smoking

Kernel · 09-06-2005 01:23AM

county wrote:

smoking is good for you,trust me!!!

haha.. ok, I definitely wouldn't buy a used car from you mate!

09-06-2005 02:15AM

Flukey, thank you for your well thought out argument and for not debasing yourself with a "ALL SMOKERS ARE SCUM" etc. Please allow me to debate this back.

Flukey wrote:

Surely you are not sore over the smoking ban.

Sore would be the wrong word to use. I agree with PART of the smoking ban.

Flukey wrote:

We've done all this before but it seems we need to do it again,

Unfortunately so. From both sides

Flukey wrote:

so... Smoking has not being banned. You can still smoke, as much as you want, but not in certain places, (all enclosed public places - which is virtually everywhere-Papa) so it hasn't been banned. There are lots of lies around the smoking ban. They say smokers are being forced to go outside or not allowed in pubs. That is not true. A smoker can spend all day in the pub, but just not smoke there.

As i mentioned above. All public places, smoking has been banned in. Smokers are being forced outside. Yes we are. If you are a "smoker" you cannot "smoke" in a bar.
Only a fool would believe we are not allowed in bars.

Flukey wrote:

They say smokers are forced to go outside to smoke, which is not true either. Before or since the ban started, I have never seen anyone going up to anyone in a pub and say "You, get a packet of cigarettes, take one out and go outside and smoke it." Have you ever seen that happen? I doubt it. So no one is forcing them to go outside. It is purely their own choice. To say any different is pure fiction.

As above, we ARE forced to go outside. Before the ban, I have seen men leave a bar to smoke when a pregnant woman was in our company (quiet bar I will add

)
Dictionary time:

tr.v. forced, forc·ing, forc·es

1. To compel through pressure or necessity: I forced myself to practice daily. He was forced to take a second job.
2.
1. To gain by the use of force or coercion: force a confession.
2. To move or effect against resistance or inertia: forced my foot into the shoe.
3. To inflict or impose relentlessly: He forced his ideas upon the group.

So its fair enough to say that we are "forced" to smoke outside. We have been compelled through pressure and neccessity to smoke outside.

Flukey wrote:

They say it is discriminating against smokers which is also not true. Nobody is allowed to smoke in the pubs, so it applies to everyone. How can something that applies to everyone be called discriminatory?

This argument always confounds me.
"We" are not you.
It "discriminates" due to the fact a "minority" (nicoteine addicts) are forbidden to smoke in an area. Non-smokers(the majority) are also forbidden to smoke.
If we were to say, ban a minority religion, it would affect the "minority" who would want to practise it, and the "majority" who don't care either way. If that ever happens in Ireland, there would be demonstrations everywhere
In that way, yes, the smoking ban is discrimonatory.

Flukey wrote:

They say places are not being provided for smokers. That also is not true. They can smoke outside. There is moving air there and they will get all sorts of different weathers, so they have a fully air-conditioned, all-weather smoking area. What more could they want?

I sense sarcasm with the mention of "all sorts of different weathers."
I have seen a stupid amount of fights break out in "smoking areas" (usually the doorway to a bar) from people being locked, having a fag, getting in a barney with a poor homeless guy (who constantly beg off us btw). Would that happen if we smoked inside?

Flukey wrote:

They say it is not fair to send people outside in the cold and rain. As I said already, no one is forcing them to go outside, it is their own choice. Also, if they are not worried about lung cancer and other smoking-related diseases, a bit of pneumonia certainly isn't going to concern them. It would be a bit ironic if smokers complained about having to go outside on health grounds, now wouldn't it?

I think I sorted this one out already. When we are forced to go outside it is categorically NOT "our own choice"

Flukey wrote:

Don't forget too, that the law was brought in primarily to help those that have to work in the previously smokey environments. As a bonus the customers benefit too.

My favourite argument. In THE BAR I work in there 8 employees. And guess what? 8 smokers. So on a busy night, we slow the bar down by running (and by running, I mean take 10 minutes to get to the front door-very busy bar) to catch a much needed and earned fag. The bar staff don't want it at all. Please understand this.

Flukey wrote:

The law is not there to victimise smokers or launch some vendetta on them, as some people like to protray it. It is not there as a bigotted or intolerant measure aimed at smokers. It was not put in place because people smoke, but because of the hazards that environmental tobacco smoke has. It is designed to completely remove the smoke, not the smokers. Smokers are as welcome in pubs and other enclosed workplaces as they ever were. It is a health measure aimed at tackling the smoke, not the smokers. Smokers may be inconvenienced by it, but the common good, from which they too will benefit, comes first. That is the way things are in most societies. So it is not intolerant or bigotted.

