The first time i smoked anything, it was a joint.
I was about 17. I got invited back to a friends house after the pub. I got passed the joint, i toked. I could feel my body trying to cough but i wouldn't let it. Then i sat staring at the TV. Then i went home and accidentally cycled into a lamp post.

God this QOTW is shit!... REALLY shit!!
(A Hospital Carpark, Wed 19 Mar 2008, 19:41, Reply)

the first time i smoked i was probably about 8 years old.
now i know that sounds young, but it was endorsed by my parents, my mum smoked silk cut and my dad smoked a pipe. Shocking case of child abuse? no stark warning of how horrible it is.

my dad caught me pretending to smoke his empty pipe, wanting to put me off he stoked the bad boy up and lit it handing it to me to puff on. i puffed like popeye and my dad said i was meant to inhale it. which i did.

i turned a pale shade of green.

then i had a coughing fit for the next 5 minutes and my parents fell about laughing.

it put me off smoking for quite a few years, i had a few puffs while i was at school, but didn't smoke until i went to uni that i started smoking proper. and that was only a sideline to smoking weed.

i'm now smoke free and have been for he last 2 years.
( Thor_sonofodin has done things, terrible things on, Wed 19 Mar 2008, 19:39, Reply)

parental advisory
My sister, when about ten years old, stole a cigarette from my dad and sneakily smoked it.

How did he react? He made her sit down and smoke another, in front of him. She protested. She screeched. She cried a lot. And coughed. And may have been sick.

Did this teach her a lesson? Did it fuck. She smokes 20 a day and when she's not on the fegs she's skinning up.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Wed 19 Mar 2008, 19:35, Reply)

I'm boring
At a teenage party, a girl I had spent years hopelessly obsessing over offered me a puff of her cigar. I accepted, and while I don't remember my reasoning, I'm guessing it was because I thought it would be as close to kissing her as I'd ever get.
Following that, I pretty much accepted any time a cigar/cigarette was offered to me, but that was never too often. Maybe 2-3 times per year through my mid-twenties, and not at all since then.
(chase, Wed 19 Mar 2008, 19:32, 1 reply)

I can still remember the date.
It was May 26th 1995. I will always remember it as it was the day after a major car crash round the corner from my house in which 6 teenagers were killed. Christopher Peacock from London Tonight was doing a report when me and a friend were walking up to the shop to get some sweets. One our way we found an unopened packet of cigarettes on the floor, Silk Cuts they were!

We pocketed them and went to the woods that afternoon where we proceeded to smoke all of them between us. We were very very ill.

It was only a few years later, when I remembered this that it dawned on me that the cigarettes were so close to the car, and so covered in dirt, that it is entirely possible that they came from the wreckage of the vehicle. It still slightly disturbs me to this day....
( Redsushi! Whoop! Whoop! Yes, that one!, Wed 19 Mar 2008, 19:29, 5 replies)

Snuff
Since going to University I've been introduced to the bizarrely appealing world of snuff. As I don't smoke it probably affects me more, but I know a load of smokers who do it too. It's like taking Vicks nasal spray, and it mellows you out for a few minutes, although if/when you next blow your nose it can get slightly messy...

I have seen someone take a line somewhere between one and two meters in length, but they had to throw u halfway through, so if you're up for a Dickensian thrill then please, do it in moderation...
( greedyostrich Cheese is evil! Cheddar is VOODOO!, Wed 19 Mar 2008, 19:25, 2 replies)

Well, not cigarette per se...
My first tobacco experience (aside from second hand) was an ex-girlfriend who smoked. We split up, and I had minor withdrawl symptoms
from her nicotine laced kisses. If you can't keep a man through addiction, you've no hope in this world.

Length? I blame the carcinogens.
(Harleif Skankhammer II was killing time at, Wed 19 Mar 2008, 19:25, Reply)

Well I have never actually smoke
But a few years back at school say, in year 9 or 8, we (well I and this goth gril who was very pleasant actually) tried something else.
It was lunch time on the fields and I and a group of people I hang out with were in this area on the edge of the field, kind of like a small woods area.

I happened to have a lighter because at that age who can resist burning things? Me and this girl decided to try smoking some dried grass/plant with long dry stems. The stem broke like straw, I broke it to a longish cigarette size, lit it and inhaled.

- It was horrible, I couldn't breath for about a minute. All I could feel was this horrible heavy and burning sensation in my lungs. I can't remember if she tried it or not, I think she did. Luckily no one really saw me having a mini breathing attack so I saved myself from further embarrassment.

