Attn: Smokers in the US

[Snake-Aes]

Which will still be considerably more than I'll ever be willing to take if I'm not a smoker. It's no different than why drunk people aren't supposed to drive.

[Rachmaninoff]

I think I have a good chance of getting lung cancer and I've never taken part in tobacco products. My mother smoked, and still does, like a chimney inside of the house. About a pack+ a day. She also smoked while she was pregnant with me. Not to mention all of my aunts and uncles used so smoke around me. Also my friends and girlfriend smoke. Its disgusting. I'm just glad they don't allow people to smoke inside anymore. I agree it would take ALOT of 2nd hand smoke to get cancer but I believe it could still happen.

[Kelaan]

When alcohol was abolished people started making moonshine and smuggling alcohol from states without abolition, I'm not sure how successful banning tobacco would be.

It's harder to grow your own tobacco in the same degree as one can distill alcohol, I imagine.

[Kelaan]

But I bet someone will claim that it was caused by smoking, despite there being absolutely zero circulation to the epidermis and me having lived for 20+ years in the mohave and high deserts.

I hope you get well. I live in the similar area, and we are absolutely paranoid about the sun. (Go outside? In the summer? Fuck that!)

[Snake-Aes]

When alcohol was abolished people started making moonshine and smuggling alcohol from states without abolition, I'm not sure how successful banning tobacco would be.

It's harder to grow your own tobacco in the same degree as one can distill alcohol, I imagine.

Either way it's not going to work without an investment similar to the US military budged an a couple decades of molding the culture again. Alcohol predates fire technology itself and will probably never truly leave.

[Fivelives]

My dermatologist told me that people generally absorb enough UV rays by the time they're 10 years old to develop cancer later on in life.

I'm not too terribly arsed about it, really - I mean, it'll either kill me or it won't. There's no real sense in worrying about it until it gets bad. The resection was a success, so it all kinda depends on whether or not the tumor grows back before or after the liver does. If before, then yeah... I'm kinda hosed. If after, then they'll just cut it out again.

My uncle's had metastatic melanoma for the last 20 years and is still doing just peachy keen, there's no real reason to believe that I'll be any different. In fact, within the next 2 years or so, I'll also be just as bald as he is

[Snake-Aes]

Yeah, I know, it's just a matter of feasible precautions. Like the guys freaking out about the meltdowns in japan. A week near it isn't as harmful as a month in a high-altitude city...

[Fivelives]

Yeah, and I've been living in a high altitude city (8500ft elevation) since August of '09. Go me!

[Snake-Aes]

Yeah, and I've been living in a high altitude city (8500ft elevation) since August of '09. Go me!

Since May 1987 here.

[Koatanga]

The only warning sticker cigs need is the price sticker.

Just increase the cost of cigs by a proportion of the costs of cancer research and treatment as determined by the best estimate of how much smoking contributes to those costs.

In other words, stop normalising the cost of smoking over the whole insurance-purchasing population and target the costs directly at the people who smoke, and do it at the point of purchase.

The nebulous threat of some far-off disease doesn't impact the purchasing or consumption of cigarettes as much as the nicotine keeps them purchasing and consuming. Price is a much more immediate and quantifiable deterrent.

[Koatanga]

Second hand smoke would have to accumulate over at least two lifetimes for it to affect the person being smoked at as much as it affects the person doing the smoking. As a test, have one of your smoker friends take a mouthful of smoke then blow it through a napkin. Then, have them inhale a mouthful of smoke and blow it out through another napkin - look at the difference between the discoloration spots on each napkin.

The second one is "second hand" smoke.

That would be true if the cigarette was constantly being inhaled such that the only smoke that would affect anyone else would be exhaled smoke.

In reality, the things burn away on their own quite happily, producing smoke that is not filtered by a napkin, or the smoker's lungs.

The fundamental difference is that the person smoking is choosing to accept the risks associated with it. The recipient of 2nd-hand smoke made no such choice. However long it would take to affect the non-smoker is irrelevant - the non-smoker never chose to be affected at all.

