Smoking Is Not Dangerous

[Tessera]

Smoking Is Not Dangerous


Well okay, only an idiot would claim that tobacco smoking is not dangerous. What I am really going to tell you is this: tobacco smoking is nowhere near as dangerous as the anti-smoking crusaders would have us believe.

We've all heard the famous statistic: "In the United States alone, approximately 440,000 people per year die as a direct result of smoking tobacco."

Wow... that sounds pretty terrifying. Until you look at the big picture. What is the big picture, you may ask..? The best way to assess the ACTUAL danger that smoking represents is to compare the number of tobacco-related deaths to the total number of smokers within the United States.

So what are those numbers, exactly..? To find out, I took a little trip over to the Center for Disease Control's web site. This is the institution which is responsible for keeping tabs on all of the diseases and other health risks that pose a threat to our nation. The last time they took a detailed survey on this subject was a couple of years ago... in 2010 (the same year as the most recent U.S. census). And here is what I found on the CDC's web site:

National Estimates
Percentage of adults who were current smokers in 2010

By Gender

   * 21.5% of adult men
   * 17.3% of adult women

Alrighty, those are nice numbers. But they're listed as percentages. What I want to know is the raw number of smokers living in the USA. So let's do a little math here...

If we combine the percentages of male and female smokers in the USA, we get a grand total of 38.8 percent. Which means that 38.8 percent of the U.S. population are smokers. Somewhat higher than I expected, actually.

According to the 2010 census... the same year that the CDC compiled their data regarding smokers... the population of the USA was 308,745,538.

So let's do the math. If we multiply 38.8 percent times the number of people living in the USA, we can find out exactly how many Americans of both genders are smokers...

38.8% times 308,745,538 = 119,793,269 smokers in the USA. That's a hell of a lot of smokers. Almost 120 million of us (I am a smoker, too).

Meanwhile, as we stated earlier, the total number of smoking related deaths each year is approximately 440,000. That is the official statistic according to Reuters, a major news gathering agency.

Do you see where this is going..? No..? Well then, let's do some more math. What I want to establish here is very simple: out of all of the smokers in the USA, what percentage of those people actually die from tobacco smoking..?

119,793,269 divided by 440,000 = 272.257 = 0.37 percent.

Are we together on this, folks..? The number of people who die each year from smoking is a tiny 0.37 percent of all smokers.

Which means that over 99% of all smokers DO NOT die from smoking. The numbers are correct and they do not lie. If you are a smoker, you have a 99% chance of NOT dying from smoking, according to the actual statistics released by the CDC and Reuters.

I REPEAT: THERE IS A GREATER THAN NINETY-NINE PERCENT CHANCE THAT SMOKING WILL NOT KILL YOU.

So why don't we ever see THOSE numbers being put forth by any of the anti-smoking crusaders out there..? Why do they keep trying to terrorize us all with regards to smoking, whilst simultaneously demonizing smokers..? What the fuck are THEY smoking, eh..? Because according to the actual scientific data, it seems pretty clear that smoking only kills a VERY TINY percentage of the people who smoke.

The answer is that we live during a time when speaking in absolutes and extremes gathers more attention to your "cause." These anti-smoking crusaders want your attention. They want funding for their little research projects. They want all of us to live in fear. They want all of us to crucify smokers with outlandish (and completely indemonstrable) claims about "second-hand smoke."

Meanwhile, the actual medical data... collected by prominent and legitimate medical and news agencies... states that a mere 0.36 percent of ALL smokers actually die from their smoking habits.

That's hardly what I would call a serious health risk. Given the numbers, I'd say that it's more dangerous to drive in your car. Or walk up a flight of stairs. Or play in a professional sport. Or join the military. Or any number of things, for that matter. Less than one percent is a tiny-ass number and frankly, I don't consider it to be frightening in the least.

I am not trying to minimize the health problems that can arise as the result of tobacco smoking. That is not my agenda here. I am well-aware that tobacco smoke is bad for your health. What I am trying to point out is, very simply, that the health risk posed by tobacco smoking has been HUGELY exaggerated within the media and by the health industry. And it is indeed an industry... make no mistake about it. There's big money to be had from scaring people into thinking that their health is constantly at risk.

