Surgeon General Carmona Leaves Post (Dancing in the streets alert!)

United Pro Smoker's Newsletter ^ | uly 31, 2006 | KEVIN FREKING

[SheLion]

WASHINGTON -- Quietly leaving his post as surgeon general, Dr. Richard Carmona said he would judge himself successful if he had persuaded one student to make good health choices or one mother to stop smoking.

Carmona's report condemning secondhand smoke was a hallmark of his tenure as the nation's 17th surgeon general.

[Alter Kaker]

However...............explain this:

Funny, smoking rates have dropped dramatically while health care costs have risen dramatically at the same time. It seems to me that the correlation PROVES that a lack of smokers causes higher health care costs!

Health care costs have also risen as the number of pirates worldwide has declined. I think you'd have a more credible case arguing that the lack of pirates has increased costs. The costs of treating a person with a smoking related malady are known, high and increasing.

[Alter Kaker]

I have never had a family OR friends who smoked who EVER experienced a horrible death from smoking.

Really? I'm sorry you've been so isolated. My sister flopped for months on a hospital bed in pain, eventually having holes drilled into her spinal column because with her IV drip the morphine just wasn't reaching her brain fast enough. I was a career soldier and I've seen horrible things in combat, but I have not seen anything more horrible than those final stages of lung cancer.

[Just another Joe]

The costs of treating a person with a smoking related malady are known, high and increasing.

There, I fixed that statement.

In all actuality, over the long run, smokers cost less to government and cost less in health care than nonsmokers.
Studies have proven this fact.
You want to pay more for health care? Get all smokers to stop smoking.

[Alter Kaker]

In all actuality, over the long run, smokers cost less to government and cost less in health care than nonsmokers. Studies have proven this fact.

Prove it.

[raybbr]

You just don't like the smeeeeeelllll.

True. I also am convinced of the dangers of cigarette smoke. Something that smells bad is bad. Whether it's smoke or dogpoop. Or, are you saying that we shouldn't clean up dog poop just because it smells bad? Or, maybe we should just leave smelly garbage around? After all, it's just a bad smell.

Smokers use all kinds of bad analogies and bad logic to justify their polluting themselves (which is, of course, your choice) and others who don't have a choice when somone is smoking nearby.

[Just another Joe]

The Governmental Composition of the Insurance Costs of Smoking

The Health Care Costs of Smoking

Smokers' Burden on Society: Myth and Reality in Canada

Is that enough or do you want me to bring more?

[Just another Joe]

and others who don't have a choice when somone is smoking nearby.

And therein is the problem.
If a private business establishment is clearly marked as allowing smoking ANY nonsmoker DOES have a choice.

But Nooooooooooo, you want to ban it everywhere, whether you ever might enter the business or not.

[Alter Kaker]

The NEJM study (which argues that smokers cost less because you die so much younger than the rest of us) only looks at direct health care costs.

What it fails to examine is the fact that smokers are much more likely to be out of the workforce at an earlier age, meaning they earn less money and pay less taxes. The total net costs of smoking related diseases on the economy is much higher than their direct medical costs. Moreover, the burden on insurance providers is higher too, given the loss of premium payments and the lack of Medicare reimbursement for younger cases.

Additionally, the study was conducted a decade ago. Smoking related health care costs have continued to rise, and a new study with the exact same flawed methodology would nevertheless likely yield different results.

[raybbr]

But Nooooooooooo, you want to ban it everywhere, whether you ever might enter the business or not.

Your debate/argument skills are about the third grade level. Where did I ever say that or post that?

[lewislynn]

The only reason you would be for banning it is just like almost every other antismoker out there. You just don't like the smeeeeeelllll.

That and it burns your eyes, makes you cough and makes your clothes stink.

If most smokers weren't so inconsiderate you wouldn't be having smoking bans. You've had your day, now non-smokers are going to have theirs..live with it.

[Just another Joe]

Take a look at some of the other studies.
Can you cite any studies that support your statement?

[Just another Joe]

So you're saying you DON'T have a choice of whether to enter a privately owned business establishment?
Not the DMV, not a courthouse, not city hall, but a privately owned business?

Debating skills are debatable.

[Just another Joe]

Let's face it, there is no preponderance of scientific evidence to support the banning of smoking in a privately owned business.
Therefore antismokers use junk science, lies, and money, government, pharmecutical, and other, to sway the public to ban something that has no business being banned.

You can yell "DEMOCRACY" all you want to.
It's still a tyranny of the minority, using the junk science, lies, and money that just doesn't like the smell

[CSM]

"Interesting chart but 0 is still way better and even healthier than 20."

Do you hold the same view of all carcinogens or other regulated substances? For a specific example, do you hold the same view of arsenic or sianide?

[CSM]

"the reason they don't is because smoking is either the biggest or second risk factor you can possibly give yourself for just about every disease in the book."

IF that is true, why is the country with the highest per capita smoking population also the country with the lowest per capita heart & lung disease incidence?

[aruanan]

Dancing in the streets because of one guy quitting his job that advocates quitting smoking as a healthy choice????

No, because he valued political correctness above science in declaring secondhand smoke a health hazard. This is similar to the WHO study that found that seconhand smoke either had no effect or had a protective effect. They deemphasized the study because it didn't fit in with their preconceptions. And look at what the same mindset did when Ruckelshaus unilaterally banned the use of DDT against the advice of his own scientific panels: millions of people have died as a result. I don't think that millions would die from promoting the "secondhand smoke kills" myth, but the myth is used by health Nazis to ban smoking in all sorts of venues resulting in grave economic impact on restaurants and bars and certain entertainment. Such advocacy should be funded out of the pockets of the advocates, not from the public till. They don't put their own money where their mouths are, instead, they claim, "What I want you to do is SO important that YOU should pay for it."

[CSM]

"Something that smells bad is bad."

How about the pollutants produced by welding?

[raybbr]

So you're saying you DON'T have a choice of whether to enter a privately owned business establishment? Not the DMV, not a courthouse, not city hall, but a privately owned business?

I never said that either. I don't care if you smoke yourself to death. I am arguing that cigarette smoke is bad, deadly, horrible, etc. Wherever, it is.

You should try to stay on the point.

[raybbr]

How about the pollutants produced by welding?

What about them?

[raybbr]

This is similar to the WHO study that found that seconhand smoke either had no effect or had a protective effect.

Huh? Protects? Absurd.