A Smoking Rant

[Nyoibo]

Smoking can give you cancer. Second hand smoke cannot.

Um, ok then, why? "because it's gone through my lungs and taken the bad stuff out" bollocks it has, that also doesn't account for the vast plumes of smoke that come off a cigarette when it's not being sucked on, which is basically the same as smoking a non-filtered cigarette.

And now I say to you...

Smoking can give you cancer. Second hand smoke can too.

If you disagree, I would very much like to see a real case in which a nonsmoker was diagnosed with cancer and it is confirmed - beyond all reasonable doubt - that second hand smoke was not the cause.

And yes, a nonsmoker living with a smoker does count. Nonsmokers can develop lung cancer too. I want conclusive evidence.

[I8DaCookie]

2) There's a huge difference between smelling something and ingesting something. I realize that to smell something there are molecules in the air, but its a miniscule amount. Just because you smelled cigarette smoke on my jacket doesn't mean you're breathing in all the smoke. Just like there's a difference between walking into a smelly bathroom and actually eating a bowl of shit.

New study just released Basically, nicotine residue from carpets, furnature and clothes can be a cancer threat.

7) Second hand smoke: Remember, the smoke has been drawn through the length of the cigarette and through a filter. Then its gone into my lungs which have further absorbed much of it. Then by the time it's reached you it's gone through the air and been further diluted. Unless you're standing right in front of me, with your lips pressed to mine as I exhale, you're getting an extremely minor dose. Again, you get more toxins from car exhaust.

You do realize that smoke from the end of the cigarette is unfiltered, right? So you aren't breathing in all the smoke.

[Greenday]

Smoking can give you cancer. Second hand smoke cannot.

Second hand smoke contains carcinogens. Carcinogens give you cancer. Do you have a vendetta against science or something? It's a fact.

And how am I supposed to provide proof if any proof that'd work doesn't count?

[linguist]

I'm not going to read those reports - they're too long and I don't feel like wasting my time. Just point out the parts that say "Second hand smoke causes cancer" and I'll look at those.

so basically what you're saying is that you can't be bothered to either back up your own assertions with citations, or to actually look at ones that dispute your assertions. just because you say it doesn't make it true, and assertions in a debate (which i thought was what this site was about), do require supporting evidence.

but, since you can't be bothered, here are just a couple from right off the top of the sites:

from the national cancer institute:

Does exposure to secondhand smoke cause cancer?
Yes. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. National Toxicology Program (NTP), the U.S. Surgeon General, and the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) have classified secondhand smoke as a known human carcinogen (cancer-causing agent) (1, 3, 5).

Inhaling secondhand smoke causes lung cancer in nonsmoking adults (4). Approximately 3,000 lung cancer deaths occur each year among adult nonsmokers in the United States as a result of exposure to secondhand smoke (2). The Surgeon General estimates that living with a smoker increases a nonsmoker’s chances of developing lung cancer by 20 to 30 percent.

from the epa:

The Epidemiology Studies

The most important aspect of the review of the epidemiology studies is the remarkable consistency of results across studies that support a causal association between secondhand smoke and lung cancer.

In assessing the studies several different ways, it becomes clear that the extent of the consistency defies attribution to chance. When looking only at the simple measure of exposure of whether the husband ever smoked, 24 of 30 studies reported an increase in risk for nonsmoking women with smoking husbands. Since many of these studies were small, the chance of declaring these increases statistically significant was small. Still, nine of these were statistically significant, and the probability that this many of the studies would be statistically significant merely by chance is less than 1 in 10 thousand.

The simple overall comparison of risks in ever vs. never exposed to spousal smoking tends to hide true increases in risk in two ways. First, it categorizes many women as never exposed who actually received exposure from sources other than spousal smoking. It also includes some women as exposed who actually received little exposure from their husband's smoking. One way to correct for this latter case is to look at the women whose husbands smoked the most. When one looks at the 17 studies that examined cancer effects based on the level of exposure of the subjects, every study found an increased lung cancer risk among those subjects who were most exposed. Nine were statistically significant. The probability of 9 out of 17 studies showing statistically significant results occurring by chance is less than 1 in ten million.

