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Why do we still permit tobacco use? (2015)

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Re: Why do we still permit tobacco use? (2015)

#181

Post by tpm »

Maursault wrote: post #158
wildrhythms wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The quote says "Tobacco smoking has no health benefits." It goes on to make a distinction between tobacco smoking and nicotine.

I think also that developing software has no health benefits, none, but only as a counterpoint I do not wish to argue. The better argument is that something is deadly, not that something has no health benefits. What I do wish to argue is that the author failed to recognize the difference between tobacco, and what is in nearly all manufactured cigarettes, that is killing people. What is killing people is that most smo…

> Pipe smokers don't seem to suffer the fates of cigarette smokers.

Oh yes they do. See eg [1]. Also logically, both are inhaling smoke from burning organic matter. There is no way it is not going to be very unhealthy, once you look at the chemical composition of the smoke.

[1] Between pipe and cigarette smokers, no or only minor differences were found in mortality from any cause and the specified smoking-related diseases. Pipe smoking is not safer than cigarette smoking. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20952559/

Re: Why do we still permit tobacco use? (2015)

#183

Post by DangitBobby »

ByteJockey wrote: post #172
antognini wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the huge cost imposed on society by smoking. On your last point, from what I've seen smoking saves society money because it kills people at much younger ages so governments don't have to pay for their health care for nearly as long.

I think if the op was talking about non-monetary costs. But if we're limiting this to monetary costs only, I believe you're right. I saw a similar study from the UK circa ~2008ish that compared long term smoker/obese/healthy medical costs, and healthy people are indeed the most expensive (mostly because of tremendous end of life care costs). Edit: I dug around a bit and found the study I was thinking of. It was actua…

Surely most living people are worth more than the economic cost of keeping them alive. They don't seem to even mention the economic value of a living person, other than to say that they didn't take into account the difference in productivity between obese and non-obese people.

Re: Why do we still permit tobacco use? (2015)

#184

Post by Volundr »

Barrin92 wrote: post #167

Simple answer, because we live in a free society and the consideration for what is outlawed isn't how beneficial an activity is for the person who engages in it but how dangerous it is to others. And so while I'm okay with banning smoking from places where others are affected, tobacco consumption in private or voluntary settings shouldn't really be an issue. Also interesting angle in the piece to declare that tobacco…

> Simple answer, because we live in a free society and the consideration for what is outlawed isn't how beneficial an activity is for the person who engages in it but how dangerous it is to others.

To be honest, I don't see how you can look at American drug laws and come to this conclusion. It's certainly what we say we do, but when you actually look at the laws it place, be it drugs, gambling, marriage or any number of other things it becomes obvious that our "free society" only extends as far as the freedom to do those things the powers that be approve of.

Re: Why do we still permit tobacco use? (2015)

#185

Post by willcipriano »

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #108
willcipriano wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a perfect world I'd be able to set a weekly calorie limit. Charge me double the cost and send the overage to the charity of my choice for any food over the limit. A government body limiting who can buy food isn't really a good idea, so it only works in utopia. It could work for non-essentials though.

What if you could opt for a custodian, and the designation can't change very often (like open enrollment)? Give a trusted friend the right to set your calorie limit, and if it doesn't work out, try a different friend next week--but you can only change it between 10AM and 2PM on Mondays.

Yeah I could see maybe a credit card sort of offering with these rules. I don't think credit cards get that granular level of data however. Then I would only have to commit to only carrying around that card.

Re: Why do we still permit tobacco use? (2015)

#186

Post by naim08 »

Maursault wrote: post #158
wildrhythms wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The quote says "Tobacco smoking has no health benefits." It goes on to make a distinction between tobacco smoking and nicotine.

I think also that developing software has no health benefits, none, but only as a counterpoint I do not wish to argue. The better argument is that something is deadly, not that something has no health benefits. What I do wish to argue is that the author failed to recognize the difference between tobacco, and what is in nearly all manufactured cigarettes, that is killing people. What is killing people is that most smo…

"Even if you don't inhale, you can get cancer from smoking pipes and cigars. People who smoke cigars regularly are 4 to 10 times more likely than nonsmokers to die from cancers of the mouth, larynx, and esophagus." [1]

"Between pipe and cigarette smokers, no or only minor differences were found in mortality from any cause and the specified smoking-related diseases. Pipe smoking is not safer than cigarette smoking." [2]

Not sure if pipe smoking is a better alternative. Would love to hear your thoughts on what I've shared.

