the big picture..the SMOKING problem

smoking and big tobacco is just another example of how media shifts our attention to minor parts of the big picture to get us rowed up, fighting..and in the end not taking action

there’s two sides to the argument..
ban cigarettes and keep them legal

but has anyone considered banning the chemicals big tobacco happily add to them?
any other corp. in any other industry would be heavily fined and shut down if they did something similar..
sure they still wouldn’t be healthy but they would definitely be a lot more healthy..and it would limit the amount of disease possible..
the amount and type of chemicals in smokes is amazing and beyond belief..

but wouldn’t smokers and non smokers be happier if they knew that smoke contained only tobacco and paper?


smoking is really just another tactic used to limit population growth, which is understandable but still.....

honestly who doesn’t agree with this?
is this not the logical answer?



also..
in Australia the government wants to make all cigarette packs plain packaging..which is a good idea
but wouldn’t it be better to have an ingredients list?
again any other consumed product is required to have a list of ingredients..why not cigarettes??

smoking has always baffled me? why do people accept the chemicals but not the smoking?

thoughts people?....

Originally posted by dilapidated
in Australia the government wants to make all cigarette packs plain packaging..which is a good idea
but wouldn’t it be better to have an ingredients list?
again any other consumed product is required to have a list of ingredients..why not cigarettes??

smoking has always baffled me? why do people accept the chemicals but not the smoking?

thoughts people?....

It's a good thing? Because the images of a lung cut open oozing puss and blood, entices me.

It's a pathetic and ridiculous effort.

If the government was serious, then theyd outlaw tobacco just as fast as they did with Kronic. In weeks, with no warning, making criminals out of anyone who has used it. Even arresting someone today for it, when it was perfectly legally sold for over 3 years before last week - Available for 7 years all up, with no harm or problem. till the friggen media get ahold of the concept.

Colin barnett has proven that all it takes is "heightened blood pressure and paranoia" to outlaw something in 4 days.

Yet tobacco stays out there for all..

I bloody give up with the Australian government. They are but sagging balls hanging off a useless mule, who will not budge even when enticed with god damned truth.

OK. I shouldn't smoke, but I do. I don't drink, have never taken drugs. The tobacco and paper only thing without any additives is available and has been for a long time. Any good tobacconist supplies this option at a third of the cost of cigarettes. If you enjoy a cigarette then this option is indeed much healthier and almost odourless! So, ask yourselves why, if Governments are so concerned about the health issues, why isn't this option available over the counter? The answer of course is obvious - It's much less profitable! Ironic really when most of the damage is done by the additives!

I frankly don't know what you are talking about (and you obviously don't either)

Additives have not been allowed in Tobacco in Canada for over 13 years. american tobacco companies publish full lists of all their ingredients on their websites (See Reynolds). Most of it consists of things like rum, sugar, molasses.

Ammonia is used to treat the tobacco as a humectant and to raise the pH. Cigarette smoke is harsh and unlike cigar smoker, cigarette smokers inhale the smoke. Raising the pH, allows the smoke from cigarettes to be drawn into the lungs where the nicotene (now nicotenic acid (vitamin B) can be absorbed by the lungs. In cigars
its the exact opposite, the pH is lowered to allow the nicotenic acid to be absorbed in the mucous membranes of the mouth.

I believe the "chemicals" you are referring to are actually the thousands upon thousands of by-products of combustion. The same "chemicals" are produced whenever an organic is burned (like wood in a fireplace, candles, vehicle exhaust from the burning of petro-chemicals, cooking of any organic like meat. You know, the same "chemicals" that every human being is exposed to every single day of their lives. Only because cigarettes only consist of about 19 grams of dried leaves, the volume of "chemical" produced when a cigarette is smoked is present in extremely small quantities.

The only people I know who are adding "chemicals" to cigarettes are the government when they mandated RIP cigarettes to "prevent" fires. An acetate is added to the cigarette paper to make "speed bumps" that will cause the cigarette to burn out (supposedly) if someone doesn't inhale on it quickly enough. Strangely, the government never had to conduct tests for human combustion before adding this chemical to the cigarette.

TIRED OF CONTROL FREAKS

Tobacco is a hallucinogen drug, you won't see pink elephants dancing in your room, but it has some influence on your perception.

Health? I'm a very heavy smoker for almost 25 years, I'm 37 and most people think I'm 27. I've never had any diseases besides a cold every one or two years. So is smoking really bad for your health?

BTW, here in Europe they sell "Indian Spirit" a tobacco that is completely free of additives, but it costs almost twice as much.

reply to post by dilapidated


I smoke. I don’t like the way I smell, I don’t enjoy the taste, and I do know the health effects.

