If he got this far as a smoker it's no big deal, although because he's president-elect it becomes an issue. Smoking = nicotine addiction but sometimes having delusions of grandeur like G Bush has and making politcal decisions influenced by religion is far worse.

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One day, a neighbor of mine was taken suddenly ill. Since he had no one else, I rode to the emergency room in the ambulance with him.
While in the waiting area, I perused some of the anti-smoking literature.
One pamphlet got my attention. It was about the various conditions tobacco aggravates: bronchitus, stomach ulcers, migraines, to name a few.
I had been smoking for a few years, and I was suffering from chronic bronchitus and debilitating migraines. I thought it was just the way tobacco affected me. I had no idea it affected everyone the same way.
I was in my late 20's, and still thought I was invulnerable, so the threat of dying of lung cancer or heart disease in another 40 years or so didn't really phase me back then. But the realization I was making myself sick RIGHT NOW was a Damascus Road experience.
That was almost 30 years ago.

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I didn't know he smoked- I might not have voted for him if I'd known. I didn't want McCain to win because he already had a smoking-related illness. Anyone who smokes, especially in this day and age with all the evidence of what it does, is stupid, plain and simple.

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"Obama shows that it is not all or nothing, but that moderate use may be attainable for some smokers"

You could hardly put out a worse message, since research shows that cigarettes are at least as addictive as heroin. But the most glaring omission in this article is the issue of second-hand smoke, proven to be as serious a health hazard as actually smoking. Which is what separates cigarette smoking from all other forms of drug use (and surely no one will still deny that nicotine is a drug).
Every time a smoker lights up, they are endangering the health of everyone in the same space, something you can't say about any other drug.

The author's candor in admitting his own cigarette addiction is admirable, but the elephant in the living room (second-hand smoke) is still there.

I admit I have a personal stake in this, I have asthma. Until several years ago when smoking was made illegal in all restaurants and bars in my state, I had to be very careful about social occasions, and I still have to pass on invitations to anyone's home where they allow smoking indoors. Fortunately, that doesn't come up too often, as I live in a very health-conscious area. My asthma isn't so severe that I have to use a "rescue inhaler", it's 100% under control with a daily preventative inhaler. The one and only thing that triggers a serious asthma attack, is cigarette smoke.

BTW, I smoked cigarettes for twenty years (started when I was fourteen) and have now been tobacco-free for longer than I smoked, so I know all about the difficulty of quitting.
I seriously hope that our president-elect is at least honest enough with himself to admit that an addiction is an addiction, no matter how relatively seldom you indulge. And that this particular addiction is unique in the sense that it endangers others around you.

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Smoking's legal, and addictive. So is alcohol. Nobody that sees someone having a few beers is talking about the hundreds of thousands of people drunk drivers kill. No one is over-taxing booze. No one is trying to make booze-free states by raising taxes on booze and having booze sections in restaurants or outlawing booze in restaurants altogether even though those drinkers may go out and get in their car and kill someone a whole lot faster than someone who smokes in the same room as others or within 20 feet of the front door of a business. A huge amount of FDA approved medications being pushed on Americans are addictive and cause major health problems of their own, killing people as well from adverse drug reactions (side effects routinely put people in the ER). A fair amount of these legal approved medications can't be quit cold turkey - that could kill you too - they must be slowly weaned from them. So get off of smoker's backs for a change. It's legal, deal with it. Cast the first stone why don't some of you?

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...while perhaps frowned upon by some...if that's the worst thing this man does after 8 years of Bush &Co.....we should be concerned?....besides smoking a cig,calms your nerves.....

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If only the "perfect" people with NO vises posted a rely dogging smokers, no one would have anything to read.

Everyone has habits that are bad, everyone.

overeating
gambling
drinking
drugs
shopping
lack of ethics
many others.....

Maybe people should work on their own flaws and shortcommings instead of focusing on others.

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business, bunch of hypocrites! I m also a reformed smoker, have been for twenty years, BUT I would NEVER criticise someone who smoked, particularly an occasional smoker. IT is NONE of your business. I really hate those self-appointed cops!

