The Benefits of Smoking

a reply to: Psynic

Am I responding to a statement? What is your evidence?

As far as I am aware - nicotine itself is harmless and does not cause cancer. Otherwise all those Big Pharma products like patches, gummy bears, lozenges, inhalers etc would also cause cancer.

www.treatobacco.net...

The generally negative results in animal carcinogenicity tests lead to the conclusion that nicotine itself is not a significant direct, cause of cancer in people who use tobacco products, although nicotine could possibly promote cancer once initiated. Short term nicotine use for tobacco cessation is undoubtedly much safer than persistent tobacco use.

Nicotine, however, does have the added benefit of angiogenesis. That is the ability to encourage the body to grow new blood vessels after trauma or an injury. This benefit is thought to be the reason why smokers survive heart attacks at a much higher rate than never-smokers (Smoker's Paradox - you can google it).

There is, however, a school of thought that if you already have cancer, nicotine can increase the growth of the tumor by angiogenesis.

Tired of Control Freaks

originally posted by: TiredofControlFreaks
a reply to: GetHyped

Are you now denying the science.

What's the weather like on your planet?

a reply to: Psynic

psynic

You seem completely unsurprised to find out that smoking does not cause oral-pharangeal cancers. From your response, I would say that you already knew that!

Are you simply baiting me?

Tired of Control Freaks

a reply to: GetHyped

It minus 30 degree celcius!

A couple of nights ago, they found a handicapped person frozen to death, just outside his front door. The man was 29 years old. He had been out for the evening with friends and took a taxi home. He arrived at the house but didn't make it. His family and friends believed that he stopped for a smoke before entering the house. He never made it. In this kind of cold, you can lose control of your hands in just of few minutes and be unable to open a door and save your own life.

I am so grateful for the efforts of anti-smokers to "save" the lives of smokers!

Tired of Control Freaks

originally posted by: TiredofControlFreaks
a reply to: 3NL1GHT3N3D1

Cause I would rather choose my master than have my master choose me~

BTW - to be clear, I also eat properly, I don't drink and I work out with a personal trainer 3 times per week. Once a week, I lift wieghts with my legs, another its for arms and once per week, I do nothing for core training. I follow-up each session with 30 minutes of cardio. My blood pressure is 103 / 64. I have trained in this way for years!

Don't you know that some olympic level athaletes smoke while training to increase their endurance and that nicotine is being considered as a performance enhancing drug by the committee?

You should not believe everything you hear from people with agenda's

Tired of Control Freaks

I'm happily a smoker (because I don't understand how people drive without a ciggy in hand) but I'm pretty sure that even if nicotine is considered a performance enhancing drug, tar encrusted lungs aren't.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

Krazysh0t

You can read the story I just posted about the frozen smoker. I understand that you don't like the smell of smoke. I even understand that for some people, it may provoke asthma. But this state of affairs cannot continue.

Smokers are human beings, just like you. We need protection from the weather and we need places to socialize.

We are just going to have to compromise here in some fashion.

I will not accept risking a weather related injury and I also will not give up my social life.

You say you respect my decision to smoke but you sure don't act like it. In fact, you are downright punative.

Tired of Control Freaks

I think everything is ok in moderation,smoking maybe 3 or 4 a day will do you no harm at all , and second hand smoke is no more dangerous than breathing in the fumes of cars walking along the pavement,my great grandma started smoking at about 14 and died in her 80s ,she smoked all day every day and never got cancer.

Im not saying smoking is good for you but its not as bad as people are making out,and nicotine is a drug similar to caffeine and has its good and bad points,some people are so brainwashed by the whole anti smoking campaign that they think nicotine will give you cancer.

a reply to: Eunuchorn

Nobody has tar encrusted lungs - that was a story put out by anti-smokers to scare the little kiddies. Those old demonstrations were actually pig lungs stained with shoe polish.

www.independent.co.uk...

Over a six-year period since 2007, a total of 237 lung transplants were carried out at Harefield, and 90 per cent were double-lung transplants. Just over half, 53 per cent, had lungs from non-smokers, while 29 per cent were from donors who had smoked for less than 20 years, and 18 per cent had the lungs of people who had smoked 20 or more a day for at least 20 years. Results show that one-year and three-year survival figures were about the same for all three groups. Those with lungs from non-smokers even fared slightly worse in terms of one-year survival. A total of 77.7 per cent with non-smoking donors' lungs were alive after the first year, compared with 90.8 per cent with smokers' lungs. There were also no differences in a number of other measures, including overall effectiveness of the lungs, the amount of time spent in intensive care, and the length of time in hospital.