It would be a bit like me punching you in the face and excusing it by saying that boxers get hit way more often than that, and that I would have to hit you several times a day in order for you to have the same possibility of brain damage that they risk.

[Fivelives]

Actually, cigarettes don't burn away happily on their own anymore, and haven't since the late 90s. There are "fire breaks" inside them that will extinguish the cigarette every 30-60 seconds if you're not actively smoking them. It's a safety measure they put in because of all the stupid fucks that fell asleep with lit cigarettes in their hands and burned their houses down - then instead of owning up to their stupidity, they blamed the cigarette.

Because you know, it's the politic thing to do.

the non-smoker never chose to be affected at all.

If I'm smoking a cigarette outside, the non-smoker can fucking move. If you want to stand nuts to butts with a smoker, then bitch about the second hand smoke or just stand there passive aggressively coughing up a fucking lung then you deserve every single bit of cancer you get.

We can't smoke in public buildings, we can't smoke within 50 feet of entrances to public buildings, we can't even smoke in our own fucking homes or cars in some states and under certain conditions (e.g. the California smoking ban includes smoking in a private home or vehicle that children have access to)

“The science is indisputable that smoking in cars poses serious health risks”

On Tuesday, a new California law takes effect which prohibits smoking in cars when youth under 18 years old are present, giving California the most comprehensive smoke-free car law in the nation.

http://www.tahoedailytribune.com/articl ... /355431022

So you tell me. If I'm standing outdoors having a cigarette, and some stupid fuck walks up and stands next to me - are they or are they not choosing to be "affected" by secondhand smoke?

Also, you're completely ignoring everything that was posted on this subject in your zeal to demonize cigarettes as the root cause of all evil.

Ten cents of the cigarette tax is deposited into the state’s General Fund and two cents per
package goes into the Breast Cancer Research Fund. � Twenty-five cents (Proposition 99, November 1988) of the cigarette and tobacco products surtax is used for the following purposes: �
•
� Tobacco-related health education programs and disease research.
•
� Medical and hospital care and treatment of patients who cannot afford those services, and for whom payment will not be made by any private coverage or federal program.
•
� Programs for fire prevention; environmental conservation; protection, restoration, enhancement, and maintenance of fish, waterfowl, and wildlife habitat areas; and enhancement of state and local parks and recreation.
Fifty-cents (Proposition 10, November 1998) of the cigarette and tobacco products surtax is used for programs that encourage proper childhood development, including the development of professional and parental education and training, informed selection of childcare, development and education of childcare providers, and research into the best practices and standards for all programs and services relating to early childhood development.

http://www.boe.ca.gov/pdf/pub93.pdf

So you want the cigarette taxes to pay for what they're already paying for? Good man. Now please go research the subject before making claims that have already been debunked, repeatedly.

[Aubade]

<3 Fivelives.

[Barathorn]

Just as a slight derail, I read a study 2-3 years ago in the UK that stated if the UK based sales of tobbaco and cigarettes were stopped immediately for whatever reason then the only way to recoup the lost taxation would be to increase the council taxation of every individual household by 28-30%.

For a lot of families that equates to £30-£40 a month. I would struggle to afford that without serious cutbacks - ie we would lose something we take for granted and enjoy, Sky TV or our monthly meal out with friends as an example.

That doesn't make smoking right obviously but it does show there isn't a quick fix to it as people might think without plunging some families who both smoke and don't smoke into a worse position than they are currently.

As an ex smoker [6 weeks today] I can honestly say that if the same social stigmas, taxation and pressures were applied to the people who get absolutely shitfaced every weekend and who cause untold damage to themselves and others as the smokers in the UK have to put up with then the UK would be a better place to live.

I get fed up with smokers being kicked for everything. If you want to punish people for endangering themselves and others, do it across the board and don't just knee jerk reaction to one sector.

[Candiru]

Yeah definitely. There is nothing scarier than a drunk hen party on a Friday night. If you see one, run away! Smokers you can at least just hold your breath while you walk past in a worst-case scenario.