But I am addicted to nicotine and without it, I am a dick.

I know this as when I quit 20 years ago (For 9 years smoke free), I lost my job, girlfriend and the place I rented (because I was too loud). I started again during the 1st Gulf War due to a conflict between me and my First Sergaent, but thats another story.

I quit again for two weeks in Iraq and went on patrols daily just to keep my mind off my cravings. My Commander and Ops Sergeant bought me a carton two weeks later and told me to go have a smoke break.

I told them no thanks, I had successfully quit. They told me that I was a BLEEP and no one wanted to work around me anymore. They thought I had PTSD originally but realized that I had been acting this way since I quit smoking.

I grabbed that carton a couple of days later after a Car bomb went off on a group of school children (which made me insanely pissed) and have been smoking since.

I have tried Wellbutron, & Chantix, both of which I experienced the bad side effects of having difficulty controlling my temper. So I stopped those.

I did the patch for a month and scratched holes in my arms and legs at night. (Doesn’t that sound like withdrawal?) And the hypnotist didn’t work either.

I just want the companies that sell this highly addictive product to acknowledge what they have done (For profit) and offer lower cost solutions to break the chain. Which we all know will never happen, as POOF!, there goes the profits.

I still think that it is the choice of the individual to smoke though. And in my case, it was definitely a bad choice.

As a aside; does anyone have any ideas that have worked for them to quit?

reply to post by TiredofControlFreaks


What about formaldehyde, arsenic, and lead? And why is marijuana smoke considered safer if it's all just byproducts of combustion? Almost 500,000 people die from cigarette related diseases each year. The same cannot be said of MJ, yet both are inhaled smoke. BTW I just started on the patch today lol, wish me luck!

reply to post by Chewingonmushrooms


20 years of that stuff too...
Theoretically I should be dead by now.

First off they will never ban cigarettes as it is way too profitable for the government and money wise it would just not be a smart decision.

I do agree that it should be just tobacco and paper. Sadly though it is not. It seams also every couple years they push the price up, while taking less tobacco out and more chemicals in on each cigarette.

The alternative to that would be to roll your own cigarettes. A friend of mine does this all the time and I would too if I was not too lazy most of the time.

I do love how they continue to tell us how bad it is for us to smoke, yet they continue to keep it legal. The reason sad and simple is money and that is all that matters in this world.

The FDA are now unveiling plans to put graphic images on the packages of cigarettes to show the consequences of smoking. If they really cared though about the people and not money, they would just simply ban it.

Link to my thread on the plans unveiled for the graphic images if anyone cares to read:
www.abovetopsecret.com...

I also have to agree with TDawgRex, that without my cigarettes I am a major dick.

I smoke cigarettes because cannabis is illegal here. For me it's much safer to smoke joints than cigarette. No tax paid to the government and cannabis is a natural plant. No toxic and additives. Simple.

reply to post by TDawgRex


have you tried electronic cigarettes? you get the nicotine (and different flavors) without the smoke, and its much cheaper.

i used to smoke a pipe. i didn't inhale, cuz i smoked for the taste. the only additives in most pipe tobaccos are for flavor (if its aromatic).

reply to post by Chewingonmushrooms


Formaldehyde is a byproduct of combustion as well as a byproduct of the decomposition of organic matter. You are most exposed to formaldehyde in a crowded room of people and formaldehyde that is emitted from the slow decomposition of building materials (particularly particle board)

Cigarette companies DO NOT add formaldehyde to tobacco. It is naturally present as the tobacco slowly decomposes and also as a by-product of combustion.

Lead and all the metals are naturally present in the soil (that is where metals come from). The tobacco plant uptakes lead, arsenic, cyanide as it grows. The open-air combustion of tobacco is not hot enough to destroy the metals naturally in the plant and it simply goes into the smoke.

By the way - if the list of metals contained in tobacco smoker scares you - don't look at the metals in drinking water and compare the two. It will make your hair stand on end.

These metals are also naturally present in all the food you eat.

Comments to people trying to quit smoking - the success rate quoted for the various nicotene replacement devices (ie patches, gums etc) are all from studies where the patient trying to quit was also provided with intensive counselling and support. The success rate quoted is also based on only a 6-week quit length.

In actuality - nicotene replacement devices have a less than 2 % success rate. They are simply not worth the money.

As for Champix and Welbutrin - the side effects are much much worse than for smoking and occur immediately and at a higher rate than the ones for smoking. Champix may well provoke uncharacteristic episodes of violence where you not only kill yourself but your loved ones as well.