But the actual numbers simply do not support the claims being made by anti-smoking crusaders. Not by a long shot. When the actual facts and figures tell me that I have a greater than 99% chance of NOT dying from smoking, then fuck yeah... I'm gonna light up another one.

I hope this post has helped my fellow smokers to feel better, whenever we sneer in the face of some whining, anti-smoking maggot. They have nothing but angry rhetoric on their side. But we have the actual numbers... and those numbers do not lie. Smoking is nowhere near as dangerous as the media would lead you to believe.

[Cylnar]

Actually, your math's a bit off. Fifty percent of the male population and 50% of the female population would not add up to 100% of the total population, after all, but only 50%. Assuming that the population is evenly split between men and women, we would have to average the two numbers to get 19.4% of the total adult population that smokes. Which means about sixty million smokers. That still means less than 1% of the total die each year (about 0.74%). But then again, you're basically rolling the dice every year. It's not strictly cumulative (though the longer you smoke, the more likely you are to develop serious problems) and your chance of death from all causes increases with age, but one could, for illustrative purposes, say that over a 50 year smoking career, your total chance of death from smoking could be as high as 37% (0.74% x 50 years). The actual likelihood is of course less, because a lot of shit can kill you over the course of 50 years. And of course the amount you smoke is a huge factor (the guy who smokes two packs a week is at much less risk than the guy who smokes two packs a day).

I'm not a huge fan of smoking, nor am I a crusader against it. Hell, I'll light up occasionally when I drink (my brother is the same way). I'm definitely not a fan of the cigarette industry (shocking, I know, given my well-known love for large corporations). Nicotine is more addictive than heroin and these fuckers fatten their pockets selling a carcinogenic delivery system (though the alcohol industry is arguably worse - people crashing their cars due to cigarettes are rare and usually caused by looking for a dropped, lit butt, and no one ever beat anybody to a bloody pulp - or killed them -  in a nicotine-fueled rage. Nicotine's stimulant properties have actually been associated with a slight improvement in reaction time).

My mother has COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease - a portmanteau category, in her case persistent bronchitis and emphysema) due to a 40+ year smoking career. Her mother died of lung cancer caused by 30+ years of smoking (30+ years ago). My mom uses supplemental oxygen at night...and still smokes during the day, though she paces herself and only smokes one or two cigarettes a day, taking a few puffs and putting it out till later. Both my sisters smoke.

But it's their choice. It's not like they didn't know, hey this shit can kill you. Really? I mean, my mom took care of her mom as she died a lingering and painful death. My sisters were all freaked out when my mom wound up in the hospital due to her own smoking. Though how much of that is actual choice, and how much is the addiction, is hard to say. But whatever. As you say, smoking is not the worst thing you can do, and as long as you're not blowing your smoke in my face, go ahead and light up if you must.

[Cat]

Not to mention there worse stuff in the air right now.

[Tessera]

That still means less than 1% of the total die each year (about 0.74%).

So you're saying that even if I made an error in my math (which wouldn't surprise me -- I suck at math), it still comes down to essentially the same result: a less than 1% chance that you will die from smoking. Correct..?

And I also think that you are sprinkling your figuring with a certain amount of suppositions, Cylnar. I am aware that smoking (or drinking, or overeating, etc.) can have a cumulative effect. But for each person who dies from smoking this year, a bunch of new smokers will take his or her place next year. And so, the averages still persist: you have a less than 1% chance that smoking will kill you during any given year.

Here's what I believe...

I believe that the number one cause of cancer is GENETICS... not carcinogens. There are plenty of non-smokers who die from lung cancer each year. In fact, just as many non-smokers die from lung cancer each year as smokers. Furthermore, whenever we hear about someone dying of cancer, a little research will usually reveal that the person who died came from a family history, in which one or more of their close relatives ALSO died from cancer. Whether they smoked or did not smoke, they still got cancer and they died. So before you get too caught up with the notion of cumulative damage and cumulative risk factors, I think we need to consider that the genetic factors which influence those risk factors throw a big, fat monkey wrench into that kind of math. They seriously offset the statistics. And yet, I rarely hear non-smoking crusaders talking about genetics, either.

