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.
I was able to muddle through in my own pathetic way, although my wife claimed I was moving my lips as I read. You can find much of his material archived at http://www.crank.net/
No, but as far as I know, it hasn't been banned or over weight people haven't been told they can't go into a public place where skinny people are.
I have found some really over weight people are almost fanatic about smoking.. I figured maybe they should try it and it might curb their appetites a little bit..
Greatly exaggerated as well. Sounds like you have bought into the whole anti smoking program hook, line and sinker..
Fat people make me sick!
I'm neurotic too.
: )
So I'm entitled to be as irrational as I wish.
Deal with it...
If you had a child with asthma, you would understand. I took one to the morgue once after an attack brought on by a babysitter smoking. We had to keep my daughter in the house when the neighbor would burn leaves. Enjoy your denial.
Paranoia will destroy ya.
I am sorry to hear about your child, There are exceptions asthma being one of them. Why would you hire a baby sitter who smokes. I would never smoke around a child with asthma if that was what triggered an attack and I was aware, and I think most smokers would respect that. But a child or any one with asthma that bad is usually triggered by more than one thing.
At least you didn't tell your neighbor he couldn't burn leaves and try to pass a law but now there is a law in most areas where you can't burn leaves or anything else. Maybe you did. Now we have to pay someone to haul them off. My son was allergic to freshly mown grass but we sure didn't stop cutting the grass. We bagged it then watered down the lawn after it was cut, which seemed to help, and we didn't try to have a law passed that forbid our neighbors from cutting grass.
I'm not living in denial at all. I am aware that there are a lot of people out there who have allergies. I'm allergic to certain perfumes. I try to stay away from them. I don't want them ourlawed. What bothers me is the hysteria on the anti side. It's a campagn of behavioral modification.
I am convinced that most of the anti smoking hype is brought on by the companies like those who make products such as Nicoderm since they sure seem to be pushing " The Patch" "The Gum" "The Pill" etc. The stop smoking campaign has become big business with big bucks to be made and how to you make your business grow if your selling " Nicoderm" etc.? Convince everyone to quit smoking and sell them your product. If that doesn't work, convince non smokers that smoking is bad for them.
Laws are worthless on this but so is denial. People need to know that smoking and excess perfume can cause problems with others. My daughter goes to a school with a child that is so asthmatic that he had to be taken out of school for home-bound study. And his mother smokes in the house and in the car with him. And his mother demands the government spend money to home-school him because he is so sick.
She needs to quit smoking around him. She is making the problem worse.
The following thread was posted on 11/26/200. This "person" sees fit to resurrect it! heh!
There is no excuse for smoking. lets say for one instance that it is overexagerated. are we really going to let our children and families be exposed to it even though it "might" be bad for you?!?!? My daughter has lung problems, and her father tries to use these same poor excuses to justify him smoking around her. isn't the fact that that they have found toxins and PROVEN that it does kill some people enough to say that we shouldn't be exposing people to it? What do we get from it? NOTHING!!! Does it benefit human kind any? NO IT KILLS!! does it make you feel good? NO YOU HACK YOUR LUNGS OUT EVERY MORNING!! Quit resisting and just accept the fact that there is no good reason to smoke. The only thing you people are trying to do is come up with excuses to keep filling sick and unsuspecting peoples lungs with toxic air. weather its AS bad as they say it is, is irrelevant!! Just the fact that its bad should be common sense enough to stop!!!
I'm not even going to justify answering ANY of your dumb questions. And why or why would did you resurrect a thread from back in 2002???? Are you that hard up to post something??!!
Sounds like she has some kind of anti smoking agenda or something.. lol yeah she bumps a 4 year old thread.. that will really get people on her side.. hahah..
Thanks for the ping :)
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