Who can risk Smoking?

I once had a conversation with someone, more like an argument. I always wanted to experience new things. So in the same line of thought, I also wanted to experience smoking, of course, I have no interest in making a habit out of it. So I was like, “You know I will also try smoking as a new experience and once I felt what it is to smoke, I will leave it out”. And the second person replied, “Well, Why not try tasting different poisons and see how they feel like”. An angry version of sarcasm it was.

I thought they had a point. If trying new things is what I want, then it will impose on me the list of other things to try too. I didn’t really have an answer to that comment back then. But as it came back to my mind, I realised there are many things one must consider while planning to do something. Like when planning to go on a trip and searching for the destination, one must consider if it is going to have trekking chances, or some might think of historical importance and all.

But in the type of experiences I am speaking of, what plays a major role is a risk factor. The amount of risk one is willing to take varies from person to person, of course. But there should be a way to calculate the risk factor.

I have come up with some rough and vague risk factors.

In the world we are living, Rational minds try to view the world in terms of statistical probability. It is the probability obtained from experimental or statistical analysis. Like the statistical probability of me waking up at 8 in the morning is simply equal to the ratio of the number of times I woke up at 8 to the number of times I actually woke up in my life.

So to attempt the main question in the heading of this article, Who can risk Smoking? is to find risk factors. So let me first define the risk probability of smoking cigarettes. Then again there is an important point I like to add. By risk I mean the risk of getting addicted, only when addicted one will have to go through continuous smoking and thus enduring permanent damages.

So I define Risk Probability(RP) of smoking a few cigarettes in the following picture:

This gives the statistical risk probability(RP) of getting permanent damages when tried less than ten cigarettes. So if this probability is very low as in less than 3 to 5 per cent ie., less than 0.03–0.05, then I can say it is not much trouble trying it.

As far as I know, this value is less than 0.01, cause smoking less than ten cigarettes didn’t do permanent damage in any case I knew so far.

But is it all that one must consider before giving it a try? No, one must also consider the addiction probability. This Addiction probability is what I theorise to be of two types, one is a personal addiction probability(PAP) and the second one is a generalised human cigarette addiction probability(GCAP). As the name suggests, the Personal Addiction probability(PAP) depends on individuals and varies from person to person.

So I define the PAP of a person as the ratio of the number of addictions he had to the number of addictive things he tried. The addictive things are sugar, caffeine, cigarette, alcohol, cough syrup, chocolate, and so on, even a soft drink. So if the ratio is high, that means there is a high chance of him getting addicted to smoking if he tries it.

I know not many will satisfy with such a PAP consideration, because those who are addicted to caffeine may have high motivation against any other form of an addictive substance. Many other things come into consideration but I think it is only fair to consider it before taking such risk.

And the final factor one must consider is generalised human cigarette addiction probability(GCAP). I define GCAP as the ratio of the number of active regular smokers to the number of people who had the experience of smoking at least once. If GCAP is high, it means a lot of people are addicted to smoking, and the risk is high. And if it is less, it means human have a less addictive response to the cigarette.

Finally, we can combine the two factors into one Individual Smoking Addiction probability (ISAP), I call it individual because it still varies from person to person. I define this ISP as the product of PAP and GCAP.

Thus ISAP = PAP * GCAP.

The Risk probability RP must be considered only when ISP is very low as in the probability of you getting addicted to cigarette is very less. Cause only if you can control yourself from addicting, one must consider the probability of damage.

For the Poison case though we need not consider the ISAP, cause the RP is obviously 1, as in the permanent damage due to poison is always one. (I said only permanent damage and not death, cause few poisons can be treatable within specific time).

It clear that cigarette is obviously preferable than poison because the risk probability is very low in the case of cigarettes.

I am not encouraging or discouraging anyone of the readers to smoke. I leave it to you to decide your future endeavours. Everyone has their own limits of risk probability which they don’t want to cross. It’s better if one does a rough estimation such as this before trying new experiences. So who can risk smoking? The ones whose RP and ISAP are less than the limits they set for themselves.