Moon Eclipses
(?)Community Member
Offline
- Posted: Wed, 07 Sep 2011 06:58:10 +0000
As I've been reading ignorant and one-sided blaming on smokers for many many years now, I've decided to correct some false claims about smoking:
"Smoking is stupid cause it has no (health) benefits."
This is a popular discourse, and I blame the media and schools. Good thing to understand is that schools goal is to reduce underage smoking. That and that only. Same goes for media. Media events are sponsored by anti-smoking organizations or companies that make more cash, the more people decide to quit smoking. It is considered a sin in western world to say anything good about smoking. I mean, smoking kills right?
However there is plenty of studies and statistics that tell that smoking, just like everything else, also has benefits. This list is mostly just easy-to-find health benefits and there is more benefits that aren't listed here.
1. Helps you stay fit, both chemically and by decreasing appetite
2. Boosts memory and helps a person to concentrate
3. Boosts digestive system (also helps for staying fit)
4. Helps you in making social contacts
5. Makes you go out more (with indoor smoking being banned at most places), fresh air has health benefits
6. Deacreases the risk of Parkinsons disease (-60%)
7. Decreases the risk of Alzheimers disease (-50%?)
8. Slows down the effect of Alzheimers in people who already have it.
9. Helps people with Schizophrenia
10. Smoking also helps/prevents ADD
11. Boosts DHEA sex hormone that increases libido
12. Nicotine promotes new blood vessel growth ( helpful for people who are recovering from heart attack or stroke)
- Smoking causes cancers? Yes, but it prevents other cancers:
13. Decreases risk for Endometrial Cancer
14. Decreases risk for Skin Cancers
15. Decreases risk for Breast Cancer
16. Decreases risk for Colon Cancer
17. Decreases risk for Prostate Cancer
18. Decreases risk for Thyroid Cancer
19. Reduces stress due to releasing dopamine in brain and extending the duration of the effects it has on the brain.
20. Prevents OCD.
21. Prevents Sleep Apnea.
22. Prevents Colitis.
23. Many smokers have said that smoking has made them more courageous and less "socially akward".
24. Smokers help the poor people in developing countries. Sure cigarette companies are most likely not "fair trade", but it's still some money and could save several lives.
25. Smokers help the country paying the HIGH cigarette taxes.
26. Smoking increases dopamine producion in brains and therefore it gives the smoker PLEASURE. This is the same reason people eat candies instead of peanuts, drink soda instead of water etc etc. Not a proper reason? Yes it is actually.
So smokers get to have better sex, get to study easier, stay slim, get more social etc etc... Sure these do not make up for the downsides of smoking, but it's lying to say that there's no pros at all.
"Smokers have a shorter lifespan."
WRONG. Smokers have a lower Life expectancy. But what does this mean? Life expectancy is affected by ALL the smokers. Therefore the heavy smokers, who die early, will drop the AVERAGE lifespan of all smokers. But not all smokers smoke 2 packs a day or are (due to other bad past-times/genetically) prone to smoking related diseases.
A study by Journal of American Geriatrics Society questioned 477 ashkenazi jews, who were aged 95-112. The study found that these people with extraordinary long life smoked just as much as other age groups.
"Public smoking should be BANNED! Smokers damage the people around them!"
It is questionable whether second hand smoking is dangerous to people or not. There is a LOT of studies that found NO connection at all between second hand smoke and increased risk for diseases such as lung cancer.
Regardless of which side of scientists you believe, you can relax. Finland statistics show that while passive smoking kills 300 Finns annually, open air DUST/pollution kills 1800 Finns a year. That is 6 TIMES as much as passive smoking is claimed to kill.
Feel free to watch this video too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGApkbcaZK4
"Smoking laws on underage smokers should be stricter. It decreases the amount of smoking in teens!"
Quite the contrary. Let's go to the mind of a common 14-15 year old:
"I hate school. I hate my parents. My parents are overprotective. I hate teachers. I hate restrictions. I just want to have fun with my friends!"
Then how does the teen rebel against society?
Smoking! Drinking!
The more strict the laws on smoking are, the more outlaw act it becomes and the more teenrebels get their oh so wanted attention.
"SMOKING KILLS"
You don't need to say this in every single thread where smoking is mentioned. You don't need to tell people something they already know. If you write a thread about how you were drunk in the party, people don't tell you about Alcohols negative effects, do they? Cause you already know them. You already know 2.5mil people die cause of Alcohol every year (I hope). If you make a thread about Paris people don't come and tell you that there's Eiffel Tower in there. "Sky is blue." "Birds can fly."
No **** sherlock!
If you can't make a proper argument, don't spam in this thread.
"Smoking less is just as dangerous as smoking 2 packs a day"
No. Smoking risks vary mostly based on following factors:
- Amount of tar in the cigarette
- Amount smoked in a day
- How long the person has been smoking
- How strong/effective the filter is
- Place where the cigarettes have been smoked
- How cigarettes have been smoked
- GENES, this is probably the most important part. If your close relatives have developed lung cancer, you should really not pick up smoking, or at least quit before the age of 40.
