"Cigarettes, I won't do cigarettes, nicotine will kill ya"
About this Quote
The phrasing is telling. “I won’t do cigarettes” treats smoking like a gig you can pass on, folding addiction into consumer choice. Then the line snaps into blunt consequence: “nicotine will kill ya.” The casual “ya” keeps it conversational, but the threat lands harder because it’s unadorned. No stats, no lecture, just the kind of street-level certainty that reads as lived experience. It’s the rhetoric of a guy who’s watched friends age badly, who’s old enough to have seen cigarettes go from glamorous to grim.
Context matters, too: Chong comes from an era when tobacco was aggressively normalized and then steadily exiled from public life, while cannabis has moved in the opposite direction. The subtext is a cultural pivot: what once looked edgy (cigarettes) now looks corporate and lethal; what was stigmatized (weed) has become, in some circles, the “safer” vice. Chong leverages his credibility as a rebel to deliver a surprisingly conventional warning, and that tension is exactly why it sticks.
Quote Details
| Topic | Health |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Chong, Tommy. (2026, January 16). Cigarettes, I won't do cigarettes, nicotine will kill ya. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/cigarettes-i-wont-do-cigarettes-nicotine-will-120593/
Chicago Style
Chong, Tommy. "Cigarettes, I won't do cigarettes, nicotine will kill ya." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/cigarettes-i-wont-do-cigarettes-nicotine-will-120593/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Cigarettes, I won't do cigarettes, nicotine will kill ya." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/cigarettes-i-wont-do-cigarettes-nicotine-will-120593/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.







