“Cigarette smoking causes about one of every five deaths in the US each year.” • Hacker News Board

Re: “Cigarette smoking causes about one of every five deaths in the US each year.”

#51

Post by trapperkeeper74 » Sun, Sep 17, 2017, 1:52 AM UTC

biktor_gj wrote: post #17

atom_enger wrote: post #2

So what do we do? I don't believe in making them illegal as that infringes on others rights to choose what they put in their body, but I do feel for the kids and family members who have to put up with the habit.

Well, this is my personal opinion but here it goes. It's not about our rights, it's about public health. Cigarrettes should be illegal, and all the companies making these products shluld be banned. This is costing the entire world millions every month. I am a smoker. I smoke about a pack everyday. And I've tried quitting more than once, but this thing is more addictive than a lot of substances you can buy on the stre…

Prohibition hasn't ever worked and will never work... it just makes criminals rich. It's an addiction that needs comprehensive, overlapping cessation programs.

Re: “Cigarette smoking causes about one of every five deaths in the US each year.”

#52

Post by designcode » Sun, Sep 17, 2017, 11:34 AM UTC

democracy wrote: post #41

designcode wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do what we’ve done in Australia. Tax them very heavily so price is high, and remove them from being seen in shops

Yes, make the unfortunate pay even more. And it is the poor who are heavy smokers. There was a Russian joke when the government announces that alcohol price is going up so the boy is asking his dad if he is going to drink less and the father replies that probably the son will eat less instead. And ciggies are still in shops. Making it more expensive is a dumb idea.

Yet it’s had a huge impact on the decline in smoking

Re: “Cigarette smoking causes about one of every five deaths in the US each year.”

#53

Post by freeflight » Sun, Sep 17, 2017, 12:58 PM UTC

posterboy wrote: post #21

freeflight wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Perhaps also explore legalizing marajuana (I think weed should be legal any way but I wonder what effects it would have on tobacco use. I wonder how that body handles a nicotine craving and then ingests marajuana instead.) This is pretty much one of the main reasons for my tobacco habit. Cannabis is hard to come by where I'm at (not the US), nobody smokes pure because most people don't have reliable enough supply,…

and the effect is stronger than filter cigarettes because it's unfiltered and presumably because cannabis would, just like menthol, open up the lungs.

It's a rather nasty combination because the cannabis has lots of tar and most tobacco has tons of chemical additives added with the sole purpose to suppress coughing.

Because of those additives, tobacco+cannabis is way easier to smoke, resulting in people keeping hits in longer, which supposedly gives stronger effects but also more time for the tar to settle down in the lungs.

In that regard, it's odd how people keep on harping on about cannabis being "so much stronger than it used to be", while the tobacco industry literally spend decades and billions of $ to make their tobacco more potent, easier to smoke and as addictive as possible, by adding dozens of questionable chemicals.

At this point tobacco is probably one of the most overdesigned drugs in human history, I can't think of any other psychoactive substance that has had so much time, money and effort put into it.