Oh we do!!! Hubby is going back today to get another load!!!!!!
Of course, HIS are in the RED bags for regular. I smoke Menthol!
Posted on 11/26/2002 4:58:07 AM PST by SheLion
Too much is made of the 4,000 chemicals in tobacco smoke. We're told these chemicals are so harmful that they are responsible for the deaths of millions worldwide. Untold in this "war on tobacco" is that each of the plants we consume consists of an equally daunting thousands of chemicals many of which are recognized poisons or suspected cancer-causing agents.
Cayenne peppers, carrots and strawberries each contain six suspected carcinogens; onions, grapefruit and tomato each contain five -- some the same as the seven suspected carcinogens found in tobacco.
High-heat cooking creates yet more dietary carcinogens from otherwise harmless chemical constituents.
Sure, these plant chemicals are measured in infinitesimal amounts. An independent study calculated 222,000 smoking cigarettes would be needed to reach unacceptable levels of benzo(a)pyrene. One million smoking cigarettes would be needed to produce unacceptable levels of toluene. To reach these estimated danger levels, the cigarettes must be smoked simultaneously and completely in a sealed 20-square-foot room with a nine-foot ceiling.
Many other chemicals in tobacco smoke can also be found in normal diets. Smoking 3,000 packages of cigarettes would supply the same amount of arsenic as a nutritious 200 gram serving of sole.
Half a bottle of now healthy wine can supply 32 times the amount of lead as one pack of cigarettes. The same amount of cadmium obtained from smoking eight packs of cigarettes can be enjoyed in half a pound of crab.
That's one problem with the anti-smoking crusade. The risks of smoking are greatly exaggerated. So are the costs.
An in-depth analysis of 400,000 U.S. smoking-related deaths by National Institute of Health mathematician Rosalind Marimont and senior fellow in constitutional studies at the Cato Institute Robert Levy identified a disturbing number of flaws in the methodology used to estimate these deaths. Incorrectly classifying some diseases as smoking-related and choosing the wrong standard of comparison each overstated deaths by more than 65 per cent.
Failure to control for confounding variables such as diet and exercise turned estimates more into a computerized shell game than reliable estimates of deaths.
Marimont and Levy also found no adjustments were made to the costs of smoking resulting from the benefits of smoking -- reduced Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease, less obesity, depression and breast cancer.
If it were possible to estimate 45,000 smoking-related Canadian deaths as some health activists imagine -- and Marimont, Levy and other respected researchers think it is not -- then applying an identical methodology to other lifestyle choices would yield 57,000 Canadian deaths due to lack of exercise and 73,000 Canadian deaths blamed on poor diets.
If both the chemical constituents of tobacco smoke and the numbers of smoking-related deaths are overstated -- and clearly they are -- how can we trust the claim that tobacco smoke is harmful to non-smokers?
The 1993 bellwether study by the Environmental Protection Agency that selectively combined the results of a number of previous studies and found a small increase in lung cancer risk in those exposed to environmental tobacco smoke has been roundly criticized as severely flawed by fellow researchers and ultimately found invalid in a court of law.
In 1998, the World Health Organization reported a small, but not statistically significant, increase in the risk of lung cancer in non-smoking women married to smokers.
Despite these invalidating deficiencies, the Environmental Protection Agency and World Health Organization both concluded tobacco smoke causes lung cancer in non-smokers.
One wonders whether the same conclusions would have been announced if scientific fraud were a criminal offence.
When confronted with the scientific uncertainty, the inconsistency of results and the incredible misrepresentation of present-day knowledge, those seeking to abolish tobacco invoke a radical interpretation of the Precautionary Principle: "Where potential adverse effects are not fully understood, the activity should not proceed."
This unreasonable exploitation of the ever-present risks of living infiltrates our schools to indoctrinate trusting and eager minds with the irrational fears of today. Instead of opening minds to the wondrous complexities of living, it opens the door to peer ridicule and intolerance while cultivating the trendy cynics of tomorrow.
If we continue down this dangerous path of control and prohibition based on an unreliable or remote chance of harm, how many personal freedoms will remain seven generations from now?
Eric Boyd of Waterloo has management experience across a wide range of sectors.
You just illustrated the principal point...
According to Darwin, many people shouldn't really survive to adulthood. That they do is a benefit of modern science and medicine.
The problem arrives when public policy is based on people with marginal genes.
Why is it that of the 10 documented longest lived smokers, 9 smoked past age 100?
Even an oncologist who believes he is god has better sense than to look stupid saying that to a non-smoker with lung cancer...
You are correct. Although I don't operate a restaurant or cook anymore, the spineless, mind atrophied, smoke nazis now enjoy the delights of Denney's and their ilk.
The truth, they need to get a life. By doing this, they would have no time or desire to meddle in mine. I feel these poor slobs attitude is a direct result of their mindless, do nothing jobs. I say again, get a life, get a real job.
Part of the charm of my restaurant was the exposed kitchen, it was all visible.
Thank you SO much! You know, we aren’t mindless boobs that think smoking is good for us. But this war on the smokers is just the beginning of the erosion of rights for the American people. I don’t care how they cut it or how they spin it, but when a group of well-funded anti-health fanatics go into a private business and DEMAND that they make their establishment smoke free…….this goes against all the grains of our being.
These well-funded anti-smoking health fanatics with an agenda will stop at nothing to achieve their goal. They will lie boldface to the American public, and the general public believes it. Taking their lies at face value without saying “wait a minute, let me do some research and find out if this is true.” No…….the general public, most of which do not smoke, could care less. It isn’t infringing on THEIR rights, so they do nothing about it. But you just wait! Someday in the not to distant future, the rights of the non smoking general public will be at risk, if we stay on the path that we are going.
Ok, I will get off of my soap box. LOL
Rabid????
Rabid = Afflicted with rabies.
Extreme, fanatical
Raging, violent
Smokers are "RABID?" Pretty strange choice of words.
Oh wow! They GOT a job: banning, restricting and controlling smokers!
And since they are SO well funded by the Tobacco Settlement money, they are laughing all the way to the bank.
And smokers who pay taxes on cigarettes are PAYING for this abuse. ugh!
That wasn't the question though - was it?
The issue is, they do not base your premiums on the activities that would cause AIDS. That would be discrimination, wouldn't it?
;^ )
Becki
Exactly. Thank you!!!
For one thing, you bring anecdotes, and expect it to be believed and it is, trouble is when we use anecdotes, they are just that ANECDOTES....... not to be taken seriously.
LOL, suggest you stock up on loose tobacco, ours is now $42 for 200 grams.
Wonder how Dr LUV will like THAT one!
Oh we do!!! Hubby is going back today to get another load!!!!!!
Of course, HIS are in the RED bags for regular. I smoke Menthol!
Quit smoking, you may live longer...
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