Drinking smoke

CEBU, Philippines - Thank you, smokers, you fulfill prophecy. Drinking smoke – that is how the word      smoking came to be. No penalty in this world has yet been strong enough to ban smoking. Wherever you go whether it is the glitziest hotel or the squalor in slums, there is always a man or woman smoking. No matter how high taxes are on cigarettes and how heavy media barrage is on the dangers of smoking, people just light a cigarette, knowing fully well it is sin. Knowing fully well the smoke could destroy their brains.

But if world leaders cannot even come to an agreement to cut carbon emissions from their own countries, how much more stopping a person from spewing hazardous smoke from his own body?

In many ways there is a prophetic note to it. Scripture in 2 Peter 3:10 reveals exactly how the Earth will be destroyed. It says, “But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.” Yes, honestly speaking –you and I — will all be burned. These events of global warming, earthquakes and erupting volcanoes are no fiction or disaster tourism. These manifestations merely unfold the slow melting and burning of the Earth.

When 192 nations at the Copenhagen Climate Summit would not come to an agreement to cut carbon emissions, they have willfully allowed the Earth to melt and burn. In many ways, they fulfilled prophecy with pinpoint accuracy. Smokers are just in a hurry to do it on their own, sans a treaty among nations.

Thanks to smokers, they fulfill prophecy with every cigarette and cigar they light. It would be nice if only smokers are burned alive and only countries that would not cut on gas emissions are burned to death. But then this willful act of smoking and spewing deadly gas emissions affects all of us – that is, including you and me – who are not smokers and who are not world leaders.

Recreational drug

The ban on smoking is not necessarily for the smoker. It is to prevent and stop passive smoking or second hand smoking because smoke affects people in the immediate vicinity of the smoker. The ban on smoking is meant to discourage smoking in indoor public places such as restaurants, public transport, malls and function rooms. A common concern among legislators is to discourage smoking among minors and many states have passed laws against selling tobacco products to underage customers. In the Philippines there are heavy taxes – called sin taxes – on cigarettes and cigars. Not surprisingly, people like to sin so no matter how heavy the taxes on cigarettes are, people who like to smoke are willing to pay.

There is no exaggeration in the proclivity for man to sin through smoking. Smokers enjoy smoking even though tobacco-related diseases are some of the biggest killers in the world today and are cited as one of the biggest causes of premature death in industrialized countries. In the US, about half a million deaths per year are reportedly attributed to smoking-related diseases. In China, about one-third of the male population have shortened lifespans due to smoking. Male smokers lose an average of 13.2 years of life and female smokers lose an average of 14.5 years of life.

Although smoking is also called recreational drug use, nothing in it is recreational once smoke from tobacco is inhaled into the lungs. In fact, inhaling vaporized gas form of substance into the lungs is a quick and effective way of delivering drugs into the bloodstream because gas diffuses directly into the pulmonary vein, then into the heart and from there to the brain. It affects the user within less than a second of the first inhalation. The inhaled substances trigger chemical reactions such as sensations of pleasure or a certain “high.” Whatever it is, whether it affects the smoker directly or the secondhand smoker, exhaling carbon dioxide has almost the same effect as carbon gas emissions.

Drinking smoke – for smokers, it’s a nice way to die slowly. Wonder if there is the same high and sensation of pleasure when carbon gas emissions slowly melt and burn the Earth and everything in it. Gone are the days of Noah.