The true cost of smoking, page 16
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reply posted on 4-2-2009 @ 05:18 PM by TheRedneck
reply to post by jfj123

Just when I am about to go all redneck on this subject again, here comes a considerate non-smoker to help me realize that my enemy is not the individuals posting here, but the propaganda and political correctness They have finally bought into.

jfj, I thank you for a reasoned and open debate. You take care my friend, and I'll see you around the board... hopefully on a less polarizing subject.

TheRedneck


reply posted on 4-2-2009 @ 05:41 PM by RFBurns
Originally posted by kinda kurious
I think I am beginning to see this argument in a much clearer light. If you take away the individual health risk and potential risk to others. Remove the addiction issue and strip away financial aspects to smokers and non-smokers alike....we are left with the simple concept of a person's individual rights.


This is true. But in this world, it is impossible to take away potential risk to others due to an individual's choice to do something, be it driving a car, shooting a hunting rifle, or flying an airplane. There is risk in everything, and everone is at risk. True that certian activities will have more risk than others. But generally, risk is risk. We all take risks each and every single day.

Originally posted by kinda kurious
The Right to choose, Freedom of choice.


This is a guaranteed right no matter if the person smokes or does not smoke.

Freedom also comes with responsibility and accountability. Freedom is not free. Us smokers have gone to great extent to abide by the new laws, and try our best to keep our smoke away from those who do not smoke. A majority of smokers do not purposely throw smoke at those who do not smoke. But smokers do not appreciate being the center of the bullseye target for everything wrong in the world either, and will come back fighting with a vengance, simply because of all the things we have been forced to do to accomodate non smokers.

It is our feeling that if you attempt to take away our right to choose to smoke in our own homes, in our own vehicles, in our own airspace, and in designated smoking areas that the non smokers wanted to be put in place, well that is taking things way byond the line of reason, and yes the smokers will come at you with a vengance.

Originally posted by kinda kurious
I would thereby assume that all smokers are "Pro-Choice" and support a Woman's right to choose what she does with her own body.

Just kurious to see if the ardent smoking advocates agree.


Huh? What does defending the right to smoke if we want have to do with a woman's right to choose what she does with her own body? What exactly are you making reference to? Is it on the same level that a woman can choose to smoke or not smoke or ???.


Originally posted by kinda kurious
I can't imagine the smokers would have a double-standard. Could they?


Again, I am not sure where you are going with this with the issue of the right to choose to smoke or not to smoke.

I will just assume you are refering to something like abortion for an example. I know some friends who smoke that do not agree with abortion at all. I also have friends that smoke that wouldnt care either way, and some who definately agree that a woman has the right to choose to have an abortion or not.

So I dont think anyone could say that smokers would have double standards. I know of people who dont smoke that one percentage believes in a woman's right to abortion and others who do not believe in that right.


Cheers!!!!

[edit on 4-2-2009 by RFBurns]


reply posted on 4-2-2009 @ 07:38 PM by TheRedneck
reply to post by kinda kurious

Typical... pull out one quote that ignores the basis of the argument and attempt to spin it. You wouldn't happen to be in politics, would you?

And yet I will stand by my quote. I will even back it up. Observe:
Originally posted by jfj123
To us, it's still like standing in a bon fire with smoking hitting us that hard. Again you're used to it so you don't notice.

Originally posted by reaverto
I think it's great that it's banned in restaurants, bars and public buildings. I like being in a smoke free environment. Just the smell of it makes me want to throw up.

Originally posted by dawnstar
why, in heaven's name, has the number of kids with asthmatic problems increased so much in the past 30 to 40 years, when the number of smokers has dwindled just as drasticallly....

Originally posted by Mynaeris
I went on vacation to the Dominican Republic in December - one night we woke up at 5 am coughing - the neighbors were smoking and we had to air the room afterwards. Of course they are smokers and had the right to smoke indoors. Plus they had two small children in the room with them.

Originally posted by ravenshadow13
Why does my mom get horrible asthma attacks when people smoke?
Okay, I looked up some stats. This is what I found. What did you find?


Secondhand Smoke Fact Sheet

Secondhand smoke ... is involuntarily inhaled by nonsmokers, lingers in the air hours after cigarettes have been extinguished and can cause or exacerbate a wide range of adverse health effects, including cancer, respiratory infections, and asthma.1

...

Secondhand smoke exposure causes disease and premature death in children and adults who do not smoke. Secondhand smoke contains hundreds of chemicals known to be toxic or carcinogenic, including formaldehyde, benzene, vinyl chloride, arsenic ammonia and hydrogen cyanide.4

Secondhand smoke causes almost 50,000 deaths in adult nonsmokers in the United States each year, including approximately 3,400 from lung cancer and 22,700-69,600 from heart disease.5

Nonsmokers exposed to secondhand smoke at work are at increased risk for adverse health effects. Levels of secondhand smoke in restaurants and bars were found to be 2 to 5 times higher than in residences with smokers and 2 to 6 times higher than in office workplaces.6

www.lungusa.org...