Now if you want a real quit method that has a 50 % quit rate - here it is!

1. Do enough research to get it into your head that nicotene is NOT addictive. This is a propaganda trick used by the anti-tobacco crowd to portray smokers as helpless addicts. In order to better sue the tobacco companies. The fact is that nicotene - when it is oxidised (burned) turns at least partially into nicotenic acid, Better known as Vitamin B. Can anyone be said to be addicted to a vitamin.

2. Vitamin B has been shown to have very positive neurogenic effects. At one time - in the southern United States - there was a pellegra epidemic. The epidemic was caused by a corn based diet deficit in Vitamin B. The disease causes thickening of skin and eventually dementia similar to schizophrenia. A lot of people were getting pellegra except for smokers - one doctor finally figured out that it was a Vitamin B deficiency and was laughed at and ridiculed. Eventually, he was exonerated and Vitamin was added to bread in order to prevent pellegra.

Some people - particularly people who received chronic shocks in childhood (ususally from abuse but perhaps just life events in general) find smoking to be very soothing. The reason is because if you are subjected to the stress of multiple shocks in childhood - your "flight or fight" response because stuck in the "on" position. As a result, you may find it difficult to deal with the ordinary stress of life.

For these people - I say "smoke em if you got em". The so-called health effects of smoking usually occur after the age of 60 (if they occur at all and they really only occur in about 10 % of smokers). The stress of trying to live may have worse health effects than smoking.

The same advice goes for people suffering from mental disorders like depression, manic-depression, schizophrenia ect. Leave those people alone. Smoking controls their symptoms and allows them some peace from their demons. Notice how the use of psychiatric drugs has risen while the incidence of smoking in the population has decreased.

3. If you have decided to quit smoking - do what 50 million other people did in the 1970s - take the cigarette out of your mouth and don't put it back in! Cold turkey has a 50 % success rate. Honestly, I quit for 3 years and after the first 24 hours, the symptoms are no worse then giving up coffee! Those cravings that everyone fears to no end, last only about 30 seconds and the incidence decreases with every passing day. Human beings are designed to seek pleasure. Smoking is a pleasurable activity. Your craving to smoke is simply an urge to seek pleasure and can be denied just like you deny yourself a chocolate bar!

TIRED OF CONTROL FREAKS


TIRED OF CONTROL FREAKS

I'm on my 127 day of quitting cigarettes. I just decided 127 days ago that I didn't like it anymore. I don't like the taste. I don't like the way it makes my throat sore. I don't like smelling like smoke and I don't like how inconvenient it is now. Everywhere you go, you have to go outside. We even built a new house, so no smoking in there. It gets cold in the Maritimes in winter and I can't be bothered to go outside. I think the only way you can quit is to want to quit. I did it and I can't say I had side effects. The only time I really had to use my willpower, was when I drank. I really wanted a cigarette but I said to myself, if I can't drink without having a cig then I have to quit drinking too. I don't want to quit drinking so I manage without the smokes.

reply to post by TiredofControlFreaks


You should work for Phillip Morris PR department

reply to post by Chewingonmushrooms


I wish I worked for the tobacco companies - like the Truth Campaign for Kids and the Legacy Foundation (Anti-tobacco organizations funded by Philip Morris and other tobacco companies). Then I could make money from what I do. Those people get 6 figure salaries.

Unfortunately - I am a private citizen. About 6 years ago I was looking for inspiration so that I could quit again. I ran into a website called Forces who are talking just the way I talk now. At first, I thought that these people needed their tin hats adjusted. Everybody just knew how bad smoking was!

Well I tried for 2 years to argue with them - at one point - I got so fustrated I actually contacted a research scientist to get the really skinny. Guess what! It wasn't them that needed their tin hats adjusted. It was me!

Then I started to follow the money and I was shocked at what I found. This is a conspiracy every bit as big as global warming and for the exact same purposes using the same scare tactics and propaganda!

Now I speak out whenever I can.

TIRED OF CONTROL FREAKS

But how can you be so certain that it isn't disinfo coming from studies directly funded by "interests"? Why would health organizations, medical journals and other studies conclude that smoking is the number one preventable disease? What benefit would they would gain from people quitting, wouldn't they gain instead from keeping them alive (more patients)? I'm not knocking your opinion, it's quite obvious that you have done research on the subject and come to your own conclusions, but it's a bit hard to swallow.

reply to post by Chewingonmushrooms


OK - that's a fair question.

