Smoking is Worse Than You Imagined
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
One problem in Europe is that tobacco taxes are not bound to be used to bolster the health care systems or smoking prevention programs (In Germany the 2002 and 2003 tax raises have been used for funding the War on Terror). Another problem is, as shown by the article, that our damage estimates are very likely to have a large error margin.
If think if we could improve our damage estimates, use the estimates to continuously adapt taxes, use the tax income to pay for the damage and to prevent spread of the problem the problem could be solved.
To me it seems there is a gap for technology to make those things possible.
Citation please!
Said another way: A public responsibility towards the private person's health care is not a wide responsibility for their health and it does not translate into a right to make an individual's health decisions for them.
If users of damaging substances (including for the sake of argument, big macs) are required "carry the cost those habits cause" indirectly via taxes, we are taking a step towards totalitarianism and away (in my opinion) from the democratic value that brought about the public health care in the first place.
Education is a publicly provided good. We don't require people who have children to pay more taxes (the opposite, in fact). In any case I've heard that life prolonging habits can actually be a bigger drain on public purses as 100 year olds have spent many years living on social welfare payments and using up expensive medical resources. Most medical expenses are at the end of one's life and everyone dies eventually.
To the extent that socialist/social welfarist policies/ideals are incompatible or at odds with democratic values, I think we should lean towards democracy. In this case, that is fairly simple: stop saying cigarette tax pays for lung cancer drugs. It doesn't and it shouldn't. The right to make ones own judgments and maintain the responsibility oneself is an inseparable part of individualism and democracy. I also think its an important part of secularism, but thats going into a stretch.
I would wager the same goes for long-lived, but healthy individuals, but this seems very hard to measure and I cannot find any numbers. So I would understand if you don't see this as a convincing argument. Especially since "value" should mean more than just money here.
How do you keep people "maintaining the responsibility oneself" if you just let them continue to hurt themselves and then provide therapy funded by the general public?
This is the central point, to me. I don't think of public education as a way for a government to increase taxes from future generations. That's horrible. I really hate listening to politicians and bureaucrats talk like that. Amoral creeps. Luckily, it's impractical for reasons like the one you mention.
Governments (societies) educate children for the same reason parents do: because it will help those children, it will help the family/society & (importantly) for its own sake. Basically we do it for them, the children. We also take care of the sick, to help the sick.
Public welfare, education, health care (not health) are goods, even if they are not frivolous goods. We buy them when we can afford them. They are not investments or money saving exercises.
I really do think this political culture that has become established in Europe (also the US, I think) where politicians are constantly claiming how some policy is really an investment or pays for itself is nasty rhetoric. It's usually an ignorant statement or outright lie, for one thing. Even it these statements where in fact accurate statements about something measurable it would still be a nasty, amoral & totalitarian way of looking at the world.
There is not way, for example to justify elderly care under this view. They've already paid taxes, now they just cost us money.
>>if you just let them continue to hurt themselves and then provide therapy funded by the general public
I really do see this view as incompatible with democracy and I'm surprised more people aren't as creeped out by it as I am. Like I said, I don't think you are facing a real problem here that needs to be solved. People already have a strong interest in their own health and well being. There is no conflict of interest.
People are of course imperfect and weak, the human condition and all that. Their decisions are sometimes bad. Human institutions are also imperfect. When they are perverted by their own weaknesses and make bad decisions on your behalf it can be horribly oppressive. You are basically (I'm deducing, apologies if I'm misrepresenting) advocating increased supervision and pointing to the bill as your source of authority, or (even worse) the lost taxes society might have received had the person remained healthy.
What kind of morals is this?
Each time I inhale a tiny bit of cigaret smoke, I immediatly feel bad and start coughing. Really feels like a poison.
Here in france, a pack of cigaret will soon cost 7 euros. I'm glad. It's a great way to penalize people while reducing the deficit, and encouraging them to stop smoking.
