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The Scientific Scandal of Antismoking

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Re: The Scientific Scandal of Antismoking

#31

Post by tdavis »

axod wrote: post #29
tdavis wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you missed the entire point of the article: living is as much of a gamble as smoking, statistically speaking. You inhale carcinogens daily. Your mind is slowly decaying, along with all your other organs. You could die tomorrow crossing the street or next year from a random cancer, a blood clot in your brain, or the common flu. A friend's mother died while in the hospital recovering from a routine procedure, d…

Smoking is anti social though. It's disgusting. It's like force feeding everyone around you asparagus, just because you love asparagus. Please stop smoking everyone.

Driving a car is like force feeding me toxic exhaust when all I want to do is walk down the sidewalk. It's disgusting. Please stop driving everyone. I don't need to drive, why do you? I am within walking distance of everything I need; you should be too. This is my city and I want to walk in it without your dirty car offending my delicate nasal passages.

Re: The Scientific Scandal of Antismoking

#32

Post by whatusername »

Imprecate wrote: post #26
JulianMorrison wrote: post #17

Personally I don't smoke, never have, and consider it an expensive way to gamble with your life. (They might cure cancer, they might invent cloned lungs, are you feeling lucky, punk?) But truthfully, the reason I wish people would stop smoking is not from altruistic concern for them, and not for any personal fear - I just think it stinks. It's as foul as farting and has much less excuse. Just stop, please.

Is smoking (outdoors) really that offensive? I agree that stale smoky clothes smell gross, but I'm never bothered by a crowd smoking outside a bar or club, or people doing it while they walk through the city. It's just a neutral city smell to me.

Try a city that has tougher anti-smoking laws. All of our bars/clubs (except the casino high-roller room) are non-smoking. It is much nicer for those of us who don't smoke. (Most have some form of al-fresco area / patio / etc where smoking is allowed. While it once felt part of the experience - I've grown to love it's absence. //Melbourne Australia

Re: The Scientific Scandal of Antismoking

#33

Post by tentonova »

tdavis wrote: post #31
axod wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smoking is anti social though. It's disgusting. It's like force feeding everyone around you asparagus, just because you love asparagus. Please stop smoking everyone.

Driving a car is like force feeding me toxic exhaust when all I want to do is walk down the sidewalk. It's disgusting. Please stop driving everyone. I don't need to drive, why do you? I am within walking distance of everything I need; you should be too. This is my city and I want to walk in it without your dirty car offending my delicate nasal passages.

Yes, people should drive cars that don't produce such a large amount of noxious fumes, they should drive less -- cars are the number one accidental killer at 40k deaths/year in the US.

Both of these things would naturally occur if drivers were not free externalize the significant costs of their personal choices.

Re: The Scientific Scandal of Antismoking

#34

Post by JulianMorrison »

Imprecate wrote: post #26
JulianMorrison wrote: post #17

Personally I don't smoke, never have, and consider it an expensive way to gamble with your life. (They might cure cancer, they might invent cloned lungs, are you feeling lucky, punk?) But truthfully, the reason I wish people would stop smoking is not from altruistic concern for them, and not for any personal fear - I just think it stinks. It's as foul as farting and has much less excuse. Just stop, please.

Is smoking (outdoors) really that offensive? I agree that stale smoky clothes smell gross, but I'm never bothered by a crowd smoking outside a bar or club, or people doing it while they walk through the city. It's just a neutral city smell to me.

Yes. With the UK's "no smoking indoors in public" laws, you get a ton of smokers emitting a choking cloud under the awning outside train stations, etc. I hold my breath to walk through it.

Plus just plain walking closely downwind of a smoker on the street is nasty. I have to pay visual attention to avoid getting a lungful of breathed-out smoke. Not fun.

Re: The Scientific Scandal of Antismoking

#35

Post by berntb »

teeja wrote: post #28

People who have trouble considering this idea because of all the conditioning can take a couple of hours online to investigate the scientific evidence for the dangers of second-hand smoke. When I did, they fell into the noise ... within statistical error. What is the measured, documented percentage of smokers who contract lung-cancer? I never found that number. Furthermore, what other environmental factors were contr…

>>take a couple of hours online to investigate the scientific evidence for the dangers of second-hand smoke [fell into statistical noise when I investigated]

I spent twenty seconds to help you:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoking_ban#Effects_on_health

"Several studies have documented health and economic benefits related to smoking bans. In the first 18 months after Pueblo, Colorado enacted a 2003 smoking ban, hospital admissions for heart attacks dropped by 27% while admissions in neighboring towns without smoking bans showed no change."

(I saw larger claims in a BBC article sometime for the smoking bans in British pubs, but was too lazy to go find it.)

Edit: 20 more seconds.

>>What is the measured, documented percentage of smokers who contract lung-cancer?

Here are some values for second hand smokers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoking_ban#Medical_and_scienti...