A study made in Denmark stated that on people who smoke 1-5 cigarettes a day, the risk on lung cancer goes up 50%. If lung cancer risk is 1/100 in nonsmokers, that means it would be 1.5/100 in smokers.
"Us nonsmokers don't want to pay for the diseases of smokers"
I guess this is heard mostly in countries with free health care, but anyways.
Smokers will actually use less of the government money, you know why?
Because IF a smoker gets a disease like Lung cancer, the survival rate is low. This means that smokers that get sick will also die earlier. When people die earlier, non-smokers wont need to pay for the retirement of them.
If countries aimed for profit, they would ban all the healthy stuff so people would die before retirement age.
Not to mention that smoking taxes (see point 25. above)already give a huge amount of cash back for the money used on treatments.
"I can't stand the cigarette smoke"
There is a solution that would please both sides. Restrict areas more strictly into smoking and non-smoking areas and ban the smoking RIGHT in front of doors of malls etc.
Remember that you can always take a distance. Why aren't people complaining about exhaust fumes?
Additional Information:
Why governments are making a mistake aiming to total ban of tobacco products:
It won't stop smoking. You would think people would learn from the past attempts of banning alcohol. In Finland, people started to drink even more than before the ban. They made their own alcohol (which wasn't always safe to drink at all) and criminals were driving a huge black-market and smuggling alcohol from other side of the border. Same will happen with Tobacco. Look at Mexico. Drug market is way smaller than Tobacco or Alcohol, yet it should give you the image of how big chaos it would be with smoking being banned. Not to mention cheap, taxfree cigs!
Why governments are being one sided with their bans (constant action for cigarettes, not much for alcohol)
Good question. Alcohol would definitely use more government money than cigarettes (see point above). Not just the diseases but people tend to do damage intoxicated.
Hard question, but so easy to answer. Simply because majority of the politicians use alcohol. They want to keep their benefits while it's easy to trample minority(smokers) and their rights. There might be some smoking politicians, but not enough to vote against these bans. Meanwhile when some1 wants to ban alcohol advertising, some politicians that probably get funds for elections from a beer company or just enjoy their discounted-only-for-politicians alcohol will vote against this.
I'm not trying to make Alcohol look bad here, just using it as an example of another "unhealthy"
thing to do. I both drink and smoke. Attitude towards smokers has changed first from neutral to disparaging and unfortunately recently from disparaging to agressive. I blame the media and education about smoking that yet having a good goal is being very unilateral and creating slogans out of little to no evidence.
If you got another claim or question, I'll do my best to answer or comment.
Feel free to discuss.
"Smoking is stupid cause it has no (health) benefits."
This is a popular discourse, and I blame the media and schools. Good thing to understand is that schools goal is to reduce underage smoking. That and that only. Same goes for media. Media events are sponsored by anti-smoking organizations or companies that make more cash, the more people decide to quit smoking. It is considered a sin in western world to say anything good about smoking. I mean, smoking kills right?
However there is plenty of studies and statistics that tell that smoking, just like everything else, also has benefits. This list is mostly just easy-to-find health benefits and there is more benefits that aren't listed here.
1. Helps you stay fit, both chemically and by decreasing appetite
2. Boosts memory and helps a person to concentrate
3. Boosts digestive system (also helps for staying fit)
4. Helps you in making social contacts
5. Makes you go out more (with indoor smoking being banned at most places), fresh air has health benefits
6. Deacreases the risk of Parkinsons disease (-60%)
7. Decreases the risk of Alzheimers disease (-50%?)
8. Slows down the effect of Alzheimers in people who already have it.
9. Helps people with Schizophrenia
10. Smoking also helps/prevents ADD
11. Boosts DHEA sex hormone that increases libido
12. Nicotine promotes new blood vessel growth ( helpful for people who are recovering from heart attack or stroke)
- Smoking causes cancers? Yes, but it prevents other cancers:
13. Decreases risk for Endometrial Cancer
14. Decreases risk for Skin Cancers
15. Decreases risk for Breast Cancer
16. Decreases risk for Colon Cancer
17. Decreases risk for Prostate Cancer
18. Decreases risk for Thyroid Cancer
19. Reduces stress due to releasing dopamine in brain and extending the duration of the effects it has on the brain.
20. Prevents OCD.
21. Prevents Sleep Apnea.
22. Prevents Colitis.
23. Many smokers have said that smoking has made them more courageous and less "socially akward".
24. Smokers help the poor people in developing countries. Sure cigarette companies are most likely not "fair trade", but it's still some money and could save several lives.
25. Smokers help the country paying the HIGH cigarette taxes.
26. Smoking increases dopamine producion in brains and therefore it gives the smoker PLEASURE. This is the same reason people eat candies instead of peanuts, drink soda instead of water etc etc. Not a proper reason? Yes it is actually.
So smokers get to have better sex, get to study easier, stay slim, get more social etc etc... Sure these do not make up for the downsides of smoking, but it's lying to say that there's no pros at all.