And when you say some people, you mean non-smokers. If it was tolerant, why did they not introduce a smoking-room tax?
So you have (very important here) THE CHOICE to go to a smoking bar or not?
You have THE CHOICE to work in a smoking bar or not.
You have THE CHOICE to go to a smoking restaurant.
We have built our society on choice and this has been stripped off of a minority in this country. Us smokers

Flukey wrote:

So when you look at it, it is a very fair, non-discriminatory, healthy, free to choose law and everyone benefits from it. You can't say that about many laws.

When I look at it, I see draconian measures that trample on how we can live our lives. And I unfortunately can say that about many laws this Country has brought about in recent years.

tabatha · 09-06-2005 02:06PM

may i also add something. i came to look at this post as smoking is somthing that is an issue in my life at the moment. my dad died from lung cancer a few months ago. it was due to smoking which he had done from many years. he was only in his early 50's when he died. a life taken to soon. he use to sit there towards the end with a a cigarette in his hand crying while smoking. he use to say it was like holding a gun to his head and he couldnt stop even though he knew this was and would kill him. to go through that u could not begin to understand. i wounldnt wish it on my worst enemy. it is a horrible death to die. he couldnt stop. he was truly addicted. he use to sit there and beg me and my brothers and sisters never to smoke or to give up in the cases of thoses of us who did. he didnt want the same fate to behold us.

smoking doesnt contribute anything benificial to a person. it does kill.

If we were to say, ban a minority religion, it would affect the "minority" who would want to practise it, and the "majority" who don't care either way. If that ever happens in Ireland, there would be demonstrations everywhere
In that way, yes, the smoking ban is discrimonatory.

but it is discrimonatory for a reason. u can sit beside someone praying without it harming your health. smoking inflicts on the person who isnt doing it. if i walked into a pub with a bottle of perfume and sprayed it all over you would you like that. that doesnt harm your health but as one aspect of smoking it smells. the next morning after being in a pub (before the ban) your cloths would smell awful.

We have built our society on choice and this has been stripped off of a minority in this country

its not about choice its about health. if i wanted to drive over the speed limits beacause it was my choice to do so i wouldnt be allowed beacause it is dangerous and breaking the law. laws are introduced for the common good of people.

When I look at it, I see draconian measures that trample on how we can live our lives. And I unfortunately can say that about many laws this Country has brought about in recent years.

is it not about a habit. im sure a heroin addict would see the law as draconian bacause they are not allowed to shoot up also. there are many aspects of the law we might not like but there are always reasons for them. this one happens to be for health reasons and i think that is good enough for me.

Wibbs · 09-06-2005 04:08PM

Kudos to Papa smut for that post. Tabatha, my genuine sympathies to you and yours.

Primary smoking is certainly implicated as a major causative factor in lung cancer as it is rarer among non smokers(that said up to 20% of non smokers contract the disease). Other co-factors certainly exist. Diet, alcohol use, genetic and other environmental factors also have a part to play. One respected medical researcher has even implicated a very positive link with exposure to radiation(in the form of chest x-rays).http://www.ratical.org/radiation/CNR/RMP/execsumm.html
The low incidence of the disease among nations who are heavy smokers when compared to ourselves bear this out. the Japanese, the Greeks, the French and the Cubans all smoke far more yet live longer and have much lower rates of lung cancer than in these islands. Indeed the Japanese are the longest lived nation on earth.

While I totally agree that the smell of smoke on one's clothes after a night out is certainly unpleasant and non smokers(and smokers) have a right to clean air, it's the draconian knee jerk response to the issue that I have a problem with. That and the indifferent response by those who disagreed with it. I took issue with the farce that was the reaction to the two pubs in galway who defied the ban. The government of this country got the highest legal authority in the land to draft what was in effect a solicitors letter to the same publicans to force them to desist. How utterly pathetic was that.

The biggest issue I have was the disinformation surrounding the leadup to the ban. Claims that second hand smoke have any effect on health have little or no evidence to back them up. The world health organisation, after many years of trying to find such a link, found none.

The only links are based on sloppy statistics that suggested that people who lived with smokers were unhealthier. Fair enough but these same people would also tend to have the same diet, social background and environment, all of which have links to disease. You can doubtless find a statistic that says people who own antique furniture live longer. I'm sure they do as it would be a hobby for the wealthier classes with access to better health care, but does that mean that antiques are good for you? More to the point does that mean that cheap furniture is bad for you?

In another thread I posed a question. If anyone here can find me 3 links that name three different people whose (independently medically verified) deaths were due to second hand smoke, I will hold my hands up and say I was wrong. Given that we are being told that thousands in this country alone are dying because of it, finding three people in world shouldn't be too difficult. Should it?