Each time I hear someone complaining about the cost of cigaret in france, I tell them "well it's a great way to finance chemotherapies".
Smoking is a luxury. When you feels you don't have a sharp mind or enough energy at work, and you boosts yourself with a coffee and a cigaret, okay, but I don't think you really need to have those boosts. I'd prefer getting fired instead than competing with drug addicts.
That's not how it works. Cigarette tax doesn't go directly to the healthcare budget. At least in most countries.
> Smoking is a luxury.
And a very strong addiction.
French healthcare system always finances 2/3 of most cares. I think chemotherpy is included. I don't know about how things happen in the US though.
> At least in most countries.
Most developed country have a pretty socialist healthcare system.
This. US readers take note. Of course, it's going away pretty quickly ... almost everywhere.
I don't think I've ever read a report on marijuana yellow-taped with as many warnings and dangers as those found in tobacco reports. Is this because not enough evidence has been gathered around the dangers of weed?
Personally, I think a big part of the problem is the tobacco in the joint. I'd like to see a safe or safer tobacco replacement for rolling joints with. I know they are other ways to consume pot, a joint is the most convenient. All the things you can do with a ciggy on the go, you can do with a joint on the go. <HNHumourbypasstag>Driving for example.....</HNHumourbypasstag>
There already is one: Marijuana.
The fact is you don't have to mix it with tobacco :) It's commonplace here in the UK but you can just smoke it on its own or you can use a vapourizer. You can even cook it with butter but that increases the effects
One big difference, though, is that weed itself is only very mildly physically addictive, and in a small percentage of the population. This is as compared with tobacco, which is more addictive than heroin, for pretty much everyone.
Also, weed contains chemicals, like THC, which are not so harmful, and can be ingested in ways other than smoking (e.g. inhalers). And unlike cigarettes it has benefits as a painkiller for people for whom other painkillers no longer work (e.g. terminal cancer patients, who probably don't need to worry about getting lung cancer 20 years from now).
Overall the scorecard seems to be:
Smoking weed is probably just as bad as smoking cigarettes, but has a number of benefits over cigarettes and is nowhere near as addictive. That makes it less harmful overall.
Weed has also a number of negative side effects over cigarettes. THC, after all, is a psychoactive drug and some people develop a psychosis from smoking weed. This doesn't happen when smoking tobacco.
It depends entirely on what you're comparing here. Do you compare smoking 10 joints vs. 10 cigarettes or 1 joint vs 10 cigarettes (per day? per week? per month?)? If one smokes as much weed as tobacco, he might develop way worse symptoms than someone who "just" smokes cigarettes.
Not really comparable to getting off of opiates for example.
Err, no. It's fucking horrible. Like most people, I tried to quit many times, usually cold turkey, so multiply your 2-3 days figure by 10 (which I think is roughly the average number of attempts before success). That's a month of your life. A friend from the UK described it as follows: "I feel like I want to climb a tower with a sniper rifle and shoot small children." I think that's accurate.
Besides, the insidious part is that you see it everywhere ... shops, bars, the street, movies ... withdrawl upsets your sleeping so you are awake at night to go out ... you feel you can 'just have one' .. it is usually prevalent in a social scene ... you drink .. you associate it with drinking .. you lose your reason with the alcohol which compounds the sense of 'just have one' ... you want a break from work and you associate it with a smoke .. other people are smoking ..
It's really hard to avoid. Not like heroin, which is hard to run in to by accident. (I also know of multiple people who have quit both and they said cigarettes were harder. Not physically, but overall.)
It's taken me some time to forget the good times I had when high, and associate it with anxiety, in order to stop myself from thinking "Yeah, I'd like to smoke a joint now". So while I had no withdrawal symptoms, it's taken me some time to remove the psychological "addiction".
