At 21, I had a chest x-ray and although the film was white (the lings were black), the doctor saw a lump, but couldn't decipher what it was. I stopped smoking that day and now 40 years later, my lungs are clear.

smoking when he came to live with me for a period of time. I got him to quit How? Easy,, no smoking money for you. Cigs in Canada are 10 bucks a pack. No friggin way was I going to sponsor that crap. He quit within a year. End of story.

I never understood the reasoning of smoking outdoors. The smoke particles stick to the clothing and when you hold a baby you have the child breath the dust from your clothing.

In the American Litvish yeshivah velt as far back as the 1960's we students campaigned against the rabbis smoking! Medical evidence against smoking goes back over a century, and by the 1960's anyone living in the real world was well aware of the dangers. The best you could say is 'G-d protects the simple' for those who were addicted, but to start smoking was simply wrong. If one wanted to rebel one wore non-white shirts or trendy black shoes or black jeans -- all healthier options than smoking!

The idea that teens are a separate group from children or adults is a modern invention. Until the beginning of the 20th Century most boys went to work by age 13, and didn't sit in school and college until age 25. If Israeli Haredi teens need to rebel let them wear smaller yamulkas or shorter payos or -- God forbid! -- speak Ivrit or English in public. Or follow Adrian Mole and wear red socks. Or watch basketball on TV. Smoking is a form of self-harm, and Poskim oppose it.

People go bananas when parents refuse to vaccinate their children because of 'endargement' it can pose to their children, smoking should be treated accordingly as well. I am dumbfounded when there are mothers and fathers smoking at children's playground where babies are present. Negligent, dangerous and should be outlawed.

If haredi men stop smoking the folliowing will happen: 1. there will be a huge hole in the national budget from all the lost cigarette tax revenue; 2. There will be plenty of money left for haredi men to actually buy food for their families; 3. Haredi men may actually become healthy enough to serve in the IDF and hold down real jobs; 4. They will be able to build their own sukkot instead of paying others to do it for them with money they never earned; 5. They may actually spend some time learning Torah instead of 'draying' around in the street smoking; 6. They may actually be able to smell the coffee, grow up and stop stealing from the public.

They're supposed to do everything (except convert, apparently) to look after their bodies and save their own lives. "Pickuah nefesh" and all that... Yet, despite it being a known medical fact that smoking kills or harms the body - and that of the people who inhale this poison - conveniently doesn't apply to this drug addiction. Whatever suits gets the OK, whatever doesn't, just doesn't. Why don't the women do it? Because they're told they can't. Women aren't even allowed the same stupidity rights.