Yes, you read that correctly. There is an decreased risk of death if the doner was a smoker.

Those doctors had the lungs of smokers in their hands and examined them under a microscope. There was no "tar-encrustation".

You were lied to!

Tired of Control Freaks

originally posted by: blupblup
Oh come on.... FFS.
Whatever small benefit there *may* be is utterly negligible.
You are breathing hot, poisonous chemicals into your lungs.

That is not good. ever.

Gave up smoking, took up cycling, sucked in traffic exaust fumes instead, died , can't win.

Gave up junk food, took up fruit and veg, took in pesticides and GM, died, can't win.

Gave up alchol took up juicing, gulped down sugar got diabetes, died, can't win.

Gave up TV joined ATS , became paranoid, got chair and rope died, can't win

originally posted by: TiredofControlFreaks
Nobody has tar encrusted lungs - that was a story put out by anti-smokers to scare the little kiddies. Those old demonstrations were actually pig lungs stained with shoe polish.

So the pulmonologist that performed my bronchoscopy is a magician? Or is he a liar?

Granted, I was shown the images after the actual scoping, but do you really think they took the time to swap in pig lung videos when my bronchoscopy wasn't for smoking related issues?

No need to toss nicotine
Smoking is deadly, not from the nicotine, but the host of other crap alongside it.
Nicotine can be ingested in many other mediums though (like caffine doesn't require expresso)

a reply to: TiredofControlFreaks

That was a damned interesting article thanks for posting.

I often wonder whether those that smoked yet died old from some unrelated illness have actually developed tollerence an that over a long enough period their decendants would evolve to be immune. After all animals have evolved to cope with breathing an ammount of CO2 etc .

I also wonder whether a percentage of people that hand mine sulphur would eventually develop immunity.

Not trying to get away from the fact that it is quite stupid to set some leaves on fire and breathe the smoke .

a reply to: TiredofControlFreaks

This is fascinating, the comments are predictable.

My only problem with addressing maniacal ear-steaming fascist 'protectors' of the health of others with undeniable science is that we do not address the underlying root problem, public acceptance of totalitarian social engineering.

We want the rats to learn how to exit the maze, not just get better at navigating around in it.

a reply to: peck420

oh wow - yes, yes I really do. The medical community is involved in anti-smoking in a very big way. They are doing much worse things than showing ugly pictures to smokers.

Here is one example that I know of.

People are often sent to get allergy testing. The technologist divides the area of the back and arms and scratches each patch of skin with a substance that is known to be allergenic.

The technologist always uses the sap from tobacco plants. When the person develops a welt, the person is told that they are highly "allergic" to tobacco smoke.

Please notice that they use the sap of the tobacco plant to do the test, not the smoke.

In fact, it is impossible to be allergic to tobacco smoke of any kind.

health.howstuffworks.com...

Cigarettes can't actually cause an allergic reaction, since they lack any allergenic proteins that would trigger your immune system. However, that's not to say that cigarettes can't cause allergy-like symptoms. In fact, the irritants in cigarettes and cigarette smoke can cause symptoms that appear very similar to those of allergic rhinitis. If you're sensitive, you may end up with a runny nose, watery eyes, coughing, sneezing and trouble breathing, much as you would if you were allergic to dust and breathed it in. People can suffer allergic reactions to tobacco leaves and plants themselves, but these allergies are rare. When you burn tobacco in a cigarette, the chances of such an allergy affecting you are pretty much zero.

When these people see the welt, they believe the technologist and they believe that they have to avoid tobacco smoke.


The facts are the facts here - nobody is transplanting "tar-encrusted" lungs into patients and further nobody can actually breathe if their lungs were encrusted with tar. it would prevent the transportation of oxygen into the lungs and carbon dioxide away from the lungs.

You were scammed, my friend, you were treated like a 5 year old and scared straight by some ugly pictures.
Tired of Control Freaks

originally posted by: blupblup
Oh come on.... FFS.
Whatever small benefit there *may* be is utterly negligible.
You are breathing hot, poisonous chemicals into your lungs.

That is not good. ever.

Actually, the side effects of all the drugs used to replace smoking add up to more problems than smoking did. If they didn't stick all the chemicals in tobacco and planted them more organically a lot of the bad effects would be gone.

