For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for August 26, 2013

Since when is that bad news for the smoker’s family when the smoker’s family doesn’t smoke?

That’s entirely normal.

What isn’t normal is all these ads on the comic page flashing on and off. I can’t even read the cartoons anymore. I may have to quit reading them all. This is a real pain.

My wife quit after 45 years — it’ll be two years on Sept. 9. Thank God for Chantix!! Quitting still wasn’t easy, but that made it possible.

night gaunt. to quote a certain wanna be a president from Texas, ‘oops!’I misread your comment yesterday (Lynn’s notes) assuming that it was YOUR comment . when it was mentioned:

‘later as a cartoonist’*I ,as a cartoonist myself (albeit unpaid!) and being familiar with your comments, I wanted to see your work.never mind!

my mom quit smoking after 50 years of smoking and she quit cold turkey, no pills, gum, or what ever, she just watched my step dads mom struggle with emphysema and die a slow painful death and she put them in the trash. Was a great day for the family.

been 41 smoke-free years for me

when he says it it looks like he’s gonna have a heart attack

Why would someone who needs his lungs to play the trumpet smoke to begin with?

not unless they want to die suffering breathing problems

There’s a trick to itYa gotta wanna…

Congratulations to all of you who have quit! My dad couldn’t quit and we lost him in 2006 at age 75 to emphysema. It IS others’ business skip carlson for many reasons! Their family wants them around longer so they want them to quit because they love them. And it’s been proven that second hand smoke is bad for the non smoker who must live with or be around a smoker regularly. Try to think of others for a change instead of being so selfish.

Well, it may be their business, but it affects me and other people around the smoker. The second hand smoke is bad for those who have to breath it, and that little fact has been proven. Plus, it smells bad. I don’t like carrying around that smoker’s smell in my hair and clothes. (or my car and home after you scream at me that it is your right to smoke in my car and home since you are a guest there) “..it is their business..” A sentiment a smoker makes.

I don’t like to express disagreement with people, but it IS definitely the business of their families and anyone else who has to share the air with them. My father smoked two packs a day (died in 1956 at the age of 59), and I’ve been diagnosed with COPD. Also some of my coworkers smoked in the office till the 1990’s, when laws against it were passed in Florida. I’m not saying that the second-hand smoke I breathed was the cause of my COPD, but it couldn’t have helped.

My dad smoked for years. Then he was having problems with his legs and went to the doctor. The doctor told him that he could either quit smoking and they would do surgery or he would lose his legs. He walked out of the doctor’s office and never smoked again.

Smoking cost us all. It is not ‘PC’ to demand that people not smoking. If I can smell your smoke it is damaging my lungs period and you have no right to do that. If people want to smoke they should have to put on a self-contained hazmat suit and soak all that yummy cancerous smoke themselves then decontaminate and then join the rest of us.

Also, smoking deprived me of one of my closest friends since childhood. She died at the age of 63, after hauling around oxygen tanks for several years. She outlived her mother by four and a half years.

I’ve known them, but still don’t understand how it’s even possible to be a horn player and a smoker.

My dad quite smoking after he had a transient ischemic attack (TIA) aka ministroke, but started back up a couple months later. :( He’s been ok since but I really wish he would’ve stopped smoking for good. My sister did not long ago. I’m so proud of her and she feels so much better. :)

I quit in June 1968. I don’t regret that decision!

My Mom has have an off and on relationship with smoking (she doesn’t smoke now for good) and whenever she quit she would wait at least a month before starting up again…my Dad never quit smoking

I think it’s the business of the people who are affected by the smoke!

“I bet Satchmo and Al Hirt never puffed.”

You would lose. Al Hirt loved cigars; here’s an interview with a cigar magazine: http://www.cigarsmokermag.com/alhirt/allhirt.htm. And here’s a great shot of Satchmo, his trumpet, and his cigarette: http://tinyurl.com/kyxbxbt

You play an instrument that you blow into you need to quit.

Everyone needs to quit. The production of cigarettes should be stopped. After all, isn’t assisted suicide illegal?

Oh yeah? We have to smell those people.

My [adopted—biologically grand]dad quit 20 years ago when smoking resulted in a quadruple bypass (and a few weeks after my [biological] mom [and his only biological child] died from pneumonia at age 26, undoubtedly made harder to fight after she’d gone back to smoking—though being a quadriplegic played a part, too).

20 years later, he has pulmonary fibrosis, despite never smoking again, and I’m watching him die right before my eyes as he grows more and more reliant on his oxygen machine. Whose business is it if someone smokes? Not just theirs—but their family’s, their friends, and those who love them. It’s killing me to see this happen to him. Yes, he’s 75, but before the PF, he was still unstoppable.

Two years ago, we buried my 55-year-old cousin when a very aggressive lung cancer killed her. Eight years before that, her mom [dad’s sister] died from the same thing. 13 years ago, my uncle wouldn’t quit smoking and died from a heart attack that was entirely due to smoking.

Don’t tell me that smoking is only the smoker’s business. When you’re loved by anyone, it’s their business too, because they have to deal with the long-term effects. And don’t even get me started on secondhand smoke—that actually put me in the hospital with over a 104 degree fever when I was four years old because I’d developed a severe allergy to it.

For me, it’s personal. I’ve lost (and am still losing) the people dearest to me because of cigarettes.

I have never started smoking, so I never had to deal with quitting myself. But I have had to deal with people trying to quit. Once my sister stopped speaking to me for a week because I wouldn’t loan her money for cigarettes.

Wrong!!!!! It IS everyone elses!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Maybe its about WHY he has to quit smoking.

And half the time the problem is the un-extinguished butts halfwits leave behind.

PC victim? You do realize that this comic is only “reruns” For Better or For Worse has ended and these are all “classics” that the reprint because it is such a famous comic strip. Back when this was new it would not have been a “pc victim”, but a commentary on Lynn’s personal views of smoking and smokers.

I call a trip to Walmart “running the gauntlet”.

quit smoking AND shave the stupid mustache that hasn’t been in style since 1995….

Except people like, oh, the smoker’s child who can’t avoid exposure to second-hand smoke.

I don’t know if turning pro made much difference, but from the moment I installed Adblock Plus I never saw another ad — popup, rollover or static!

They won’t say that when grow up. God bless them.

You should have done that a long time ago.

I paid for Pro several months ago, under $12.00 as I recall. The only ads are those for books related to whichever comic is showing at the time. These ads don’t flash or roll, they are completely still, off to the right side of the screen. That’s been my experience, so I hope it’s the same for other people. I’m glad I paid the fee, since I enjoy the comics so much more now!

Yes, “gasp”! If you want to live gasp, gasp!!