I guess it was at a point that I had to fit in with the chavs or die.
( spaceage, Wed 19 Mar 2008, 19:24, Reply)

I've been smoking cigars since I was 13.
never touched a cigarette though, I don't want cancer.
( Gerbilinafishtank Gerbil in a fish tank...TURTLE POWER!, Wed 19 Mar 2008, 19:21, 2 replies)

I have never smoked a cigarette
I have smoked crack, skunk, heroin, charlie spliffs, salvia divinorum, DMT and ketamine soaked spliffs.

Not one cigarette though. my lungs are perfect! Compared to the rest of you dirty addicts.

I'm clean now though...
( disasterprone "Pyjamas caused the Holocaust", Wed 19 Mar 2008, 19:18, Reply)

I'm one of those people smokers really hate.
I've been known to pick up the habit in times of great stress and buy a couple of packs and smoke for about a week or two until the stress wears down. Then, when I have smoked the last one from the pack, I quit for the next few months- or maybe the next few years.

Smoking has never really had that strong a hold on me.

Letting other smokers know this tends to make them VERY snarky.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Wed 19 Mar 2008, 19:15, 4 replies)

To my shame....
I started my second youngest sister smoking when she was 13.... I stopped when I was in my late 20's and she's hooked and coughing her guts up every night and she's now nearly 40.
( girlinthehole, Wed 19 Mar 2008, 19:15, Reply)

My first cigarette...
I was about 10 years old, and round one of my friends house (Jack) with a group of others. A few days prior, Jack had found a lighter down the back of a bus seat. It was half filled with gas, so, being destructive children that we were (Jack, Brian, James, and I), decided to burn things.

It wasn’t until one of us (I forget who it was, but it was probably me) pretended to do the smoking thing with the fingers. Jack's mum smoked, so we went looking round her room for a packet, to steal a cig.

Eventually, we found one. We took it out of the packet, hid it up Brian’s jumper, put the packet back in its place and sneaked back to Jack's room, giggling like loons.

We all sat around in a circle, with the cigarette in the middle, staring at it. We each tried to get someone else to light it, as, in reality, we were all pussies. James eventually asked, "How do you do it?" To which I replied, "I'll show you"

I took a piece of A4 paper, rolled it up, took the lighter, set one end on fire. I took one sharp, deep breath in, then promptly choked and spluttered... It took about three days to make the pain go away.

So that was my first 'Cigarette'... a rolled up piece of paper.
(DanS like you've never DanSed before!, Wed 19 Mar 2008, 19:14, Reply)

Newsagents
i don't smoke, never have never will.

I used to work in a newsagents in newmarket (hint: i share my first name with them) and every saturday this guy would come in and spend £40+ on tobacco and cigarettes,
Now your thinking thats not too bad some people spend more but this guy looked and smelled disgusting, he could induce vomit from forty paces and always had a string of drool hanging from his mouth not the best image for a smoker,
Every time he came in i had to talk to him whilst holding my breath (which is hard) and serve him as quickly as possible,
Until my last day as cover manager at the store where i told him that we had sold out of tobacco despite standing behind a counter full of the stuff,
he believed me and shuffled off out of the store never to be seen again (by me atleast)

Length? Bigger than a cigar
(hypr_like_a_monkey, Wed 19 Mar 2008, 19:13, 1 reply)

I do not smoke, my father does.
This has somehow led to me spending 90% of my life with a pen/coffee stirrer/rolled up bit of paper hanging from the corner of my mouth. This in turn means that people assume I DO smoke and so I get offered a lot of cigarettes.

I'm thinking about buying a pipe, just to chew on.
(goat thinks you're shit, Wed 19 Mar 2008, 19:13, 2 replies)

Kinda wierd, but when I was 11
me, my brother and a couple of mates clubbed together and got like 75p together to buy a packet of bangers to harass the population of the town we lived in.

Not unsurprisingly, the bloke in the shop we went to declined to sell these to a bunch of 11 and 12 year old kids.

Suprisingly however, in a moment of enterprise I asked the bloke to sell us 10 B&H instead, to which he readily agreed.

Voila. 2.5 bensons later I was yakking my ring up and never looked back. Haven't really ever stopped smoking since.
( Not Pineapple anymore, Wed 19 Mar 2008, 19:10, Reply)

I was in my teens.
I had been smoking pot for some time at that point. Somehow smoking tobacco seemed to be a natural enough extension of that.

I remember the first ones well- it was after we had smoked some pretty powerful weed. I loved them! I was bumming them off another teenager- I was 15 at the time- and in my stoned condition they were wonderful!

That is, until I puked out all the food I had just consumed as the result of munchies.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Wed 19 Mar 2008, 19:09, 2 replies)

*checks calendar*
*shrugs*

Can't remember the first one, but the last one was on New Year's Eve 2007. I've only ever smoked about 50 in my whole life.

