Quit nagging the smokers, will ya?

PhillyBurbs.com ^ | 11-18-04 | J.D. Mullane

[SheLion]

Today is the day we set aside each year to badger, harass and pester that marginalized subculture of Americans, the Doorway People.

You know the Doorway People. They stand in doorways at work or at the mall smoking cigarettes because lighting up in mixed company has become as distasteful as nose-picking.

Yes, today marks the 27th anniversary of the Great American Smokeout, sponsored by the American Cancer Society, where modern incarnates of pinch-mouthed prohibitionists attempt to further ghettoize smokers.

Now, it's not that I think smoking is good. I have friends who smoke. I wish they didn't. On average, they will trade 10 years of their lives to enjoy their habit. But we're all grownups. Smoking is their demon and I have enough of my own demons to wrestle with.

But, unlike anti-smoking zealots, I sympathize with smokers.

That's because I was a smoker. When I quit for good in 1996, I was burning through 2 1/2 packs a day. I ditched the habit because each time I coughed, my lungs rattled as if someone had backed into metal trash cans.

Still, I loved every puff. I still miss it. In fact, I still have nicotine cravings.

So I'm sympathetic to smokers and believe they should be free to enjoy their addiction, which, last I checked, remains legal. Which is why I dislike the anti-smoking scolds. They are trying to criminalize smoking.

From New York City to Dallas, from Toledo, Ohio, to Eugene, Ore., anti-smoking zealots have racked up successful campaigns to ban smoking in bars and restaurants, the last bastion of peace and acceptance for smokers.

Eventually, the anti-smoking "movement" will have won enough smoking bans in enough cities in enough states to introduce national no-smoking legislation, said Zoe Mitchell, co-founder of Ban the Ban, which recently defeated efforts to enact similar no-smoking legislation in Washington, D.C.

"Ultimately, their goal is to make it a national issue based on their success at the local level," she said.

Anti-smokers say they're acting in the best interest of public health.

They say all those smokers burden the healthcare system with their cigarette-related maladies. It costs all of us more in healthcare premiums, they say.

Nonsense. Smokers die sooner than most of us nonsmokers, never collecting a cent from Social Security, which they've paid for decades.

Also, smokers pay outrageous cigarette taxes on each pack of smokes, which pours billions of dollars annually into government coffers.

At best, the money argument is a wash.

When an anti-smoking nut steps into a place like the Puss N' Boots Tavern in Fairless Hills, all they see is the blue-gray cloud of smoke hovering over the patrons crowded around the bar.

When I walk into the Boot, I see it differently.

I see a local cop who's seen more than his fair share of tragedy.

Or an emergency room nurse who was up to her elbows in blood just a few hours before.

Or a construction guy who's sacrificed years of Saturdays to work overtime so he could save for his kid's college tuition.

Or a middle-aged father worried about his son, who's fighting the war.

These are the good people the anti-smoking zealots want to stigmatize as public health leeches.

And if they accomplish their goal, they won't go away.

They will persecute the overweight, stigmatize SUV drivers and haul into court those who don't recycle.

They've got the money and the time and the lawyers.

[timestax]

bttt

[Gabz]

I can understand and sympathize - but since you are being so honest, I would like to ask you a question.

Is it only cigarette smoke that triggers your asthma - or is it any type of smoke?

I'm not trying to be mean or snotty, I'm being truly honest in my question. I've encountered you and your posts(family table) and like what I've read, so feel I can trust your anwser.

I ask because so many people claim "smoke" triggers there asthma, but they only are talking about cigarette smoke because they have an agenda. The smoke of nothing else bothers them, including that of something burning in the frying pan, fireplace, or trash burn barrel.

[Gabz]

And your point?

[TheForceOfOne]

I would never smoke around someone that I know has asthma or any other problem related to smoke..............

