The king of smokers • Hacker News Board

Re: The king of smokers

#41

Post by throwaway7767 » Thu, Sep 01, 2016, 3:41 PM UTC

yodsanklai wrote: post #37

k-mcgrady wrote: post #2

I wonder how much the current 'marijuana is good for you' attitude resembles the 'smoking is good for you' attitude in the past? NB: I think all drugs should be legalised so this isn't an anti-drugs post.

I'm also a little bit bothered by the 'marijuana is good for you' attitude that we see in the US. It seems that in order to prove that it's not bad, people go to the opposite direction. The reality is more nuanced than good/bad. It may not be as bad as tobacco or alcohol, but it is potentially harmful (I know many people whose lives have been very negatively impacted by long-term cannabis consumption). I also find it…

Marijuana is not harmless, nothing is. But relative to other drugs (including legal ones) its harm potential is very limited. I wish the discussion were a bit more nuanced than "Marijuana is evil!" "No, marijuana is awesome and everyone should smoke it all the time!"

> I also find it surprising to see how it is sometimes depicted very positively in mainstream TV series.

Why? Most peoples experiences with marijuana are positive. That doesn't mean it's harmless, but not every show on television has to be part of some drug-prevention propaganda.

Re: The king of smokers

#42

Post by nilkn » Thu, Sep 01, 2016, 3:42 PM UTC

JadeNB wrote: post #15

MOARDONGZPLZ wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've also been intrigued by this. I have never smoked any substance, but I don't care if others do at all, really. I acknowledge the benefits of it, but when I point out that inhaling smoke of any sort is bad for you at some level, I get a LOT of pushback for a claim that seems self-evident.

> when I point out that inhaling smoke of any sort is bad for you at some level, I get a LOT of pushback for a claim that seems self-evident. I don't argue this claim—I don't have any evidence either way—but nor do I regard it as self-evident. An honest, not rhetorical or leading, question: why should inhaling smoke be bad when inhaling, say, ordinary air isn't? Is it the heat? Particulates? EDIT: Thanks for the exce…

Lots of ordinary air is bad for you, actually. Here's a good piece of underlying research:

http://berkeleyearth.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/China-Ai...

From this, various writers have attempted to make some extrapolations along the lines of "one day in Beijing is equivalent to smoking X cigarettes", where X ranges from 1/6 to 40. There are compelling arguments for both 1/6 and 40, despite those numbers seeming so different. Generally, the 1/6 figure comes from measuring the exact volume of dangerous substances inhaled, and the 40 figure comes from the premise that air pollution is significantly more damaging than tar from cigarettes and thus it takes much less of it to have the same effect as tar from 40 cigarettes. Regardless, the bottom line is that sometimes even ordinary air is not good for you.

Re: The king of smokers

#43

Post by cmdrfred » Thu, Sep 01, 2016, 3:42 PM UTC

HillaryBriss wrote: post #25

> [tobacco's] virtues rarely get a hearing, and yet the latter are many and great. To quiet nervous rest; to soothe a ruffled temper; to favour calm and partial thought; to steady and clear (not to cloud) a confused, overworked brain; to counteract the effects of physical exhaustion Taking this at face value, I wonder what impact such a drug could have on the productivity of a workforce, especially programmers. I als…

Prescription painkillers and then later heroin seem to be the replacements when I look at the data.

Re: The king of smokers

#44

Post by dragonwriter » Thu, Sep 01, 2016, 3:43 PM UTC

nilkn wrote: post #42

JadeNB wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> when I point out that inhaling smoke of any sort is bad for you at some level, I get a LOT of pushback for a claim that seems self-evident. I don't argue this claim—I don't have any evidence either way—but nor do I regard it as self-evident. An honest, not rhetorical or leading, question: why should inhaling smoke be bad when inhaling, say, ordinary air isn't? Is it the heat? Particulates? EDIT: Thanks for the exce…

Lots of ordinary air is bad for you, actually. Here's a good piece of underlying research: http://berkeleyearth.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/China-Ai... From this, various writers have attempted to make some extrapolations along the lines of "one day in Beijing is equivalent to smoking X cigarettes", where X ranges from 1/6 to 40. There are compelling arguments for both 1/6 and 40, despite those numbers seeming so…

That's not "ordinary" air, its highly polluted air -- polluted with, among other things, smoke from burning various things.

Re: The king of smokers

#45

Post by nilkn » Thu, Sep 01, 2016, 3:45 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #44

nilkn wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of ordinary air is bad for you, actually. Here's a good piece of underlying research: http://berkeleyearth.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/China-Ai... From this, various writers have attempted to make some extrapolations along the lines of "one day in Beijing is equivalent to smoking X cigarettes", where X ranges from 1/6 to 40. There are compelling arguments for both 1/6 and 40, despite those numbers seeming so…

That's not "ordinary" air, its highly polluted air -- polluted with, among other things, smoke from burning various things.

Okay, then what, exactly, is "ordinary" air? Air that has no ill health effects? If so, then this has become a tautology -- obviously air that has no ill health effects has no ill health effects. If all such cases are conveniently excluded from the definition, then there's no point even talking about this. This is air that millions and millions of people breathe just by walking outside.