Dave · 09-06-2005 04:17PM

During college 2/3 of us would go through 25g/37.5g of drum a week, these days with work and everything maybe a 12.5g bag every two weeks. The people I live atm with don't "smoke" that much and with work and everything it's not in my best interests to "smoke" that much.

Kernel · 09-06-2005 04:28PM

Papa Smut wrote:

So you have (very important here) THE CHOICE to go to a smoking bar or not?
You have THE CHOICE to work in a smoking bar or not.
You have THE CHOICE to go to a smoking restaurant.
We have built our society on choice and this has been stripped off of a minority in this country. Us smokers

We also have the choice to stop smoking. I know it's hard for many people, but it can be done. That's what the smoking ban is trying to encourage tbh.

I'm a smoker myself (as I said I quit for ages then fell off the wagon), but I recognise that I made the choice to smoke, and I can't impose that choice on other people by stinking up their clothes, wrecking their chest or generally making them feel uncomfortable.

tabatha · 09-06-2005 07:36PM

there are only three causes of lung cancer

1. smoking 8 out of 10 cases

2. Asbestos

3. Radon

the following famous people who died from smoking
# Humphrey Bogart (age 57)
# Jesse Owens (age 67)
# Louis Armstrong (age 71)
# Lucille Ball (age 77)
# Michael Landon (age 54)
# Nat "King" Cole (age 45)
# Sammy Davis Jr. (age 64)
# Walt Disney (age 65)

If your parents smoke, you have a greater chance of getting ear infections, asthma, bronchitis, and tonsillitis. Children who are exposed to smoke all their lives have underdeveloped lungs, and they are two to four times as likely to have allergic reactions and asthma than children of non-smokers.

EVIDENCE that living with a smoker can shorten your life has emerged from a study in New Zealand.

The study, one of the largest ever done, looked at deaths among people aged 45 to 74 who completed census returns in 1981 and in 1996.

Those who had never smoked but lived with people who did were 15 per cent more likely to die in the three years after each census than were those who had never smoked and lived with non-smokers.

Non-smokers exposed to secondhand smoke are at greater risk for many of the health problems associated with direct smoking. In 1992, the Journal of the American Medical Association published a review of the evidence available from epidemiological and other studies regarding the relationship between secondhand smoke and heart disease and estimated that passive smoking was responsible for 35,000 to 40,000 deaths per year in the United States in the early 1980s. Non-smokers living with smokers have about a 25 per cent increase in risk of death from heart attack and are also more likely to suffer a stroke, and some research suggests that risks to nonsmokers may be even greater than this estimate. One recent study in the British Medical Journal found that exposure to secondhand smoke increases the risk of heart disease among non-smokers by as much as 60 percent. Passive smoking is especially risky for children and babies and can cause low birth weight babies, sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), bronchitis and pneumonia, and middle ear infections.

Wibbs · 09-06-2005 08:47PM

Originally Posted by tabatha
there are only three causes of lung cancer

1. smoking 8 out of 10 cases

2. Asbestos

3. Radon

That's a very simplistic and dubious claim. Especially if you consider that the true mechanisms of cancer formation are still not fully known, much less curable in many cases.

So smoking is the prime cause of lung cancer. Ok let's look at other studies not present on the anti websites.

How about this study involving over 100,000 Californians from 1960-1997

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=10468422&dopt=Abstract

If you're too bored to read it, the important line is "These results indicate there has been no important decline in either the absolute or relative death rates from all causes and lung cancer for cigarette smokers as a whole compared with never smokers in this large cohort, in spite of a substantial degree of smoking cessation"

In other words, people smoke less now but there's still the same rate of lung cancer...... ehhhhh, that's a bit strange.

Here's another one.

http://193.78.190.200/10/chitri/lucachic.htm

Non-smokers account for nearly 20% of all new lung cancer cases. Former smokers account for half with current smokers bringing up the rear at 30%. I personally know 2 people who contracted lung cancer. Neither of them smoke, are around asbestos or live in a radon contaminated area. In any case the lung cancer caused by asbestos is generally of a different kind. In fact some studies have shown smokers have a higher resistance to asbestos related diseases.

Relative risk of lung cancer for asbestos workers was "highest for those who had never smoked, lowest for current smokers, and intermediate for ex-smokers. The trend was statistically significant. There was no significant association between smoking and deaths from mesothelioma,".
University of London, School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. "Cancer of the Lung Among Asbestos Factory Workers."

