Yo quiero hablar con Sr. Megatherium. Tengo mucho preguntas. Estudio espanol para cinco anos en la escuela secondaria y para quatro anos mas en la universidad, pero yo tengo que practicar.
Having said that, I'll forgive anyone here for thinking:
Posted on 02/09/2007 4:35:32 PM PST by SheLion
WASHINGTON -- Bipartisan legislation to give the federal Food and Drug Administration regulatory control over tobacco products may be introduced next week.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesdispatch.com ...
I've mentioned it before. I am not a C that wants bans or high taxes on smokers.
How old was your Dad when he died?
I promise I won't be a wise ass. But if I drop dead tomorrow and my son ever becomes one of these crusaders who use lies and media propaganda with the idea that "Hey, people, smoking is bad. So if we have to be a little extreme to stop it, then it's OK"...I swear I will come back as a poltergeist and, and, and...have a long talk with him.
It's a matter of personal responsibility. People should quit on their own. Instead of letting fascists and charlatans tell them what to do.
At least your Dad died as a free man. It's probably not much of a consolation. All 7 of my uncles smoked (my Dad was the only one who didn't). 6 of them are in their 70's and still going strong. One of them died of a heart attack in their 50's.
Two words for this guy: No comprendre.
Yup, you're right. I had forgotten about the residue etc issues in my senility.
Fitting I should do so a couple hours after posting the following:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1782198/posts
see post 43.
Iowa is just about to implement a $1.00 a pack tax. The Democrats have all the sheeple convinced this will bring in huge amounts of revenue with which they can cure all of mans' ills. At the same time, it will prevent people from smoking.
I realized long ago that the FDA kills people (by delaying approval of important new drugs). Your post serves to remind that the government not only kills people, but causes unnecessary suffering as well.
However, I am not particularly exercised about people smoking (beyond occasionally needling people on FR). I often hang out with my colleagues at the tavern, where there is cigarette smoke. (I am well aware that the risk from second-hand smoke is minimal.) Friends of mine smoke. But no one should be mislead about the dangers of smoking, they're very real. In my other post on this thread, I gave the link to the CDC web site that gives the numbers: 123,000 lung cancer deaths per year in smokers/former smokers (out of 160,000 total lung cancer deaths); 90,000 deaths due to COPD. (My mother has that; she was also a heavy smoker.) The CDC claims smokers lose on average 14 years of life.
By the way, may I mention something that might be very important -- if you're not already aware of it, there is a large study concerning use of CT scans to detect lung cancers early. This is supposed to be complete in 2009, but smaller studies indicate that this might reduce lung cancer mortality by 80%. The problem with lung cancer is that it is usually detected too late. Stages 3 or 4 (or "stage extensive" for small-cell carcinoma) are almost always fatal, less than 2% five-year survival stats. But caught in stage 1 (single tumor in lung), the cure rate is 60%. The problem with CT scans is their sensitivity, they will detect many tumors that are not malignant or are malignant but "indolent" (never growing), supposedly only 20% detected are genuinely dangerous. So the worry is that patients will be subjected to unnecessary surgeries, etc. But again, there is reason to believe that the scans will reduce mortality (instead of merely detect a lot of tumors). I hope and pray that this study proves to be successful.
This will pass. Then it will fail and the leftists will never admit that it's their stupidity that is the reason for the failure. Instead they will try to strengthen an already dumb, failing law.
Yo quiero hablar con Sr. Megatherium. Tengo mucho preguntas. Estudio espanol para cinco anos en la escuela secondaria y para quatro anos mas en la universidad, pero yo tengo que practicar.
Having said that, I'll forgive anyone here for thinking:
Good post. My husband is 72 and a smoker. I hate it but I don't even want him to have a chest x-ray. If he has cancer, so what? He, as well as all of us, will die someday. If they find lung cancer, then his problems really begin when they start treating him. The treatment could be worse than the disease.
One of his last remarks to me was, "You're not wearing a seat belt, are you?"
Not because he was against someone making the free choice to do it, but because it had been mandated by the Nanny State.
Living as a free man, for however long he lived, was essential.
I remember when that concept was a given and didn't have to be argued.
I appreciate that, thanks.
Look, 74 is still too young. He could have been there to dance at his grandkids wedding.
Would it surprise you to learn how rare lung cancer is. Out of 100,000 non-smokers, 7 will get lung cancer. Out of 100,000 smokers 166 will get lung cancer. That means 99,834 wont. Now, I'm not poo-pooing the stats. A 25x risk rate is pretty damn significant.
But it's important for people to understand the diffence between relative and absolute risks. Smoking doesn't "CAUSE" lung cancer, it significantly increases the risk of a very rare disease.
Again, I'll repeat that smoking is not healthy. People should quit. I should quit.
I just don't need MY government (who work for me, I don't work for them) telling me what legal activities I should engage in. Or using MY money in the form of taxes they've taken, to fund programs and initiatives to COERCE me to quit. Or use our money to pay a Stooge General to issue a political propaganda piece that (incidentally, every anti on the web somehow miraculously knew was coming a week before it was issued, how????) was designed to accomplish the original goals of the 93 ASSIST study...REDUCE PUBLIC TOLERANCE FOR TOBACCO USE. (See my homepage and scroll down to the bottom)
1930's 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's !!
First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us.
They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes.
Then after that trauma, our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paints.
We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking.
As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.
Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat.
We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.
We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.
We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank soda pop with sugar in it, but we weren't overweight because......
WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!!
We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.
No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K.
We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.
We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms..........WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!
We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.
We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.
We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes.
We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just yelled for them!
Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment.
Imagine that!!
The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of.
They actually sided with the law!
This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever! The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.
Libertarian ping! To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here.
The numbers I've just found on Google are 17 lung cancers per year among 100,000 persons who have never smoked, but more like 300 per 100,000 per year among current smokers (and 60 per year for the general population, smokers and non-smokers combined). (See Epidemiology of Lung Cancer; Anthony J. Alberg, PhD, MPH and Jonathan M. Samet, MD, MS; Chest, 2003;123:21S-49S.)
Also I have read of a study in Britain that indicated that of smokers who do not die of something else before age 75, the probability they get lung cancer is 15%. (The cumulative risk of lung cancer among current, ex- and never-smokers in European men .)
Waxman is pond scum. That said, he's no worse than the smokers who assert a divine right to stink up the air I breath. A pox on both their houses.
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