Pennsylvania University System Snuffs Out All Smoking

re: Pennsylvania University System Snuffs Out All Smoking

CrowSnake — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 17:01:06 GMT

I only smoke when I am drinking beer and sometimes not even then. I smoke when we are out partying and around smokers. If I go to a bar, once or twice a month I expect to be able to smoke there. I know I will have to wash eveything I wear after, and then make sure I do not take my leather coat inside, but I know that going in. Having smoking and non smoking bars is a good idea, but not allowing smoking bars is an example of over kill.

I know most smokers can not take it or leave it, I have noticed that less people are smoking and that is good. But if someone wants to die of it then it is their right. I smoke maybe 10 times a year for a couple of days.. One day I will decide to give it up.

re: Pennsylvania University System Snuffs Out All Smoking

Masonsmama — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 02:16:58 GMT

Hi no-name.... I do not have scientific proof, but I have personal experience.... If I am around second hand smoke for more than a few moments, I end up with bronchitis. It's more than a bad smell for me... I get very ill. So though it is not scientific in the sense you are looking for, I can say, at least for me- second hand smoke does more than cause discomfort to my nasal sensibilities. I rarely get sick.... but if I'm around smokers too long, I get VERY ill. No fun no fun.

re: Pennsylvania University System Snuffs Out All Smoking

hubcaps — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 03:17:17 GMT

Smoking/nicotine is "neuroprotective" as opposed to alcohol and most drugs which are "neurotoxic." It blocks outside stimuli including propaganda.

re: Pennsylvania University System Snuffs Out All Smoking

MikeM_203 — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 12:07:34 GMT

One thing to add:

I have to take a small issue with the good doctor's point about 1 cigarette being as bad as 1 French fry. If all things were equal, I might tend to agree. However, they are NOT equal. Certainly, your body is designed to be a filter between you (your brain and major organs) and the outside world. Therefore, smoking a single cigarette or eating 1 or 2 French fries are hardly health risks.

If you are a habitual smoker, however, you don't take breaks or time off. You pretty much smoke 365 days per year throughout your waking day. No one eats French fries or any other junk food to anywhere near that extent, so it's an unfair comparison. Cigarettes (and tobacco smoking in general) kill you in stages. You don't simply smoke for years on end and suddenly contract cancer. It comes on in stages. In fact, this is how the link between smoking and cancer was detected.

You see, by the 1950's (when the first major research was done on smoking and a link to lung cancer), roughly 3/4 of the American population smoked. Yes, you read that right; 75% of people smoked. By 1950 most doctors basically knew that smoking was linked to cancer, but they didn't have scientific proof to back up their observations of patients. The first investigations into this field came from epidemiological studies (i.e. statistical analysis of populations) and lead quickly to forensic analysis of cadavers. When they tied this research into massive census and survey studies, the links became obvious.

What they found was a general degradation of the bronchial tissue and cilia lining the bronchial walls. Basically, in chronic smokers, the cilia became paralyzed, the tissue thickened and eventually morphed into cancerous tissue which ate through the bronchial chambers and into the body cavity, organs, bloodstream, etc. In essence, they learned that cancer came on in stages - and ALL chronic smokers exhibited the same symptoms. I'd say that's more than ample reason to quit!

re: Pennsylvania University System Snuffs Out All Smoking

Kris588 — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 11:55:23 GMT

smokers should be considerate of non-smokers, or better said, those who can't stand secondhand smoke. As a smoker who really wants to quit, I can't tell you how hard it is. But to go to social places where there are no ashtrays outside, or airports where you have to travel for hourse without being able to have a cigarette is downright inconsiderate of the smoker. Banning smoking in airplanes and restaurants and public places? All for it, non smokers should not have to be exposed to that if they don't want to. But non smokers should be considerate of smokers too. I have to watch people drinking their soda (even diet soda is very bad for you), putting chemicals on their skin when they put make up on,being aware of what the chemicals do to me too, the packaging of all of these things that hurt our environment,eat the SAD diet taht leads to diabletes (it hurst to watch people do this)and other bad food, be afraid to drink water which could be heavily medicated because of other'sbad health choices including taking meds and urinating them into our environment, listen to the noise blaring from speakers everywhere I go, have to pay for a cell phone so I can be available for people, yet risk myself for a brain tumor,yet I can't even smoke outside away or in an area for smokers while I am trying to be considerate of non smokers as much as I can? Smoking is bad for us, but anti smoking *** are bad for everyone.

re: Pennsylvania University System Snuffs Out All Smoking

MikeM_203 — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 11:48:27 GMT

Folks, it's stunning to me that there's even any discussion here on smoking or second-hand smoke. Second-hand smoke DOES kill if in large enough quantities. However, dying from second-hand smoke should be the least of your concerns given the other affects - activation of allergic response, asthma, irritation of bronchial passageways, damaging of bronchial cilia, thickening of bronchial tissue, etc., etc.

