In a landmark report, U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona (in photo) this week sent the strongest ever warning about the dangers of secondhand tobacco smoke: It’s a killer.
“The debate is over. The science is clear: Secondhand smoke is not a mere annoyance, but a serious health hazard,” he said this week.
He cited “overwhelming scientific evidence” that tens of thousands of Americans die each year from lung cancer, heart disease and other illnesses as a result of “involuntary smoking” — and children who live with parental smokers are especially at risk for a range of health problems.
The report should give new momentum to those seeking smoke-free public places in Kansas and Wichita.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
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48 Comments
This is nothing but a bunch of healthist wackoes spewing a bunch of scare stuff to try to undermine a critical part of our economy. According to the tobacco company testimony to Congress there are no health problems with smoking; why should we believe a bunch of Godless scientists?
Although not a smoker (anymore) I fail to see why government must attack all businesses. Wouldn’t a more logical approach be to have businesses declare whether they are a smoking or non-smoking facility, and let the customers (supposedly adults) make their own decisions about entering that business? After all, does a business have a right to serve (or deny service) as they see fit?
This is one more example of a government that is wildly out of control and interfereing in far too many aspects of our lives.
I’m with raptor. I can see banning smoking in public places. Banning smoking in places of business should be a the descrection of their own policy.
They should make a business decision on it. I remember when I was a small kid that people could smoke in grocery stores and Wal-marts. Of course that wouldn’t fly today.
But I remember reading a story about a truck driver in California who got pulled over because the cop saw him smoking. He gave him a ticket for smoking in a work place, which smoking is illegal in work places. His truck was his work place so he violated the law.
If second hand smoking is a danger, then what am I to do with the mothers I see smoking in the car with kids in the back seat? Should I report child endangerment?
I like the take it out side campaign and the stop-smoking campaign, but I don’t mind people who do smoke, so long as they do take it outside.
“why should we believe a bunch of Godless scientists?”
Good question, Ben. In BushWorld scientific opinion is no different from any opinion. We should be free to discard research based findings whenever it is convenient for us.
Old Ben is right. Just think of the problems it would create if all smoking ceased.The jobs lost in just the tobacco industry alone would be tremendous. The loss of livelihood for the tobacco farmers, truck drivers, cigarette companies not to mention the tremendous loss of business to the oncologists, medical facilities, cancer drug companies, mortuaries, along with all their associated businesses. The effect on the US economy would be disastrous. God save us.
I forgot about the Medicare and social security expense when persons start living longer.
We need to establish a program to provide free tobacco products to all Republicans.
That would be a great idea, knowing what type people they are, they would take it and sell it to the Democrats.
“That would be a great idea, knowing what type people they are, they would take it and sell it to the Democrats.”
….and charge high taxes on the sale for which Democrats love to pay (otherwise, it would be racist and benefit the rich, you know).
Latest.
I’m providing cheeseburgers/fixins. Brats. Momma made cookies, don’t know what kind (she hid them). She also made pasta salad.
I’ve got about a case of Cokes, half a case of Sprite, momma made some tea and we have a few cans of lemonade. I’ve also got about a case of various light beers (confiscated from the college kids).
gster is bringing hamburger buns (with seeds)
XXX is bringing Hot Dog buns
Damoon is bringing watermelon or something.
Julie is bringing brownies/cookies.
RD is bringing a side dish.
Looks like we’ll have plenty to eat and drink!
Looking forward to seeing you all again. cell 641-6347
Hank
PS. It’s still an open invitation, if you are reading this you’re invited!
Remember in 2000, Democrats were handing out cigarettes to homeless people telling them to vote for Gore?
LOL!
Via-Christi, just announced, they plan to ban smoking from “Curb to Curb,” at their facilities. Does that mean, I can’t smoke, while walking to my car in the parking lot, or while sitting in my car?
I can tolerate NOT smoking, while inside their facility, that’s a given. And I do try to respect, non-smokers. But, sometimes these rules are made by insane people, that only see things in black or white.
Via Christi, should confine themselves, to providing and adequately staffed facility and insuring proper medical care, first and foremost. I don’t believe, they really have any other responsibility.
Maybe they’re just tired of picking up everyone’s discarded butts, James. It’s their property, they have a right to do with it as they choose.
Another thought, maybe if the hospitals wern’t so full of people with smoking related illnesses, they could adaquately staff their facilities. Do you realize that almost 500,000 people die each year due to tobacco use? Do you have ANY idea what that costs our society? Do you realize how much taxpayer money goes to providing medical care to those who have ruined their health with cigarettes? This is an issue that affects ALL of us, not just the ones who are sick. I say anything the hospitals can do to discourage people from smoking is wonderful.