Marijuana may be a drug with a lot of positive health benefits but may exacerbate psychosis and panic attacks in healthy people too. (i.e. not schizophrenic or with other major mental disorders)
On a personal level, I went through a period of using ~2 ozs a month (every single night) and I was able to cut down to once a month pretty much instantly. Sure I thought about going back but there wasn't any 'physical' addiction as such.
> According to the American Heart Association, nicotine addiction has historically been one of the hardest addictions to break, while the pharmacological and behavioral characteristics that determine tobacco addiction are similar to those determining addiction to heroin and cocaine.
NHS: ( http://www.nhs.uk/chq/Pages/2278.aspx?CategoryID=53 )
> Cigarettes contain nicotine, which is highly addictive.
> Even if you want to quit smoking, you may find it difficult because you’re addicted to the effects of nicotine. Some research has suggested that nicotine can be more addictive than heroin.
"Only mildly physically addictive"...
I don't mind smoking a cigarette, but I never found the urge to do so. I jokingly tell people I can't get addicted to cigarettes even though I smoked almost every day for 6 months.
Never found myself addicted to tobacco. Chips on the other hand...
It's common in the U.S. in New York and California.
Population studies are hard because it is illegal and because the product is so variable.
The illegeity of cannabis means that some of the health warnings are ignored as anti-cannabis propaganda.
And from what I've heard the hazard of micro particles emitted when warmed goes like this: fireplace > weed > smoke. However smoking is more addictive and weed has positive substances that decrease risk of cancer.
Best idea is not smoke weed, but ingest it. Avoid cigarrets and never have a real fireplace inside. Just stick a picture of a fireplace and add a heating element behind it.
So the feasibility of a study is not so clear, even in places where legality is not an issue.
You can't pay people to take pot and take regular exams in such countries? That's what studies are for, no? Besides I'm pretty sure there must be some 'native' pot smokers. Not many, but surely there must be a few people, even if majority are tourist.
Gather enough studies in a meta study and you'll get enough of a sample.
The evidence for marijuana causing psychosis is extremely thin. Basically the strongest evidence out there are observational population studies (not controlled) that found there is a slight correlation between marijuana use and eventual development of psychosis.
The obvious problem is that correlation != causation. It seems pretty reasonable to postulate that people who are mentally unstable are also more likely to try and seek solace/release in drugs.
«There is no doubt who is to blame for this mess, the report says. It is the tobacco industry»
«The new report rightly calls for more vigorous tobacco-control efforts, including an increase in cigarette taxes to drive up the average price of cigarettes to at least $10 a pack to prevent young people from starting to smoke; an antismoking mass media campaign by government agencies that would run year-round; and new rules extending smoke-free indoor protection to the entire population, double the current level.»
The burden of taxes falls on both consumer and supplier.
You can't guarantee that it's going to have a positive/neutral effect, but neither can you guarantee it's going to have a negative effect on the public, either.
I don't touch weed at all. I vape part-time and have found that it helps with the nicotine craving, but man... I love smoking. Reading articles like this push me further and further away from 'analogs', as we say.
Addictions aside, vaping is a better alternative for days when I have meetings and have to work around others.
Untrue. "Smokeless tobacco is a major cause of oral cancer, pancreatic cancer, and esophageal cancer."
http://www.webmd.com/smoking-cessation/features/snus-tobacco...
E.g., Wikipedia says: Thus far, the evidence specifically implicating snus in pancreatic cancer is only suggestive.[25][26]
Your link say: [Scandinavian] snus users have a significantly higher risk of pancreatic cancer.
That is a contradiction. Wikipedia has references.
And snus, according to both references, is less bad than snuff. Your quote ("Smokeless tobacco") generalizes over the same group.
If we had evolved to tolerate doing this to ourselves, then we wouldn't be arguing about this. IMHO, some people do seem to adapt better to burning things and inhaling them. BUT I'm not going to test that out on myself for 20 years only come out the other side with lung cancer (or worse). It's a crapshoot, really. Your call. Plus, I like the fact my sense of taste and smell works better than it did when I was a smoker.