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"A Man without Vices, is a Man without Virtues"

I think that about sums it up.

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Thanks to Tony Newman for revealing his own addiction--this is the only way anyone has ever really been helped with theirs.

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Even tho I used to smoke, I never identified myself as a smoker. When I quit, I gave myself what I call an advantage; I allow myself twenty more cigarettes during my lifetime without having to feel as though I has "fallen".
It took the pressure off me about giving up forever something I felt that I enjoyed. Of course, after no time, I was so glad that I quit, I never actually used more than two of my twenty and it's been five years and I have no desire at all to smoke.
Actually, I find the smell appalling and the look of smoking unattractive and I especially find littering cigarette butts disgusting. I have a no smoking sign at the gate of my property and I mean it. I don't want it around me or my child.
Now, I didn't smoke a pack a day, I didn't regularly smoke inside the house or car, I didn't smoke enough that my co-workers could smell it on me, but when I went to a party, there I would be, hanging on the porch with a group of people smoking.
I wish all the people in the world who want to quit a smooth transition to breathing fresh air. I hope Obama will quit for himself and the children of this country, and be strong and be a great role model, and make the changes in himself as we as a country make the ground work changes we wish to see.

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http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/photo_database/

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Tom Brokaw can do better than that. If this is Obama's only flaw, then we definitely elected the right guy. ANNA

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Movies, tv, and yes, internet are all heavily supported by the likes of tobacconiks. In 1954 (?) when the Eisenhower Surgeon-General discussed the perils of tobacco I spoke with my dad, who had decided to stop smoking. I was also a smoker of then 9 years duration. My dad said that if we believed that the prohibition on alcohol led to mayhem and rampant crime, just try to imagine what would happen if there would be
a prohibition on smoking tobacco! An army can march on tobacco as well as on its stomach. At least as long as its pulmonary functions. Some of us remember Ron Reagan, that dashing cowboy advertising -- was it
Chesterfields? And now Barack Obama subtly giving the nod to all his children!! phew.

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Hey, at least the guy isn't jacking scag!

But cigaretts don't even get you high, so what's the point?

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I know this flies in the face of everything we hear, but here goes...

The first modern state to introduce blanket smoking bans and campaigns to eradicate it in the population was Nazi Germany in the early thirties. It's known that Hitler was an avid anti-smoker, but less known is that Nazi scientists realised that smokers are far less susceptible to suggestibility which is essential for effectively delivering propaganda.

The reason smoking goes down so well with many people is not because they are "addicted to a vice", but because it suits their physiology. Interesting that smoking only became an "addiction" in the seventies where before it was considered a "life-style choice".

Researchers found that elderly people who have smoked or are smokers are far less likely to develop Alzheimer's - in fact, a whole range of neuro-degenerative diseases - because nicotine ingested in the form of smoke enables it to cross the blood-brain barrier where it's picked up as a near-perfect match by acetylcholine receptors. Acetylcholine is a key neurotransmitter in cognitive processes - thinking, mental effort, psychic ability, etc.

Smoking does not cause lung cancer:

http://www.journaloftheoretics.com/Editorials/Vol-1/e1-4.htm

What has happened is that control of the tobacco supply has been concentrated into few hands, so that the quality of tobacco that reaches the consumer is generally the equivalent of additive-laden microwave-dinner food, which, of course, is detrimental to your health.

Big tobacco got together with other big industries and agreed to unload the toxic waste by-products of plastics, metallurgical and chemical manufacturers into tobacco products when it was found that substances like formeldahyde and benzene greatly enhanced the shelf-life of cigarettes. Big Tobacco thus finds a novel way of mass-producing and increasing the cartel's control of the supply of tobacco, while heavy polluters find a way of getting around those pesky environmental protection laws. Everybody wins! Well, everybody except those stupid people out there who actually buy our junk...

Shop around for a quality tobacco product! Try Natural American Spirit's organic tobacco - best consumed as 'roll-your-own' because you have more control over how much you feel like smoking.

http://www.nascigs.com/

Let's all light up!