So if I end up in the hospital, I have to wheel myself and anything I am hooked up to down to and across the street when I need a cigarette? Because I would do it. Or do they have medications to mitigate the nicotine withdrawl? I thought hospitals were supposed to relieve suffering.
Easy to persecute a minority with an admittedly unhealthy habit.
I try with my smoking not to offend others. I wish the non-smokers were as tolerant.
Also, as I have a habit that some see as “sinful” I pay more than my share in taxes as punishment.
Yes, there are drugs that curb the nicotine craving, I used to order them for my patients when I worked on a medical floor so they wouldn’t set themselves on fire while they were sneaking a smoke in the stairwell down the hall from their room.Just remember this JR: For kids with parents that smoke, there is a 50% greater chance that the child will take up the habit, too. Everytime you want to light up, just picture your son with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth and his lungs turning black. If that doesn’t inspire you to quit, I don’t know what will. I quit, you can quit, too.
Well I shouldn’t laugh about that. Alotta times it is my son that MAKES me want a smoke! I take your point though. First time my son smokes I’ll make him eat a whole pack of them.
Let the charges of my hypocrisy fly!
I figured I had you pegged as an exsmoker Damoon. Kinda why I posted here. Not saying that is a bad thing. It’s just that the most anti smoking folks are usually exsmokers. I know the one time I quit I could smell a cigarette at 100 feet away!
I am glad to hear that smoking patients are medicated to ease withdraw. I didn’t know that and that is why I asked. You know Damoon as I do how awful that is. Not the best way to rest and recover if you are ready to climb the walls for a drag.
It can be carried too far though. Restricting smoking I mean. In the nursing home where my Dad died, there was no smoking lounge or room. There were several old folks who had to go outside in frigid weather to smoke. I thought that was kinda wrong.
Maybe I’ll quit someday. Maybe someday smoking will be quite rare or vanish completely. BUt it is fair to note that the tobacco companies in complicity with the media and the government made smoking “cool” for more that 70 years. It will take time to erase that. That or we will just all die!
It’s more addictive than heroin. The tabacco companies knew just what they were doing by marketing to kids. They should be forced to pay back the government and isurance companies for the health care costs associated with cigarette use.Try the nicorette gum, JR. It still has the nicotine, but no smoke and tar to damage the lungs.I quit cold turkey, I think that’s really the best and least costly way to quit. Just stock up on lots of chocolate!!
I hear people saying that tobacco is more addictive than herion. I’m not trying to question you Damoon, because I know that is common comment.
But I call BS on that one. Tabacco is nowhere near as addictive as heroin. You can ask any addiction specialist, rehab center administrator, or medical doctor that. Tabacco is bad, but nowhere near as bad or as addictive as illegal narcotics.
Also! One cigarettes doesn’t kill you, but one does of heroin can. People can quite tobacco and millions of people do. But the rate of soberity among heroine is practically nilch. Most people on Heroin are addicted so dependently that they end up dieing within 10 years of use.
People attach tobacco, and rightly so. Its a legal product, but so is alcohol, and continous use of alcohol will do much more damage to your body and will contribute to your death much quicker than tabbaco products will. We are hard on drunk drivers, but not much on users.
People tout numbers on the number of deaths that are contributed to smoking, but how many people die from alochol induced damage and disease?
Alcohol permantly damages your liver, kidneys, cerebal functions, nervous system, and etc. Not including the violence that alcohol contributed to. Domestic Violence, Assults, Drunk Driving crashes, Old Town shootings, and on and on.
Ask a police officer what percent of their calls have alcohol involved. You will be surprise almost all of them.
I’m not trying to use this aurgument to defend smokers, but I think the effort against tobbaco is out of whack.
There are campaigns, PSA’s, and keeping kids from smoking (tobbacco company lawsuit requirement), but none, and I mean none, about preventing kids from drinking alcohol.
More kids will drink than smoke, but we still focus on the smoking issue.
The effort against alcohol use and prevention should be 10x as much as we should for cigerattes. But I guess the alcholic beverage companies have better lobbyist.
You can’t advertise tobbacco on television, but alcohol is ok. You can’t smoke in a restaurant, but you can drink a bottle of Vodka. Cigarettes are sold behind the counter, but a kid can pick up a 12-pack in a grocery store isle.
I just think our priorities are out of whack big time.
