Posted on 07/29/2011 6:16:58 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Who says smoking cigarettes is so bad ... well, aside from the World Health Organization, Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and every medical board and association on the face of the Earth?
But should smokers be fortunate enough to dodge all that cancer, heart disease, emphysema and the like, they will be uniquely protected — for reasons unexplained by science — against a handful of diseases and afflictions.
Call it a silver lining in their otherwise blackened lungs. Although long-term smoking is largely a ticket to early death, here are (gulp) five possible benefits from smoking. Breathe deep.
1. Smoking lowers risk of knee-replacement surgery
While smokers might go broke buying a pack of cigarettes, they can at least save money by avoiding knee-replacement surgery. Surprising results from a new study have revealed that men who smoke had less risk of undergoing total joint replacement surgery than those who never smoked.
The study, from the University of Adelaide in Australia, appears in the July issue of the journal Arthritis & Rheumatism. What could be the connection? Knee-replacement surgery was more common among joggers and the obese; smokers rarely jog, and they are less likely to be morbidly obese.
After controlling for age, weight and exercise, the researchers were at a loss to explain the apparent, albeit slight protective effects of smoking for osteoporosis. It could be that the nicotine in tobacco helps prevent cartilage and joint deterioration.
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
I’ve heard that idea too. Democrats used to get the lion’s share of tobacco company donations mostly because they were from Southern tobacco producing states. When those donations started going to republicans in those states, the dems all of a sudden “discovered” how awful tobacco companies are. Al Gore makes me sick. He used to BRAG about his family’s ties to tobacco farming. Now he says he’ll fight them “until his last breath”.
Excellent. I see a Nobel Prize in Medicine as soon as you publish.
Over the years I have posted back and forth with you, Drango, and I have yet to receive a cogent, intelligent response that is in any logical way related to the discussion underway.
All I have gotten in return for my usually factual, respectful responses to your accusations and misinformed tripe is more of same.
Why are you so unwilling to engage in actual debate? Do you have no facts on your side? Do you believe that responding politely is beneath your station in life? Did your parents have any children that lived? (See how easy that was?)
As distasteful as it is, wherever I see you posting lies and twisted disinformation, I will try to counter your lies with reason, fact, and logic. That you are incapable of responding in kind is your issue, not mine.
Dr. Boop, this person has insulted yet another member of this board. Welcome to the “Drango thinks he’s smarter than everyone when it comes to everything smoking related” club.
BTW, how did you survive the 70's and 80's when there was smoking everywhere? Or did you never leave your house?
Don, I’m actually used to Drango. I usually leave him alone. He ignores questions, hurls insults, accuses people of “trying to get kids hooked on smoking” and in general acts like a 6 year old. Not worth the time. I would actually enjoy a true debate. But you’re not going to get it with Drango.
Like the 'War on Drugs' has done to the Fourth and Fifth Amendments. Now, a SWAT team might kick down your door at 3 AM over old (unpaid) parking tickets. (Oops, sorry about the dog, wrong address).
Oh, I did, but it wasn't the cigarettes that caused it. I was sleeping just downwind of the exhausts on an old oil rig (ca 1980) when they started tripping out of the hole (wind shifted), and the shack I was staying in was far from airtight...Clouds of very sooty diesel exhaust finally woke me up--inside the shack.
It took a day or so to cough up that junk.
The part that still bugs me about all the smoking 'studies' is that none of the office workers who compiled them ever accounted for working conditions and exposures on blue-collar jobs (and for that matter, white-collar jobs) which likely had a greater effect on medical outcomes than the cigarettes.
The result is that there may have been a gross misattribution of risk factors which has had the effect of causing cancer (by not removing causative agents) rather than reducing it because the focus has been first and foremost on tobacco.
But then, the smoking studies started with the tobacco is evil meme, and ran with it like global warming, butter, Alar, motorcycle helmets, salt, and a host of other 'safety and health' issues.
