jaganath wrote:there is no conclusive evidence on the harms of second hand smoking, yet some people still claim it is dangerous, as if it's the truth.
Erssa, just because something is difficult to prove doesn't mean the effect isn't there. Can you imagine how difficult it is to isolate just one factor out of the hundreds of thousands of different chemical substances that humans come into contact with every day? Medicine is not like other sciences, it's not possible to put 100 people in a room with second-hand smoke for 50 years and compare them with a control group, so all we can do is look at animal studies, look at lots of medical studies and say,
on the balance of probabilities, second-hand smoke is harmful.
I'm not saying that second hand smoking is totally harmless. The question is, if it is harmful enough to be considered dangerous? My opinion is that the risks are so small that they are statistically neglible. It would have been proven conclusively, if there were real solid evidence of it being truly harmful. The biggest harm from being exposed to passive smoking is smelly clothes.
After all, if smoke is bad for the person doing the smoking, why wouldn't it be bad for other people? The smoke doesn't magically transform into something else once you have exhaled it.
Well you know what happens if you duct the exhaust of your car inside your car and go for a ride in the garage. However you can still stand next to your car and not die from the exhausts. I agree that smoking is bad when done directly, but...
Most people (unless exhausted) inhale through their nose. The purpose of nose hair is to filter out the nasty stuff like tar that goes directly to you lungs, when you inhale through a filter. I have read your posts on these forums and I know you are intelligent enough to realize this. Now let's focus on what's dangerous about smoking? Nicotine, tar, carbon monoxide and carcinogens... We all know these are harmful, I'm not denying it. Now I'm the first to admit, I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure one can measure how much carbon monoxide and nicotine ends up in smokers system, it can be done with blood test and urine samples for example. You don't have to be exposed for 50 years to see, that this stuff accumulates to smokers body. Now what about passive smokers, I'm sure the same kind of test can and
has been done to people exposed to second hand smoking. Had the test revealed that these negative substances accumulate to smokers body, in big enough amounts to cause harm, it would have been proven by now, besides I haven't heard of anyone getting nicotine addiction from second hand smoking. So what about tar? I'm pretty sure, the miniscule amounts in open air gets stuck to nose hair, at least I know my nose is full of shit after a night in a bar with poor air conditioning, so it has to be working, right? I'm not sure how much can accumulate to someones lungs after exposures of many years, but I doubt, the amounts are pretty insignificant. What about carcinogens? Probably hard to measure from a passive smokers body, but one can use statistics to figure out how many could even be possible victims. I'm sure there are good statistics on lung cancer and the ratio of smokers to non smokers. Smokers are clear winners here as we all know, but what about non smoker compared to passive smokers? Around 1 out of 2000 americans get lung cancer every year, around 85% of these cases are with smokers. So now the percentage of non smokers for getting a lung cancer is what? Around 1 out of 12000? Now start calculating the number for passive smokers out of those non smokers... It's statistically insignificant compared to those who aren't even exposed to passive smoking. My numbers aren't the exact truth, but the real numbers are pretty close.
Our government has just passed a law, that forbids smoking in restaurants and bars. I think it's great, it makes these places much more enjoyable, when your clothes and hair don't smell like shit after a night out. They are also the only places, that I recognize as possibly dangerous when exposure time is long (years). But I really doubt that there are people in the restaurant business, that work on smoky conditions and don't smoke. What I don't like in the "passive smoking gives cancer" theory is that people use it to fight false causes. For example non smokers have tried to ban their neighbours from smoking on ones owns balcony. I firmly believe that people should always take other people in consideration in every situation. Smokers shouldn't smoke, if it clearly exposes others to smoke too much. And non smokers should also take the smokers right into consideration and not always cry, if there isn't really a reason for it.
The reason why I dislike the lies about the dangers of passive smoking, is the cases where non smokers are trying to do stuff like limit ones right to smoke on their own balcony.
Everybody who has inhaled air, has died, I wouldn't still call breathing dangerous
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Beyonder wrote:Erssa wrote:
My advice is to enjoy your life, if you like smoking, go for it. Life is too short to struggle against bad habits.
After watching two grandparents die from Emphysema and another from lung cancer, I couldn't disagree with this more. Life is too short up until you have some fatal ailment, and then suddenly it can't possibly be long enough.
Having seen first hand what terminal lung cancer looks like, trust me: smoking isn't worth it.
Well I hope your grandparents lived happy lives. The truth is we die eventually no matter how healthy lives we try to live. My old volley ball coach had a heart attack this summer and died, at the age of 45. And he was living as healthy as anyone else. It just proves no matter what you do, you lose. No need to live with a bad concience because of a bad habit.
I'm probably not going to live to be old. 3 of my grandparents were already dead when I was born. The only granny I have is now at a respectable age of 90, but for many years she has been in a condition, that I don't deem worth living. Often in hospital fighting diseases, or then in a retirement hope in bed care, unable to even go to bathroom on her own, sometimes afraid of her own children, because she is sometimes unable to recognice them... Last summer we celebrated her 90th birthday, when we had dinner I felt so sorry for her, when she was trying to eat her napkin instead of the food. My aunts tried to take the napkin away from her, but she got so upset, that they had to give it back to her. I would never want to see me reduced to the point, where my mind has already left my body. Sometimes it's just better to die, while you can still do it with dignity, even if House said: "You can live with dignity. You can´t die with it."
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