Neither would I, nor would I push down little old ladies to get on the bus first, or park in handicap parking spaces, or drive through red lights, but some nonsmokers would walk the length of a football field in a public park to stand next to you and complain or stand in their yard and stare at you with disdain because you wish to sit on your deck in your own yard and light up. The problem is smokers do not benefit one cent from anything derived from the money received by the states from lawsuits and frowned on as some sort of lepers. As long as we smoke you cannot make nonsmokers happy, period. I believe in capitalism and free enterprise and if allowing people to smoke in restaurants and bars puts them out of business then it will stop because the owners want to satisfy the customers who keep them in business whoever they are. How can it be fair for a couple of nonsmokers to decide the well being of a business. Same problem is repeated over and over in other social issues, let the free market take care of it not the government. :)

[Rainmist]

Carlo ! I believe that hypnosis is really the only way that I will be able to quit smoking. I've always wished that I could take a pill or wear a patch that will take away any feelings of wanting to smoke. I want to forget that I ever smoked, consider myself a non-smoker ( not an ex-smoker ) and never touch another one again. Can you send me a mail message here and give me some advice as to how I should go about it ???

[carlo3b]

I am leaving on a Thanksgiving cruise tomorrow, I suggest that we get together via mail and phone when I return.. I have done a few sessions over the phone, and they have been as successful as an office visit, meaning that they quit smoking without any trauma or regret ..

You will need a cradle or headset for your phone.. I would be happy to help, consider it a Christmas present to my vet brother from FreeRepublic and me.. Happy Thankgiving, Carlo

[Freedom Dignity n Honor]

I've often wondered what the true difference is between emphysema and congestive heart failure.

Both involve the lungs plus both involve the heart enlarging.

I think that if a person lives long enough that they'll get congestive heart failure. I think it's an aging process brought on by slowing becomming less active due to age, illness and arthritis and heavier in body weight.

[Freedom Dignity n Honor]

Cigarette smoke doesn't bother me much with my asthma but if something is burning in my oven or I get in the smoke at a cookout, I might have an asthma attack and have to use my inhaler or sometimes the smoke just makes me feel like throwing up.

Now what really bothers me is if I eat something with corn in it..especially corn syrup solids, then I get asthma attacks that usually lead to pneumonia. Used to if I ate a corn product my lips, tongue and throat would swell but the corn syrup solids definitely are the worst as far as my astma goes.

Plus, I'm allergic to the molds and dust in hay bales, so when people decorate during fall with hay bales, I have to hold my breath and cover my nose and mouth with my shirt as I go by so that I don't inhale the spores and dust.

Alot of smells and chemicals bother me, do I complain? No, I just try to avoid them and if I have a problem I treat myself appropriately. The whole world doesn't revolve around me, therefore, I have to try to live in this world as best as I can and not dictate what the world should do to make me feel better or happy.

[SheLion]

When my husband and I go to a restaurant, we always go to the smoking section and you'd be surprised how many people bring their small children into a smoking section.

I was born into a smoking family.  Everyone except my one grandmother smoked.  I vaguely remember as a very small child, going into the back yard and eating dirt.  My mother sure had a fit over THAT one.  But parents back when I was small, took me everywhere and exposed me to the elements.  It built up my immune system.

I never had asthma.  I was never sickly. And even if the drugs were offered back then, I didn't even need Ritalin.

I grew up into a healthy woman.  I even started smoking at age 16, through peer pressure.  I danced for over 20 years, then married, got pregnant, had my 8lb 12oz baby girl in under 2 hours.  I smoked before, during and after my pregnancy.  I nursed my little baby.

She grew up in a smoking home.  She never had asthma, never sickly and never needed Ritalin.  She is grown today, with her own little boy, and she and hubby both smoke.  Although not around the boy, because Health and Human Services is a plaque upon us all.

Somehow I doubt by keeping our kids today away from the elements in the air, this is making our kids sicker and kids on Ritalin are running rampant.

This is just my observation, but I think by over protecting the kids of today, we aren't doing them any favors.

[SheLion]

Carcinogens cause cancer. They are in cigarettes and also in a great big list of other things. You can get cancer from a whole list of things.

Exactly. Beware of those Christmas foods!

December 24, 2003 -- IT is that time of the year: parties, presents, family gatherings - and dining-room tables laden with a tempting array of mouthwatering, delicious, seasonal chemicals.

Chemicals? Yes.

We live in an intensely chemical-phobic society, one where food labels and menus brag of being "all-natural" and "purely organic." Poultry sections offer fryers from "happy, free range chickens." "Chemical-free" cuisine is in.

