All Comments on 'Is Smoking Really the Cause?'

I don't mind when people have fetishes for smoking, any more than scat or urolagnia; I just don't read 'em.

But if you mean any of this seriously, you really are suicidal. The tobacco industry has been trying to pretend the subject is doubtful for fifty years now, but it's a settled question. I suggest you study a little epidemiology, a little public health 101, before you post such a bizarre collection of misinformation and misunderstanding again.

It's hard to believe after these many years of accumulated evidence that smoking is a proven killer,yet here is someone so uninformed as to believe it just isn't so. The industry to this day has tried to cast doubt despite evidence from literally thousands of studies. Of course, not every individual is equally susceptiblefor many reasons. but the epidemiological evidence is pretty convincing to all but the most naive.Moreover, nicotine meets all the criteria for an addictive drug. For personal testimony, ask any addicted smoker who even at a cost of $4 per pack just can't give it up.

this was written by someone who smoked. I had an Uncle and my father both die from diseases caused by smoking. It's not just cancer that kills from smoking cigarettes. My father had emphasema (sp?)and his very last words were.."I can't breathe."

I smoked myself, up until about four years ago. I quit when I realized that if I continued I would end up like my father, unable to breathe, bedridden. He was a very young man when he died and I blame cigarettes for taking him away from us.

..with your essay are you? While everyone is entitled to their opinion, your way off base with an opinion that only supports your rights for smoking, and not the effects you have on the guy sitting next to you that never smoked a day in his life, but today gets to learn about it without the benifit of a filter. If someone wants to sit by themselves and smoke I always say "more power to them" long as it doesnt' directly effect me I could careless what someone does to themselves, but those people are hard to find.

I have a friend I *used* to run around with alot and we did everything. I mean everything. He is a smoker and I never was or will be. Now like you said, we'll ignore the fact that smoking causes your clothes, and others clothes, to smell but thats a small factor. Lets concentrate on what it did to me a second.

My problem was that after almost 10 years of running around with him one day I developed a cough I couldn't get rid of. I noticed it after one of our Friday all night poker parties, that broke up around 3 am (we'd play any type of game about 10-14 hours on weekends and about 4-6 hours during the week), and I couldn't seem to catch my breath after I got home. I actually passed out at one point and they took me outside. I went home after that though. I went to the doctor a few days later and told him I thought I was catching a cold.

After he checked he gave me alot of test (one was breathing capacity machine) and asked me AGAIN if I was a closet smoker. I said heck no, but I hung around a lot with someone who was a 4 pack a day smoker. He told me that my lung capacity was down 40% from my visit last year (my new job made me get a physical the previous year) and now he told me that I was now in the early stages of "Asthma" from hanging around my buddy. And I never had a single cigarette.

My friend, like you, refused to believe that anyone could develop asthma from smoking because he never got asthma a single time over all the years he was a smoker. He sounds like you alot. He claimed I was just trying to make him feel bad about his RIGHT to smoke. I had to get a Doctors note (no I didn't have to but I did anyway) to prove to him his second hand smoke was causing my breathing problems and I had to stay away from him for 6 months till it cleared up. That was the "only" way he felt bad about what was happening to me. Something tells me I don't think you would have.

Sometime times "smoking" isn't about the person who is puffing on a cigarette and nothing ever happens to them. It just may be about the other person who's immune system isn't strong enough to handle the adverse effects it causes them and decides to sue the manufacture because after years of smoking NOW they are sick.

Nice essay. All it does is confirm what I always believed. There are fewer and fewer "courteous" smokers out there than there were last year. And each year they are getting harder and harder to find.

-Risq

I've long questioned the fact that there are many more incidences of cancer around now compared to when half the planet lit up on twenty to forty a day.

I remember a documentary which purported that one lungful of diesel fumes from a passing lorry had more carcinogens than some one hundred cigarettes.

I'm not saying that smoking does not contribute in some incidences to a cancer but the anti-smoking lobbyists with their 'holier than thou' attitude, their dictatorial stances and their refusal to negotiate over the rights of a smokers free choice really do piss people off.

Well done for submitting this article. We don't have to agree with you but then neither does one have to slate you for it. If one feels that strongly then one should write their own article on the subject.

