Smoking Kills!

En France, I briefly resume my once-a-week smoking habit

To hear the related 5-minute audio file that I uploaded today as my Morning Journal flash briefing for Alexa devices, please click on the play button:

For YouTube video of this episode, click here.

Does scary packaging deter French smokers?

Earlier this year I gave up my odd habit of smoking one cigarette weekly, on Thursdays.

But as I planned our trip to France, I remembered smoking a weekly Gauloise—like Bogey or Belmondo. I decided to resume the habit, briefly.

At the Nice Airport, I saw “tabac” on a sign at a convenience store. I asked if they carried Gauloise, and the young clerk handed me a package with a horrible photo of a cancerous mouth on it.

I smoked one of them on a side porch of the Sheraton Airport hotel.

I’m not sure if my Dad was still smoking when he served in the Navy in the Mediterranean during the Korean Conflict, just after I was born in 1950. But I bet he was, and I bet his ship made a stop or two here in Nice. A nice connection as I finished my smoke.

My AI Pin gave me some interesting data about smoking in France and the U.S.

Despite the packaging required in France, more than a quarter of the adult population still smokes, compared with 12 percent in the U.S. That’s despite cigarettes’ costing an average of $12 a pack in France versus $8 a pack in the States.

AI Pin confirmed my decision to not smoke a cigarette each week after our trip.

Even very light smoking, like once a week, can reduce life expectancy. Each cigarette smoked is estimated to reduce life expectancy by about 11 minutes.

My life is too good to take that risk.