You said it yourself, in your own post. Your mother is suffering from a serious respiratory ailment. And then, you said that her mother likewise had a serious respiratory ailment. Your conclusion is that both of them are/were suffering SOLELY because of their smoking habits. Maybe that's true... but don't you think that there is also a genetic relationship here..? Her mother had a respiratory problem. And now she herself is having a similar respiratory problem. Are there any other people in your extended family who have a history of respiratory ailments (or other types of cancer)..?

In my OP, I said that it was not my agenda to minimize the effects of tobacco smoking. And it isn't. What I am trying to bring to everyone's attention are the actual facts of the matter. The supposed dangers of tobacco smoking have been HUGELY exaggerated by the media and by the health industry. We know that I am right about this, because of their consistent failure to represent the health risks from smoking as a ratio of smokers who die, versus smokers who do not die. Instead, all they ever do is keep flashing the number "440,000" in our faces in big, red numbers... without ever once mentioning that there are literally tens of millions of smokers who did not die this year.

Why don't we ever see this, for example: "This year, nearly half a million people died from cigarette smoking. Or at least, we think that they died from tobacco smoke. Meanwhile, more than 20 MILLION smokers DID NOT die this year. Now here's Bob with the weather..."

I'm just trying to give us a little balance here. Fear-mongering and biased presentations do not do anybody any favors. All they accomplish is to mislead people and bolster the folks who spout their extremist views on this subject. Well great... I'm glad that they all enjoy rallying around an effigy of the Marlboro Man and shaking their fists in the air. It's nice to belong to something... even if it's a pitifully mislead congregation of assholes, expressing mock outrage and demonizing all of the nice people who smoke. More power to 'em.

But the numbers simply do not support their claims. That is my point. According to the actual data, the VAST majority of smokers DO NOT DIE from smoking. It is crystal-clear.

Not to mention there worse stuff in the air right now.

Hell yes, that is very true. There are lots of other poisonous substances in our air right now... not the least of which are the toxic byproducts of fossil fuel combustion. For example, automobile exhaust. It's everywhere... whether you smoke or not, you're forced to breathe it every day. Better yet... whether you DRIVE or not, you are still forced to breathe it every day. Why don't I ever see anyone crusading against "second-hand car exhaust," eh..?

I know an anti-smoking crusader out in California. She bitches and whines about the dangers of so-called "second-hand smoke." Despite the utter and complete lack of ANY medical data (research it yourselves, if you doubt me) which support the outlandish claims being made against "second-hand smoke," she nevertheless fervently bitches at anyone who lights up a cigarette in her presence.

Well... anyone except me, that is. She learned a long time ago not to bitch at me about ANYTHING. Whenever I show up, she usually just curls into a fetal position and starts rocking back and forth, whilst moaning "Oh the horror... the horror..." in a sad, but somehow sexy voice... with her incredibly large breasts heaving rhythmically and.... well, I've gotten off-track again... :laugh:

Meanwhile, this silly bitch owns a big-ass Jeep Cherokee. A big, fat SUV. And she often jumps into her gas-guzzling, exhaust puking SUV and drives a mere six blocks to the local 7-11 store, to buy organic yogurt or whatever that slimy "natural" crap is that she pours down her 40-pounds-overweight gullet every fucking day.

She's bitching about cigarettes and meanwhile, she's a fat slob who keeps dumping unnecessary poisons into the atmosphere every single day of her life. So much for OUR health, eh..?

People bitch simply because they need to bitch. It doesn't matter whether their reasons for bitching are actually justified. They simply need to bitch. And so, the media panders to that "need to bitch" sentiment out there... by filling their broadcasts with all manner of "these things can kill you" stories.

Cigarettes are the least of our problems. Worried about your respiratory health..? Then move away from the coal-fired power plant and then drive an electric car. Or better yet... WALK.  

[BazYat]

Hear hear.

[Tessera]

LOL, Baz... I just noticed your signature line. "NOT registered at PlanetVampire!"