The other issue is how ex smokers are defined. In a lot of cases if you smoked for a couple of months in college you're considered an ex smoker. Now can you explain to me how 40 years later that can have an effect? Answer it can't, but tobacco= lung cancer is one of the sacred cows of modern medicine and they're not letting go of it too easily.

here's a link from an admittedly biased source but his data seems credible relevant to this debate.
http://www.kidon.com/smoke/percentages.htm

Another biased source but an interesting take on the stats.
http://www.forces.org/evidence/sammec/newproof.htm

Here's yet another link that's long but worth a read.
http://www.data-yard.net/11/aus.htm

If your parents smoke, you have a greater chance of getting ear infections, asthma, bronchitis, and tonsillitis. Children who are exposed to smoke all their lives have underdeveloped lungs, and they are two to four times as likely to have allergic reactions and asthma than children of non-smokers.

Lets take asthma for a start. 50 years ago asthma was present at much much lower levels in the population than nowadays, yet more of the population smoked then. Explain that.

Ear infections, bronchitis, and tonsillitis are diseases more likely to be found in impoverished homes. There are less smokers among the middle classes than previously so are those diseases not as likely to be caused by environmental factors(inc. smoking) diet etc.

The new Zealand study you quote has issues of it's own. I've read it myself and the links that are made are both tenous and can be equally blamed on poverty and other environmental causes. In fact when that same study accounted for the geographical/social location of the people the very same disease trends were found.

The fact is that all of the diseases that are blamed solely on smoking are also found in non smokers. That suggests, that they are multifactorial, that is, the result of the interaction of many factors, either known or suspected, of which smoking may or may not be one. I'm just saying that more debate and less blind acceptance of the staus quo is needed.

StupidLikeAFox · 09-06-2005 08:51PM

your a legend wibbs *nods sagely*

jonny68 · 09-06-2005 09:18PM

Only smoke when im drinking at weekends [damn smoking ban

] but having a bad day today so went out and bought 10 but am feeling guilty about it now

Flukey · 09-06-2005 11:37PM

Papa Smut, I still have to disagree with you. Smokers are not being forced to go outside and smoke. It is their choice to have that cigarette. As I said before, and I stand by it, no one is going around to people and saying "You, get a packet of cigarettes, take one out and go outside and smoke it." The smoker themselves, albeit through an addiction, are making the choice to go and have that cigarette. No one is forcing them.As to the discrminatory nature of the law, again I have to disagree. The law applies to everyone. Nobody is allowed smoke. Whether you are a 100 a day man, or you are lighting up your first one ever, the law applies to everyone. I don't smoke - only passively and I've cut down a lot since March 29th 2005 - but I would not be allowed to light a cigarette in an enclosed workplace. You may say that this is a silly argument, but it is true. The law applies to everyone, including those who don't want to smoke. You may never want to rob a bank, but it is still illegal for you to do so, just as much as it is for a professional bank robber.

As to your colleagues working in the bar; true, they may not like it, but it is still benefitting their health and anyone in that environment. There are lots of safety laws that people don't like, but they are still in their interests. Some people hate wearing safety helmets on building sites or seat belts in cars or whatever, but nevertheless it is in their interests to do so.

When I said about "some people like to portray it" I was referring to the smokers. A lot of smokers like to portray the law as victimisation or like a vendetta.

As to having smoking rooms, that is completely impractical. Smoke drifts for one thing. You can't confine it. If anything if you had smoking rooms, full of smokers, it would be even more hazardous as the smoke would be worse. It may be your choice to go there, but it is not good sense to expose someone to danger, if it can be avoided, even if they want to. Should all health and safety laws be made optional? So if a workman wants to go around a building site with no safety equipment, he should be allowed to, or if a fireman decided he didn't particularly like wearing fireproof clothes, that he should be let wear his old jeans?

Taking it a stage further, should we have speeding and non-speeding roads for all the little boy racers out there? Maybe we could have fighting pubs and non-fighting ones, or ones where we allow gangland killings to happen and others where we don't. There are people out there who want to do all these things, but that doesn't mean we should allow them. Maybe their right to choose and your right to choose is being impaired a bit, but it is in the greater good. When you light a cigarette it immediately effects everyone around you, that is the big difference. Drink is much more harmful in some ways and causes other problems, but if I am drinking pints all night and you are on water beside me, my drinking won't get you any drunker. The moment you light a cigarette though, it effects everyone nearby.

Another thing about smoking rooms and smoking pubs is that groups of friends don't fit neatly into smoking and non-smoking groups. I have lots of friends who are smokers and we socialise together. We would want to stay together. Since the ban began I've noticed a lot of my smoking friends don't smoke as much on a night out as they used to. This is not just because of having to go outside. There are other factors. As there are no others smoking around them, they are not getting the waft of smoke enticing them to smoke or seeing someone smoking, enticing them to smoke or being offered a cigarette. So they are all seeing the benefits and have discovered that the cigarette and a drink weren't as tied together as they thought they were.

