I look at cheap cigarettes on vacation and reminisce

I would have been all over them once upon a time but now I can't imagine smoking, even though I still vape. Just the thought of cigarettes makes my throat sore. I used to have a seemingly limitless capacity for smoking and now it's like passing an old classmate in the street. You know the face but time has made you strangers.

This year I'll quit vaping too as the government will be increasing the cost exponentially through taxation. Vaping was pushed as a legitimate and healthier alternative to smoking here, but it's a potential cash cow and so it has been demonised just as smoking was. Not that either are good for you but the excuse of trying to price people out of smoking for the sake of their health was as flimsy as the same will be for vaping. If you want something gone you ban it. Excessive taxation on addiction is just drug pushing. Yes, costs to the national health service and all that but alcohol has a far greater overall impact on society including cost. If the tax on alcohol had risen in the same proportion as on cigarettes then a pint of lager would cost nearly £20 right now.

Anyway, I digress. We had fun, cigarettes, vaping. Sniffing solvents will be my new hobby 👏