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/139304-Let-s-All-Light-Up-

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makes a much more accurate slogan than "change you can believe in".
Can you say hypocrisy????

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I mean seriously. Who cares?? I could care less if he smokes. I could care less if he cheats on his wife I could care less about his personal life. He needs to do an excellent job as President that's all.

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Is why the fuck they think the world is their damn ashtray. I wouldn't throw my trash on the street, why the hell do smokers think they have a right to throw their nasty butts ALL OVER THE PLACE!! Find a damn trash can or keep a ziploc baggie in your purse or pocket until you can find one. But seriously, WTF?!

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Who the fuck cares...Roosevelt smoked also

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And you'd have to smoke a truckload of those just to get a mild headache. Get rid of the drug czars and end this phoney "war on drugs" already !

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I used to run Smoking Cessation clinics. The average successful person to quit smoking for good had previously tried to quit 5 or 6 times.

Relapse is not failure. If a person sticks with it and gets professional help, they may learn a bit each time and eventually become a non-smoker for good.

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Who really gives a damn?

This crap is not news. Anyone who really cares whether or not our public officials smoke, drink, have sex outside their marriages, are overweight, or any of the other sanctimonious drivel that gives idiots without a life or a clue that pious sense of superiority and value, probably need to get out of their mothers' basements more. These feebleminded numbskulls obviously aren't seeing the big picture where the real American public discurse is concerned.

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I thought that the author was trying to make the case that since cigarettes are a drug addiction that hopefully an addict like Obama might be more predisposed to have a kinder, gentler approach to ALL drug addiction, and might take decisive steps to end the costly and destructive "War on Drugs" which of course is actually a "War on the People".

In fact it seems that opponents of the war on drugs could use his addiction to make their case...

BTW, as a once and possibly future smoker who turns to cigarettes in times of stress I would have to say that after this excruciatingly protracted and vicious campaign cycle it's absolutely understandable that he needs a fag occasionally.

My only objection is that he posed on the cover of Time with one in his mouth, not because of the cigarette but because it was to mimic FDR, which I strongly believe, contrary to most people's opinions on this site, bodes ill for the nation.

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Sometimes I jst feel nausiated with the crap I have to filter thru every day to find something of substance.

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Of course, as a physician, I an concerned that our president-elect smokes.

It is bad for his own health, his family's health and the poor role modelling especially for afro-american youth.

However,single issue,intolerant,anti-smoking zealots have no place in medicine or society as I see it."ALL EVIL IN THE WORLD DOES NOT COME FROM SMOKING"

Smoking is only one of many poor health habits we Americans need to work on.

Let's help our new-president!

Dr. Rick Lippin
Southampton, Pa

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Smoking is a road to a slow and painful death yet Americans are in Afghanistan destroying the poppy fields of impoverished farmers as if it is for Americans to tell people in foreign nations what crops they can and cannot grow.

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Between drinking fluoride, eating aspartame, eating GMOs, frying your brain with cellphones, and being mesmerized into oblivion by the tv death ray, what does it matter if you smoke? Chances are one of those other things will kill you first.

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This is a distraction from his supportive views on torture and murder, both in the war on drugs, and the war on terrorism. Don't forget your civil rights, which he has helped erode.

Let's truly criticize the man.

Amen

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Smoking is a rather expensive habit. I should know, I smoked a pack a day for 5 years. Not that much if I compare myself to other people, but since I quit, I have extra money at the end of the day. So I can afford to buy more expensive toys, or take my honey out to somewhere she likes. Either way I win. Also have some respect for people who don't smoke. Isn't a smoking section in a restaurant like a peeing section in a pool?

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awhile, I wouldn't worry about it too much. I'm sure even that is way better than the crap I get in my body, walking my dog two hours a day on Chicago city streets with all those cars and their exhaust I'm forced to breath in. And no I don't have an option as I can only afford an apartment with no backyard and I love my dog and she loves to go on her walk!

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JFK and Clinton both used tobacco. Seems to me that some presidents produced tobacco.

I was a two pack a day smoker until 1994. It was the nicotine gum that did the trick for me and that only with will power as a kicker.