A Non-Smoker.

Ffirst of all smoking does kill. So does the air we breath with all the toxins in it. I too cannot see how second hand smoke has done all the damage that is claimed.

I am a one time smoker that has quit for almost fifteen years. Last year I developed asthma from the pollution in N. Cal. My asthma is worse when the pollution is higher. Yet smoking is the culprit for my condition. NOT. The pollution is the cause.

The campaign against smoking is really a campaign against part of the corporate world which could have made cigarettes safer by not putting all the chemicals to make them keep burning. Typical corporate thinking. The anti smoking thing

is also a cover up just like the hair spray thing was. Are we to really believe that the ozone was really being depleted by people using hair spray.

The real reason is that corporate America , that controls the government, is trying to hide their pollution by making the average person think that it is his cigarette or her can of hair spray that is causing all the problems and not their greed.

At first I thought you were a radical. Then I thought misinformed. then I thought just lacking in critical thinking skills. But having read both of your "essays', I realize none of that is true.

You are just fucking stupid.

C

All I can say is you are an idiot... when the obvious doesn't convince you, what can I say... I just did.

Only in the confines of your own home.

I personally think that anyone who smokes based on the scientific evidence should also drive without their seat belts, and/or ride a motocycle without a helmet.

Remember these people reduce their chances to reach 65 (and become less of a burden on the Social Security System.) This should alleviate some of our tax problems.

Suicide is already legal for smokers - let them enjoy it. Just don't smoke where others want to breathe.

jumping out of a flying plane without a parachute, you think not only should you be allowed to do it and burden the public with paying your health insurance, you believe it's ok to kick other people out as well.

Not only is the epidemiological evidence there, there is a direct and causal molecular relationship between the ingredients of cigarette smoke and cancer. It doesn't get any stronger than that.

The Flat Earth Society.

http://www.alaska.net/~clund/e_djublonskopf/Flatearthsociety.htm

Not that the dangers of second hand smoking need further proving for the half informed person. But some REALLY thick; deeply defended people would never believe any thing other than concrete testimonials or, their own or their loved one’s first hand experience in Cancer and worse.

If you want to get addicted to something that (unlike cars) has no tangible benefit and looks likely to damage your health, fine by me. Smokers pay a lot and get nothing useful and make themselves disgusting to many other folks, including potential lovers and sex partners.

I view smoking as a kind of moron-alert system. After all, the smoker chooses to accept the claims of companies with a huge profit incentive (and a comic dromedary mascot with a nose that is clearly drawn to look like a cock, just to be sure that you understand what you are symbolically sucking) instead of organizations with no profit incentive and an interest in public health. Plenty of them have, by the way, taken on pollution from cars as a public menace as well. But their statements about smoking are simply...what, politcal correctness?

The tobacco purveyors have spent billions to get you to try them and have made them as addictive as they can, so it's no wonder that folks don't want to have to quit. I'm sure it's very unpleasant. If you were dumb enough to buy into the total BS that tobacco companies spread around and start smoking, you probably aren't bright enough to convince yourself to kick the addiction.

If, during your lifetime, you want to give a huge stack of money to the companies that ruthlessly did this to you, I think that it's your right (and further evidence of dimness). I'm not particularly pleased about having to pay for the health consequences. However, if you just drop dead from a heart attack, I doubt it will cost any more than a more natural end. I do think that the companies you are making rich (and supporting with this bit of propaganda) should be prevented from lying to others about their products though, and I think they should be forced to pay a bigger share of the health-care costs their products create.

Finally, don't do it around me, my family, or my home, or in my vehicles. I don't like the smell. I had to endure it from my nicotine-addicted parents, both of whom died from tobacco-related diseases over three decades ago. I think I have the right to not have to smell or breathe the result of your senseless addiction. But feel free to "enjoy" it away from me.

I think the point is that health campaigners say that second hand smoke kills. Maybe it does, but surely the emissions from all our combustion engines (cars, trains, planes) cause even more death. I don't smoke and I also don't drive. I spend a total of 60 minutes walking to and back from work every day, along very busy roads, and am much more bothered (respiratory wise) by the emmisions from vehicles on the road than someone who smokes a cigarette 15 feet from me. If it is claimed that smoke on a persons clothes causes cancer (which claim doesn't surprise me, as anti-smoking seems to be a fashionable pose and even a possible "smokescreen" for all the "Ills" of the world [in the West at least], surely the residue from vehicles on my clothes from walking along a public highway must be many times more deadly.

