expect miracles from one day to the next," Papadopoulos said. "It is true that Greeks are defined by an internal sense of anarchy (no sh!t), but they also have a strong sense of fairness."

Even before the latest rules, smoking restrictions have slowly encroached on Greeks' everyday life.

Olympic Airways, the national airline, imposed a ban in 1996. And organizers of the Athens Olympics in 2004 have promised to make the games smoke-free.

Many Greeks who cater to tourists have already been forced to curb smoking.

"When we get tourists who ask for no-smoking areas, we set one up for them," said Giorgos Samiotis, owner of an Athens restaurant. "It's not a problem."

	31-05-2002 09:39									#2
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Cigarettes? Why bother?

It's possibly the stupidest thing someone can do. Is it that surprising Europe does it so much more than North America?

	31-05-2002 09:41									#3
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Bananas?

	31-05-2002 09:41									#4
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I don't smoke and I really don't mind if someone smokes around me (as long as they don't exhale).

	31-05-2002 09:46									#5
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Smoking is perhaps the single most selfish vice there is. Utterly unredeeming, a pox on the world.

Not that I feel strongly about it...

	31-05-2002 09:47									#6
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Hey it was after the discovery of the New World that we got it you know?

	31-05-2002 09:56									#7
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Apparantly, I have a 95% chance of developing heart problems without cigarettes, and I'd still like to bet on that 5% chance.

Stupid family genes.

	31-05-2002 09:58									#8
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quote: Originally posted by Triped Apparantly, I have a 95% chance of developing heart problems without cigarettes, and I'd still like to bet on that 5% chance. Stupid family genes.

One "excuse" that smokers make is this:

That if they didn't smoke, they'd suffer more health problems since they'd be more tense, more anxious, more nervous etc etc.

Have yet to find a medical study which supports that

And of course there is the old joke:

_ Cigarrettes kill you slowly.

_I'm in no hurry

	31-05-2002 10:06									#9
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BTW Triped, did you come to Greece?

	31-05-2002 10:36									#10
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Watching my Grandfather suffer painfully due to his emphezema has kind of turned my off to the idea.

	31-05-2002 10:47									#11
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I have never smoked, nor will I ever start to smoke.

	31-05-2002 11:21									#12
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I despise smoking. And I reserve a special HATRED for the tobacco corporations. There, my soul is bared and my closet is clean.

Gatekeeper

	31-05-2002 11:28									#13
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I abominate smoking too, although not quite as much as a certain friend of mine. When someone lights up near him, he gets up and walks away without preamble.

	31-05-2002 11:40									#14
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quote: Originally posted by paiktis22 And of course there is the old joke: _ Cigarrettes kill you slowly. _I'm in no hurry

_One cigarette makes your life shorter for five minutes.
_So what? One workday makes it shorter for eight hours.



Paiktis, looks like we are the only smokers here.
*Cough*
For you my non-smoking friends, I should say….*Cough* *Cough*
…. Don’t trust to those lying doctors….*Cough* …. Don’t believe in this bullsh!t…..*Cough* The cancer is the myth invented by doctors to took your money….*Cough* The smoking of tobacco is very good for yo..*Cough*…ur health. The cigarettes contain various vitamins and it helps you to relax and to enjoy. *Cough**Cough**Cough* Forget about doctors, *Cough* Enjoy the life. *Cough**Cough**Cough**Cough**Cough**Cough**Cough**
Cough**Cough**Cough* *Cough*


P.S. The old Russian saying is say: “Bezalkogolnoe pivo eto perviy shàg k rezinovoy zhenshine.”. It means:
the non-alcohol beer is the first step to sex doll (or rubber women or whatever it calls on your monkey language).

	31-05-2002 12:35									#15
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I tolerate smoking, but not in my house. If only trys to spark up there, I send them outside.

	31-05-2002 12:50									#16
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I've never smoked, and dislike the smell quite a lot. It takes a very good looking and fun girl to make me even think about hanging around a smoker.

	31-05-2002 13:49									#17
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I smoke, and enjoy it - cigarettes, cigars, and of course, my beloved pipe.

	31-05-2002 14:56									#18
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Don't. What's the point? If you can't relax without a drug, you must be a right little stressball.

	31-05-2002 15:06									#19
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I usually don't smoke and usually hate it when someone else around me does. But to be honest, I do enjoy a cigar maybe twice a year.

	31-05-2002 15:08									#20
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I don't like smoking. Anybody who lights up in a non-smoking section might be shot without warning.

	31-05-2002 17:46									#21
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Stew hasn't replied yet I see, he is the most militant anti-smoker I know. I can't blame him though, I hate the smell and the effects, and when you are in a club or pub filled with smokers you stink at the end of it...horrible things.

	31-05-2002 18:06									#22
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I don't smoke cigarettes... but I voted yes... you connect the dots.

	31-05-2002 18:16									#23
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(hack) I've smoked for (wheeze) years and years. It's had no (gasp) ill effects on me.

	31-05-2002 18:19									#24
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Tried smoking once. Nothing really relaxing about the five minute coughing spasm that followed. The great scientists of the world have presented ironclad proof that it endangers the health of the individual who does it, and people unlucky enough to take a whiff of the fumes. Its fact you can't escape from no matter how hard you try. And now many smokers are trying to gather up the willpower to quit, and need all the moral support they can get. The question still remains... Why did they get started in the first place?

Even with the stomach-churning ad campaigns in my country (they actually show rotting lungs, tar-filled hearts and gunk-filled arteries and brains from dead smokers on these ads), people still won't listen to reason.

	31-05-2002 18:22									#25
	Remove this text

I don't, not regularly that is.

	31-05-2002 19:04									#26
	Suffering from ads?

don't smoke regulary (grandfather dead from lung cancer ) .

I find a well-timed sigarette helpful in times of stress.

oh , about non-sigarette material , I'd rather be silent. ( I was talking sigars , of course )

	31-05-2002 19:32									#27
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Smoking is healthy for you! [spits black slime]

Attachment: docsmok2.jpg
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	31-05-2002 19:36									#28
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Take a look at this healthy smokers lung. You want to have a healthy lung like that, don't you?

Attachment: smokerslung.gif
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	01-06-2002 12:07									#29
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I'd order that well done, but I'm afraid it can't be done any more "well".

	01-06-2002 15:28									#30
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I hate to burst a bubble here, but even the healthiest of lungs still looks pretty disgusting.