I used to work in a drug and alcohol treatment facility, and I’ve helped people withdraw from herion, Joe. Tobacco IS more addictive than heroin and harder to quit. Yes, heroin will certainly kill you with chronic use, as will tobacco and alcohol. There is no such thing as a “harmless” drug, legal or illegal.I agree, we need to do everything to discourage kids from abusing alcohol, the cost to our society from drug and alcohol abuse is staggering. BUT, alcohol isn’t necessarily bad for you if you have a drink or two, in fact that can be quite healthy. It’s the abuse of alcohol that’s the problem, not alcohol itself. There is nothing healthy about tobacco, and to have even one cigarette puts poison in the body and tar in the lungs. If I had to choose, I would much rather see my kid have a glass of wine with dinner than smoke a cigarette anyday.
Joe – while I agree in large measure with you about the dangers of alcohol, especially to some of us, I have to differ as well. Used in moderation (by those who can) alcohol has been shown to actually be benificial. That is not true with tobacco. Also, if the guy next to me is having a drink it does not effect me; if he is smoking a cigarette it does.
Don’t accept the newspaper stories and the surgeon general at face value. Look behind the hype at the actual studies that the surgeon general is referring to, or chooses to ignore because they don’t have the result he wants.
A MAJOR study by the World Health Organization found only one statistically significant result. Children of smokers were less likely to get lung cancer.
A lot of the studies on second hand smoke produce marginal statistical results, meaning there is not a good causal relationship.
And for you people that still wish to attack the smokers, consider this, automobile exhaust is also believed to cause cancer and other health problems, especially for those who live near highways and busy streets. So the next time you drive to your non-smoking restaurant, you have made a choice to endanger the lives of those who live along the way.
Bob, you outta be a comedian.
That is perhaps the stupidest thing I’ve ever read on this blog, and that’s saying a lot.
Of course, Hank P. hasn’t been posting lately, but still . . .
If what you say is true, paint remover warning labels would say, “close all windows and doors before use”–outside air is hazardous to your health.
Damoon! I had to do the research about Cigarettes vs. Herion. Come to find out that the word “addiction”, is carefully worded. Addiction is a compulsive disorder, while dependency is where you need it to function properly.
You are right! Cigerattes are more addictive than Herion, because of nicotines effect on the brain is relativily short. Only about 10 seconds, which prompts people to smoke continously like a chimeny, because the effects only last a few second.
Opiates have a long drawn out pain reliving function that people only need to use is sparingly.
But come to find out that cigerattes create an addiction, heroine creates a chemcial dependency.
You can break away from tobacco with little withdrawl effects, much like caffine, but in opiates, the withdrawl is extermely severe.
Yes! Cigerattes are more addictive than heroin. With it being widely available, cheap, and legal, it appears to be that much harder to quit, but in retrospect, if other drugs were the same, it’s use would far outpace tobbacco, and the reasoning why they are illegal.
For example in China before Mao, opium was widely available and cheap. The statitics range that 1/3 of the population was cronically dependent on opium and more than 1/2 were users. It far outpace tobacco in use.
Addiction to cigerattes become a complusion, based on its short high. But it doesn’t make you chemically dependent like opiates will.
They said with regular use of cigerattes it becomes a complusive habit and that is whats hard to break. Much like people who over eat or gamble, they get used to it and so it’s hard to stop. But people can quit smoking by just changing their behaviour habits.
I’m still not trying to defend smoking. I just wanted to know about the old saying that cigerattes are more addictive than heroin. It was based on a medical doctor study and it because a very famous slogan and catchpiece by anti-tobbaco crowd.
This is another thing I don’t get. People hate tobbaco so much, but they praise pot. They tout it’s medicinal properties. But isn’t pot and tobbacco practically from the same family? People want pot legalize but no smoking tobbacco?
I knew a guy I worked with back some years ago. He was in his mid-30’s and had lung cancer. He never smoked a single cigeratte in his life, but he did smoke an uwful lot of pot. He said his lung cancer was contributed by smoking pot, he doesn’t deny it and nor does his doctors.
Yet I still hear people say, “nobody has ever died smoking pot”, and “its a safe drug.” NO IT’S NOT! It is much worse than cigerattes. Yet many still continue to deny it. I don’t get it.
I guess it just depends on what side of the issue society is on now. Smoking tobbacco was very common and accepted in the past, not so much now. Smoking pot is the new champion to fight for rights. Priorities mixed up again.