Flashsmoking is not as interesting as flashwanking.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Wed 19 Mar 2008, 19:09, 3 replies)

Was about 10
...nicked one of my mum's Lambert and Butlers, and went to smoke it down the bottom of the garden.

I don't remember coughing so I suppose either I'm a natural or, more likely, I didn't inhale.

Roll forward a few years, aged 13 ish, and it strikes me as completely insane that boys would hang around outside school smoking, presumably to look cool and fit in with their peers, yet were unable to smoke properly. I expect you've all seen it, puffed out cheeks full of smoke, lungs jealously guarding the clean air within, finally blowing a small puff of smoke out as conspicuously as possible. Why didn't they go and learn to perfect smoking out of sight, hidden away, and then come out as an accomplished smoker in public? Girls seemed to be much better at it for some reason.

Young fools, working hard to overcome the natural aversion to inhaling noxious gasses, and willingly get themselves addicted to a harmful habit. Madness.

Right, I'm off to the pub for as many pints of real ale as I can cram down my neck. Yes, real ale, its not everyone's cup of tea, but you have to persevere, work at it, acquire the taste. Which I have done. Over many years. The rewards are well worth it.

Smokers: I'll never understand them.
(Rich T has a clever and witty sig, Wed 19 Mar 2008, 19:04, 2 replies)

Bring back smoking in pubs now! It'll stop the pubs smelling of farts, stale sick and old people...
Personally i don't smoke, but my Dad and friends do, my lungs don't work but the smoke helps me cough up bigger chunks, unlike diesel fumes which are a bugger to cough up...
Anyways i waffle - My parents decided I should have a cigarette to put me off when i was about 14, personally I'd never wanted to smoke anyways... coughed up a lung after one drag. My sister on the other hand, more or less started smoking behind parents back when they did this to her 3 years later...
( SkUG >_O i got a couple of stitches in my eyeball... ow, Wed 19 Mar 2008, 19:04, Reply)

Fag rolling machines....
I could never do rollies until I got one of them gizmos. Best invention since the wheel.
( girlinthehole, Wed 19 Mar 2008, 19:03, 6 replies)

Aged 14, down by the river in Conisbrough.
My mate had bought some fags and pikey cider off his older brother, which we (a group of five scally charvers in trackies) shared out between us.
It felt strange (and tasted horrible) at first, but after a little while we started to enjoy it.

However, I was put off further experimentation by the sore throat and fucking terrible hangover I had the next morning.
(FUCK OFF, Wed 19 Mar 2008, 19:02, Reply)

I'm too bloody old.....
..to remember when I started smoking but I do remember giving them up when the budget came and they shot up to £3 a packet.

Fuck that for a game of soldiers... I just smoked more weed.
( girlinthehole, Wed 19 Mar 2008, 19:00, Reply)

Reed
I have never smoked properly, but with some friends we tried smoking a dried reed we found near the beach. It wasnt good, coughing for days after. Strangly enough we still tried it again a few days later.
(Masterb3ta, Wed 19 Mar 2008, 19:00, 1 reply)

Apparently..
There is a 'smoking fetish'. That's right, it's an erotic fetish.

Esecially when the girls shove them up their backsides and 'smoke' them.


As for me? Never had one.
Cigars however, are a different story...
(FightingComet got Boost Power on, Wed 19 Mar 2008, 19:00, 2 replies)

I was about 14
Somebody said 'do you smoke' and of course, I say yes. Tasted fucking awful - they were Superkings. Dirt cheap though. Then.

I regret smoking now. My eyes are shit, my health is shit and I wish I'd believed people when they told me that it's not big and NOT clever.

I'd be about 5k a year richer.
( Methylene Blue - electrohead, Wed 19 Mar 2008, 18:59, 1 reply)

I can give up ciggies at the drop of a hat.....
In fact I may just start smoking again to show how easily I can stop.

Ha!
( girlinthehole, Wed 19 Mar 2008, 18:57, 3 replies)

Me first smoke
was in the park with my mate, on a shit weak joint he bought in a train station car park.

me = hardxcore
( greedyostrich Cheese is evil! Cheddar is VOODOO!, Wed 19 Mar 2008, 18:56, Reply)

my guilty pleasure
is answering previous QOTW's after they've closed...
(Handel blah blah blah, Wed 19 Mar 2008, 18:54, Reply)

my first...
cost me 10p. now i pay a fiver a day on the bloody things!
(meh! bored since, Wed 19 Mar 2008, 18:54, Reply)