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The Scientific Scandal of Antismoking

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Re: The Scientific Scandal of Antismoking

#41

Post by w00pla »

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.

Smoking isn't antisocial at all. Smokers are usually the most friendly people I know. Some of the best social things I have done is smoking a cigarette on a train station in a 3rd world country - it brings people together. If someone offers you a cigarette you would be an uppity idiot to decline.

You can walk up to a strange smoker and ask him for a light. Taking a smokebreak outside while there is a complete smoker outside turns strangers into friends.

Not anti-social at all - having a stick up your ass because you dislike smoking is.

Re: The Scientific Scandal of Antismoking

#43

Post by dmix »

JulianMorrison wrote: post #34
Imprecate wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In Toronto you can't smoke under large umbrellas or any partially roofed areas on patios/bus stations.

Re: The Scientific Scandal of Antismoking

#44

Post by [deleted] »

w00pla wrote: post #41
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.

Smoking isn't antisocial at all. Smokers are usually the most friendly people I know. Some of the best social things I have done is smoking a cigarette on a train station in a 3rd world country - it brings people together. If someone offers you a cigarette you would be an uppity idiot to decline. You can walk up to a strange smoker and ask him for a light. Taking a smokebreak outside while there is a complete smoker…

[deleted]

Re: The Scientific Scandal of Antismoking

#45

Post by Imprecate »

whatusername wrote: post #32
Imprecate wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I live in a city with extremely tough anti-smoking laws. I came here from a city where smoking indoors was also illegal, but many bars found ways around it or disobeyed the law.

I think it's more fair for the employees, which is why I support it; I don't find cigarettes to smell particularly bad. The only places where I miss it are little dives where cigarettes smell nicer than stale beer.

Anyway, to each his own. I do think smokers should be courteous in public even if most people don't find the smell offensive; waving a flaming stick around carelessly in a crowded place is dangerous.

Re: The Scientific Scandal of Antismoking

#46

Post by Imprecate »

blahedo wrote: post #39

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?

When smoking a cigar or pipe most smokers don't inhale deeply like one does with a cigarette. There are still health risks for heavy cigar smokers like mouth cancer, IIRC.

Re: The Scientific Scandal of Antismoking

#47

Post by Eliezer »

If this paper weren't biased, it would mention the chief source of evidence in favor of the idea that smoking damages your lungs: Men who smoke die of lung cancer at 23 times the rate of nonsmokers.

Now, that may not be from a randomized trial. But nonetheless, I think that's an important explanandum. See Judea Pearl's Causality if you don't think it's possible to get important data off of mere observational studies.

It just seems really unlikely that, you know, future lung cancer would cause people to start smoking now, or that some common cause makes people decide to start inhaling carcinogens and tar and then causes them to get lung cancer later at 23 times the base rate.

But if anyone actually believes that, we can get a group of 1000 of them together and have 500 of them start smoking with proper random assignment, and see what happens.

Re: The Scientific Scandal of Antismoking

#49

Post by herdrick »

Eliezer wrote: post #47

If this paper weren't biased, it would mention the chief source of evidence in favor of the idea that smoking damages your lungs: Men who smoke die of lung cancer at 23 times the rate of nonsmokers. Now, that may not be from a randomized trial. But nonetheless, I think that's an important explanandum. See Judea Pearl's Causality if you don't think it's possible to get important data off of mere observational studies.…

He didn't quite say that smoking doesn't damage your lungs, he said that quitting doesn't improve your lifespan. For example he wrote that other forms of cancer apparently are more common among quitters. Of course there are lots of plausible explanations for that, among them that ceasing use of a stimulant causes increased obesity which from what I understand increases risk of many cancers.

Actually I read that really quickly. I hope I'm not completely wrong about what he said.

Re: The Scientific Scandal of Antismoking

#50

Post by herdrick »

jawngee wrote: post #7
lkrubner wrote: post #6

At this point I think it is well known that quitting smoking doesn't have much health benefit. I think it is exaggeration to call this a "scandal". I recall this was talked about on television a lot back when Peter Jennings died - he had quit smoking many decades earlier, but he still died of lung cancer. However, here is the important fact: smokers die of lung cancer at a higher rate than non-smokers. The above essa…

Well to be a contrarian, nicotine is a mood stabilizer in people with depression and bipolar disorder. Consider it a cheap SSRI. It also makes you look cool which can score you dates which can lead to sex, and that's a healthy cardiovascular exercise. sarcasm

Stimulants tend to act as appetite suppressors. Reducing likelihood of being overweight would seem to increase lifespan, all else being equal.
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