If the nicotine in tobacco didn't give you the high you feel when smoking, would people still be smoking and getting cancer? Probably not. People like getting high. Take that away and what reason is there to smoke? But I digress...
So, to answer your question, "all of the above". You smoke to get high from the nicotine, but the other shit in the smoke is what your body can't tolerate (generally speaking, as yes I agree there are many instances of people living perfectly normal lives smoking the whole time).
I'd take up smoking e-cigarettes if you feel it's safer to you (long term) than smoking cigarettes.
When I quit last year (no vaping), the first thing I noticed was how incredibly salty restaurant food was. After years of working with essential oils (for soap making and such), my nose leaves much to be desired.
If you do try vaping, try an iTaste variable voltage battery with a dual-coil pro-tank. Also get an e-liquid that's 50/50 between vegetable glycerine (good vapor -- 'clouds') and propylene glycol (throat hit).
This is what I'm using now, and as a result I've lowered my 'analog' intake by half.
This youtube video is interesting. I'm not sure how accurate it is. http://youtu.be/k-MRkC5DqFQ
It's too bad they are calling them e-cigarettes because it triggers responses like yours where people apply their notions of regular cigarettes to them. The only thing they actually have in common is nicotine, which is not the harmful part of regular tobacco products.
Years ago I participated in a study to test the effects of smoke machines. I was working at a large arcade that threw huge parties with DJs and such on the weekend. Naturally, we had smoke machines. The researchers found that the PG had no effect on our respiratory system, which was actually what concluded that vaping would be a good alternative to smoking.
I was splitting hairs though, because essentially nothing is completely free of danger. I do think it's much much better than smoke.
Given my experience with them, I'm of the opinion that people who gripe about them are being judgmental based on the association with smoking actual cigarettes, which is legitimately disgusting.
[1] http://truthaboutecigs.com/science/13.pdf
[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23701634
[3] https://zeecigs.com/PDF/Gamucci-electronic-cigarette-Lab-Stu...
I also wonder how many control experiments are done to deduce that "second hand smoke" is causing many of the problems described, as opposed to air pollution from diesel engines.
However, there's a discussion to be had here, and it's possibly more important than the one surrounding cigarettes and second-hand smoke. It's a brand new industry and a brand new habit that people are only starting to adjust to.
Ecig manufacturers are, at present, allowed to advertise their product publicly, and sell them as a lifestyle choice. They're even allowed to advertise on TV, something that the tobacco boys haven't been able to do for a very long time (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2517504/VIP-E-cigare...).
As an ecig user myself I find myself using it indoors regularly. I'm harming nobody but myself with it. But that's the problem - it's normalised the recreational ingestion of nicotine, and it's only going to become more popular.
Smokers, even reformed smokers like myself, aren't going to change their habits unless they're forced to do so. So while many people are put off by indoor ecig use, until the law changes to forbid it, you're just going to have to deal with it.
Also, at least in New York, the legislative bodies expressed great concern that e-cig users could gasp actually be smoking liquid THC instead of liquid THC, which still wouldn't be harmful, but they're worried about the evils that would certainly infest the hearts of men as a result.
This said, the vape scene is awesome for us hackers. The e-cigs that look more like cigarettes don't have as much of a scene, and aren't as enjoyable as a variable voltage, low-ohm 'pipe'.
I have to be honest though, all of the various options are a bit overwhelming!
That's the best place to start. The mod scene is totally overwhelming. Here's a basic breakdown:
Low ohm - hotter liquid / pull VG - bigger 'smoke' PG - throat hit Higher wattage - fuller flavor / mouth feel Higher voltage - thicker pull
I'm in the same subreddit -- it's amazing what people come up with.
What's the problem with recreational ingestion of nicotine? It's a light stimulant; I'm not sure why this is any worse than caffeine. And certainly isn't worse than other medications like opiates or amphetamines.