He who would give up a little liberty for a some security, deserves niether, and will lose both." Ben Franklin.

Think about it!

So - smoking causes cancer. Okay. Colon cancer, stomach cancer, etc etc etc? No government would admit it, but most harm is from the pesticides used from the 50s onwards, and processed foods we have been fed. And the easy target answer is smoking cigarettes. So, when the number of smokers falls dramatically enough, who will explain the cancer rate in 40 years time.............

"No I am not a scientist nor have I done any experiments to back my claim"...think that says it all.

Suck it up big boy, you're wrong and you are a smoker who just can't admit it. Keep up your erotic stories they're much much better.

Just give up smoking for a few weeks and see how good you feel especially in the morning without the caughing and bringing up yellow flam from your dirty loungs.

I can't believe I just read this crap when people I love have died from smoking. You're an asshole. And about your experiement? It doesn't make any sense. Smoke inhalation is still smoke inhalation.

You want some facts? My grandfather died from choking from his own phrem. He had been smoking from young. His age when he died? 55. My grandmother is a chain smoker. She got two hear attack in her fifties. Lucklily, she survived, quite the habit and becomes a vegetarian. She lived till 92. My father in-law fainted while at work. X-rays shows many black spots on his lungs. The black spots are collecting water and this caused his lung to failed. He quite smoking immediately at the advise of the doctor and had now recovered. He is in his fifties.

Lastly, let me tell you also that smoking will affect your sex drive. Don't believe? Than try 3 packs a day for 30 days non stop and see if you still enjoy sex!

I think you're right. Other wise there wouldn't be people who could smoke until their 90's or later and not get cancer. Yes smoking can cause cancer but I think some people are just more susceptible to it.

I also don't think that it causes cancer in the numbers they say. I don't know if it's car exhaust, pestisides, or all the genetically engineered and enriched food we eat but something that is disapearing couldn't cause more cancer to spread.

Personally I never wanted to smoke, even though I had been in smoke filled places and seen others smoking, until the anti-smoking adds started appearing on TV. Now every time I see one I want to light up. I haven't though and I don't plan too but still, maybe there's a conspiracy in that?

...Back to the topic...

Regardless of what we might have been believing for so long, there's no direct and conclusive 100% evidence that smoking is the ONLY cause of cancer...

It might make your teeth yellow, your breath foul, limp dick, skinny, yellow pale...

...And PRONE to inmunodeficiency related diseases, from a simple cold to ...yup... cancer ...and AIDS...

It is a contributor factor leading to lower body defense system, making us more vulnerable to disease, as it clogs our lungs, where we get the live fuel called oxygen (among many others)..

It's much worse and easy to pinpoint as cancer causing agents:

*ASPARTAME ("light" soft drinks)

*Mercury in our mouth (amalgams)

*New Homes Fumes (similar to what's killing downtown NY's workers on 9/11

*Microwaved food

*Food Preservatives

*Pesticides

*GM food (Genetically Manipulated)

*and lead from car fumes.. .

Tobacco has many poisons such as arsenic and the like that can cause parkinson disease in the long term, or kidney/liver failure when combined with heavy drinking..

AND when improperly combined,with the above factors, plus a sedentary life, no outdoors activities to get proper sunlight....stressful life, all work-no fun way of life...

...then, Yes...

..Tobacco will be a strong contributing factor leading to Cancer...

..But rarely, if ever all by itself...

The truth is that it had become very annoying and intrusive to non-smoking people and was so out of control, causing fires, disease and loss of health and wealth, that it was a very easy and wise, decision to rule against it..

Chewing tobacco can be linked directly to mouth cancer, and much easier to prove the connection than smoking, but it doesn`t generate the amount of money that cigarrete cmpanies are willing to pay to get permission to "push" their "nicotine shots to addicts everywhere...

...a delicate topic, indeed...

...

Regards

...

If there's ANYONE who can find ONE redeeming feature (other than it generates revenue) regarding smoking, please post. I'd love to know what you think is that one feature.