The flip side never got a look once the funding started pouring in. Then it was just a question of landing a grant, and not one of finding the answers--whatever they were.
The thing that can be really neat about science, although few will admit the basic premise, is that curiosity, that "We don't know!--so let's find out!" mentality which has just about disappeared from the face of all but the most serious scientific investigation.
A hypothesis was so you would know whether that was the right idea or not, not something to be doggedly adhered to in the face of contrary facts. You tried to disprove it, and if that could not be done, the results were either inconclusive or they supported the idea, and you moved on to another stage.
Now people only try to prove hypotheses, not disprove them, and evidence to the contrary is not only not sought after, but in some cases masked or suppressed. (Look at the Anthropogenic Global Warming mess for a stellar example). So now the weeds of Junk Science choke the once fertile fields of honest investigation, funded, fertilized and watered by the public coffer.
I prefer Marlboro Mediums and have smoked them from pretty much the moment they were introduced. In the last year or so, I've switched to Marlboro Special Blends or Marlboro Red 72s as these tend to be priced cheaper per carton than the regular Marlboros.
A RYO (roll your own) tobacco shop opened up near my home that offers a carton of smokes for $28.80 (as opposed to the roughly $45 for a carton of Marlboro Reds). They sell you a bag of tobacco blended right in front of you to resemble your preferred brand and let you use one of their high-tech rolling machines for the 7-10 minutes it takes to roll the 190-210 cigarettes they'll guarantee this bag will produce. I'm thinking about giving this place a try. Only thing is I'll have to buy a cigarette case or two as the end result is a whole box of cigarettes. No individual packs. Best part is the tobacco is all natural. No additives or safety extinguishing chemicals.
I'd prefer to find a black market dealer and choke the government of tobacco taxes. If the prices go any higher, this otherwise law-abiding individual just may be forced to do that.
Damn straight. I’m not willing to give up my rights and freedoms just to attempt to make sure some guy isn’t getting high somewhere (and fail in the attempt to do so anyway). I don’t actually care that much if the guy gets high and I care a LOT about my rights.
In fact the way I look at it is like this: there was crime in Colonial times, yet the Founding Fathers didn’t think that meant the government should have unlimited powers. If a cop can’t get the job done within the rules laid down two centuries before he made the decision to join the force, too bad. He needs to go be an accountant, or a soldier, or a burger flipper. Looking at it on a societal level, same story. If you can’t combat a certain crime and still obey the Constitution, either improve your personnel or improve your methods, or resign yourself to the idea that this particular crime isn’t worth the cost to prevent it. The Constitution was the rule book for permissible crime fighting techniques by the state when you took the job. Taking it with the intention of changing the rules is cheating and morally repugnant.
Drango is mentally disturbed. And his family has bad genes.
That’s why they got sick and died. He blames it on cigarettes.
Drango is mentally disturbed. And his family has bad genes.
That’s why they got sick and died. He blames it on cigarettes.
True, but in colonisl times, the average person could deal with the criminal situation without fear of repercussilns from the State if their actions were justified. Not so much so today.
“I’m just now thinking of a certain poster, no longer with us, and greatly missed at times like these...”
Darn you! You made my screen all blurry!
“But the fact of the matter is smoking has SOME beneficial effects. For example in schizophrenics.”
Good call, I think I need a smoke break!
“Good call, I think I need a smoke break!”
So do I!
hahahahahaha! Good one!
“Both of them ended up getting banned for their antics, btw.”
I’m with you. At least with the Pitt Bull and train threads, there was a well spirited exchange of IDEAS. This trollz continued existence on FR is a complete mystery to me!
I'm so sorry --- I meant post #85 (which was in response to his Royal Hiney @ 79) I'm so sorry.
“Following the evolutionists’ own story,”
These same Darwinists are the folks that believe in survival of the fittest, except when it comes to expecting people to be self sufficient. In that case, they believe that we should govern to the weakest elements of society.
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