These cancer sticks ended up killing my Dad (well, the main reason anyway). Don't want you folks to have to learn from the school of hard knocks like he had too.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/34520999@ ... 3/sizes/o/

It's getting on for two years since my last cigarette and your image reminds me of how foul the habit really is. Nice work Lyle!

Should have made it look even uglier Erisian. I've been meaning to do one of these renders for a long time being inspired by Chris Jordan's work of course, but only recently did I figure out how to come close. Just wish these cancer sticks would go away already, but I also believe in free will and for folks to make that choice for them, but nothing wrong with informing folks before making such a decision.

That's a lot of cigarettes, lylejk. A cool image and an important message.

I have a friend who started smoking as an adult. That made no sense to me. I mean, as a teenager I can get that there may be group pressure, cool factor etc ... but he was well-educated and intelligent, with a normal job. He knew the information about the effects of smoking. To make the choice to start smoking at that point was ... very, very strange to me.

Now, more than a decade later, he has stopped smoking. So that's good at least.
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Griatch

Good for him Griatch; let's hope there was no damage from that habit.

lyle: yuc! what a mess - who is going to clean that up?! nice job and an important theme - smoking killed one lady i used to work with and very nearly took away another too, fortunately she gave up smoking, went on a serious excercise scheme and could be saved.

erisian: that's one of the things i admire most about you, you just went ahead and quit it. makes me proud too.

Very serious but worthwhile message Lyle - I am now much older than either of my 'chain smoking' parents ever got to be; they both died of lung cancer and it is sad that probably the greatest lesson I ever learned from them was that I have never smoked cigarettes at all.

An aside here; a number of serious bush fires in OZ are often caused by careless smokers throwing stll burning butts out of their car windowsl

Lastly in my final working years I went to work by train; the pungent odiur of smokers having just finished their puffing away on the platform before jumping into the carriage was nauseating at close quarters.

WAH! I can smell that one! Yes, that's what a smoker's shadow looks like.

I remember my Dad telling me, after a few months of not smoking, how he could smell things that I've taken for granted Matera.

Ugh I hate cigarettes if I am not around the smoke for a while then come near it I can be sick for a week. I don't know how people enjoy it but oh well.

Good image. :3

@Erisian...Has it been that long already?! Wow!

Me too Moko for many reasons, not just the smell.

I got ahead of myself a little. It will be two years in August I believe, and I don't regret it one bit!

Well done Erisian. Bet you feel better for it.

Cleaner, more energetic, I sleep better, I'm richer and I don't have to stand outside in all weathers when I'm in a pub or cafe.

About smoking. I smoked since I was 16. I gave up in 1999. A month after I finally gave up, I was diagnosed with laryngeal cancer. The final outcome was that I needed a laryngectomy (complete removal of the larynx/voicebox). I now have a stoma (tracheotomy, hole in the neck) through which I breathe. Further test also required a neck dissection to remove cancerous glandular nodes. I speak with a device.
I have been cancer free for 15 years. I am one of the very few survivors of laryngeal cancer over 10 years.
The Laryngectomee Association of Victoria targets schools in Melbourne and country High schools and presents talks to 12-17 year olds to try and stop kids taking up smoking. We present a "no holds barred lecture/ talk / sermon of what living is like without a voicebox" I am pleased to be part of this program. With these talks we hope to stop some children to defy peer pressure and not take up smoking .

Inspiring wbool63

Wow; had not ideal wbool63; agree with Odin and hope you continue to do well and be an inspiration to others to keep them from breathing the cancer sticks.

I wish you well with that wbool63. If you can stop people from starting the habit, you are doing an awesome job!

wbool63: i'm with the others in wishing you success in your efforts, i think it's really good that young people get to hear about the downsides of smoking from someone who really knows all about them! it easily gets too abstract coming from the rest of the grown up world.
by the way, when i was a student of linguistics i'm proud to say i made a tiny contribution to the development of those speech devices - i was part of a testing group who listened to speech produced with differently made devices and rated them according to phonetic accuracy. i was just one of many who did this, so my contribution was a drop in the ocean, but i had friends who worked in the actual project and helped analysing the data and all. exciting stuff for us students and hopefully we could be of some real use!

Wow; that's cool stuff you did AnMal.