Originally posted by ravenshadow13
Some smokers are in their 80s and 90s. But, it's been proven that smokers have a higher risk of getting lung cancer and emphysema.

Originally posted by ravenshadow13
By the time my mom even smells smoke, she gets an attack, and often it's too late to say "hey, could you please stop?"

Originally posted by ravenshadow13
My mom has asthma and even though she takes meds, if someone is smoking near her on the street, she will have an asthma attack.

Originally posted by drsmooth23
how much second hand does it take to get sick?!? I have inhaled close to three tons worth of first hand and im doing ok so far. I can even run a mile in less than 9 minutes, which is better than most non smokers nowadays.

Originally posted by theendisnear69
My grandma smoked around my uncles and mom for their entire lives. None of them have any diseases.

Dam how did we survive the times when you could smoke indoors?


That's just from this thread alone. I could get more similar quotes from the other anti-smoker threads that have popped up recently, but I think this should make my point well enough.

According to the myths surrounding smoking, I am doing some serious damage to my health, but vastly greater damage to the health of those who do not smoke. If I am standing next to a non-smoker, and I am smoking a cigarette, we are both breathing the same air with the same amount of 'toxins' in it. Yes, the smoke I inhale directly from my cigarette is filtered (through a tiny amount of cotton... apparently cotton has some magical ability to remove more particles than a 2 foot thick stack of HEPA filters ), but I am also breathing just like the non-smoker. So I am not only subjected to the second-hand smoke, but also to the first-hand smoke. Yet, from the quotes above, it would appear that I, as a smoker. am somehow immune to the terrible poisoning effects of nicotine-containing smoke.

Keep on proving just how healthy smoking really is. I honestly don't buy it yet, but you're making progress.

TheRedneck


reply posted on 5-2-2009 @ 05:40 AM by jfj123
Originally posted by TheRedneck
reply to post by kinda kurious

Typical... pull out one quote that ignores the basis of the argument and attempt to spin it. You wouldn't happen to be in politics, would you?

And yet I will stand by my quote. I will even back it up. Observe:
Originally posted by jfj123
To us, it's still like standing in a bon fire with smoking hitting us that hard. Again you're used to it so you don't notice.


My quote is specifically in regard to the fact that since smokers are used to the smoke in their lungs, face, on their clothes, etc... they don't notice it. For the non-smoker, it's very hard to deal with.

For example,
Every house has it's own smell and most people are used to the smell of their own house so they don't think it smells like anything but when a guest comes over, they notice the smell. Same with smoking but it's much more intense.

My grandfather died of COPD from smoking. He spent the last years of his life on O2 and last months hospitalized on O2 slowly suffocating to death.

It's horrible to watch someone die like that.



[edit on 5-2-2009 by jfj123]


reply posted on 6-2-2009 @ 06:22 AM by dawnstar
well, they've passes their schip bill I believe, by what I hear, they've increased the tax on rolling papers and tubes by over 1000% to pay for it.

well, smokers, what ya say we all have our revenge now??

www.youtube.com...

the smoker's revenge....
they make these things so they look like cigarettes, we can all invade the gov't buildings, mc donalds, the movie theaters, our workplaces, everywhere, and anywhere...and well, not smoke, still get our nicotine, and well....
drive the antismokers nuts...
and avoid this highway robbery!

hey, get a group together, go to take a white house tour, go visit the capitol building...let them all know, WE AIN'T PAYING YOUR TAX!

there are cheaper ways to get these, I found them going for much less...
if you are sick of all the crap they've been laying down on the smokers, go, get yourself one (preferably not made in china) that looks pretty much like your typical cigarette, and well, get out there in the world, and let everyone know....YOU REFUSE TO PAY THIS TAX!!

[edit on 6-2-2009 by dawnstar]

[edit on 6-2-2009 by dawnstar]


reply posted on 6-2-2009 @ 06:27 AM by spacial
Look here

Mme Jeanne Calment, who was listed as the world's oldest human whose birth date could be certified, died at 122. She had begun smoking as a young woman. At 117 she quit smoking (by that age she was just smoking two or three cigarettes per day because she was blind and was too proud to ask often for someone to light her cigarettes for her). But she resumed smoking when she was 118 because, as she said, not smoking made her miserable and she was too old to be made miserable. She also said to her doctor: "Once you've lived as long as me, only then can you tell me not to smoke." Good point! [USA Today, "Way to go, champ," 10/18/95].