The ban has been a great scapegoat for the publicans. They have used it as an ideal thing to blame a drop in trade. It may have a small impact, but the prices they charge and clampdowns on binge drinking and drink-driving as well as other factors are all a part in it too. The ban has brought far more benefits than problems and even some extra benefits, like smokers smoking less in the ways I have just described.

nesf · 10-06-2005 12:21AM

40+ a day.

I could justify it, except I really don't feel the need. I smoke, get over it.

The ban btw wasn't a bad idea per sae, my problems with it came from it's ham fisted implimentation lacking any kind of public discource on how to impliment it and phase it in.

As for smoking in pubs. Meh, I used to miss it, although now I barely notice tbh.

nesf · 10-06-2005 12:23AM

tabatha wrote:

there are only three causes of lung cancer

1. smoking 8 out of 10 cases

2. Asbestos

3. Radon

etc etc etc etc

"I prefer the company of peasants because they have not been educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly."

Michel de Montaigne (1533 - 1592)

Oh and to save yourself embarassing yourself again in public. Smoking doesn't cause cancer. It dramatically increases your chance of developing it. There is a subtle but very important difference here.

tabatha · 10-06-2005 12:37AM

nesf wrote:

"I prefer the company of peasants because they have not been educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly."

Michel de Montaigne (1533 - 1592)

Oh and to save yourself embarassing yourself again in public. Smoking doesn't cause cancer. It dramatically increases your chance of developing it. There is a subtle but very important difference here.

i didnt embarrass myself in public nesf - i think that lies at your door. my dad just died of lung cancer and i can tell you that the leading lung cancer specialist in this country - professor carney told my dad when he asked what caused this cancer that smoking did. the took a sample of his tumour from his lung to deduce this. that my friend is the subtle difference here. when u are in a position to talk about cancer do so, until then dont - simple.

tabatha · 10-06-2005 12:41AM

That's a very simplistic and dubious claim. Especially if you consider that the true mechanisms of cancer formation are still not fully known, much less curable in many cases.

not a claim. when you are losing someone to lung cancer the irish cancer society give you a booklet to help. its called understanding lung cancer. they give it to the person who has cancer and to the family members. when you read the book, under causes there are 3. these are the three causes. not my words. if you feel you know better take it up with the professionals. i would take the word of an oncologist anyday than that of an addict.

nesf · 10-06-2005 12:44AM

tabatha wrote:

i didnt embarrass myself in public nesf - i think that lies at your door. my dad just died of lung cancer and i can tell you that the leading lung cancer specialist in this country - professor carney told my dad when he asked what caused this cancer that smoking did. the took a sample of his tumour from his lung to deduce this. that my friend is the subtle difference here. when u are in a position to talk about cancer do so, until then dont - simple.

Meh. I can't believe I'm this bored but still...

First off, your dad dying of cancer means nothing to this argument. Trying to justify your failure in logic through the abuse of trying to make me feel sorry for you is beneath my contempt. I'm sorry for your loss, but I don't see it's relevance here.

Then there's the assumption I've never known anyone to die of cancer. I won't even bother to refute this one.

Have you any knowledge of the topic? Do you know the difference between a correlation of unrelated factors and a scientific cause? No. I didn't think so.

Come back to argue with me when you do.

Edit: I'll rephrase this into simple english, I'm not being fair above. Think of it this way:

1) Cancer is not very well understood. I've seen people who led healthy lives, who have never done anything that might increase their risk fall foul of it.

2) We don't know what causes it. What we know at the moment is that there is a definite and unquestionable link between smoking and cancer. If you smoke then you are more likely to develop it. But that doesn't equate into smoking causing cancer. If it was that simple then every life long smoker would develop cancer. It's a correlation, we don't really understand yet what actually causes cancer. We just know that smoking is going to increase the odds of you developing it.

A loose analogy: I walk everywhere. By walking everywhere my odds of getting hit by a car are increased. So there is a correlation between people who walk a lot and people who get hit by cars. Does this mean that walking causes this? No. It just means that by walking my chance of getting hit by a car is higher than if I just stayed at home all day.

I'm not defending smoking or saying that it isn't linked to cancer. I'm just sick of the PC brigade ranting bull**** about how it causes cancer when they don't even understand what the link means in the first place.

passive · 10-06-2005 12:57AM

:eek: wtf... this was a casual discussion amongst smokers..but the random whim of flukey on page 3 to start arguing against points that were never made and go off on a self righteous rant has turned this into a "generic smoking ban discussion #4,000,000".

for shame... nobody gave out about the smoking ban in this thread til you went on about it... someone said "if not for the smoking ban you might have a point". you completely missed the point. well done on that..

I smoke marboro lights when drunk/when it feels appropriate (nighttime, alone & wandering are good examples of the latter) and I smoke an average of 4 a week (okay..average may mean random number i feel like picking to illustrate how inconsistent and patternless it is).