I'm not a cigarette smoker, although I love cigars and probably have one or two a month on average.
You're not wrong. But that's the problem - it's not enough to say "sure X is harmful, but so's Y, so it's alright". Ingesting nicotine by itself is a hell of a lot less harmful than taking it with tar and everything else that comes in a normal cigarette. But it's still a highly addictive substance, and personally, my concern is that marketing something highly addictive to the public (and, dare I say it, young people) is really seedy.
I'd call it slightly addictive. It seems it only becomes highly addictive in concert with other ingredients of tobacco smoke, at least that's what the German Wikipedia [1] has and it references [2,3,4,5,6,7] (I didn't read those myself as I can't say I understand their terminology)
[1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotin
[2] http://www.nature.com/npp/journal/v30/n4/full/1300586a.html
[3] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9089846
[4] http://ec.europa.eu/health/scientific_committees/opinions_la...
[5] http://ntr.oxfordjournals.org/content/14/1/75.short
[6] http://www.nature.com/npp/journal/v31/n8/full/1300987a.html
Saying "just vapor" means nothing here; consider "just chlorine vapor," for instance. Obviously the substance that has been vaporized is the important part. The most common e-cigarette vapor, propylene glycol, does have very low toxicity. But you still might not want to inhale it constantly -- no longitudinal, long-term study has been performed that simulates the e-cigarette use of PG and shows beyond doubt that it is safe.
> and no more harmful to the people around the user than steam from a kettle.
Nicotine is a known carcinogen, and e-cigarette vapor contains nicotine. Tea kettles do not release vaporized nicotine. The e-cigarette vapor may have a low concentration of nicotine after being exhaled, but again, nobody has extensively studied the results of breathing second-hand e-cigarette vapor over a long time period. Your assertion is completely unsupported by evidence.
> I'm harming nobody but myself with it.
You cannot back that up with evidence. This is your guess, and it could be wrong.
Now, I happen to think that it is _likely_ that e-cigarettes will be shown to be much less dangerous than tobacco cigarettes. But my opinion, just like yours, is meaningless since it's not backed up by evidence.
Is it? All I can find is that it promotes tumor growth if the tumor is already there but doesn't cause them by itself.
>> I'm harming nobody but myself with it. >You cannot back that up with evidence. This is your guess, and it could be wrong.
Clearstream [1] was done and at least one other study (can't remember the name atm). Nothing completely conclusive but at least it points towards it being rather safe.
I may have been too conclusive there; the CDC only says:
"Nicotine is a teratogen (capable of causing birth defects). Other developmental toxicity or reproductive toxicity risks are unknown. The information about nicotine as a carcinogen is inconclusive"
http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/ershdb/emergencyresponsecard_297500...
What's the carcinogen in chewing tobacco?
Also, the idea "it's only harmful if cancer is already present" can be weak; consider prostate cancer, which is present in all men.
And then worse you're blowing that highly addictive substance into the air in a confined place and stinking the place out with a foul chemical smell of 'chocolate' or 'mint' or some other 'pleasant' smell just because you're so addicted you can't even go a couple of hours without your hit.
If you were a normal person, and not a junkie, you'd never smoke those things in public because you'd see how bizarre, odd and selfish thing it is to do.
So no, it's not just 'vapour' and you've got no right to try and convince people otherwise because you are, ultimately, a junkie justifying your addiction.
I'm a junkie too, but at least I admit it.
> It might be better for smokers than smoking,
It most definitely is better than cigarettes.
> but it's still a drug addiction.
And so is caffeine in coffee or sugar in coke or adrenaline from running. Human beings are quite easily addicted to many things (some better than others).
> If you were a normal person, and not a junkie, you'd never smoke those things in public because you'd see how bizarre, odd and selfish thing it is to do.
Self righteousness is actually not effective in this case at all.