"Specifically, meta-analyses show that lifelong non-smokers with partners who smoke in the home have a 20–30% greater risk of lung cancer than non-smokers who live with non-smokers. Non-smokers exposed to cigarette smoke in the workplace have an increased lung cancer risk of 16–19%."

Edit 2: I went and found the BBC article (or another with the same content :-).

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8267523.stm

"Smoking bans cut the number of heart attacks in Europe and North America by up to a third, two studies report.

This "heart gain" is far greater than both originally anticipated and the 10% figure recently quoted by England's Department of Health.

[...]

The studies appear in two leading journals - Circulation and the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

[...]

But the latest work, based on the results of numerous different studies collectively involving millions of people, indicated that smoking bans have reduced heart attack rates by as much as 26% per year."

Edit 3: Who votes up the parent comment?! :-) Less than a minute with Google shows his claims to be totally wrong.

Re: The Scientific Scandal of Antismoking

#36

Post by JulianMorrison »

tdavis wrote: post #27
JulianMorrison wrote: post #17

Personally I don't smoke, never have, and consider it an expensive way to gamble with your life. (They might cure cancer, they might invent cloned lungs, are you feeling lucky, punk?) But truthfully, the reason I wish people would stop smoking is not from altruistic concern for them, and not for any personal fear - I just think it stinks. It's as foul as farting and has much less excuse. Just stop, please.

I think you missed the entire point of the article: living is as much of a gamble as smoking, statistically speaking. You inhale carcinogens daily. Your mind is slowly decaying, along with all your other organs. You could die tomorrow crossing the street or next year from a random cancer, a blood clot in your brain, or the common flu. A friend's mother died while in the hospital recovering from a routine procedure, d…

Suppose you are forced by circumstance to play Russian roulette.

Do you or do you not load extra bullets?

Re: The Scientific Scandal of Antismoking

#37

Post by JulianMorrison »

tentonova wrote: post #33
tdavis wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Driving a car is like force feeding me toxic exhaust when all I want to do is walk down the sidewalk. It's disgusting. Please stop driving everyone. I don't need to drive, why do you? I am within walking distance of everything I need; you should be too. This is my city and I want to walk in it without your dirty car offending my delicate nasal passages.

Yes, people should drive cars that don't produce such a large amount of noxious fumes, they should drive less -- cars are the number one accidental killer at 40k deaths/year in the US. Both of these things would naturally occur if drivers were not free externalize the significant costs of their personal choices.

To heck with driving less. Drive electric.

Re: The Scientific Scandal of Antismoking

#38

Post by tentonova »

JulianMorrison wrote: post #37
tentonova wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, people should drive cars that don't produce such a large amount of noxious fumes, they should drive less -- cars are the number one accidental killer at 40k deaths/year in the US. Both of these things would naturally occur if drivers were not free externalize the significant costs of their personal choices.

To heck with driving less. Drive electric.

That's fine, but doesn't solve point 2, and doesn't take into account the "social" costs of car-dedicated community infrastructure.

Of course, these costs are really not "social" at all, as easily observed by reviewing the impact on surrounding neighborhood small businesses and property values in areas where inner-city freeways were erected in the 50s-70s, and then torn down again in the 90s or 00s. If you're interested in the pure social costs, there's always the increase of crime, in-cohesive communities, etc.

Cars aren't going anywhere, but that doesn't mean we should always optimize for them above all other concerns, though I agree that we should use more efficient (and less polluting) vehicles.

This is a bit off-topic on a discussion regarding second hand smoke -- my apologies.

Re: The Scientific Scandal of Antismoking

#39

Post by blahedo »

I'm curious about the points about inhaling---not being a smoker, I just always assumed that (nearly) all smokers inhaled the smoke. That's why Bill Clinton's pot claim ("but I never inhaled") was such a joke, right? Or is there something more going on there?

Re: The Scientific Scandal of Antismoking

#40

Post by rdouble »

tdavis wrote: post #27
JulianMorrison wrote: post #17

Personally I don't smoke, never have, and consider it an expensive way to gamble with your life. (They might cure cancer, they might invent cloned lungs, are you feeling lucky, punk?) But truthfully, the reason I wish people would stop smoking is not from altruistic concern for them, and not for any personal fear - I just think it stinks. It's as foul as farting and has much less excuse. Just stop, please.

I think you missed the entire point of the article: living is as much of a gamble as smoking, statistically speaking. You inhale carcinogens daily. Your mind is slowly decaying, along with all your other organs. You could die tomorrow crossing the street or next year from a random cancer, a blood clot in your brain, or the common flu. A friend's mother died while in the hospital recovering from a routine procedure, d…

The point of the article is not about smoking at all, it's about bad science. The last paragraph:

"It may be argued that this is news about an old and settled subject. And who cares about smoking anyway. But smoking is really a secondary issue. The primary issue is the integrity of science. This has no use-by date. When the processes of science are misused, even if for what seems a good reason, science and its practitioners are alike degraded."

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