First - lets define what you mean by other interests. The tobacco companies have an obvious interest. They want to sell tobacco. But they are by no means the only "other" interests out there. Big Pharma has a large interest. They want to sell their nicotene replacement devices. That market is worth over a billion dollars a year! Johnson and Johnson are the founders of the Robert Wood Foundation and in one year donated over 74 billion dollars to support anti-tobacco. And that isn't the end of it by no means.

In fact, Big Pharma also has a big interest in the World Health Organization. Now you would think that the WHO would concern themselves with diseases that cause the most deaths in the world - like maleria, diptheria etc. But you would be wrong. See there is no real funding to cure diseases in the third world. The big funding is in curing life-style problems in the developed world. Once all those infectious diseases became of no real risk in the developed world - why would the developed world continue to fund WHO? So Big Pharma convinces WHO that smoking, obesity and drinking are problems that the WHO needs to be involved with - if they want the real money to keep coming in - why wouldn't the WHO jump on it. And of course, the WHO rewards Big Pharma by making sure that everyone keeps using those annual flu vaccines. Particularly in years when there is a large stock of vaccines about to go bad right?

And then there are all the disassociated disease organizations like the American Cancer Society and the Lung Association. They get billions in funding and donations but only if they are seen to be doing something about the diseases that they are supposed to be curing. Well curing cancer is hard - but blaming people for their own diseases by convincing them that their lifestyle choices are at fault is soooooo easy. Keeps those donations rolling in doesn't it?

And the government - well they get what they always wanted - more control over the population and an excuse to raise taxes.

So every has an interest in this subject. There is no such thing as a study that was financed by someone with absolutely no interest in the subject.

And then there are the studies themselves. Most people read the headline in the newpaper - ie exposure to smoke causes kids to misbehave. And they never ever go any further. I don't just stop at the newspaper headline. I actually read the studies. In that particular study - the results showed that the kids most affected (ie the most badly behaved) were the kids with the LEAST exposure to second hand smoke as measured by the level of cotinine in their urine (continine is a harmless metabolite of nicotene, everybody has some from eating tomatoes, potatoes etc).

Another for instance. Headlines read that smoking causes a 67 % increase in the rate of heart attacks and people exposed to second hand smoke have an increased risk of heart attacks of approximately 37 %. Most people read that to mean that if tobacco didn't exist - the natural heart attack risk would be 1 in a 100 people. Smokers would have a heart attack rate of 67 people per 100 and people exposed to second hand smoke would have heart attacks at the rate of 37 people per hundred.

But that is not what it means at all! In the science of epidimology, an increase of relative risk means an increase in risk - not an actual heart attack. If the risk of heart attack is 12 / 100 men aged 50 years old (this is a relative risk of 0.12 %) Then a 67 % increase risk = 0.2 %. There really isn't a lot of difference between the two, now is there? Also in the science of epidimiology - any study where the results show an increased relative risk of anything less then 200 % is considered to an artifact of the study itself and shows that there is no real difference in the rate of heart attacks between smokers and non-smokers.

When you are doing studies - you can't include the entire population - you have to take a sample of the population and extropolate the results on the whole population. The accuracy of the study is really reliant on the sample. Lets say you were to pick 100 men, college educated in white collar jobs who all work out and eat a good diet as your control group. Then you pick 100 men, not educated, working very hard digging ditches, all drinkers and smokers, all fat and out of shape as the group to represent smokers. Who do you think would have the most heart attacks whether they smoked or not.

The studies I read are done by very prestigious organizations including the WHO, the American Cancer Society, multiple universities (The university of California alone has collected millions every year in grant money)

The entire subject is extremely complex - it is a conspiracy that is every bit as big as global warming and generates a great deal of money.

Tired of Control Freaks

Outlaw cigarettes?
Where we would the government get it's money from then?
Make it illegal and institute the death penalty but people won't quit.
I agree the chemicals are awful which is why I roll my own from organic tobacco.
There's even more chemicals since they made them "fire safe"
Drop a lit one on the ground and see if it goes out.

Overall, the entire issue is exemplary of government interventionism.
They make products less safe and more expensive while making enormous profits from them.
Our health is last on their list of priorities..

Originally posted by Bob Sholtz
reply to post by TDawgRex

 

have you tried electronic cigarettes? you get the nicotine (and different flavors) without the smoke, and its much cheaper.

i used to smoke a pipe. i didn't inhale, cuz i smoked for the taste. the only additives in most pipe tobaccos are for flavor (if its aromatic).

Yep, I got one for work and it worked for short term cravings, But since I've retired I cannot find it....it's in one of these boxes around here.

I've got to find it. Thanks for reminding me.

Graet. Just when I got the house cleaned up.