You tell 'em, dude. You're a good Malk.  :laugh:

[Tessera]

LUNG CANCER and OTHER CONCERNS


I want to mention another statistic that we never hear about from the anti-smoking crusaders. This particular statistic comes from the Center For Disease Control (the CDC). It has to do with the number of Americans who die each year from lung cancer.

We have been told that tobacco smoking represents an increased risk of developing lung cancer. Not only that, but the people who crusade against so-called "second-hand smoke" have been insisting that non-smokers are placed at a greater risk for developing lung cancer, if they are being regularly exposed to "second-hand smoke."

Let's examine the actual numbers. In the year 2010, approximately 160,000 Americans died from lung cancer. So how does that number break down as a percentage of smokers versus non-smokers..?

As it turns out, approximately 48% of all lung cancer deaths were amongst non-smokers and 52% of all lung cancer deaths were amongst smokers.

How can this be..? If tobacco smoking is such an enormous health risk, then surely the number of smokers who died from lung cancer should be significantly higher than the number of non-smokers, right..? I mean... haven't we all been told, for several decades, that smoking is a leading cause of lung cancer..?

And yet, the number of smokers versus non-smokers who died from lung cancer is... essentially... equal. It is therefore incorrect to proclaim that smoking causes lung cancer, because the raw data does not support that conclusion. If tobacco smoke was a significant cause of lung cancer, then the number of smokers who died from lung cancer should likewise be significantly higher than the number of non-smokers. But it isn't... not according to the data from the CDC and the WHO. Furthermore, if we assume a standard margin of error, which is typically 5% for this type of data, then the difference between non-smokers (48%) and smokers (52%) falls within that margin of error. Scientifically speaking, the only valid conclusion which can be drawn is to say that the number of lung cancer deaths between smokers and non-smokers is EQUAL.

CONCLUSION: Based upon the actual (and factual) data, there is no compelling data which conclusively proves that tobacco smoking causes a significant increase in the number of lung cancer deaths in the U.S.A. The number of smoking versus non-smoking deaths is roughly equal, which strongly suggests that the primary cause of lung cancer has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with tobacco smoke. Tobacco smoke -may- be a contributing factor in lung cancer deaths, but to assert that there is a 100% causal relationship between smoking and lung cancer is NOT SUPPORTED BY THE ACTUAL STATISTICS. According to those ACTUAL STATISTICS, your chance of dying from lung cancer is pretty much the same for everybody... whether you are a smoker, or not.

These are not "my numbers." Yes, I am a smoker and yes, I suppose we could say that I have an agenda here. But despite my personal beliefs, I am simply quoting actual facts and figures that any one of you can go out and research for yourselves, as I have done. My sources of information are the 2010 U.S. Census, the Centers For Disease Control (CDC), the World Health Organization (WHO) and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

My primary agenda is the TRUTH, because I am rather annoyed by ANY crusade in this world which is not supported by actual facts. And the crusade against smoking is very definitely placed within that category. Despite all of their rhetoric, despite all of the doctors and other "health experts" who seem to agree with their anti-smoking stance, the ACTUAL DATA does not adequately support their claims.

Look at the numbers again, for the United States of America in the year 2010:

Number of cigarette smokers in 2010: 24 million (I have seen estimates as high as 47 million)
Number of people who died in 2010, as a direct result of smoking: 440,000
Percentage of smokers who died from smoking in 2010: approximately 0.72 %
Percentage of smokers who DID NOT die from smoking in 2010: 99.28%
Percentage of lung cancer deaths in 2010 -- smokers: 52%
Percentage of lung cancer deaths in 2010 -- non-smokers: 48%
Number of non-smokers who died in 2010 from "second-hand" smoke: officially 0 deaths; there has been no properly conducted medical study to date regarding "second-hand" smoke


So what's left..? What else do the non-smoking crusaders have on their side..? The only thing that I can think of would be the CUMULATIVE effects of smoking upon an individual's health. Unfortunately, we don't have any reliable medical data regarding the cumulative effects of tobacco smoke, either. To properly conduct such research would involve taking a large random sample of young (under 25 years of age) smokers and then, conducting regular examinations upon those subjects over the course of their entire lifetimes. Every single year, all of the participants would have to come into the laboratory and be thoroughly examined for any and all physical effects which are clearly related to their smoking habits. These examinations would need to be continued until their eventual deaths. We're talking about conducting a study which would last for 60 years or more, folks. Hell, the researchers themselves would probably die before such a long-term study was completed. So it should come as no surprise that there has never been any such long-term study, regarding the cumulative effects of a lifetime of tobacco smoking. The hard data simply does not exist.