"Smokers have a shorter lifespan."
WRONG. Smokers have a lower Life expectancy. But what does this mean? Life expectancy is affected by ALL the smokers. Therefore the heavy smokers, who die early, will drop the AVERAGE lifespan of all smokers. But not all smokers smoke 2 packs a day or are (due to other bad past-times/genetically) prone to smoking related diseases.
A study by Journal of American Geriatrics Society questioned 477 ashkenazi jews, who were aged 95-112. The study found that these people with extraordinary long life smoked just as much as other age groups.
"Public smoking should be BANNED! Smokers damage the people around them!"
It is questionable whether second hand smoking is dangerous to people or not. There is a LOT of studies that found NO connection at all between second hand smoke and increased risk for diseases such as lung cancer.
Regardless of which side of scientists you believe, you can relax. Finland statistics show that while passive smoking kills 300 Finns annually, open air DUST/pollution kills 1800 Finns a year. That is 6 TIMES as much as passive smoking is claimed to kill.
Feel free to watch this video too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGApkbcaZK4
"Smoking laws on underage smokers should be stricter. It decreases the amount of smoking in teens!"
Quite the contrary. Let's go to the mind of a common 14-15 year old:
"I hate school. I hate my parents. My parents are overprotective. I hate teachers. I hate restrictions. I just want to have fun with my friends!"
Then how does the teen rebel against society?
Smoking! Drinking!
The more strict the laws on smoking are, the more outlaw act it becomes and the more teenrebels get their oh so wanted attention.
"SMOKING KILLS"
You don't need to say this in every single thread where smoking is mentioned. You don't need to tell people something they already know. If you write a thread about how you were drunk in the party, people don't tell you about Alcohols negative effects, do they? Cause you already know them. You already know 2.5mil people die cause of Alcohol every year (I hope). If you make a thread about Paris people don't come and tell you that there's Eiffel Tower in there. "Sky is blue." "Birds can fly."
No **** sherlock!
If you can't make a proper argument, don't spam in this thread.
"Smoking less is just as dangerous as smoking 2 packs a day"
No. Smoking risks vary mostly based on following factors:
- Amount of tar in the cigarette
- Amount smoked in a day
- How long the person has been smoking
- How strong/effective the filter is
- Place where the cigarettes have been smoked
- How cigarettes have been smoked
- GENES, this is probably the most important part. If your close relatives have developed lung cancer, you should really not pick up smoking, or at least quit before the age of 40.
A study made in Denmark stated that on people who smoke 1-5 cigarettes a day, the risk on lung cancer goes up 50%. If lung cancer risk is 1/100 in nonsmokers, that means it would be 1.5/100 in smokers.
"Us nonsmokers don't want to pay for the diseases of smokers"
I guess this is heard mostly in countries with free health care, but anyways.
Smokers will actually use less of the government money, you know why?
Because IF a smoker gets a disease like Lung cancer, the survival rate is low. This means that smokers that get sick will also die earlier. When people die earlier, non-smokers wont need to pay for the retirement of them.
If countries aimed for profit, they would ban all the healthy stuff so people would die before retirement age.
Not to mention that smoking taxes (see point 25. above)already give a huge amount of cash back for the money used on treatments.
"I can't stand the cigarette smoke"
There is a solution that would please both sides. Restrict areas more strictly into smoking and non-smoking areas and ban the smoking RIGHT in front of doors of malls etc.
Remember that you can always take a distance. Why aren't people complaining about exhaust fumes?
Additional Information:
Why governments are making a mistake aiming to total ban of tobacco products:
It won't stop smoking. You would think people would learn from the past attempts of banning alcohol. In Finland, people started to drink even more than before the ban. They made their own alcohol (which wasn't always safe to drink at all) and criminals were driving a huge black-market and smuggling alcohol from other side of the border. Same will happen with Tobacco. Look at Mexico. Drug market is way smaller than Tobacco or Alcohol, yet it should give you the image of how big chaos it would be with smoking being banned. Not to mention cheap, taxfree cigs!
Why governments are being one sided with their bans (constant action for cigarettes, not much for alcohol)
Good question. Alcohol would definitely use more government money than cigarettes (see point above). Not just the diseases but people tend to do damage intoxicated.
Hard question, but so easy to answer. Simply because majority of the politicians use alcohol. They want to keep their benefits while it's easy to trample minority(smokers) and their rights. There might be some smoking politicians, but not enough to vote against these bans. Meanwhile when some1 wants to ban alcohol advertising, some politicians that probably get funds for elections from a beer company or just enjoy their discounted-only-for-politicians alcohol will vote against this.
I'm not trying to make Alcohol look bad here, just using it as an example of another "unhealthy"
thing to do. I both drink and smoke. Attitude towards smokers has changed first from neutral to disparaging and unfortunately recently from disparaging to agressive. I blame the media and education about smoking that yet having a good goal is being very unilateral and creating slogans out of little to no evidence.
If you got another claim or question, I'll do my best to answer or comment.
Feel free to discuss.
