Where There's Smoke, There's Rage

I recently learned that Yves St Laurent makes their own brand of cigarettes and it made me FURIOUS! Joey B couldn't understand why I was so upset so I tried to explain - here are my points:

1. By putting one's designer label on a poisonous, addictive product they are legitimizing it AND schilling to the brand whores in the world just as blatantly as Camel did to children.
2. While it has become very trendy to slap a designer label on anything, this crosses a line. What's next, YSL arsenic?
   
3. These products cause CANCER, how dare a house of fashion throw their hand into this ring? This is profiteering at it's absolute worse. It sickens me.
   

In order to defend myself against charges of hypocrisy, yes - I have been known to have a cigarette after a cocktail or two. The truth is that I smoke about 15 - 20 cigarettes every 6 months (and that's a generous estimation). The point is that I make the decision to do it, as all adults do, and I understand the risk to my health.

I have always had strong opinions about smoking - in true rage-a-holic fashion I used to smoke socially but would instantly lose interest if a guy I thought was cute at a club turned out to be a smoker. I have always been very uncomfortable with addictions of all sorts - I myself have never been addicted to anything but I have studied addiction and understand that helping individuals to quit has become a huge industry in it's own right but still... The bottom line is that I truly believe (right or wrong) that people are stronger that any addiction and I have always thought of people who are unable to quit as being weak. It was when I learned that Obama was a heavy smoker that I began to have concerns about him. Is he going to be sneaking out behind the West Wing for a smoke while there's business to be taken care of? But I digress.

At the end of the day I respect everyone's right to make their own decisions and choose what to do to their own bodies but when a respected company chooses to legitimize (and make a profit) off of the addiction of millions... there's really never an excuse for that.