Furthermore, the discussion on second-hand smoke is especially ridiculous given that second-hand smoke is largely the smoke coming off the end of a cigarette - meaning UNFILTERED smoke, which is obviously more harmful than the smoke actually inhaled through the filter by the smoker.

Smoking in general - whether the Big Tobacco type or the pure tobacco type - is intuitively bad for you. Let's think about it: you are inhaling burnt chemicals and carbons directly into your lungs, which is a direct passageway into your bloodstream. The "rush" you get from smoking is from those chemicals passing through the blood-brain barrier. Soooooo....how can anyone even begin to suggest it's perfectly fine to smoke (regardless of the type of tobacco)?

Here's a question for you: Why smoke in the first place? Why the discussion as to whether it is or isn't bad for you? It's obviously a filthy vice and an addiction, plus, given the numerous health concerns, why even start?

There is an excellent book on the subject of smoking called "Ashes to Ashes: America's Hundred-Year Cigarette War, the Public Health, and the Unabashed Triumph of Philip Morris" by Richard Kluger. In it, he covers a great deal of the history of tobacco, going all the way back to colonial days and moving forward in time. In it, he cites many amazing statistics, but the most compelling was this: If all chronic smokers live long enough, they will eventually die of cancer. Cancer is not an "on" or "off" condition. If you smoke regularly, you are on your way to contracting cancer. Congratulations!

re: Pennsylvania University System Snuffs Out All Smoking

Kris588 — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 11:36:30 GMT

A person knowing 3 youngsters who died from cigarette smoke. How should we explain the billions of others who grew up around second hand smoke who are perfectly healthy? I am one of them, my parenst both smoked around me, I AM 41 and my sister and brother and I are all okay, though I definitely want to quit smoking. The only way these 3 youngsters could have had smokers lungs is if they were in enclosed rooms or cars constantly inhaling smoke from a very early age, and got no exercise.Common sense tells you that unless you are constantly and intensely or even moderately breathing in second hand smoke you are at little risk. It's more the chemicals that are in cigs that are harmful these days, I think of people who used to smoke lucky strikes and live a ripe old age, likely due to a chemical free, active life, good nutrition, lots of physical activity, strong immunity.

re: Pennsylvania University System Snuffs Out All Smoking

Dr Rik — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 19:45:09 GMT

I have pursued a natural lifestyle my entire adult life.

My parents smoked and I was compelled to work in environments where smoking on the job was considered normal.

I have had fabulous aerobic conditioning all my life, including surfing monster waves in Hawaii where you have to be able to hold your breathe.

After 50 years of age my aerobic conditioning simply started deteriorating no matter what I did. Friends of mine who have never been routinely exposed to cigarette smoke are still out there going after the "big ones".

I could care less whether you smoke, all I ever asked for was to not have to breathe it myself.

I hate cigarette smoke.

I am not feeling very friendly towards anyone who suggests someone else's right to smoke trumps my right to breathe.

I really miss riding really big waves.

re: Pennsylvania University System Snuffs Out All Smoking

TiaIsWorried — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 18:19:59 GMT

We are heading down the path with tobacco, that we were led down with alcohol, then drugs.

Told it is "evil", man made into a crime.

Results? NO user has been saved, the rate of "abuse" is the same it has always been, and the government and the criminals are larger, and richer, than ever.

Until we quit asking government to be our mommies/daddies, and allow common sense, personal accountability and death back into our daily lives, this will continue unabated.

Banning children's cough syrup because of 60 deaths in 20 years is yet one more way the AMA, APA and Pharamceuticals are buying our government.

Trying to wake the sheep up is futile. They will continue spending what little money they have on whatever the government and mega-corporations tell them to. The public schools have knocked the ability to freely, logically think right out of us.

It is truly a sad day in America.

re: Pennsylvania University System Snuffs Out All Smoking

CEM — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 17:59:20 GMT

I'm 43 and a smoker and watched my mom die of lung cancer that had spread to her brain, and even so, I defend smokers and continue to smoke myself. Why? Well, there are a few reasons...

First on the list would be the fact that my mom developed lung cancer 5 years AFTER she had quit. So even if smoking cigarettes was what had indeed killed her - then quitting smoking certainly never helped her any, and I would have rather had seen her enjoy her final years. Instead, she gained an enormous amount of weight when she had quit and was miserable.