[edit on 6-2-2009 by spacial]


reply posted on 6-2-2009 @ 07:24 AM by BorgHoffen
Look smoking is bad for your health, in general.
It is, and that has to be made clear right now.
And I smoke.
I know its bad and I accept it.
Maybe ill die sooner, does it really matter?
5yo's die from cancer.
105yo's die from cancer.
We are all leaving, the only disadvantage the non smoker has in my opinion, is getting there later.
But many people like to tune out, and not think about the reality's as to why its here.
Its not here to directly kill you, because my Doctor even says he has more patients with cancer that have NEVER SMOKED!
Its to cover up, for the other things they do, to kill you directly.
They pay the scientists to say its all smoking that causes it.
When its the little secret things they do.
That determine your fate.
When my mother died from smoking, I said to her, I will see you again, but not yet.
I will see her again, and I know this.
How, I get to see her again, is very very irrelevant.
Nicotine also calms people, it makes them think more.
Generally people who don't smoke, or who quit, have many more emotional problems they can not even see themselves.
But of course, nicotine is not the answer to that, but it has proven in studies people are more prone to violence who don't use nicotine.
Could this be another factor why they still make it legal?
To subdue us?
Because I for one as a smoker, would support making it ILLEGAL!
Because then I couldn't buy it, and I would have to go to massive extremes to get it.
And I would have to deal with the fact I lost it.
And would eventually not try to seek it.
If I couldn't go straight out and buy it, I probably wouldn't.
Non smokers, please try and control your ego's.
I know its hard, but at least try.


reply posted on 6-2-2009 @ 08:26 AM by Anonymous ATS
Has anyone on here ever heard the old saying "every cigarette is 5 minutes off your life?". It is a sentence designed to scare you into stopping smoking but if you think about it logically you reach an interesting conclusion.

On a normal day i get up, go about my business and go back to bed when i'm tired. How long i am awake for is irrelevant as between the hours of 12 midnight and 11:59 i have aged by 1 day and am 1 day closer to death, assuming i die from old age.

Now if i didn't age (which non-smokers seem to think they don't) and if i wanted to do the same damage with smoking i would need to smoke a cigarette every 5 minutes every day. That is a lot of tabs and personally I couldn't smoke that much and its a safe bet that there can't be even 1% of the worlds smokers that smoke that much.

And even all this would rely on me living on a desert island with 0 air pollution.

And its not like its 5 minutes next week i lose, or 5 minutes off Glastonbury this summer, its 5 minutes at the end of my life when i might be an enfeebled disease racked old man who is more of a burden on taxpayers and the healthcare industry than someone who dies younger.

Who lives in a city? Its popular among environmentalists to say that living in London is the equivalent of smoking 20 snouts a day. And now the congestion charge is in its not even that heavily trafficked anymore so i can only imagine living in a massive city like LA or New York or Tokyo or Shanghai or Sydney etc is even worse. This means that if you live in a city you are getting all the damage done to your health of a heavy smoker without paying the taxes a heavy smoker does to help cover the healthcare. Who's paying for whom now?!?!?!

In conclusion, its 2009 and we should all stop focusing on how we can infringe and restrict the rights of others, on BOTH sides of the arguments and concentrate on advancing the human species. Lifes too short to spend all your time worrying about how short life is.


reply posted on 10-2-2009 @ 12:23 PM by amazed
reply to post by WeAreAWAKE tax cigarettes and put that tax toward the perils and costs of smoking.


They already do this, have you looked at the cost of a pack of cigarettes lately because of the taxes?

Last year my mom-in-law passed away. I miss her very much, as she was my second mom. She lived a healthy life, grew a lot of her own organic foods, if she could not grow something she would buy only organic, never smoked, never lived with a smoker, exercised, did not even like to take over the counter meds. I don't think I ever saw her is the 20 + years I knew her to eat at mcdonalds. She was a master gardener and taught others.

She did not like the fact that I smoke, but was pleased with how I respected others rights to not smoke, that I go outside etc. I remember her saying many times how she was worried that I would get lung cancer.

Guess what, she died of lung cancer. Having never smoked and having never lived with a smoker, and living a healthy life, she got lung cancer anyway. Go figure. Just goes to show, that bad things happen, no matter how you live your life.

Why did she get lung cancer? We don't know, maybe someone smoked next to her at some point in time in her life. I would bet though that it was a combination of the pollution in the area she lived, and genetics.

I try hard to respect another person's right to not smoke.

Peace

Edit to add
Originally posted by dawnstar
why, in heaven's name, has the number of kids with asthmatic problems increased so much in the past 30 to 40 years, when the number of smokers has dwindled just as drasticallly....


According to my daughters specialist (my daughter had asthma when she was very young but has outgrown it), the increase is due to many issues. The biggest one coming to light is all the chemicals that we clean our houses and businesses with, chemicals in laundry soaps, along with the anti bacterial soaps etc that run rampant in this world. Then their are all the chemicals that we now use on our lawns to keep them so green. Our children are not building up immunities like they used to, while being bombarded with chemicals from left and right.

[edit on 10-2-2009 by amazed]
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