Lobbyist as Governor???? - Page 2

ViRedd · #11 12-07-2006, 09:06 AM

Any substance can be proven to be harmful, even deadly, in lab experiments. Just give the rats mega doses of anything, even milk, and they will die.

Vi

medicineman · #12 12-07-2006, 09:15 AM

You're wrong, they had a control group of rats that didn't get the smoke and a group that did, the group that did had a much higher incidence of cancer. Why are you so adamant about the smoking and cancer thing. this is a proven old science thing, dating back to the '50's. Hey it's your body, put what you want into it, but please dont try and convince others that smoking ciggarettes is harmless. They put something like 30 different carcinogens into ciggarettes to make them more addictive, so smoke up. Only a blind fool would start smoking with all the statistics on smoking, or a gullible teen ager! when I smoked they didn't know all the scoop, and even after they came out with the findings, the habit hooked me for another 20 years!
I grew up in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, the home of RJ Reynolds tobacco company. RJR makes cigarettes - and lots of them - and has done so for many years. Ol' Richard Joshua Reynolds himself built half the town it seems over one hundred years ago. Because Mr. Reynolds added a bunch to the top line of the local economy, he was well-liked. When he died, I suspect the city mourned the death of the cigarette magnate, who most certainly smoked cigarettes himself, for some time. Even today, local tour guides defend RJR by specifically noting that he died of pancreatic cancer, not lung cancer. This point becomes a bit less defendable, though, when you understand that cigarette smoking increases the risk of pancreatic cancer many-fold. And as far as all the other bad things that cigarettes do to your body, that's just the tip of the iceberg.
Most people associate cigarette smoking with either nothing bad at all or with lung cancer. In fact, a recent article in a leading medical journal that showed that most smokers don't even think they're at increased risk for heart disease. But they are. And smoking also causes esophageal cancer, bladder cancer, and stomach cancer, not to mention emphysema. I've discussed cancers elsewhere, so emphysema deserves special note here. This is a disease characterized by difficulty breathing, which, by the way, is not a lot of fun. To try it, jump in a lake and breathe several times underwater. What you will experience is similar to that which you will observe in particular patients in a hospital pulmonary ward. I would argue that fewer people would smoke if they visited with emphysema patients. Gasping for breath and drowning in your own secretions is not a pretty sight.
The smoking habits of a patient, past or present, are an important part of the patient history. To flush out smokers who think that they don't smoke enough to qualify as smokers, doctors will usually ask questions such as, "How many packs of cigarettes do you smoke a day?", rather than, "Do you smoke?" In many cases, though, I already knew that a patient smoked. How? Smokers smell awful. Ever wonder why there are smoking and non-smoking rooms in hotels? Here's a hint: rooms where people have smoked smell awful. If preventing stroke, heart disease, and cancers along with the fact that you smell like sin when you smoke doesn't convince you to quit, then consider the fact that the FDA has now classified second hand smoke (what your friends, colleagues, loved ones, and total strangers are breathing around you) as a known carcinogen. This means that you are causing cancer in other people, too. Sounds pretty selfish, doesn't it? So have some respect for others, even if you don't care about yourself. Personally, I think smoking in public should be illegal, just as spraying Agent Orange in public should be illegal.
Cigarettes are bad actors, and they cause your physician to develop gray hair. The pathology of cigarettes extends well beyond lung cancer, which kills more people than any other cancer. Bladder, esophageal, pancreatic, and stomach cancers are also caused by smoking. Emphysema is a horrible disease that almost all chronic smokers develop. Quitting smoking begins with definitely deciding to quit. Your doctor may be able to help. There are few things, other than quitting smoking, that you could do for yourself that would make your doctor happier.

Dankdude · #13 12-07-2006, 06:32 PM

I never said that smoking cigarettes was harmless.
I said that the science that they base secondhand smoke on is flawed... Not one of the studies on secondhand smoke has a control group.

medicineman · #14 12-08-2006, 12:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dankdude

I never said that smoking cigarettes was harmless.
I said that the science that they base secondhand smoke on is flawed... Not one of the studies on secondhand smoke has a control group.

Man Dank, you've sure got this thing for flawed science, yet you believe all the evolution stuff, now there's some flawed science, they've yet to prove the link between ape and man yet they are sure it's true. Just tell me the raw truth. Do you think there's a connection between cigarette smoking and cancer?

Dankdude · #15 12-08-2006, 05:02 AM

Certainly there is a connection between cigarette smoking and cancer, but I doubt that there is a connection between secondhand smoke and cancer.

Dankdude · #16 12-08-2006, 05:05 AM

My point is why aren't they punishing the tobacco companies more instead of the smokers.

medicineman · #17 12-08-2006, 06:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dankdude

My point is why aren't they punishing the tobacco companies more instead of the smokers.

Have you forgotten how this government is run, by corporations like tobacco companies? The feds aren't doing squat outside the surgeon generals warning, It's the people in the states that are banning smokers. It was only a few years ago when non-smokers started outnumbering smokers, since then there has been a drive to ban smoking. There is nothing more anti-smoking than an ex-smoker. The money that Nevada got from the tobacco co.s settlement that was supposed to go for treating tobacco related illnesses was put into the general budget by the state legislature to cover the school budget shortfall, so smokers gained nothing from it, it was a joke!