Probably the most important finding for a causal relationship is one of increasing response with increasing exposure, since such associations cannot usually be explained by other factors. Such exposure-response trends were seen in all 14 studies that examined the relationship between level of exposure and effect. In 10 of the studies the trends were statistically significant. The probability of this happening by chance is less than 1 in a billion.

It is unprecedented for such a consistency of results to be seen in epidemiology studies of cancer from environmental levels of a pollutant. One reason is that it is extremely difficult to detect an effect when virtually everyone is exposed, as is the case with secondhand smoke. However, consistent increased risks for those most exposed and consistent trends of increasing exposure showing an increasing effect provide strong evidence that secondhand smoke increases the risk of lung cancer in nonsmokers.

[DrFaroohk]

It doesn't count because the conclusion between second hand smoke = cancer is simply because a nonsmoker had lived with a smoker.

That's it. It's coincidental. There's no medical evidence that I've seen which links the carcinogens from cigarettes to a nonsmoker's ailment.

They just say "Oh, nonsmoker has lung cancer! He lived with a smoker! That's why!"

Bullshit. I want proof.

And with cancer, you can get it from just about anything. You can spend a completely carcinogen-free live and still get cancer. You can get cancer from just sitting there. The sun will even give you cancer!

Just because a scientist says its true doesn't make it so. "A study"? They did "a study" on it? How do I know that? How do I know that the article in your AMA magazine is accurate? I wasn't there. I didn't see the test. I don't know who did the test. If I was a scientist and I got offered a quick million to lie about test results fuck yeah I'd do it. It doesn't seem like such a huge stretch to me.

[linguist]

Just because a scientist says its true doesn't make it so. "A study"? They did "a study" on it? How do I know that? How do I know that the article in your AMA magazine is accurate? I wasn't there. I didn't see the test. I don't know who did the test. If I was a scientist and I got offered a quick million to lie about test results fuck yeah I'd do it. It doesn't seem like such a huge stretch to me.

i can only hope you're kidding, because if not, this is one of the weakest and most ridiculous defenses i've ever come across.

1. just because you apparently lack scruples and ethics doesn't mean everyone does.

2. we aren't talking about one study by one scientist. this is thousands of scientists in hundreds of studies for dozens of agencies, conducted over a period of many years all across the world.

3. by this logic, one may as well not even bother with school, because if you weren't there when the discoveries you learn about are made, they must not have really happened.

[DrFaroohk]

Well I'm sorry I don't blindly believe what everyone tells me or what I read. If I did, then by that logic I'd believe everything in the tabloids. Or what politicians tell me, too.

[linguist]

Well I'm sorry I don't blindly believe what everyone tells me or what I read. If I did, then by that logic I'd believe everything in the tabloids. Or what politicians tell me, too.

it's not blind belief when facts and statistics back it up. tabloids very rarely have any corroborating evidence, nor do most politicians.

[Greenday]

And with cancer, you can get it from just about anything. You can spend a completely carcinogen-free live and still get cancer. You can get cancer from just sitting there. The sun will even give you cancer!

Just because a scientist says its true doesn't make it so. "A study"? They did "a study" on it? How do I know that? How do I know that the article in your AMA magazine is accurate? I wasn't there. I didn't see the test. I don't know who did the test. If I was a scientist and I got offered a quick million to lie about test results fuck yeah I'd do it. It doesn't seem like such a huge stretch to me.

So just because: A.) It's been proven true and B.) You have no academic honesty, it's not true? I'm so glad people like you who would be happy to take bribes get kicked out of their desired science programs. I wish my department would be harsher on such people and petition for more than just being kicked out of the department.

[LewisLegion]

I have adult onset asthma due to a chemical pnuemonia bout when I was 16. Strong scents of any kind can set it off. Allergens set it off.

I have never in my life passed a smoker and coughed dramatically and given them a stink-eye. I do avoid them if I can because the smell will make me ill. I have sisters who smoke. I have never lectured them about it or acted like they were the scum of the earth because of their habit.

So you're saying I should live in a bubble? That I don't have the right to walk around enjoying my life because I might possibly become sick from your bad habit?