At that time the gum was only available by prescription. The doctor told me that he was giving me one last prescription and if I did not quit I was on my own because I would be addicted to the gum.

Good advice. I made the last script work because I knew I needed to.

Still today sometimes the desire to smoke rises in me. I like the smell of the smoke in fresh air. Sometimes I almost ask to 'bum' a smoke. But I don't

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I don't give a shit about this. Obama can smoke or not smoke for all I care.

Meanwhile, 600 foreclosures in my town last week. All by Countrywide who refused to work out anyone's loans or modify them in any way, despite this being a condition by the Congress in order to get their millions in bailout funds. There are criminal takings going on, exacerbating the crisis all the more.

But Tony gives us Obama's need to light up once in a while. WTF is wrong with Alternet?!

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I used to love AlterNet when it was actually practising investigatory journalism. This article only underlines the current Obama lovefest despite the actually horrifying future he is laying out for all of us. Admirable that he admits to smoking? Uh, not really...that's easy. Now why doesn't he admit that he totally lied to the American people has he is not offering any change with his current cabinet selection--we are getting the remnants of Bush I, Clinton and W...

So perhaps the author might want to write more advocacy for getting us through the next four years--an awful lot of smoking, cigarettes or other substances.

I think Obama's campaign slogan should have been: "Change you can smoke on"

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I think we should give the President-Elect a break.

I don't smoke, but I have several friends who, now that we are all middle-aged, are trying to quit, and it's not easy for them. From what I've heard, Obama has said that he won't smoke in the White House itself. He has a very long road ahead of him, thanks to Numbnuts ruining everything about this country. He's going to be under an enormous amount of pressure--if he screws up and has a few cigarettes now and then, I don't think we should hold it against him.

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What will they nitpick at next?

I love the irony that the vast majority of Americans are completely hooked on caffeine but no one sees THAT as a vice.

I'd much rather quit smoking again (I smoked 20+ years a pack a day) than go through caffeine withdrawals. At least quitting smoking doesn't give you massive migraines.

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My doctor advised me to take up smoking after I finally confided in him that I was fondling myself 8-12 times a day.

He thought maybe something else should keep my hands occupied.

I still need to find something to do with my other hand.

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I'm an ex-smoker and none of my friends smoke now, but most of them have at one time. Most people I meet that have been or are smokers I like a lot. I'd venture to say I don't have a lot of friends who have never smoked. Only one comes to mind.

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I used to smoke. I loved smoking. I would find any excuse to stop and suck on a cigarette for 11 years.
Now don't get all high and mighty saying I wasn't doing it long enough to get really hooked, I was 2 and a half
packs a day when I wasn't stressing and up from there depending on how me and the ex were getting along.
I quit just by quitting. I know it sounds like a fish story but it's true. I got some creepy crawly and was in bed alternating between inferno and ice cube and I would drag my sorry carcass outside for a smoke but it hurt to move so I told myself to just give it up for now and get back to it when I'm better. About a week passed before I started felling human again and even after that I didn't start smoking again until the next week when I was sitting down to watch some race on TV and my trusty pack of menthols was sitting there by my chair. The scene was set, I worked one out of the pack, stuck it in my mouth, lit my zippo,
stuck the end of the cig to the flame and inhaled deeply, and promptly almost died. My throat closed up
and I gagged and coughed and gagged some more. The cigarette flew across the room and bounced off the TV.
As I cowered there on the floor, curled up gasping for breath, I thought "Well if I gotta learn how to smoke again I'm stupid to start" and I haven't even desired a cigarette since. I know it can be done because I did it, just quit. A couple of weeks in you'll start to feel like Superman and your whole body will feel like it hasn't in forever and food will taste Oh so much better.

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The country is going to hell ina hand basket and I can just barely get throught the month without going to the food bank, but Obama smoking is the big issue of the day.

Tom Brokaw and his ilk should go away and spend the millions he has been paid as a network shill for the REICH-wingers as they tore this country a new one.

I have no interest in anything he or the other excuses for journalist on network and cable channels have to say.

