Posted on 12/09/2010 1:18:16 PM PST by upchuck
[This has been edited to fit within the excerpting guidelines.]
Think the occasional cigarette won't hurt? Even a bit of social smoking — or inhaling someone else's secondhand smoke — could be enough to block your arteries and trigger a heart attack, says the newest surgeon general's report on the killer the nation just can't kick.
Thursday's report says there's no doubt that tobacco smoke begins poisoning immediately — as more than 7,000 chemicals in each puff rapidly spread through the body to cause cellular damage in nearly every organ.
"That one puff on that cigarette could be the one that causes your heart attack," said Surgeon General Regina Benjamin. "I advise people to try to avoid being around smoking any way that you can."
...this newest report is unusual because it devotes more than 700 pages to detail the biology of how cigarette smoke accomplishes its dirty deeds — including the latest genetic findings to help explain why some people become more addicted than others, and why some smokers develop tobacco-caused disease faster than others.
There is no safe level of exposure to cigarette smoke, whether you deliberately inhale it or are a nonsmoker who breathes in other people's fumes, the report concludes. Nor is there evidence yet to tell if efforts to develop so-called safer cigarettes really will pan out.
(Excerpt) Read more at ajc.com ...
Some of these claims are just over the top.
Hey Regina, name one person who died after smoking one cigarette.
Outside of a firing squad.
Bamster is killing his daughters!
Right up there with AGW on the credibility scale.
I couldn’t count how many people I’ve known who’d have lived to be 110 if smoking hadn’t cut their lives short at 70 or 80 or so.
For the record....I don’t. Filthy stinking disgusting legal habit, NOMB if you do.
I actually agree with the article in the same way I agree that just riding on one commercial airliner flight could get you killed in a plane crash.
I really abhor cigarette smoke, and strongly believe that second hand smoke is very harmful to cats. Studies have demonstrated this. But for humans, it is more of an annoyance. And yes, it annoys me a LOT.
But the risk of actual health complications is simply not supported by empirical evidence yet. And, as much as I dislike it, even “pack a day” smoking is not as dangerous as most people think. It would literally be more dangerous to eat a big mac every day than smoke a pack of cigarettes every day. It is DIET that is a more sure fire killer than smoking is.
I have never smoked. Really.
I think I’ll light one up tonight.
And what about that Christmas eggnog? Oh, my!
I do not smoke, and I never have. I cannot stand the smell of cigarettes, but no one forces me to buy cigarettes or to smoke them. If I do not like to be around those that smoke, I can always leave. For me, this is a matter of personal liberty or freedom. Enough of the nanny state!
Claims like these, similar to Global Warming, lead to the further destruction of scientific credibility.
No matter how deadly they are.
This is pure bunk and there are NO credible scientific studies to back this up. This so much reminds me of the propaganda that was used to get Prohibition passed which blamed very imaginable social problem and physical malady on the consumption of a single drop of liquor.
” name one person who died after smoking one cigarette. “
Every one of ‘em — eventually.....
(Full disclosure - I am a lifelong cigarette smoker, with, at age 62, bp of 110/65, and no history of heart problems.. When I kick-off, for whatever reason, I will go down in the Surgeon General’s ledger as a ‘smoking related’ death....)
My opinion also...
...but cigars are still safe, right?
;-)
So, now one puff and they can take your kids away. Right? Or someone can sue you if you smoked in the same room with them and they later had a heart attack. It’s more than the nanny state, it’s going to be jack-booted thugs in lab coats.
Why are we still subsidizing tobacco farmers?
Jerry: What happened to your face? It looks like an old catcher's mitt.
Kramer: Jerry, my face is my livelihood. Everything I have I owe to this face....Look away, I'm hideous.
If it’s so deadly, BAN IT.
Otherwise, STFU.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.