Well then, the only thing that leaves us with is to make an educated guess, based upon the data that we DO have.

I can't think of any method for making such a guess that would be accurate. But still, I'd like to at least make the attempt. So let's try this: let's take the percentage of smokers who died in 2010 as the result of smoking. As stated before, that percentage is 0.72 percent. And now, let's say that for every year that you continue to smoke, that number becomes additive. In other words, if you only smoke for one year, then your chance of dying is only 0.72 percent. But if you smoke for two years, then your chance of dying has doubled... to 1.44 percent. And if you smoke for three years, then your chance of dying has now increased to three times 0.72 percent... or 2.16 percent.

Arguably, this is not exactly the most accurate way of calculating the cumulative adverse health effects from smoking. But as I said earlier, we don't have any accurate long-term data. So we'll just have to take our best guess... and I have chosen a simple additive method, in order to calculate the increasing odds for long-term smokers.

If we keep doing the math, then we discover that long-term smoking does not present a greater than 50 percent chance of causing death until someone has smoked for SEVENTY YEARS. That's 70 years, people. So now, imagine that you started smoking when you were 18 years of age. You will not reach the point where smoking has a greater than 50% chance of killing you until you reach the age of 88.

Meanwhile, living to be 88 years old AT ALL is a fucking blessing. Most people die at a younger age than that. What I am saying is this: by the time you would have a greater than 50% chance of being killed by tobacco smoking, you will most likely die of old age anyway.

This turns out to be true... because most tobacco smokers DO NOT die from smoking. Statistically, more than half of the people who smoked for their entire adult lives died from something else entirely. They died from accidents. They died from some disease that was unrelated to smoking. Or in most cases, they simply died from old age.

For our entire lives, we have all been told that cigarette smoking represents a terrible risk to our health. And for the past 20 years or so, we have additionally been told that so-called "second-hand smoke" represents a health risk for non-smokers. And yet, when we carefully examine the ACTUAL DATA... not just a bunch of opinions, but ACTUAL DATA... we find that there is absolutely no properly obtained scientific data which fully supports the assertions being made by anti-smoking crusaders. And so far as the whole "second-hand smoke" issue is concerned, there is exactly ZERO DATA which supports ANY of their claims. ZERO DATA, folks... research it for yourselves, if you doubt me.

I will conclude this post by reiterating something that I have said before, with regards to all sorts of different subjects -- not just smoking...

Opinions are not facts. Not even when those opinions are being expressed by well-credentialed "experts." When we are talking about science, opinions which are being expressed in the absence of corroborating and factual data are of little value. Those opinions amount to being nothing more than a hypothesis. And a hypothesis is NOT a fact... not until it has been proven to be true, using the scientific method. With that being the case, it is my assertion that the supposed dangers of tobacco smoking have been grossly exaggerated within our society.

[Cylnar]

Though just to be clear...

We established above that smokers constitute just under 20% of the total population...19.4% to be exact, assuming males and females are at equal numbers in the population...which they're not, since women live longer than men on average and their proportion of smokers is less. So it's probably more in the ballpark of 18% of the population being composed of smokers. But let's just call it 20% to make the math easy.

So according to your data above, the numbers of deaths of smokers and non-smokers from lung cancer is roughly 50/50. But the proportion of smokers to non-smokers in the population at large is about 20% smokers to 80% non-smokers. So 20% of the population is suffering 50% of the lung cancer deaths in the nation. That means an average of a 250% increase in risk from lung cancer for the average smoker. So smokers are two and a half times more likely to die of lung cancer than non-smokers. Make of that what you will.