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First of all, to the guy that said smoking was the only vice out of "drugs, alcohol, etc" that
"killed" other people is a total moron. Second hand smoke may be annoying, but the health risks are not very high. And how does drinking, with hundreds of thousands of drunk drivers causing fatal accidents NOT kill others?

What is it about people that they must force their views, religions, lifestyles, politics,
and belief systems upon everyone else? What about marijuana? It's been used for centuries and has never killed ONE SINGLE PERSON! But there are thousands of people that believe all the government propaganda that is spewed at them, due to the efforts of the alcohol lobbyists and others to keep it illegal, even though their product kills so many.

Also, smoking is NOT the #1 cause of death--it's heart attacks, due to the American habit of eating till we can't button our pants, while children around the world starve to death! Where's the outrage at that?

People should learn to live and let live, and stay out of other people's business! This is the cause of many social problems, and it is the cause of our disasterous foreign policies as well. Americans seem to think they're better than everyone else, and everyone must live as we live. By the way, alcohol is a drug. If you drink, even a glass of wine for dinner, you are a drug user just as a person that smokes a couple puffs of marijuana! And you have NO moral grounds to judge that smoker! Alcohol was once illegal, too; just because something is illegal does not make it wrong! Laws change. Also, marijuana is one of the safest drugs known to man--far, far safer than most prescription drugs, and non-addictive, unlike alcohol and tobacco.

As long as one is not directly affecting another, people should be able to put in their bodies whatever they wish. Our Constitution does NOT give the government these powers it has assumed. And unless we're talking about a baby, or a closed room FULL of smokers, second-hand smoke is no more dangerous than simply breathing the air in many cities. Instead of common sense, though, we have laws set in stone, demanded by those who just can't rest until we live our lives as they see fit. F***
that!

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some sort of addiction-- unlike Bush who was a supposed rehabed boozer. Makes Obama a bit more human.

Perhaps he can eliminate all the cannabis laws and release all the a drug war victims since he may be able to understand that getting high, in whatever form it is, is human.

Better to be still addicted than to be repressing it.

Go Obama, smoke if you got 'em.

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Let him smoke. Smacking (nicorette) gum is very unpresidental.

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We have a president elect who can't stop smoking...for the last eight years we have had a president who can't stop lying. Which is worse??? Bush now admits he was "unprepared for war." Thousands upon thousands have died because of Bush. Obama's smoking habit is the least of our worries, along with Clinton's BJ.

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Ben dsl, chu québecois, c pas tjs parfait mon anglais.

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To all those that constantly get on their high-horse and talk about second hand smoke studies, etc:

Show me a conclusive government-funded study like the one they conducted in 1968 in relation to cigarette smoker applied to second hand smoke. It was a 5 year study that removed all exstraneous factors from smokers who later developed lung cancer. It was only after this extensive 5-year study that it was concluded, with certainty that smoking did cause cancer.

To date no such study has been conducted about second hand smoke. If one follows the laws of physics at all they would realize that once smoke hits the air, it is immediately disapated, not to mention the fact most toxins are injested by the smoker and lost to that person's body.

Don't believe me, conduct an experiment. Stand across the room, spray a bunch of perfume, then leave. Come back into the room, go to the opposite end where you sprayed and it will barely smell at all. With that being said then you have to look at percentages; 1 in 4 people who smoke will die from smoking related illness (even though heart attacks are often caused by a combination of things). So for someone breathing in only a minute quantity of smoke, that itself is also free of many of the potent toxins already injested by the primary smoker, is at very little risk. It basically comes down to people being annoyed by a minority in our society and trying to remove that annoyance. Hey, that's life people, we live in a free country; I hate having kids running around my table in restaurants, but I don't try to use pseudo-scientific experiments to get those tykes banned from my eating establishments.

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Tom Brokaw asked Obama if he was still smoking during his one-hour interview on last Sunday’s "Meet the Press." Obama hemmed and hawed, but in the end admitted to falling off the wagon a few times.

It's none of Tom's or your business if he does or doesn't. You people take this PC business too far.

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Also, marijuana is one of the safest drugs.