By now, smokers and non-smokers alike have pretty much made up their mind about the risks/benefits.

Then we have the podium pounders...on both sides; each equally as full of shit as the other.

Cigarette smoke IS a contributing...NOTE THE WORD "CONTRIBUTING"...factor in certain kinds of cancers. fIt is NOT the "sole" factor. Genetics, environment, life style, stress levels, diet, and a number of other contributors also factor in.

To date, there is no CONCLUSIVE evidence second hand smoke is anything more than an annoyance. Those who argue otherwise haven't taken the time to STUDY the conclusions. The same factors come into play when talking about the relationship between 2nd hand smoke and cancer as those stated above.

We might as well have a lively discussion on abortion, George Bush, politicians in general (nah...probably be too much agreement with this topic), and/or religion.

No one's mind is going to be changed, no one is going to introduce one single NEW thought into the argument, and no one is going to see a mindset change.

But, arguing's fun, even with those who practice their name-calling ( every statistical study has the highs and lows to throw out) so, have at it folks.

PROVE to us smoking is a DEFINITIVE cause of cancer, either directly or indirectly.

When someone tells you that smoking hasn't been proved to kill you or give you cancer think about this -- taking your family to picnics by the targets at a shooting range has not been proven to kill you either.

Now a days the only way that people can maintain that smoking is not addictive and damaging to your health is by willful blindness. That's fine for you, but it's not fine when you try to spread ignorance to give yourself courage and company to support a deadly habit.

Instead of blindly admitting that you don't have any research or science to back you up, try to prove us wrong. Educate yourself and then come back and write a second essay.

I look forward to reading it.

No scientific background, no statistics, no facts, but his grandma beat the odds.

So if a plane with 200 passengers nosedives into the ground, and there's only one survivor, we can conclude, because there was a survivor and dirtyjoe69 knew them, that nosediving planes into the ground is a harmless activity.

Thanks for the exposition on ignorance.

You are one of those people who think all the smoking bans have gone too far and you're entitled to that opinion. However, the science is far clearer than you seem to believe. Cars are a major cause of pollution, certainly, and we'd all be better off if all cars were hybrids or better still, run on hydrogen power. But smoking, including secondhand smoke, has been directly linked to too many diseases to ignore it as you seem to do.

Smoking is a like drugs and booze. I used drugs and drank a quart of Brandy a day. You may not believe it. I also worked 12 to 14 hours a day. I did this for over 20 years. I worked a dusty enviroment. I had one lung go bad a age of 42. The cause according to the VA doctor was smoking. I have COPD. I drank and used drugs until at the age of 46 I just stopped. No reason, I just guess I didn't enjoy it anymore. I don't think smoking caused the COPD. It didn't help it. After at that I still can't quit smoking. Its worse then any drug,its legal.

Many on the ‘cigarette advocacy’ side who could not respond to the merit of the critique of their advocacy, found variety of ways to continue talking but without saying anything to the merit. Here are three of the techniques:

1. CHANGE THE SUBJECT!

Most favorable maneuver (if quite transparent) by cornered debaters when they have no relevant counter argument. ‘Yes, cigarettes may be dangerous, but what about Industrial fumes; pollution of the seas etc.’ Why not talk about the increased death toll caused by accidents? That’s a good subject too!

2. 'IT MAY BE TRUE'

A second vise to avoid the horrible “I may be wrong” point is by using qualifiers which seem to concede the opposing point, but in fact diminis it by simply asserting A MUCH WEAKER argument. It typically sounds like: It MAY be true that cigarettes COULD be unhealthy, but…” Hey! You have just ‘lowered’ the probability! Before you proceed, please share with us what you have found beyond ANECDOTAL evidence, which could disprove the current accepted understanding of both the scientific and the health communities reg. the very strong connection between cigarette smoking and health. I am talking Longitudinal; double blind tests which have been done over large samples and replicated numerous times.

3. THE 100% PROOF

Another diversion is setting artificial standards of proof.”Unless you have 100 percent proof it could be something else”. It’s hard to imagine, but even here this was seriously argued. Obviously, (unless you deal with Mathematical proofs), in Experimental science you ALWAYS deal with probabilities. WE all live our lives with probabilities. If we waited for 100% proofs we would stay at home and die. High probability is all we need. Now give me a high probability that cigarettes are safe.

