Comment by Maursault | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Maursault | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Tobacco companies dump over 300 carcinogenic chemicals into cigarettes, called additives, to make them more addictive, and which make up half of nearly all cigarettes.[1] That is what kills people, smoking carcinogenic chemicals. Unadulterated tobacco, such as what pipe smokers use, does not actually cause cancer, yet it shouldn't surprise us why cigarette smokers die in droves. The American Lung Associate did not discriminate: tobacco is bad! Yet all of this information came out during the late 1990's, lawsuit, US v. Philip Morris, and yet the settlement permitted tobacco companies to continue the practice of poisoning cigarettes. Half of the $200B+ settlement was forgiven by the mid-2000s.

But the US Surgeon General had different findings, and the only conclusion that we can make is that it is not tobacco that kills, only cigarettes:

      Death rates for current pipe smokers were little if at all higher than for non-smokers, even with men smoking 10 pipefuls per day and with men who had smoked pipes for more than 30 years.[2]


      Among the pipe smokers.... The US mortality ratios are 0.8 for non-inhalers and 1.0 for inhalers.[3]

Smoking actual tobacco can cause emphysema, not cancer. But most commercial tobacco is intentionally poisoned to increase the addictiveness of nicotine, and the result is cancer.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdV_1u-TodY&t=13m25s

[2] https://biotech.law.lsu.edu/cases/tobacco/nnbbmq.pdf (No. 1103, p.112)

[3] ibid. (No. 1103, page 92)

I somehow doubt the result that pure tobacco doesn't cause cancer, since afaik inhaling any type of smoke causes cancer.

> inhaling any type of smoke causes cancer

Citation needed by all pot smokers. Just love how everyone insists they know absolutely everything and are never wrong. Guess what?

It is clear based on the following study that even exclusive pipe smoking causes a variety of cancers: https://academic.oup.com/jnci/article/96/11/853/2520796

It is certainly true that cigarettes are generally more carcinogenic. However, your statement that "actual tobacco can cause emphysema, not cancer" is emphatically false.

I would suggest being somewhat less confrontational when your primary source on an actively researched topic is from 1964. In your words, "[j]ust love how everyone insists they know absolutely everything and are never wrong. Guess what?"

> It is clear based on the following study that even exclusive pipe smoking causes a variety of cancers:

That's awesome. Please cite which paragraph mentions "natural tobacco," because here "pipe smokers" is ambiguous, and even pipe tobacco can be treated to not only increase its nicotine content, but also be infused with carcinogenic additives to make the final product more addictive, and thereby also making it more deadly (not due to it's addictiveness directly, but by the chemicals that cause it to be more addictive, such as adding ammonia), In fact, it is standard practice for major brands of pipe tobacco to treat the tobacco to turn it into something that should be distinguished as "not tobacco," so unless the study distinguishes between natural and treated tobacco smokers, it is a flawed study.

Is it really so impossible to believe that you were lied to and believe total crap? Tobacco, natural tobacco without any carcinogenic chemicals added, does not cause cancer.

With all due respect, the citations aren't helping your preposterous argument.

It isn't my argument, it is the US Surgeon General's. And with all due respect, seems a bit something to believe smoking something without more than 300 known chemical carcinogens causes cancer at the same rate as with them. Please think before you post.

> ...Unadulterated tobacco, such as what pipe smokers use, does not actually cause cancer

> ...causes cancer at the same rate as with them

I think they're referring to your original claim that tobacco smoke, without additives, doesn't cause cancer.

Your later apparent softening of that statement feels sneaky. It's significant, and makes all the difference in the world.

> I think they're referring to your original claim that tobacco smoke, without additives, doesn't cause cancer.

Once again I am being attributed something that is not mine. It is not my claim, it is the claim of the US Surgeon General's Report on Smoking and Health, and I stand by the science which claims (i.e. it is not my claim, it is the claim of the US Surgeon General) that pipe smokers who inhale live as long as nonsmokers, and pipe smokers that don’t inhale live longer than non-smokers.

Smoking tobacco that is not infused with more than 300 known carcinogens does not cause cancer. No one is saying smoking is healthy, only that the cancer rates of natural tobacco smokers are non-existent, no higher than the general population. They'll just have to deal with that fact, that they've been lied to in order to protect Big Tobacco's cash cow and methods of making cigarettes intentionally more addicting to drive it. Natural tobacco, in comparison, has a fraction of the amount of nicotine as what's in national brand cigarettes and thus is in comparison far less addictive.

I honestly don't care. I just think it's interesting that most people believe tobacco causes cancer so strongly, and they're provably wrong. It's what they put in cigarettes that causes cancer, and I don't know how anyone can call that tobacco.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com