Treated like a Queen FOR Smoking at Office Christmas Party

[polly7]

241. I agree that referring to people who object to smoking as young health nuts isn't

probably the wisest phrasing to use, but I understand that a lot of smokers are subjected to some pretty horrible treatment. Being called 'disgusting', 'filthy', etc. is probably the reason some are a bit resentful. You've stated it well ...... it's an addiction. We seem to try to understand drug addictions, alcoholism ... with none of the same stigma as smoking.

I've worked in nursing homes where residents' only desire in life ........ honest to god, they've lost all family, friends, possessions, contact with the outside world as a result of being moved to the home - was to go out for a cigarette. It pissed me off to no end to see some of the RN's make them wait for hours before they'd dole out the resident's own locked up at the nurses' station, cigarette. In our health districts we don't get the volume of calls in rural areas to justify paying full time EMS, so we'd work in the home during the day and leave if called out. I vividly remember one man, who'd come in to the home with no family or support and who'd had a hell of a hard life, outside scouring the ashtrays for butts because he wasn't allowed his own cigs more than once an hour. We took him by ambulance to Regina that night, where he died. I always wondered just wtf it would have hurt to let him do the only thing left in his life he enjoyed. It still hurts to think of that ride up.