So it may come as a shock to you that even an all-natu- ral holiday feast (and every other meal you consume throughout the year) comes replete with chemicals, including toxins (poisons) and carcinogens (cancer-causing chemicals) - most of which average consumers would reject simply on the grounds that they can't pronounce the names.

Assume you start with an appetizer, then move on to a medley of crispy, natural vegetables, and proceed to a traditional stuffed bird with all the trimmings, washing it down with libations of the season, and topping it all off with some homemade pastries.

You will thus have consumed holiday helpings of various "carcinogens" (defined here as a substance that at high dose causes cancer in laboratory animals), including:

* hydrazines (mushroom soup);

* aniline, caffeic acid, benzaldehyde, hydrogen peroxide, quercetin glycosides and psoralens (your fresh vegetable salad),

* heterocyclic amines, acrylamide, benzo(a)pyrene, ethyl carbamate, dihydrazines, d-limonene, safrole and quercetin glycosides (roast turkey with stuffing);

* benzene and heterocyclic amines (prime rib of beef with parsley sauce);

* furfural, ethyl alcohol, allyl isothiocyanate (broccoli, potatoes, sweet potatoes);

* coumarin, methyl eugenol, acetaldehyde, estragole and safrole (apple and pumpkin pies);

* ethyl alcohol with ethyl carbamate (red and white wines).

Then sit back and relax with some benzofuran, caffeic acid, catechol, l,2,5,6,-dibenz(a)anthra- cene with 4-methylcatechol (coffee).

And those, all produced courtesy of Mother Nature, are only the carcinogens you just scarfed down. Your l00-percent natural holiday meal is also replete with toxins - popularly known as "poisons." These include the solanine, arsenic and chaconine in potatoes; the hydrogen cyanide in lima beans and the hallucinogenic compound myristicin found in nutmeg, black pepper and carrots.

Now here is the good news: these foods are safe.

Four observations are relevant here:

* When it comes to toxins, only the dose makes the poison. Some chemicals, regardless of whether they are natural or synthetic, are potentially hazardous at high doses but are perfectly safe when consumed at low doses like the trace amounts found in our foods.

* While you probably associate the word "carcinogen" with nasty-sounding synthetic chemicals like PCBs and dioxin, the reality is that the more we test naturally occurring chemicals, the more we find that they, too, cause cancer in lab animals.

* The increasing body of evidence documenting the carcinogenicity (in the lab) of common substances found in nature highlights the contradiction we Americans have created up to now in our regulatory approach to carcinogens: trying to purge our nation of synthetic carcinogens, while turning a blind eye to the omnipresence of natural "carcinogens."

* While animal testing is an essential part of biomedical research, so is commonsense. A rodent is not a little man. There is no scientific foundation to the assumption that if high-dose exposure to a chemical causes cancer in a rat or mouse, then a trace level of it must pose a human cancer risk.

If we took a precautionary approach with all chemicals and assumed that a rodent carcinogen might pose a human cancer risk ("so let's ban it just in case"), we'd have very little left to eat. (A radical solution to our nation's obesity problem!)

The reality is that these trace levels of natural or synthetic chemicals in food or the environment pose no known human health hazard at all - let alone a risk of cancer.

So the next time you hear a self-appointed "consumer advocate" fret about the man-made "carcinogen du jour" and demand the government step in and "protect" us - remember, you just ingested a meal full of natural carcinogens without a care in the world and with no risk to your health.

Pass the methyl eugenol! Bon Appetit!

Elizabeth M. Whelan is president of the American Council on Science and Health

Full Story:

http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/14334.htm

Mike Dore, Secy.
Delaware United Smokers Association
http://www.deusa.org

[SheLion]

If a resturant says no smoking, we leave and go somewhere else.

Be thankful you CAN go someplace else. Maine saw to it that there was a complete smoking ban put in place this past January. So, alas! I haven't been back out to my favorite Sports Inn to enjoy a meal and the people. I bring food home and order in a lot. :(

The smoking bans in Maine: Compliments of the Partnership for a Tobacco Free Maine. Guess where they get their money? From the taxes on cigarettes that Mainers pay for cigarettes. Sickening, isn't it?

[SheLion]

Actually it's not. Perhaps you should read what available literature you can find detailing the neurochemical activity of the active ingredients in tobacco smoke. But I somehow doubt you would be interested. We like to believe what we like to believe, whatever evidence their is to the contracty.

