Green Daily

Obviously drugs -- even the legal ones -- aren't very good for you, and most will get you arrested (or worse), but rumor has it that some people still take them anyway. So, with that in mind, the least you can do is work towards a more sustainable habit. To see all the substances we've covered in this series, see our Guide to Green Green Drug Use.

Of course cigarettes aren't green. Seriously, how can you even ask that question?

I used to smoke, until spousal and insurance company preference demanded otherwise, and I'm not one of those self-righteous "I-quit-why-can't-you-you-pathetic-weak-willed-losers" ex-smokers either. I truly loved Lady Tobacco, and she will always occupy a special place deep in my heart, not to say my lungs and other internal organs. But our affair is through.

Let's face it, the whole premise of smoking is environmentally unsound. Even apart from the well-known public health issues, consider the end-to-end process. First, take an agricultural product, itself a monoculture that has displaced native plants around the world. Next, harvest it, ship to a factory for an energy-intensive industrial treatment to add in chemicals and assorted carcinogens. Deliver finished product to end consumers, who then set it on fire, sucking half the poisons into their lungs and spewing the noxious remainder into the atmosphere for sharesies with the rest of the planet.

And as with fast food, there's also the unfortunate matter of what happens to your butt. In last year's Ocean Conservancy beach clean-up day, cigarette butts were the single most commonly found form of litter, and it's estimated that around 1.7 billion pounds of them accumulate each year on beaches and in oceans around the world. Butts are made of paper and cloth (well-suited for wildlife choking) and even in their post-smoked form contain a smorgasbord of interesting toxins like lead, arsenic and formaldehyde.

Nope, cigarettes are not good for you. They are not good for the planet. And I still miss them.