I don't want to take it up as a daily habit/regular expense and possible threat to health..but I totally understand how someone would. I often just feel like "i wish i had a cigarette". But i'm aiming to avoid the physical addiction thing and keep at the point where a single cigarette gives me a noticable nicotine rush

.

that's all for my pointless input

nesf · 10-06-2005 12:59AM

passive wrote:

I don't want to take it up as a daily habit/regular expense and possible threat to health..but I totally understand how someone would. I often just feel like "i wish i had a cigarette". But i'm aiming to avoid the physical addiction thing and keep at the point where a single cigarette gives me a noticable nicotine rush .

Take my advice. Quit now while it's easy. You are thinking straight by the looks of things.

Quitting the bastards after a few solid years of smoking heavily isn't nice.

DublinWriter · 10-06-2005 01:00AM

The real issue is what a tetchy-bunch of intolerant little latte-drinkers we've all become as a nation.

The real evil in Irish society today is how we treat the sick and elderly while politicians phish tens of millions of Euro away on useless E-Voting machines and on paying for the overflights of US Military aircraft en-route to Iraq.

I'm going to the UK and Belgium next year for work and I can't wait to be able to sit down with a cig and a pint and leave this miserable, whingy, corrupt, expensive little nation far behind me.

nesf · 10-06-2005 01:02AM

DublinWriter wrote:

The real issue is what a tetchy-bunch of intolerant little latte-drinkers we've all become as a nation.

The real evil in Irish society today is how we treat the sick and elderly while politicians phish tens of millions of Euro away on useless E-Voting machines and on paying for the overflights of US Military aircraft en-route to Iraq.

I'm going to the UK and Belgium next year for work and I can't wait to be able to sit down with a cig and a pint and leave this miserable, whingy, corrupt, expensive little nation far behind me.

Personally I think the real evil is alcohol. It ****s up far more lives than smoking does.

Then again it's a nice legal PC taxable drug. And can you imagine the reaction to an alcohol ban? lol

Oh and the UK just passed legislation for a smoking ban... Next April I think it's coming in or something

passive · 10-06-2005 01:02AM

*nods*.. I get what you're saying and appreciate that people generally take it up full time.. but i've been doing this for a year and really don't see myself going headlong into it. Though i still consider it a "bad" thing I do (all that primary school "just say no" conditioning) so i'll, at least, think about setting a cut off point for cigarettes (wacky tabacky is still okay

but thanks, good advice.

tabatha · 10-06-2005 01:15AM

either of them smoke, are around asbestos or live in a radon contaminated area

if you knew what you were talking about you would know that asbestos poisoning can take up to 40 years to develop into cancer. did you know these people for this lenght of time or are you to bored to read the facts? also you dont have to live in a radon contaminated area to be exposed. read the following article and you will see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radon

Lets take asthma for a start. 50 years ago asthma was present at much much lower levels in the population than nowadays, yet more of the population smoked then. Explain that.

if you take how many women nowadays smoke in there home with their children present then this will account for that so called arguement.

Today 22 percent of women smoke, compared to 26 percent of men. (In 1924, just 6 percent of U.S. women smoked). Smoking is 3 times higher among women who had only 9 to 11 years of education (33%); those who have completed 4 years of college (11.2%); and 80 percent of those who smoke began when they were children.

I'm just saying that more debate and less blind acceptance of the staus quo is needed.

who are we to debate. there are certain facts. one of them we know is that smoking does cause cancer. fact. i really dont care about ear infections or asthma. everyone knows that smoking does kill. i know it because i have experienced it first hand. medical facts speak for themselves. tell me some of the benifits of smoking. can u do that? why do boxes of cigrettes have "smoking causes cancer" and "smoking kills" on the back of them if they dont. would the tobacco companies do this for no reason. i think not. for long enough they tried to hide the facts of nicotine addiction. an addict will do everything in there power to defend there disease. i see this denial in my own family. i have seen some of my family members who smoke tell relatives that my dads cancer was not caused by smoking even though we were told by the professionals it was. that is denial.

its not just about the cancer. it smells, its disgusting. there is nothing worse than kissing a smoker. u might as well kiss an ashtray. yellow fingers, yellow teeth, bad skin. the smell. i am glad i chose to give up and i am glad i was able to. i smoked 40 a day for years. i know how had it is. i defended them just like any other smoker. i know the effects. i grew up in a house where both my parents smoked. now i have one less parent because of it. dont deny facts.