[1] https://www.webmd.com/smoking-cessation/effects-of-smoking-p...

[2] http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/tc.2010.036780

Re: Why do we still permit tobacco use? (2015)

#187

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

willcipriano wrote: post #169
__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like you have good dopamine hygiene. You can probably also trust yourself moderate other dangerous things like World of Warcraft, Twitter, or cocaine--if for some reason you wanted to. Keep it up. For me the real question is: can people who have unhealthy dopamine habits heavily etched into their neural pathways be taught to change that about themselves, or is replacing unhealthy addictions with healthier on…

I think the trick is to savor the experience and to seek novelty. When I drink coffee, it has an almost uncomfortable effect, but it really wakes me up and the feeling is sort of fun. However if I drink it the next day, the effect will be greatly reduced. If I drink it for a week, I'll start to become dependent and feel less awake than when I started without it. Coffee isn't really the enemy here, it's your own biolo…

I'm reminded of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park experiments, which (to me) imply that addictive behavior is an indicator of problems elsewhere, rather than a problem to be solved directly. And by all means, we should work at addressing root causes. But I think there's also room for improvement re: how we respond to bad situations.

> you need enough dopamine to make it though the week

I think this is part of the story, but not all dopamine is created equal. Or rather, it's all created equal, but it ends up motivating different things. I don't have any studies to back this up, but I like to think in terms of fast-vs-slow dopamine. Fast dopamine motivates you to do something arbitrary in search of more dopamine, slow dopamine motivates you to do something that you also have other reasons for wanting to do.

I'm in the middle of fixing a fence that blew down in a recent storm. There will be some slow dopamine involved at gazing upon the finished product. I think it can count towards my enough-to-make-it-through-the-week allotment. But that's easy for me to say--I don't generally have problems with addictive behavior. I'm just interested because I'd like to find a way to share that quality with my friends who do.

Re: Why do we still permit tobacco use? (2015)

#188

Post by sidpatil »

kompatible wrote: post #146
scoopertrooper wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This could also be said for alcohol though. Alcohol is associated with higher levels of motoring accidents, assaults, and chronic disease. The externalities of alcohol consumption can be largely mitigated by drinking in moderation. The primary externality of smoking, secondhand smoke, can be mitigate by having people smoke outdoors, which most countries already require in public spaces. The main secondary externality…

There's no "secondhand" alcohol drinking like there is secondhand smoking - while the effects afterwards (if someone chooses to be irresponsible after becoming inebriated) can be severe, they are mitigated by choosing safer practices such as having a ride, drinking at home, and knowing to limit oneself if they exhibit behavior that is negative toward others. With smoking, this isn't a possibility.

> There's no "secondhand" alcohol drinking like there is secondhand smoking

Counterexample: drinking while pregnant.

Re: Why do we still permit tobacco use? (2015)

#189

Post by rzimmerman »

tedajax wrote: post #4

Smoking is bad but prohibition is worse. Being subjected to the carcercal system is worse for your health than smoking.

Prohibition has clearly been worse in the case of alcohol and marijuana. You might be right, but I’m not convinced a prohibition on production and sale would produce the same black market for tobacco. Maybe it’s my own bias, but I like to think that most people that smoke don’t really want to. It’s driven by addiction and ease of access. Cravings are ephemeral and it’s not like buying a 6 pack or some pot to have a good time later. There’s a spectrum where prohibition works. The best example I can think of (at the extreme) is plastic bags at supermarkets in California - no black market for that, vs marijuana where it clearly a failure.

Re: Why do we still permit tobacco use? (2015)

#190

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

willcipriano wrote: post #185
__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if you could opt for a custodian, and the designation can't change very often (like open enrollment)? Give a trusted friend the right to set your calorie limit, and if it doesn't work out, try a different friend next week--but you can only change it between 10AM and 2PM on Mondays.

Yeah I could see maybe a credit card sort of offering with these rules. I don't think credit cards get that granular level of data however. Then I would only have to commit to only carrying around that card.

Yeah, let's not hand that sort of data to the credit card companies. It might be a good use case for homomorphic encryption--where the transaction processor computes a go/no-go result without knowing why (and then you scan a QR code and decrypt on your device).

I was thinking of having it decoupled from payments, sort of a more customizable replacement for the ID-checks that we currently do when buying alcohol. I think you could do zero-knowledge trickery to avoid the privacy problems.

But then again, an API for a third party to cut off your access to resources might be too juicy of an abuse-enabler to be worth building.

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