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To: Lexinom
If smoking gives you pleasure, you implicitly accept the risks as you would for any other pleasure - including the 15% you will get lung cancer, and the 12% chance you will die from lung cancer. There is nothing wrong with smoking morally, just as there is nothing wrong with consuming prime rib.

Couldn't you justify practically any behavior using that line of reasoning?

354 posted on 04/08/2005 7:57:26 AM PDT by BlackRazor
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To: BlackRazor
No. For example, I would not be able to justify rape because that directly affects another. Secondhand smoke's effects, by contrast, remain controversial. There are other, little-studied environmental factors about which we know little. For example, what effect do electromagnetic fields from CRT's (TV's, older monitors) have on cytologic function and oncogenetic mutation? With cancer rates increasing (not just lung cancer) we must admit there is much we do not know. We don't know what causes Pancreatic cancer, for example. If we were to eliminate all of the factors that might lead to cancer, there's a good chance we'd all be locked into hermetically sealed, magnetically sheilded chambers. I choose to enjoy life instead.

Personally, if smoking my pipe in your presence would bother you, I would not do it out of consideration. But sniffing smoke is not going to kill you. It takes years, and years, and years of constant exposure to even have a chance of developing a bronchogenic neoplasm. That chance for smokers, overall, is 16% over the smoker's lifetime. That does not account for number of cigarettes, whether it's cigar or pipe instead - just the mean. Almost everybodys' lungs will heal over time, given the chance.

419 posted on 04/10/2005 12:25:43 AM PDT by Lexinom (You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.)
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