Posted on 11/18/2004 11:20:24 AM PST by Tumbleweed_Connection
Today is the American Cancer Society's 28th Great American Smokeout. The event is certainly a smoke-out -- clean air laws kick smokers outdoors for their nicotine fixes. But is it really ''great''?
No! Because the event suggests a wrongheaded option: Quit tobacco or die. The reality is that for the 400,000 American smokers who die each year, total abstinence was impossible and entirely unnecessary.
Medical research shows that you can achieve almost all of the health benefits of quitting smoking without quitting tobacco.
Nicotine, while powerfully addictive, is about as safe as caffeine, another widely consumed addictive drug. It's tobacco smoke, with thousands of toxic agents, that leads to cancer, heart disease and emphysema. Eliminate the smoke, and you eliminate virtually all of the risk.
Modern smokeless tobacco products can satisfy your nicotine craving, and save your life. Research proves that smokeless products are 98 percent safer than cigarettes -- a fact that even tobacco prohibitionists have begun to acknowledge. Our university research group has documented that smokers who switch to smokeless tobacco reduce their risk for all smoking-related illnesses, including mouth cancer.
On average, smokers live eight years less than those who never used tobacco; smokeless users lose just 15 days. Statistically, smokeless users have about the same risk of dying as automobile users.
Newer smokeless tobacco products deliver the nicotine kick you crave and can be used invisibly. They are available as wafers or small tobacco pellets the size of breath mints; some completely dissolve during use, leaving no tobacco residue.
Smokeless tobacco is already working as a safer alternative for many former smokers. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 1.5 to 2 million former smokers have already switched. For more information on how you can be smoke-free, visit our research-based university Web page at www.uab.edu/smokersonly.
Exactly! I can buy the 72 cups of coffee being lethal to 50% of people who would drink such an amount, but 2 cigs "killing" 50% of the people who smoke them, no.
Last year my state appropriated nothing from their federal tobacco tax allocation towards cancer, education...
If one chooses to partake in anything related to tobacco, why isn't it their responsibility to either learn the possible consequences or accept them? How would your MD feel about it?
Tobacco companies will go broke if big government continues it's aggressive tax measures. Ensuing consequences include unemployment, sudden decreased federal spending, increased health care costs... It's the same old game time and time again, if some guy wants to be wealthy, why tax his incentives? Leave the tobacco companies alone and allow the users to make personal choices. Intrude upon their freedom and soon you won't be eating fast food, driving an SUV, owning a gun...
Oh! Ok. I will go buy myself some C H E W! Let's see, where can I spit!
Well, then, my vote veto's out your vote. I love it.
There's that made up number again.
Amazing how even doctors, professors, and even professional researchers won't do their own research to see how that number is achieved.
Was the exercise worth it? You bet it was. The anti-smoking zealots believe they can get away with saying or doing anything if the subject is smoking. This proves they can't if we remain vigilant.
I had the same problem smoking a turkey.
Get a picture of Helen Thomas. Insert face up into spittoon. Spit liberally, she'll appreciate that. You're welcome, Miss Lion. :^)
I had a friend try them. They keep going out and they taste terrible.
God I wish I knew all of this stuff earlier.Thanks for the ping, She.
All the fun things I've been doing my entire life like drinking coffee,driving,smoking,and eating candy have shortened my life. If I had know all these statistics earlier I would have done none of them-------and then prayed for an early death.
Today's The Great American Smokout? Who knew!!!!!!
Argggggggh! LOL!
She has been spit on enough, don't you think? haha! (Or maybe NOT enough. egads)
Well, I would have suggested Hillary, but a picture of Hillary is likely to make any right-thinking person lose his or her lunch. And merely spitting on Hillary just won't suffice.
The damn highly paid professional anti-smokers worry about smokers and our health and second hand smoke more then what they do about Aids. My Gawd! Aids is a SURE killer.
I wish they would go after something that is a sure killer and leave smokers alone!
errrrrr did you see her today in all that rain at the opening? But.....that's on another thread. :)
Well, I did note the military man that was holding the umbrella for Clintoon kept tilting the umbrella and water would roll down onto Clintoon's head. LOL!
File them under "Global Warming and Other Myths?"
Didn't Hillary melt in the rain?
Oh! Ok. I will go buy myself some C H E W!
Let's see, where can I spit!
hehe!
Back in the 70's, I tried unsuccessfully to quit smoking a number of times.
One day, I thought I'd try Copenhagen and dump the cigs.
I stayed off the smokes for few weeks or a month and stayed with the Copenhagen.
What a nasty habit that was, though. I went back to the smokes.
I did finally dig the willpower out in 1983 and quit, though and am still smoke free.
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