Anyway, your observation that air in Beijing, etc., is polluted from smoke works towards my point, not against it.

Re: The king of smokers

#46

Post by tptacek » Thu, Sep 01, 2016, 3:45 PM UTC

thirstytho wrote: post #35

tptacek wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems pretty unlikely that cannabis smoking is significantly safer than tobacco smoking for lung health, and far more likely that the gap in outcomes in the literature is due to the difficulty (historically) of doing studies on the same scale as the tobacco studies. We seem too ready to forget that the cancer/tobacco link was itself once controversial.

On the face, there are dramatic differences between cannabis and cigarette smoke, the most important being that cigarette smoke is highly addictive, the second most important that cigarette smoke has much lower potency. This is why our smoking/cancer statistics reflect a reality in which it was once extremely common for smokers to be inhaling one or more ounces of burned tobacco per day. Most people already know that…

I don't buy the logic in your last paragraph. Cannabis consumption in the US for the last ~80 years has been furtive. For most of the last 80 years, tobacco was as mainstream as Coca Cola. I don't think we can easily draw conclusions about lung disease from the facts we have available right now.

Re: The king of smokers

#47

Post by Synaesthesia » Thu, Sep 01, 2016, 3:47 PM UTC

bogomipz wrote: post #36

tptacek wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems pretty unlikely that cannabis smoking is significantly safer than tobacco smoking for lung health, and far more likely that the gap in outcomes in the literature is due to the difficulty (historically) of doing studies on the same scale as the tobacco studies. We seem too ready to forget that the cancer/tobacco link was itself once controversial.

I agree I think the comparison has to be organic tobacco like pouch tobacco or American Spirits which don't have all the additives such as saltpeter, bromine and chlorine. Its hard to believe though that ingesting one type of smoke vs another is any better for you.

But tobacco itself is pernicious, and toxic - it's can be mixed with water and used as an insecticide.

Re: The king of smokers

#48

Post by Synaesthesia » Thu, Sep 01, 2016, 3:48 PM UTC

adrusi wrote: post #24

Synaesthesia wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tobacco is carcinogenic, even if chewed or sucked, and lacks any legitimate medical use. However Cannabis has many medicinal uses, is very safe and non-toxic with no signs that it causes cancer. I don't think that smoking weed is necessarily good though - I would recommend vaporizing it.

lacks any legitimate medical use Nicotine is a nootropic no signs that it causes cancer Its a hard connection to prove, but all smoke contains chemicals that are known to cause cancer. Eaten cannabis probably isn't carcinogenic, but smoked probably is. Few cannabis smokers inhale nearly as much smoke as tobacco smokers. Also, tobacco is a nightshade and toxic if eaten, so maybe that has something to with it being mor…

Yes it's a mild nootropic however that doesn't require harmful tobacco but only nicotine. So tobacco itself has no medical purpose.

Re: The king of smokers

#49

Post by derekp7 » Thu, Sep 01, 2016, 3:51 PM UTC

throwaway729 wrote: post #31

derekp7 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had the same observation, that the people I know who smoke pot always seem to have that typical dunceness about them. But then I've wondered if the cause and effect is reversed -- maybe it is people who already have these cognitive attributes are more likely to be predisposed to smoking pot?

> that the people I know who smoke pot... You should re-phrase this as: "the people I know who publicly advertise the fact that they smoke pot". In my experience, there are a lot of marijuana users who are otherwise extremely normal people (and even sometimes on the exceptional end of normal). But given the legal status of marijuana, an ambitious middle-aged professional with a young family who also smokes a couple t…

Yes, that is what I really meant. My experience is from watching my significant other's kids and their friends (all in their early twenties by now, but were teens when they started). So the age could have something to do with it too. And every once in awhile I run across someone who does mention occasional pot usage, but they seem normal. In those cases their use is infrequent. In the case of the teenagers / early 20's mentioned above, I think a big part of it is heavy usage while their brains were still developing. It seems that usage during those critical years can put a "pause" button on development, so once they got off pot they were 25-year-olds that behaved in many ways like a 15-year-old.

A good counter example is someone I know who didn't start until around age 25, only indulges occasionally (so it isn't an addiction), and has very high cognitive ability (currently making 6 figures in the financial industry).

Re: The king of smokers

#50

Post by dragonwriter » Thu, Sep 01, 2016, 3:54 PM UTC

nilkn wrote: post #45

dragonwriter wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not "ordinary" air, its highly polluted air -- polluted with, among other things, smoke from burning various things.

Okay, then what, exactly, is "ordinary" air? Air that has no ill health effects? If so, then this has become a tautology -- obviously air that has no ill health effects has no ill health effects. If all such cases are conveniently excluded from the definition, then there's no point even talking about this. This is air that millions and millions of people breathe just by walking outside. Anyway, your observation that…

The upthread question about why inhaling smoke would be harmful if "ordinary air" was not pretty clearly used "ordinary air" to mean at least "air without smoke", since inhaling "smoke" is always inhaling "air with smoke", and it would be silly to ask the question if both alternatives meant "air with smoke".