Agent Smith · 10-06-2005 01:21AM

Parkinson's disease (PD) is one of a few conditions in which cigarette smoking appears to decrease the risk of developing the disease, with a reduced risk of 50% among ever smokers compared to never smokers. Despite the fact that this reduced risk among cigarette smokers has been consistently observed in studies conducted over the past several decades, there has been very little epidemiologic research to investigate the possible explanations for this apparent protective effect. Although it is possible that a chemical or biological effect of cigarette smoke provides protection against the development of PD, alternative explanations are also plausible. One theory suggests that the effect of smoking is due to another factor, such as personality type or the genetic tendency to take up addictive behaviors, which explain both the decreased likelihood of taking up the smoking habit and the risk of developing PD in later life. We propose to conduct a study of PD patients and normal controls (also called a case-control study) to evaluate genetic, environmental and behavioral factors that may explain this apparent protective effect of smoking in PD. We hypothesize that genetic variants associated with the propensity to engage in addictive behaviors may be less frequent among PD cases than controls, especially since some of these genetic variants alter dopaminergic transmission in the brain (dopamine is the brain chemical that is depleted in PD). We will also assess whether nonsmokers who are exposed to environmental tobacco smoke from the smoking habits of others may be at reduced risk of developing PD. If environmental (or passive) smoke exposure is also more frequent among PD patients than controls, this would suggest that a chemical effect of both mainstream and sidestream tobacco smoke has a direct biological effect that reduces the risk of developing PD. We also plan to gather data from cigarette smokers regarding the perceived strength of their addiction, and more detailed information regarding their lifetime history of alcohol consumption, another factor that has been associated in recent studies with a reduced risk of developing PD. This study will use blood samples and risk factor data obtained from PD cases and controls in a recently completed case-control study conducted within the Northern California Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program. A lifetime history of cigarette smoking has already been obtained for the study subjects, which include 509 newly diagnosed PD cases and 541 age- and gender-matched controls. Additional information will be sought from all study subjects using a telephone-administered structured interview and will include questions regarding: exposure to passive smoke, an assessment of the addictive potential of cigarette smoke among former and current smokers, a measure of premorbid personality, and a lifetime history of alcohol consumption. By combining laboratory-based investigation of these addiction susceptibility genes with detailed information regarding cigarette smoking and other addictive behaviors, we hope to gain insight regarding the nature of the inverse associations of cigarette smoking and other addictive behaviors with Parkinson's disease that can provide information for future research on the causes of Parkinson's disease.

Taken from here

nesf · 10-06-2005 01:26AM

Try this one.

Anti-psychotics are very expensive drugs prescribed to schizophrenics and people with psychotic disorders in order to boost their dopamine and non-adrenaline levels (depending on the drug in question). Their side effects are numerous and horrible. The worst one being that 10%+ of people on them develop all the symptoms of Parkinson's Disease and need to be treated for it.

Smoking raises the smoker's dopamine and non-adrenaline levels. Most schizophrenics smoke.

Self medication via nicotine anyone? :rolleyes:

tabatha · 10-06-2005 01:31AM

your age is starting to show

Flukey · 10-06-2005 02:03PM

Passive, I am only one of the people that added other elements to this thread. Most threads broaden in their nature as they go along. We started talking about smoking and we still are. "Smoking" is the title of the thread. It started with brands and amount smoked. We've brought in the health issues and the ban into it, but that would be the natural course of events in the development of the thread. Other things have also been mentioned. It is a more interesting thread rather than continuing with people just telling what they smoke and how many they smoke.

Yours was not a pointless contribution by the way. It is valid. As has been advised already, quit the cigarettes now. An average of 4 a week is too high. Anything above an average of 0 a week is.

Wibbs · 10-06-2005 06:05PM

Flukey said
Smoke drifts for one thing. You can't confine it. If anything if you had smoking rooms, full of smokers, it would be even more hazardous as the smoke would be worse.

My contention is simply that the hazard, if any, is grossly overstated. There is no concrete proof of any link to disease with second hand smoke. None.

Now any compound is hazardous to health depending on dosage. Now if you're on 40 ciggies a day, you are looking down the barrel of gun. Same with alcohol. In low doses it can be beneficial. So if you're drinking a glass of wine a day it's all good. two bottles of wine a day then you're well on the way to death (this beneficial link was itself denied for many years by people spouting medical "facts").

Tabatha wrote

i smoked 40 a day for years.

Well in fairness at that dosage, you're looking for trouble. That's another problem with this debate. Light weekend smokers are lumped in with people who smoke very heavily(above 20 a day). In no other field of research would such a sloppy distinction be made or tolerated.

tabatha wrote ../either of them smoke, are around asbestos or live in a radon contaminated area./
if you knew what you were talking about you would know that asbestos poisoning can take up to 40 years to develop into cancer. did you know these people for this lenght of time or are you to bored to read the facts?