[Tessera]

What I make of it is that you are trying to assert that, per capita, smokers suffer more deaths from lung cancer than non-smokers do.

But this is not a per-capita issue, Cylnar. It's a lung cancer issue. Let's just stick to the raw data.

Every year in this country, a certain number of people die from lung cancer. Amongst those unfortunate people, the breakdown between smokers and non-smokers is roughly equal. If there was a clear-cut relationship between smoking and lung cancer, then the percentage should be much higher amongst smokers than amongst non-smokers. But it isn't.

Now, you are saying that the data is still skewed against smokers, because there are far more non-smokers than smokers in this country.

Cylnar, there are a lot more people with brown eyes than blue eyes, too. So if a certain percentage of lung cancer deaths happened amongst blue-eyed people, should we conclude that having blue eyes represents a greater-then-average risk for lung cancer..?

Or we could break it down racially instead. Roughly 15 percent of Americans are black. So if more than 15% of lung cancer deaths occurred to black people, does that indicate that blacks have a higher-than-average chance to die from lung cancer..?

I hope you see my point. To establish a CAUSAL RELATIONSHIP between smoking and lung cancer, we need to look at far more than just simple percentages. We could break down the total number of lung cancer deaths in all sorts of different ways... using all sorts of different criteria. How many of them were redheads..? How many of them were Jewish..? How many of them were vegetarians..? How many of them were in the military at some point in their lives..? How may of them came from divorced parents..? It's endless.

To establish a causal relationship, we would need to see a HUGE discrepancy between smokers versus non-smokers. Not just 5 or 10 or 20 percent, but a greater than 50 percent difference.

I am not trying to assert that smoking is not dangerous. Nor am I trying to assert that smoking does not, for SOME people, cause lung cancer. What I am saying is that the actual hard data is lacking, so far as making any firm statements about causality. Simply saying that such-and-such number of smokers died from lung cancer last year is not sufficiently revealing, and mainly because a hell of a lot of non-smokers died from lung cancer that same year. If nothing else, we can at least conclude that staying away from tobacco smoke is no guarantee that you will not develop lung cancer.

Let me go on a bit...

How many of the smokers who died from lung cancer enjoyed charcoal grilling in their backyards..? The smoke from a charcoal grill is far more toxic than cigarette smoke. How many of the smokers who died from lung cancer had a family history of cancer..? Heredity is the number one deciding factor, so far as cancer is concerned. How many of them smoked heavily..? How many of them smoked only occasionally..? I realize that I'm being a bit facetious here, but I still think there is a point to be made: to declare a causal relationship, more hard data is required. Otherwise, you may simply be latching onto a coincidence and assuming it to be causal.

Like I said: most of the people who die from lung cancer have brown eyes. Do brown eyes cause cancer, too..? Of course not. Having brown eyes is simply a coincidence. And in the case of SOME of the lung cancer deaths amongst smokers, being a smoker may LIKEWISE have been a coincidence in at least SOME of those cases. So in my opinion, your statement about percentages of the population is somewhat negated by the fact that many of the smokers who died from lung cancer MAY HAVE GOTTEN LUNG CANCER ANYWAY, EVEN IF THEY HAD NEVER SMOKED. Remember that for the same year (2010), roughly 80,000 non-smokers died from lung cancer. Why..? Because according to the raw data, ANYONE can get lung cancer -- that's why. Smoking may have had absolutely nothing to do with it, in many (or even most) cases. WE SIMPLY DO NOT KNOW.

What I am trying to point out is that there are far too many variables at work here. Far too many for anyone to stand there and firmly state that smoking causes lung cancer. The hard data is lacking... leaving researchers with a large number of suppositions, which may or may not be supportable. For the time being, the raw numbers do not match up to the assertions being made. What we are seeing is, as usual, a largely baseless crusade against tobacco smoking... which is not adequately supported by the actual evidence.

