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Comment by mikeash | Hacker News Reader

The abstinence part is (almost?) always in the context of "until marriage" which can extend well beyond high school and remains highly mismatched with people's behavior.

It should also be noted that abstinence only sex ed usually involves many outright lies, such as that sex outside of marriage is objectively immoral, that waiting until marriage prevents STIs, vastly exaggerated figures for the risk of disease and failure rates of birth control, etc. Whereas smoking is actually dangerous, and "don't smoke, it'll greatly increase your chances of getting these various horrible diseases" is actually truthful.

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Is that totally truthful though? How much do you have to smoke for it to really be dangerous? If I keep a pack around for 1-2 months, and have a few cigarettes a week, how much am I really increasing my chances? I don't smoke 1-2 packs a day like some smokers do, I certainly don't have the same odds do I? Can it be possible that the truth is that you can smoke in moderation without any significant increase in risk? I would certainly like to know the real picture.

All I ever see is picture of black lungs, messages of certain cancer and death. To me, this is like those people who have pictures of dead fetuses for their anti-abortion message. It's extreme, and sets of red-flags in my brain.

I fucking love smoking. It gives me a way to chill out and unwind for 10-15 minutes. It's great for my mental health, because I won't do it in my house... I have to get away from the computer, I have to stop what I'm doing. It gets me away from everything.

Searching around, it looks like even light smoking is still bad. Not as bad, but still bad.

"Light and intermittent smoking carry nearly the same risk for cardiovascular disease as daily smoking.... In addition, the risk of ischemic heart disease in light-smoking men and women aged 35 to 39 years who smoke 1 to 4 cigarettes per day is nearly 3 times that of a nonsmoker."

http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/121/13/1518

There's nothing wrong with taking a calculated risk, but it is a risk.

Just for reference. 1-4 per day would be about a pack every 8 days, averaged. I'd be curious how that compares to a non-daily smoker who as the grandparent suggests, only smokes about once every other day on average.

I expect it's still a significant health risk, but I've never seen studies on people who don't smoke daily.

Those rare smokers practically don't exist; either they are wise and just stop because they were just testing, or they increase their habit, because they are still testing, until they forget why they even started and need the narcotics to numb the pain they caused themselves.

How the damage happens is not important, but consider the possibility of slowly accumulating effects because of a slow rehabilitation potential.

> I fucking love smoking. It gives me a way to chill out and unwind for 10-15 minutes.

Me too. I haven't had a cigarette in over a decade, but I remain hopeful that modern science will find a cure for cancer and other smoking-related diseases during my lifetime, so I can resume smoking again. This probably sounds nuts to non-smokers and I won't bother explaining it any further.

As an aside, I am one of many who tried e-cigarettes when they came out because they were very convenient, and ended up quitting. They were new and not banned anywhere yet, so I could 'smoke' even more. I never liked smoking indoors and do not like the stale tobacco smell so they were great. For reasons I don't really understand my tobacco habit gradually tapered off and I no longer smoke anything, but I do miss it.

For reasons I don't really understand my tobacco habit gradually tapered off and I no longer smoke anything, but I do miss it.

I think I have heard this from a couple of e-cigarette using colleagues: once the switched to e-cigarettes stopping became easier.

(One of them explained that he used weaker and weaker refills until it was basically just water. I guess at that point it just feels stupid.)

Sort of a nitpick but its mixed with vegetable glycerin or propylene glycol (or a mix of thw two), and not much if any water.

Thanks. I actually appreciate that you take the time to correct when I'm wrong.

>All I ever see is picture of black lungs, messages of certain cancer and death.

First of all, I envy you. You're a "chipper" and make up about 5% of the population of smokers. I on the other hand am in the Majority. It's either zero or a pack a day. The black lung photos didn't contribute to my cessation. Instead I had to grow up and decide I didn't like feeling like garbage. That said, If the black lung applies to that 95% of us that can't stop at just one, it's probably the right message.

5% source: http://articles.latimes.com/1996-09-18/news/ls-44883_1_heavy...

The "until marriage" part is usually part of the moral beliefs of the people who push for abstinence only sex ed in public schools, but I wasn't aware that public schools generally taught that part.

I can't speak for others, but I was never taught the "until marriage" clause, and I graduated high school in 2011. We were taught that abstinence was the only way to completely remove the risk of pregnancy or STD/STI, which really doesn't change once you're married or whatever.

Are they teaching abstinence "until you're out of high school"? Otherwise it's either "until marriage" or "until death." I think most kids understand that marriage usually involves sex, even with bad sex ed.

I think they're just teaching "until ..."—as in, they don't have an "until", it's just "don't have sex." As if sex was exactly equivalent to a drug, where if you avoid the particular subculture that "does" the drug, you'll just never need to think about it.

Though I think the true implication is "don't have sex until an impulse comes along to do so, that is strong enough to completely drown out the voice of your superego in your head. And then—if the impulse really is that strong—the 'proper' order to do things is to get married to that person, and then have sex with them."

They do in the South.

And in the Midwest.

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