Secondly, as a smoker there have been times when smoking actually helped me to stop coughing - yes, helped me. Yet some scented candles in a home or a tiny breeze of someone's dryer sheets (situated near a couple of cell phone towers) can render me asthmatic - and under those cirucumstance I'm supposed to believe that cigarettes are the cause of my eventual lung cancer? Yea, right.

I was looking for an article I had read a while back on how lung cancer has never been reproduced in laboratory rats or mice, but I can't find it - so read this instead...

xiaodongpeople.blogspot.com/.../smoking-helps-protect-against-lung.html

The author of this article alleges that (radioactive) nuclear fall-out is what causes lung cancer. Add a few (radiowave-producing) technologies to the environment (such as mobile phones and cellular phone masts), and wahlah - lung cancer is born.

If smoking was what really causes lung cancer, teenagers and people in their 20's would be contracting it, yet it waits until at least middle age or old age to bare its ugly teeth?

On the other hand, teenagers and people in their 20's and 30's are using cell phones heavily, and sure enough, brain tumor rates are rising among (even non-smoking) young cell phone users. Yet how much are we hearing about that on the 6 o'clock news?

re: Pennsylvania University System Snuffs Out All Smoking

rb672d11 — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 17:42:44 GMT

If you stop the disgusting habits of breathing and eating,which hasten our demise, then perhaps sooner then later guaranteed eternal peacefulness will be had without any worries.

re: Pennsylvania University System Snuffs Out All Smoking

knarrrj — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 14:53:22 GMT

I forgot to add that I have been smoking for over 60 (sixty) years and still in as good of health as most people younger than me. No prescription medicines, etc.

Ronald

re: Pennsylvania University System Snuffs Out All Smoking

knarrrj — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 14:50:47 GMT

If anyone has proof that smoking is harmful I would like to know what that "proof" consists of. The government hooking a dog up to a smoking machine for 24 hours a day, and then the dog dies of ling cancer I fail to see as proof. I read somewhere, years ago that the Swedes, and English, examined medical records on smokers, and non-smokers, back for a period of years and found that smoking less than 10 (ten) cigarettes a day increased longevity over non-smokers. 10 (ten) to 20 (twenty) cigarettes a day and life expectancy was the same as non-smokers. The more smokers increased their smoking above 20 (twenty) cigarettes a day, the faster their health deteriorated.

Ronald Knarr

re: Pennsylvania University System Snuffs Out All Smoking

dee beatty — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 12:23:16 GMT

Have smoked two different times in my life. Both times I was delivered by my heavenly Father. I remember walking across my living room while living in Reno saying, "God, I'm so sorry," and was instantly delivered from cigarette smoking. Never had the desire to smoke again.

re: Pennsylvania University System Snuffs Out All Smoking

deedles — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 11:21:00 GMT

It's interesting to me that both smoking tobacco and being out in the sun are things that humans have been doing for centuries... but since the 40's-50's... now those activities are a problem and we have to protect ourselves against them or we'll get some form of cancer? It doesn't add up. Cancer wasn't even on the list of the top ten things people died from in this country 100 years ago... and I'll bet lots of folks were smoking and working out in the sun then.

So why now is it a problem? Definitely, the poison that the big tobacco companies put into the tobacco is a problem. We buy organically grown tobacco from small operations that add nothing to it. Thanks for the info on chlorine-free tubes, HereIsSomething!

I once read a paper by a researcher that stated the big gubment 'smoking causes lung cancer' and the 'sun causes skin cancer' movement started up after they exploded thousands of tons of radioactive material over the Nevada desert in the 40's during all the atomic testing they were doing then. All that radioactive dust etc floated across the US and deposited in the soil and lays there waiting for you to disturb it, breathe it in, absorb it into your skin... and voila! Cancer.

The writer of the paper referenced a study that was done involving rats being forced to smoke the equivalent of packs and packs a day.... the scientist couldn't get one rat to develop lung cancer. However, the rats exposed to the radioactive material got lung cancer at almost 100%. It was also noted to be interesting that the 'smoking' rats exposed to the radioactive material developed lung cancer at a much lower rate than the non-smoking rats. The scientist posited that some protective benefit might be obtained against inhaled radioactive particles because of the extra mucus lining in the lungs that smokers produce. I'm pulling all the above from memory, since I haven't read the article in over a year, but that's basically it in a nutshell.

I so completely distrust anything the 'gubment' says about anything that when any arm of that beast issues recommendations to the population for their 'safety'... I'm truly inclined to do exactly the opposite.