Yes, in fact I know them all my life. One is in his mid 30's the other was 42. Neither was exposed any less or more to the contaminants you mention than anyone else I know. Yet they still got lung cancer. As for asbestos, did you not even read my previous post where I quoted valid research that showed smokers had a much lower chance of asbestos related cancers? Obviously not.

tabatha wrote. if you take how many women nowadays smoke in there home with their children present then this will account for that so called arguement.
Quote:
Today 22 percent of women smoke, compared to 26 percent of men. (In 1924, just 6 percent of U.S. women smoked). Smoking is 3 times higher among women who had only 9 to 11 years of education (33%); those who have completed 4 years of college (11.2%); and 80 percent of those who smoke began when they were children.

You've answered your own question. Lower social classes have higher rates of those illnesses. It's as much to do with other environmental issues as it has to do with smoking.

i really dont care about ear infections or asthma. everyone knows that smoking does kill.

Fair enough, then don't bring them into the argument.

tell me some of the benifits of smoking. can u do that?

Ok, Alzheimers has already been mentioned, so here's a few more.

Reduces hypertension and preeclampsia in pregnant women
http://www.data-yard.net/2/14/ajog2.htm

You know where they tell you that smoking causes gum disease?
http://www.data-yard.net/10o/gums.htm

Protective effect with regard to Parkinsons.
http://www.data-yard.net/10m/twin.htm

Here's one regarding asthma and other atopic disorders
http://www.data-yard.net/30/asthma.htm

Positive response in rare skin cancer
http://www.data-yard.net/10b/kaposi.htm

Similar response in ulcerative colitis
http://www.data-yard.net/22/ncbi.htm

That's just after a few minutes online. I suspect there are more.

tabatha wrote medical facts speak for themselves.

Medical "facts" are rarely that. The best one can hope for is a working theory. At worse you are dealing in hypotheses. Remember how for years they told us that stomach ulcers where a by product of smoking/greasy food etc? Only for an Australian doctor(working in another field) who discovered it was all down to a simple bacterial infection(also implicated in some cancers and heart disease). Doctors spouting medical "fact" stopped that theory in it's tracks for nearly 20yrs. Leaving large numbers of the population suffering and sometimes dying from stomach ulcers. That's not the only example either. Blaming cholesterol as the biggest factor in heart disease is another sacred cow whose time is coming.

I'm reminded of an interview I saw with Sir Ranolph Feinnes(you know, the bloke who walked to the Nth and Sth poles unaided). Cool bloke all round. Well he suffered a massive heart attack. Luckily he survived. He himself said that his doctor told him that it was probably due to him smoking a pipe for 2 years in college decades previously. That diagnosis beggars belief. Feinnes himself seemed not to believe it. His own wife(who went with him on a few of his treks and never smoked) died in her 50's of the same disease. I would have suggested that extreme physical and mental stress of walking those distances had more to do with his state of health than puffing a pipe decades previously. That's the kind of crazy thinking I most object to.

Regarding lung cancer and smoking again, may I refer you back to the study involving over 100,000 Californians from 1960-1997
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=10468422&dopt=Abstract

It found little or no statistical change in the incidence of lung cancer even though the amount of smokers has gone down massively in that time period. Very little change at all. So what's "causing" it then? Asbestos and radon? Hardly.

Finally when tabatha writes a statement like "who are we to debate this" I'm staggered. Of course we should debate this on both sides of the argument. Most of the greatest leaps forward in science have been made by "outsiders", not those who seek to preserve the status quo.

Kernel · 10-06-2005 08:25PM

Seriously lads, you're addicts in denial spouting minor defences against your drug of choice. Tobacco is very very bad for you.

If you don't believe me, try playing a match or running a distance after you've been smoking for a while! And it definitely has been linked to cancer, as all rational people accept.

jezza · 10-06-2005 09:03PM

smokers are saddos! "oh look i paid 6 euro odd to help kill my self and innocent people around me aint i great! im so stupid that even though warnings are written so big on the box i still smoke and i started as a kid who was desperate to be "cool" and now im addicted ad i have yellow fingers and i smell bad, and im that selfish i still make people inhale the smoke the coffin nails filtered out (even if you cant do that inside a public place anymore) ye make up for it outside!
Cop on would yis! :rolleyes:

Haedes1987 · 10-06-2005 10:02PM

hey thats not fair, u obviously have never been hooked and dont know that they are more addictive than heroine! I myself have been on and off for ages, somedays none, somedays one, two or three.then there are times i say **** it and smoke 10 a day but i always end up taking a few days brake after smoking a lot. Ill smoke benson to marlboro, camels anything really, i like to sample but always end up with b + h. Ive tried to quit over a million times but always break! Once I get back training after breaking my ankle badly i hope to cut them out completely. Nothing wrong with the odd dooby though! Never did ne1 ne harm!

smoking

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