Be warned – demagoguery could be as dangerous to your health as cigarettes!

To the original writer: For you, it may be an intellectual joke, but for naïve young teens, even pseudo serious arguments could be an added excuse on the way to what even you MAY admit May lead them to an early grave.

I find that you have nailed it perfectly; after all there are a lot more cancer causing agents in the emissions from the internal combusting engine than in normal tobacco,

as for the, sorry for the choice of words im not a natural English speaking guy, ''conspirator theory'' I think its more of a common lack of guts from all of us to accept the consequences of our lifestyle choices !

You freely admit that you are making your 'facts' up as you spew along, and expect anyone to listen?

Does it really matter people? We are all going to die from something, might as well make it something you enjoy doing. ;)

Please explain.

What the fuck were you smoking when you wrote this festering pile of crap?!!!

smoking in public places is unethical. When you light up in public, you make a choice for everyone around you, which is undemocratic. Even if more than half would say it is okay, you would still actively oppress the minority.

Amazing the reaction you got from all these people.....who are addicted to porn......especially loved the

holier than thou crowd..smoking is unethical???? Amazing the ignorance.......since the scientists have discovered cancer causing genes........the food us fat Americans eat etc....environment factors etc etc...

you are a very good author...KEEP IT UP.....and yup I am enjoying my Marlboro.....ahhhhhhhh

A lot of what you said is crude but does make sense. I'm one of those idiots that firmly believe in choice. I think there should be places where smokers can go and enjoy a smoke. There also should be places where non smokers can go and not be troubled with other peoples bad habits. Maybe that solution is too difficult for the do gooders to grasp.

I feel a need to warn the do gooders that they are starting a ball rolling that just may roll over them. By advocating more government interference in our personal lives, they could be opening a floodgate. Already obesity has been targeted by a new group of do gooders. Now fat non-smokers think that is to much government interference but the smoking bans are Ok.

What will be next? Methodist wanting bans on Catholics? Vegetarians wanting a ban on meat? Non-drivers wanting a ban on all motorized vehicles? Conservatives wanting to ban liberals? Each one of these groups could easily come up with their own scientific data to support their positions and prove beyond doubt that it is for the public good.

I applaud Dirty Joe for bringing this up. It was an interesting commentary.

I think the main thing that really made me think was Smoking percentage going down as Cancer percentage goes up. That's really something to consider. I don't think smoking should be encouraged, but maybe some of the money that goes to "Truth" ads and the like should instead be used to educate the population on the dangers of pesticides, preservatives, exhaust, and prescription drugs.

your seemingly plausible argument holds no water since:

a) attempt to generalise from 1 or a few cases ignores contributions of other factors

b) causal factors of death due to 2 types of inhalations being different completely vitiate the pseudo-mind-experiment you have suggested

c) effects of delayed results of prior smoking have been ignored

d) no congnisance is taken of the fact that the tobacco lobby, while less vocal is at least as strong as the car lobby

e) your personal disclaimer of being a non-smoker is irrelevant to the claims made

i guess such comments are the price to be paid for freedom of speech - an invaluable gift of the USA to the rest of the world

that said however, this same piece shows exactly how such freedom can be abused - in a less believable way this time, but often dangerously so by the media to justify the otherwise unjustifiable by manipulating the imperfectly logical mind of John and Jane Doe.

If a person wants to smoke, fine by me. There are a million different ways to kill oneself. Smoking is only one of them. But don't include me in your personal suicide plans. I've got enough to worry about without inhaling someone else's poison.

The author obviously knows little or nothing about the real dangers of smoking, and even less about the hazards of second hand smoke. The Environmental Protection Agency - a government agency run by an extreme conservative - classifies 2nd hand smoke as a Group A carcinogen.

Smoke all you want to. Stick it up your ass, inject it into your lungs. I don't give a shit. But keep it the hell away from me.

And yes, anecdotally one can find instances like your 95 year old grandmother who smokes every day, and does a pint of moonshine too. The moonshine is probably protecting her from the smoke. Statistics refer to averages accross a population, not individual instances.

