[updated below] I was 15 when I started smoking, that was about 18 years ago. After about two months of daily smoking I realized that I was really addicted to smoking cigarettes. At that point I told myself that I would smoke for no longer than 10 years. Again it has been about 18 years of smoking, on and off smoking, but mostly on, and so it is obvious that I have missed my target considerably.

Recently, I have had a somewhat nasty cold with a cough. It's been about a week. Due to the presently painful upper respiratory condition, and also partly due to memory of bouts of bronchitis two of the last 3 or 4 winters, I am perhaps more motivated to quit than ever before.

I have been thinking about calling the Washington State Quit Line (been thinking about calling for years actually.) Yesterday I looked it up, and was disappointed to find that the program had been slashed in last year's legislative session.

This means that I have been paying significantly higher amounts of cigarette taxes for some time now, (since 2010 if I am not mistaken.)

To me it's a disappointing budgetary decision: because it seems to make sense (both morally and otherwise) for that tax money to have been set aside to help smokers (like me) to quit (revenue problems or no.)

p.s. I was thinking alot more about this, and I may have actually been 14 when I started.

That was back in the days when I could buy three packs for three dollars, at the convenience store a block and a half from my house in Kenwood, Minneapolis.

I went to the Olympia Climate Action program yesterday. It was an excellent presentation/workshop. The very serious and pressing realities of climate change and peak oil were skillfully juxtaposed with the promise of creating very inpsiring, hopeful, and exciting visions for overcoming these challenges.

Olympia Climate Action has programs scheduled for the next two second Mondays, in July and August. Stay tuned, or check tcpronet, for more information.

For more information, also see: Transition Washington State

From Oil Dependence to Local Resilience: a Transition Initiative

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