[Will Never]

I agree that genetics plays a way bigger role in carcinogenesis than tobacco smoking.  However, you seem to be focusing on lung cancer as the only disease process that smoking promotes.  COPD (both types: emphysema and chronic bronchitis) is something like the 3rd leading cause of death in the USA, and it is mainly due to nothing other than smoking.  Smoking also increases blood pressure due to constant vasoconstriction, which leads to an increased chance of cardiac events.

Smoking isn't inherently dangerous once in a while (and I do smoke occasionally too).  However, daily smoking is definitely unhealthy.  Anyhow, smoking is not a major problem in our country.  I'm way more more concerned about obesity and its ill effects on health (such as diabetes, one of the most economically debilitating illnesses the USA is dealing with) than I'm concerned about smoking. 

--my thoughts

[Tessera]

I agree with you, Will. As I have said several times now, I am not trying to assert that smoking is not dangerous. Yes yes, I know what I named this thread. I was just trying to grab people's attention.   

What I have been trying to say is that there is, as yet, no hard data which confirms that tobacco smoking is an automatic death sentence. Hence the anti-smoking rhetoric out there is, in my opinion, being grossly exaggerated.

Regarding emphysema, which I agree is very serious, how many of those emphysema cases were caused by automotive and industrial pollutants in the that air we breathe..? Do we know..?

I'm just trying, once again, to point out that making assumptions when there are far too many variables is not scientific.

More data is needed... hard data, not just professional opinions... before any flat statements can be made about the health risks of tobacco smoke.

And we're still left with the one statistic which I feel overrides all of the others: that most smokers DO NOT die from smoking. That is a fact. If smoking is such a serious health risk, then why do more than 50 percent of all long-term smokers die from old age, or from other causes which are completely unrelated to smoking..?

I'm way more more concerned about obesity and its ill effects on health

Thank you for bringing that up... because once again, I am in total agreement with you. We absolutely DO have hard data which confirms a causal relationship between obesity and quite a few serious health problems. And in the USA, more than 50 percent of our population is overweight. So why don't I see anyone crusading against fatties..?


PS -- I've been a very heavy cigarette smoker (2 packs per day) for decades. I just had my blood pressure checked last Thursday. It was 140 over 100. A little high... but still completely acceptable for a man of my age. And actually, I was feeling very anxious at the time, because I went to the doctor to get an abscess lanced... which is frankly kind of like a torture session. So my raised BP may very well have been a simple case of nerves. I am mentioning this to point out that raised BP is not an automatic consequence of smoking. I've been smoking like a chimney for many, many years and my BP is only slightly above normal.

[Will Never]

Agreed with all.  There are way bigger issues in the USA as far as health habits are concerned.  Smoking is nothing in comparison.   :laugh:

[Cat]

Its just a distraction, also has anyone seen more anti-smoking shit latey?

[Demigorgon]

Its just a distraction, also has anyone seen more anti-smoking shit latey?

I have for the last several months. Mostly the shock ads. The shock ads seem to have started around the time that the law mandating graphic ads on cigarette packs wasn't passed.

I personally think the major factor for lung cancer (as with so many things) is genetics. The two other factors I think influence the harmful effects smoking can produce are how much a person smokes and the quality of cigarette.

[Barbatus]

The real problem is that many smokers behave like boors: They blow smoke in your face, they spread their ashes everywhere, throw their butts anywhere.
They often behave badly behaved children, then they deserve to be treated like children.

[Tessera]

I have personally never met any smokers who behave so rudely.

Perhaps you simply have rude friends..? If so, then they'd probably be rude even if they did not smoke. 

[Will Never]

Smokers have been shown to take more unscheduled breaks than non smokers in the workplace, and it holds true on my floor.  The result is decreased productivity among smokers.  For that reason, my hospital attached a 10 dollar biweekly surcharge to the health insurance premiums for employees who smoke.  

It bothers me for sure.   My floor only has four nurses and two aides at night.  When I'm staffed with two or more people who smoke, they always go outside together to do it... leaving the rest of us to watch over the entire unit.  Pretty sucky. 

[Tessera]

Statistically, women take longer bathroom breaks at work than men do.

Women also take maternity leaves, for weeks or months at a time.

Should we ban women from the workplace, too..?

You're pulling at straws, Will.