You know what?   I have been fighting this war on the smokers for years.  I have done more research and can provide more links then you can shake a stick at.  You say that "I wouldn't be interested?  Heh!  You have NO idea, Stu.

if you are a tobacco user that has convinced yourself for years that you are not addicted to a drug (in the case of tobacco, more than one individual drug).

I still resent you calling tobacco a DRUG.  Last I heard, drugs are illegal unless a legal prescription is provided.

People can stop addictive drugs. But the drugs themselves are still addictive.

You and you alone are making me WISH I had a few drugs right now. heh!

Drug use in and of itself is neither "bad" or "good".

How about I get a prescription for Valium and get all la la in the head then get behind the wheel of my big ole SUV.  Would you be happy then, Stu baby? 

Listen.  You don't have to smoke.  You don't even have to be around smokers.  God knows, the highly paid anti-smokers have provided places now where you don't even have to BE around SHS.  Not that it will hurt you, but God forbid, should you ever SMELL it. 

How about you back up several posts and start reading some of the links I provided?  Take off your blinders and read the other side of this issue for a change.  You know, there ARE two sides to this war on the smokers.

[sissyjane]

Well using your logic...

Overeating causes obesity, which causes cancer and heart disease--so I guess we should ban fat and sugar. You know, make it illegal, because people can't decide on their own if they choose to partake.

Give me a break.

[SheLion]

I didn't mean to imply that you did. It was a generalization and not meant to imply that you personally used recreational drugs of any kind.

Stu dear.  By recreational drugs.  Do you mean pot, ecstasy, oxycontin?  (I can't spell it never took it).

Those Stu, while maybe you classify them as 'recreational' are illegal.

Other drugs..........like prescription drugs?  Those are legal when a prescription is given by a Doctor when a patient needs these medications.

Alcohol and tobacco products are not drugs.  Alcohol is legal, even though it numbs the brain.  Tobacco and smoking cigarettes does not have the 'drug' effect of anything I listed above.  When I smoke a plain old cigarette, I'm not inclined to start stripping my clothes off and dancing on a table, or grabbing a gun and run outside to shoot at cars.

[SheLion]

You are still going on the assumption that second hand smoke kills people. That has been debunked!!!

Terpesman, will you PLEASE read the links provided here? Why do you INSIST that SHS is killing people? Other people have read the links and they are not only mad at you they are LAUGHING at you. Why are you so stuck in your ways?

Ease up. My Gawd, there has been so much counter PROOF in here about SHS. Why don't you just concede to the fact that you have been brain washed by the anti smokers.

[SheLion]

I don't think they want to hear the GOOD NEWS that cigarette smoke is not as harmful as they have been lead to believe. What will they whine about then?

Because beckysue, they do not like the SMELL. Go figure.

And even in our beloved Free Republic we have a bunch of hateful anti-smokers, that it is beyond belief. I am keeping a list of the anti-smokers in Free Republic.

It is very sad. Our own kind hates us just because we smoke.

I have received so many hateful posts about smoking that I thought I had fallen into the DU Boards. I just shake my head.

You would think that FR Smokers are the dirt of the land. Personally, I'm totally fed up with them.

[SheLion]

I agree. My bad. My daughter is a nonsmoker and doesn't mind smoking at all. My stepson gets mad if anybody even lights up within sight of his house.

I try to be very considerate of non-smokers. To the point sometimes of making myself miserable.

My one girlfriend stopped by yesterday for about an hour. She doesn't smoke. Her whole family smokes. We sat and had coffee. beckysue, at my own table in my own house, I didn't light up one cigarette while she was here.

And when I am in her car, I will not smoke. Even when we are in MY vehicle, I do not smoke. I'm a wuzz. LOL!

I'm just too nice. hehe!

[SheLion]

I've always said, if it's health issues they are concerned with then I think all fat people should have to eat outside, standing up.

Well, I sure hope THIS guy doesn't smoke! Holy Moses!

[winker]

OH! waiter; another double helping of BEANS por favor!

[dzzrtrock]

"....My friend who MAY someday kill me...."

Hullo? you don't see the glaring flaw in your choice of "friends"?

I've never considered someone who ws actively trying to kill me every time i was around them a "friend"