BTW, the expression is "tongue-in-cheek", not "tongue and cheek".

The author's refusal to believe bad news is a quintessentially American response: "My opinion is as good as anyone else's, no matter how informed they are, no matter how stupid I am."

What a great country

and quite a worthwhile read, both for the tongue-in-cheek tone and the simple correlations of truth.

Some people seem to be immune to the dangers of tobacco, notably our Natives, but I do believe it is harmful. How many doctors do you see smoking today? Used to be that most of them smoked. I've read that it isn't the tobacco but the sugar used in curing the stuff fhat's fhe problem. At least the Canadian government hasn't made the stuff illegal, and they do tax the shit out of it!

...that smoking does not kill, or that it is in any way good for you. The point (which is actually fairly well made) is that there is likely more to all of the cancers and other diseases than governments/big businesses are encouraging us to see.

Yes, smoking is bad. Yes, it can kill you (although there is evidence to suggest that there is a genetic factor that plays a role in whether a smoker will get cancer or not). Is it the sole cause of all of our lung cancer? Doubtful. It is A cause of lung cancer.

The more important point, I think, is to look at EVERY scrap of information with a critical eye. Do not accept claims as truth without investigating it for yourself.

you made a point that I have believed for a long time. I am a smoker of more than fifty years and altho I would be the first one to tell anyone they shouldn't start smoking I do not believe that it is the absoulete killer that the people who think they should tell you what you are supposed to do say it is. most of my family smoked as I was growing up and even the ones that didn't were always close around smoking. My grandparents,aunts and uncles, cousins,and parents all lived to ripe old ages (from 75 to 100 yrs old). my mother is still alive at the age of 85 and still getting around nicely , thank you. I just wanted to say thank you for saying the truth much better than I could.

I do smoke but I agree with you, totally' now we have another chemical added to our smokes to make them go out when we aren't puffing on them, it doesn't seem to work when you put them in an ashtray they will continue to burn down to nothing. I am sure that in the future we will find that this chemical is a cancer causing agent, thanks libs.

I just wish other people would not stress about my smoking and start worrying about their fat and alcoholism, that is killing more people than cigarettes. If all the smokers quit there would be a big void in the tax system to the tune of several million dollars a day, how do you think uncle sam would make that up??

Tobacco is the great American scapegoat. What about all the steroids and chemicals that are fed to the meat and veggies we eat, what about all the plastic being used for everything. Plastic (petroleum) pcb's, known to cause cancer.

Looks like dirtyjoe69 stopped publishing shortly after this essay. Hope smoking did not do him in. He was/is a remarkably varied and inventive author and I wish he would find his way back.

But, concerning smoking, he has a legitimate question, but I think there is more than one answer. These are my observations.

1. As he says, smoking does cause cancer, but maybe not as much as "statistics" suggest.

2. The second hand smoke issue is dubious and while it can cause cancer, you would be hard pressd to get a serious estimate of how many cancers it does cause. Not zero, but the actal hard data is nonexistant or never actually stated.

3. Smoking and second hand smoke cause other serious problems with COPD being the elephant in the room. I think COPD may be enough reason to ban smoking.

4. Medical statistics are horribly inaccuate and official designation of cause of death is often wrong or ignores the complication of multiple contributing factors. (Diabetes, for instance can provide a stimulus for cancer as it compromises the immune system.)

5. Lots of other chemicals cause or facilitate cancer but the doctors and the lobbyists are happy to stay away from blaming corporations and the failure of goverment oversight of our food, workplace and household/garden chemicals.

6. I would point out that 40+ years ago, a lot of folks died of other causes at earlier ages before cancer (from smoking or any source) could get them. Example: Heart attacks for late middle-age men were much more often fatal in the 1950-1970 period but these people live longer now to die of something else.

7. I would also point out that many of the cancer "cures" are bogus since many cancers are treated when they would not have developed to become a problem. There are a lot of women with mastectomies and men with prostate surgery for cancer that would have gone unnoticed decades earlier and never developed to be a problem. (Some cures are real but most just suck our money and insurance money into the big fat feeding trough of the medical machine.)

It does not take much reading of the medical and scientific literature to realize medice is a business first and an occasional health improvement is only lucky frindge benefit.