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Comment by brightlancer | Hacker News Reader

> Everyone had hard-smoking relatives who looked like absolute hell by their late 30s, were coughing up a lung in their 40s, and by their 50s were being hoisted by pallbearers.

Smoking is a disgusting habit and I love working from home because I never have to step in an elevator with folks fresh from a smoke break, but it isn't nearly that fatal.

I grew up when smoking was literally everywhere and the "hard-smoking" folks overwhelmingly survived to their 60s and most to their 70s or later. A 55 year old smoking death was rare.

Exaggeration destroys trust.

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But there are plenty of documented cases where heavy smoking for around 30 years = cancer.

I have to wonder if cigarettes of the 50s are different from the cigarettes of today. Perhaps, for example, some additive(s) not present in the 50s cigs are causing cancer in today’s cigs.

Also, “hard-smoking” is subjective. Are the heavy smokers of today smoking more than the heavy smokers of the 50s?

Speaking anecdotally, all four of my grandparents smoked, all four died north of age 70, and all four died in very unpleasant, smoking-related ways (essentially suffocation, all four- COVID, COPD, pneumonia, and I’m not sure about the fourth). So I guess my final point is: is it really a “win” if smokers “usually” make it to old age?

I know some cigarette companies put asbestos in the filter to keep the cotton fibers of other brands out of your lungs.

That might have had some unintended side effects...

A cursory Google search says it was one company and only until 1956, but that's a neat fact. It's like when kids would get their limbs X-Rayed at the grocery store for funsies.

But 55 year olds died all the time from smoking: heart attacks and strokes are smoking deaths too

Are you sure? Heart attacks and strokes main outcome of smoking, not lungs diseases?

Smoking (also) causes cardiovascular disease - Atherosclerosis, increased blood pressure, increased cholesterol, etc.

1 in 3 deaths from cardiovascular disease are estimated to be caused by smoking.

Smoking damages your body in all sorts of ways, one just rolls the dice on which one gets them first.

You said main outcome, not me. Cardiovascular stuff is really common, but it's a less common association: "breathing smoke makes lungs get sick" is easy to believe. "breathing smoke makes brain leak" takes a little more knowledge.

If you still have doubts, consider the prevalence of vaping. Sure vaping is healthier than smoking, but it's way way worse than not using nicotine in any form.

Yeah... I didn't. My grandfather smoked until his 70s before quitting and my great grandfather was still smoking a couple of Keep Moving cigars a day until he died in his mid 80s. All of my aunts and uncles on my mom's side are in their 60s and 70s and still smoke. Hell, nothing brings me back to my childhood like the whiff of a freshly lit cigarette. I still remember being a very young boy back in the 70s and smelling the cigarette smoke at night in the rain at my great grandfather's fishing camp at Grand Isle, Louisiana as the adults played cards and listened to the radio.

I love the smell of a cigarette when it’s first lit. If they packed them well, it’s just the scent of the paper with a hint of tobacco. It’s a great smell for about a second, then it turns to the smell we all hate. But I miss the scent of a my parents’ and grandparents’ cigarettes, or maybe I just miss all the people who’ve died.

My father stopped smoking in the car when little me brightly piped up from the back seat after he lit up "Mmm, I love that smell when you first light a cigarette, Dad!". I still like that smell - for all of its second's existence!

My strongest Grand Isle memories are running along the beach at night with a spotlight, chasing countless tiny crabs. I wonder how many of us here have fond memories from a Grand Isle fishing camp. Maybe just the two of us!

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