And about alcohol. How somebody drinking next to you doesn’t hurt you…well it doesn’t take much to be drunk and people get behind the wheel and kill people. I love it when people say alcohol is safe and has good health effects in moderation. That is just justifing the use, but it is so easy for people to go overboard on it and millions of people do every single day. You cannot deny that alcohol as a huge negative effect on our society, much more than tobbacco.
Joe – upon what do you base “(pot) is much worse than cigerattes.”? I do not believe that to be true, at least based on my limited reading on the subject. The difference with pot is that components therein have been shown to have medicinal benefits. Also, the attempts to “prohibit” tobacco that upset you so would logically also apply to pot – i.e. not in places where others would be subjected to 2nd-hand smoke. I know of no attempts to prohobit tobacco use in the privacy of your home.
I absolutely agree with you about alcohol in excess. It IS horrible and that drug is also addictive.
Actually, I favor decriminalizing ALL drug use and focusing on education and treatment. In my unprofessional opinion that would be a more effective approach. Damoon?
Dudley,
Don’t appreciate being called stupid.
I refer you to the following sites:
http://www.davehitt.com/facts/
http://www.obscurious.co.uk/componants/smoking1440.pdf
I didn’t make this stuff up.
As for the car exhaust, it may not be such a problem here in Kansas where the wind blows most of the time, but I have been in L.A. before during one of their brown days, it’s not pleasant. And I’ve seen the brown haze before right here in Wichita. Don’t kid yourself that the great outdoor air in Wichita is as pure as it is in the middle of a wheat field in western Kansas.
Dudley,
One more site.
http://www.sdearthtimes.com/et0603/et0603s21.html
Like I said before, there is no such thing as a “safe” drug. Pot hurts the lungs also, any hot smoke in the lungs is harmful, it also has cancer causing agents like tobacco, and pot affects the mind and emotions more than cigarettes, I’ve seen people try to stop smoking pot after a 20 yr daily habit and it ain’t pretty.Heroin withdrawl is easy today, there are drugs that eliminate the withdrawl symptoms and usually the person doesn’t crave it after withdrawl. People often continue to crave cigarettes long after going through the withdrawl.
But again Damoon. Is it the chemical dependecy of cigarettes or is it the hibutial habit of smoking that they crave?
I think it’s a bit of both. Those who are predisposed with an addictive personality will have a harder time quitting than those that aren’t. There is no doubt that nicotine is physically addictive, and the smoking habit is psychologically addictive as well because people use it as a coping mechanism.
Hey, Quiet cool. BTW, I recently added a new cool News widget on my blog. Just google widgetmate. It gives a free customizable news widget that can added to your blog for latest news on the topics of your interest. Simple cut paste.
I haven’t been up to anything these days. Not much on my mind today. I just don’t have anything to say lately. I haven’t gotten much done lately. I’ve just been sitting around not getting anything done. Pretty much nothing exciting happening today, not that it matters.
Needle exchange programs help to prevent
Buyers of guns must take gun-safety courses
I feel like a fog, not that it matters. I’ve pretty much been doing nothing , but eh. Today was a loss. I haven’t gotten much done for a while.
I feel like a fog, not that it matters. I’ve pretty much been doing nothing , but eh. Today was a loss. I haven’t gotten much done for a while.
I haven’t been up to much recently, but whatever. I just don’t have much to say lately. Basically nothing happening to speak of. So it goes. My mind is like a complete blank. Such is life.
Help the homeless down the street and persuade them to look for work
An integrated, segregated society is better
Women are not, are fairly portrayed in the media
The school paddle is, is not an effective instrument to deal with bad students
Gay couples should be, should not be allowed to marry
My mind is like a fog, not that it matters. I just don’t have much to say these days. That’s how it is. I haven’t been up to anything recently.
There are too many, not enough handicapped parking spaces in our city
Estou no ?ltimo ano de Design na faculdade de belas artes de lisboa, mas, embora n„o tenha nada a ver com o curso que estou a tirar, tenho uma grande paix„o pela biologia marinha, e j· pensei v·rias vezes em tirar o curso de Biologia Marinha quando acabar o que estou a frequentar. Sei que vai ser dificil mas eu estou disposta a tentar. Por issso, se tiveream alguma informaÁ„o (cursos existentes em portugal ou estrangeiro, etc) que me possa ser ?til, agradecia que me enviassem para Muito Obrigada pela vossa atenÁ„o
People are less moral than 30 years ago
The school paddle is, is not an effective instrument to deal with bad students
Vulgar language during primetime TV is, is not okay