> So no, it's not just 'vapour' and you've got no right to try and convince people otherwise because you are, ultimately, a junkie justifying your addiction.
Strong perfume is also not just vapour and can be downright annoying, especially for someone who is allergic.
> I'm a junkie too, but at least I admit it.
Great. Because someone who hasn't been addicted to something bad before has absolutely ZERO clue about what is going on (skinny people telling fat people to eat less, non-smokers telling smokers to just stop smoking...its so easy right?).
Citation needed.
No it's not. "The levels of the toxicants were 9–450 times lower than in cigarette smoke"
http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/early/2013/03/05/tobac...
ftr, I quit smoking a year ago. And happy I did.
If anyone who wants to try and quit here's what I did:
1) Make sure you want to quit because if you don't seriously want to quit then you won't no matter what.
2) Smoke less and less every day until you get to zero. This will vary for everyone, I personally did it as fast as I could handle it which mainly consisted of only smoking after meals after I went from 1 pack a day down to half a pack a day.
That's seriously all there is to it. It'll be a little difficult for about a week but then it's pretty much smooth sailing with minor urges.
You'll likely end up creating other habits in the process and afterwards because at the end of the day smoking was a habit to you. Try to pick a less destructive habit this time!
Will that really work? My suspicion is at those prices you're going to see a hell of a lot of smuggling.
If nicotine, or cannabis, or whatever isn't seen rationally, it will be left to some packaging genius to create the equivalent of a Nepresso pod for vaping it, or consuming it in whatever way is convenient and stylish. That seems weak-minded for a crowd that pats themselves on the back for rationality.
Nicotine gum was how I kept the ability to work. Nontrivial abstract reasoning such as most programming is impossible when you are having nicotine withdrawls. If people want to try nicotine, buy some gum.
Honestly, as far as stimulants go, I've probably tried a serious amount of what's out there from the natural (chewed coca leaves, betel nuts, chewing tobacco, raw tobacco, ephedrine, etc.) to legal and less legal drugs that shall not be enumerated, and I think adequate sleep, exercise and good eating, possibly in combination with some meditation are the lowest hassle and most sustainable productivity enhancers.
Yes, the smoking is worse than the nicotine, but how many other over-the-counter medications have an LD50 potentially as low as 30mg/kg? That's insanely high toxicity.
Spilling nicotine on yourself causes death. That should be sobering.
I'd say there's not enough information to be conclusive, but it's possible that nicotine could be lethal in doses absorbed through skin contact, though this seems unlikely to me given practical concentrations of nicotine solutions, and higher concentrations should be handled in a lab with proper safety equipment anyway. Ideally, pure nicotine would be labelled as the dangerous drug that it is, just as dangerous household cleaners are.
[1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2368002/pdf/brme...
Spilling nicotine on yourself isn't really in the threat model of chewing nicotine gum at all.
I imagine prohibiting cigarettes would lead to a huge outcry on all sides of the political spectrum fueled by lobbyist decrying the end of the free world. There also would be a large economic impact on all the retailers, logistics companies, promoters, distributors, and addiction management industries (nicotine patches, e-cigarettes, and what not). By "large impact" I mean that they would be gone for good. I guess this would still mean a net win for society and health care costs at large, but those measures are always hard to justify and not a very popular decision to make. That's why politicians tend to refrain from making them.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-08-23/tas-smoking-ban-facing...
However, I think neither proposal has been accepted.
Sometimes it's quite amusing - the argument against the olive drab packaging was "it's a waste of time, the colour of the packaging won't change tobacco sales", to which the only sane response is "then why are you taking out multiple full-page ads in every paper?".
You also can't just make it illegal overnight, since it's a notoriously difficult drug to give up. Hence it's being gradually phased out.
How long do we have to wait till the tobacco industry funded Cato Institute finds some shills to wheel out to deny this?
And how long do we have to wait for them to apologise for decades of spreading FUD and undermining the science that demonstrated the risks of smoking.