Now many articles show that smoking some cigarets is good for a person. Under five is beneficial, especially if done while drinking coffee. Five to ten is about neutral, and over that it is progressively worse for a person.

Remember, by them making smoking evil, they sell a lot more drugs to people and people need doctors more to get meds for depression and anxiety. Now, there are circumstances where some people have problems with breathing in smoke and these people have rights. We should not be smoking in public places, some people could be negatively effected. Smoking outdoors or in an area where others who do not smoke go, is not a problem.

I spent a lot of time trying to figure out why people started smoking in the first place and have found a lot of scientific evidence that shows that smoking is a decent treatment for many conditions.

If you are not smart enough to see that cigarettes are used for self medication than maybe you should be going to the doctors all the time. First of all, the evidence to show cigarettes are bad for us has been twisted to make them look a lot worse than it is. I can design any experiment so the evidence can show a failure and can select the placebo for double blind testing to make sure that the results show what I want them to.

If a person doesn't want to smoke, that is their right. It is also the right of smokers to smoke as long as they follow some social guidelines protecting the rights of non-smokers. I see good and bad in smoking, I see more problems with some of the drugs used to replace smoking though.

Now why would the ones running the government and the medical industry want us not to be able to think better?

a reply to: greencmp

I agree - the social engineering is at the root of the problem because it creates a slippery slope to so much more.

Its actually the most damaging part of the anti-smoker campaigns.

However, the health myths have to be undone before people will even be ready to see the social engineering.

A lie can go round the world before the truth has a chance to put its pants on!

Tired of Control Freaks

a reply to: TiredofControlFreaks

Indeed, it is the function of all 'social awareness' campaigns by their very own definition.

We have come to refer to them euphemistically yet without appropriate sarcasm as "public service announcements".

a reply to: ChristianJihad

Well thanks for calling me stupid!

Actually though your tolerance idea is not so far fetched.

For example Lung cancer. The Center for Disease Control indicates that for lung cancer cases occurring today - roughly 20 % of the case occur in people who have always smoked. Another roughly 20 % occurs in people who have never-smoked.

But 60 % of lung cancer occurs in people who were smokers and quit smoking.

Now that could just be representative of the entire population. (roughly 20 % smoke, 20 % have never-smoked and the rest are quitters) or it could mean something else entirely Statistics and associations are difficult to interpret correctly.

I would guess that most people who chose to smoke enjoy the benefits more than they fear the risks. The same could be said for people who eat too much, drink too much, drive motorcycles, jog in traffic, never exercise etc etc.

In short - smokers are probably just exactly as smart or as stupid as everyone else.

I could say something about people who are judgement and intolerent of other lifestyles but I won't bother
Tired of Control Freaks

a reply to: SaturnFX

yes - many many people are finding vaping quite enjoyable.

Its too bad that vapers choose to bash smoking in order to pander to anti-smokers. Anti-smokers are not about health at all as can be clearly seen by the movement to ban vaping.

Vapers who think that if they throw smokers under the bus, they will get a pass from the anti-smokers are really living in la la land.

Its about power and control. Big Pharma wants the market for nicotine and nicotine based drugs. Vapers are undermining their desired market.

The only chance that vapers have of being able to continue vaping is to align themselves with smokers.

Together, we are an extremely powerful voting block.

Seperately, we both fall under the bus.

BTW - scientists have been able to prove that it is not just nicotine. Its the other chemicals in smoke that increase the effeciency with which nicotine, niacin and cotinen cross the brain/blood barrier and deliver the benefits to the nicotine receptors in the brain.

You like to vape. I like to smoke. We need to work together!

Tired of Control Freaks

originally posted by: TiredofControlFreaks
a reply to: GetHyped

It minus 30 degree celcius!

A couple of nights ago, they found a handicapped person frozen to death, just outside his front door. The man was 29 years old. He had been out for the evening with friends and took a taxi home. He arrived at the house but didn't make it. His family and friends believed that he stopped for a smoke before entering the house. He never made it. In this kind of cold, you can lose control of your hands in just of few minutes and be unable to open a door and save your own life.

I am so grateful for the efforts of anti-smokers to "save" the lives of smokers!

Tired of Control Freaks

Sounds to me like stupidity and addiction led to his death.

ETA: wasn't one of your sob stories about smokers being forced outside from another thread about an old smoking man with Alzheimer's? Good thing smoking prevents that disease!