Cannabis is not a drug, it's a leafy plant that gives you a more pleasant buzz than smoking Golden Virginia.

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America is about to go into the deepest recession, if not depression, we have seen since the 1930's. We still have a sitting president who seems bent on destroying what is left of this country before he leaves office. We are occupying another country against their will and it's costing us our financial future. Investment Bankers are raiding our treasury and Congress is letting them do it. And the MSM wants to make Obama's smoking habit an issue.????!!!!
Wake up people or we're cooked. It may already be too late.

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For starters, I think it's a discredit to AlterNet that they used the hoax picture of Barack Obama at all. Surely they would have known this was 'PhotoShopped,' or should preserve their publishing integrity and ensure that at least their graphics are a representation of real life.

The President of the United States of America [from my understanding] is elected to govern and run the country with the best interests of citizens at heart. Consequently, I think the only grounds to object to President-Elect Obama's smoking habit is on the basis that it is a poor example to youth, notably African-American youth, as Dr Rick pointed out.

I think that taking up the habit of smoking is utterly stupid, and that anyone who starts is, at the time of doing so, either unaware of the addictive properties of nicotine or under a degree of duress from peer pressure, stress, depression etc. The allegation that smokers are stupid because they smoke is completely unfounded; I have not smoked but I understand it is indescribably difficult to quit smoking for the vast majority. Therefore I think a better adjective for addicted smokers would be 'helpless' or 'dependent,' rather than stupid.

So by this logic, Obama was stupid/naive/ignorant when he began smoking, but as he is [presumably] now addicted to cigarettes/nicotine he is, as I have explained, more helpless than stupid in terms of his nicotine habit.

It is not at all admirable, and quite disturbing, that some users on this post seem to spitefully regard all smokers as stupid, and wish to impose this such opinion on President [Elect] Obama. I challenge all those users who do so to start smoking and become addicted to nicotine, then try to quit and experience the difficulty of this, before passing judgement on those who cannot [yet] quit.

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People need to let the man alone. It's Obama's choice whether he smokes or not. Other Presidents have smoked. I feel sorry for any President who has his every action monitored by proponents and opponents. It's his choice - not the public's choice. My gosh - this shouldn't even be news.

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Duh...leave Obama alone. So, he smokes on and off...so what.

Why don't you pick on people who are so huge they smash others in the airplane?

And what about those who don't even wash.

And what about those who sit on the freeway and breathe in carbon monoxide?

This country is nuts and filled with "better than thou" people.

Bush is an alcoholic, why don't you make a big deal out of that?

From,
A thinking person who wishes that the news would focus on more important stuff

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I smoked for about 30 yrs and have quit for about 30 yrs. The trick is to never quit quiting at least it was for me.Eventually you will get tired of quiting and will quit for good.

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it would be unrealistic to expect Barack to try and give up smoking now....however, if he is truley a occasional smoker.....perhaps it is not such a tragedy.....after things settle in a while he an try a patch or chewing gum....

If however, he is a heavy smoker...then..based on my experience ..this is not time to stop. It is possible that there are new substitutes that can work wonders, but that is highly unlikely...

MY experience: After the third day my body began to feel the stress of wanting to smoke. It took my body a year to stabilize.

Stopping if you are a heavy smoker, (I went cold turkey) takes effort and focus and control......and great discomfort. For many months after I gave up smoking, I ran to sit in the smoking section..and if I saw a smoker walking in the opposite direction, no matter where I was going...I would do an about face and walk closely behind to catch a little smoke.

So, he is young and healthy .... I think what ever he was doing will be ok..for a couple of more years...lets hope he is a light smoker as he claimed.

And there are pluses to giving it up:
1. you feel you are stacking the deck so that hopefully you can be arround to see your grandchildren.
2. you not only stop sitting in the smoking section..you complain if anyone puts you on the same plane with a smoker.

So, give the poor man a break..his Presidency will be no picnic..there will be plenty of aggrevation, blame and even shame waiting for him ....and he will need to grab an occasional drag or two...As long as its not pot..the last thing we need is another out-of-touchnic in the White HOuse.

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