My asthma could be progressive. I could have a major allergic reaction at any time from anything...dust, cig smoke, someone's perfume. I could tolerate it now and a week from now smell it and go into full blown respiratory arrest. The chances are extremely slim, but it COULD happen. I have to live with the feeling of something pressing on my chest most days, being short of breath walking up stairs, of waking up some nights short of breath, of feeling the need to vomit EVERY time I walk from one extreme temperature into another (going from a warm office building into a cold winter evening WILL make me puke almost immediately) and my emergency inhaler tastes like chlorine mixed with nasty and will also make me vomit.

So naturally, I should be confined in some secret hospital room, not allowed to be a productive member of society but rather leach off the public dollar because YOUR bad habit could make me ill and potentially some day KILL me if my sensitivity hits the turbos...but God forbid if I'm having a bad asthma day and cross the street to avoid you and your cigarrette.

Clearly, I'm just an intolerant, over-reactive, judgemental whiner who has some kind of vendetta against you.

[HYHYBT]

There are few if any cancers where you can prove, in the sense you're insisting on, what caused it. Even the heaviest individual smoker cannot, as far as I know, be proven to have developed their lung cancer because of the smoking. It's a statistical thing: lung cancer is rare among those rarely or never exposed to smoke, more common in those who are around smoke often but don't smoke themselves, more common yet in light smokers, and most common in heavy smokers.

[blas87]

Speaking of pissy nonsmokers, my one neighbor is just an ASS about the rest of us smoking outside (lease rules, NON smoking apartments, HELLO!).

Because he absolutely refuses to get an A/C unit (even though this past summer was a joke, you still need an A/C in the summer in Wisconsin and you're foolish if you don't) prefers to just run fans and open his windows, and he'll come outside and throw tantrums over me and my neighbor Randy smoking outside, because it wafts into his apartment.

Shut your windows and get a fucking A/C unit like the rest of us. I'm not going to smoke in my apartment and risk getting caught and evicted just because you don't like it.

[Lace Neil Singer]

I'm not overly bothered by cold; I ride a motorbike so I'm used to freezing my tits off in the winter. xD Like yesterday before work, enjoying a smoke in the falling snow. XD

[Fryk]

What pisses me off are the non-smokers like my brother-in-law and his wife. Here's some quick background:

I live with my in-laws, who both smoke, as does my wife. My wife smokes maybe a pay every two and a half days, as do I. I didn't take the habit up until we moved here, and I gotta believe that breathing in their secondhand smoke is what got me into it. (By the way, that does point to secondhand smoke being a cancer risk. Think about it: how would I become addicted through secondhand smoke unless there was nicotine in the air? And nicotine IS a known carcinogen.) My in-laws are what I would consider being on the border of chain smoking, each of them smoking more thn a pack a day. None of this is healthy, and I will concede that. BUT!
When they come down to visit for a few days, both of my BIL's and BIL #1's wife make a dramatic show of things when anyone lights up in the same room as them, or when someone already HAS light up and they come sit next to them. (Definitely) Fake coughing, hyperactive fanning, the occasional stink-eye... the works. Yes, I understand you don't like it. But it's NOT your fucking house. My in-laws have already pretty much said that they're not going to stop for 3 or 4 days until you leave, so either suck it up and hush, or stop popping in unannounced for 3 or 4 days.

[blas87]

If you want to hear a smoker bitch about a fellow smoker, I'll give you my grandpa.

My mother has had asthma her entire life and has always been sensitive to cigarette smoke.

My grandfather smokes more than Dennis Leary. Honestly, he goes outside for 3 smokes, not 1. He goes through a pack almost before noon every day.

He always wears the SAME sweater or jacket when he goes out to smoke, and he's one of those smokers who *unfortunately* can't shake that smell off of them. Some smokers just ALWAYS wreak of it, while others don't or don't as bad. Well, grandpa is a really smelly smoker. You smell all different kinds of smoke on him, old nasty smoke, smoke from yesterday, and fresh smoke from today.

Whenever he flies here to visit, mom doesn't even want to be home a lot because grandpa and his smoke waft everywhere.

I can see how people would take an issue with smokers like him who always wreak of it.