The Dark Furie

Fortunately (I would have said 'Thank God', but I don't want to offend anyone) we still have a couple of tobacco shops in my town, where the people behind the counter actually know their products. However, those shops are not always around when you need them. I share your sentiments on the subject of freckled teens with squeeky voices who can't seem to find what is right in front of their eyes at a time when you are just about to commit genocide for a smoke.

And... A red packet with a legend saying 'Smoking Will Kill You' is attractive, even fashionable? Yeah, right...

Death to Ronald MacDonald!

*Puff*

Which it still is, of course. Defying death will always be cool.

next thing they will say is herion is attractive cause of the silver foil for god sake!!!! i started smoking at fourteen for many reasons but not because of attractive packaging. ive only given up cause im pregnant. and a tip for when crappy teens want you to buy fags just take their money and say ok will do, what u want then just leave laughing manically and smoking infront or them hahahahaha

It's not just Ronald, it's KFC and Wendy and Buuurrrgerrrr Kiiiiiing. They're all at it, like tobacco companies. Ronald takes a beating, but personally, I think KFC products are *far* worse, health-wise.

I gave up smoking for several reasons, my (future) health not being a consideration, or one of the issues

lol nah dont worry im not a crack head mummy lol!!!! although i really fancy a smoke after all this talk lol wudnt wanna spoil my whole 3 smoke free days tho.

Anti-smoking campaign is all over Serbia now. Government forced a new law against smoking in public spaces - offices, pubs, restaurants (but left the possibility if they are less than 80 square meters to choose whether they will allow smoking or not). They even founded some kind of special police force - they are unarmed (except batons) and their main job will be, among other things, to prevent smokers to drop fagends on sidewalks or anywhere else except garbage cans
And no one asked how much it would cost.
And all of it in a country where a lot of people are quitting smoking because prices of cigarettes went through a roof and salaries are drilling a floor
And minister of health said something I can`t quote because:
a) I can`t prove it
b) I don`t want to end up in a jail

Out here smoking is banned in offices, public buildings, restaurants, theateres, public transport etc you've got to go out to a public road to smoke.
Also all packs carry a warning and a picture of a lung or something but don't think this has affected smoking much.
Although I do know a couple me guys who have successfully kicked the habit but it wasn't due to any of the government rules for sure.

My reason to keep smoking is complex and not easy to explain, but there is an amount of politics in it. Smoking has always been a statement of free living and rebellion, etc. but in our time it has become a political statement as well.

However, my primary reason for not quitting is that I am addicted to nicotine. This goes for the majority of smokers.

In fact I believe it's just around 100% of us.

im not addicted * says she whilst sucking ever ounce of fag smoke outof the cusions* i gave up real easy (please ignore the nervous tick and shaking) hehehe

Quitting coffee? Now that idea is just wrong, Mik. Wrong.

Originally posted by Mik Furie:

"I like living dangerously. That's why I date blondes."

does Kimmie know?

Originally posted by Aqualion:

Quitting coffee? Now that idea is just wrong, Mik. Wrong.

+1

Well, life's a bitch and then you die. A life style that supports the illusion of eternal youth an infinite health might be good for some people. I don't need that. I face death every day. Like everybody else. I have just passed the point where I can be bothered with ignoring that fact.

smoke advertising is banned here.. Err cigarette advertising.
And warning labels on each pack is mandatory. I always choose the one that says, 'Pregnant? Breastfeeding? Your smoking can be harmfull to your baby.' i'm so smart.

We have various warnings printed on packs: Smoking causes lung cancer! Smoking is damaging health of people around you!, etc...
There is a joke about a man buying a pack of smokes. There was a warning Smoking may cause impotency! on them. He saw that and returns the pack to seller saying: Please, give me those ones that causes lung cancer, I am having a date tonight...

I'm fully in favour of intelligent people working hard to find ways to stop people from starting to smoke to begin with. .
Now if only we could find some intelligent people in the government. .

As for the cashier not being able to read the name on the pack, that sounds like a qualification problem. In South Africa, a cashier is usually expected to be literate. .

I've heard that the gross pics are on the way to the packets here too. Until now we 'just' have the warning signs on them. I'm not sure if any of it helps.
The law against smoking in public places has changed things a bit here, and I must say that it feels good to come home after a night out without having my hair and clothes smelling of smoke.

There's no smoking in public places here too, and there are govt. proposals to make NZ tobacco free by 2025 That's way more than just 'smoke free'.

The only thing that puzzles me is that as a rule, smoking harms mostly the smoker (put aside passive smoking for the moment) - and yet Alcohol consumption - that damages not only the drinker, but anyone who gets in the way (drunken violence, drunk drivers etc.). Both are the results of concious decisons by the drinker\smoker, but...how come *so much* is put into anti-smoking, and perhaps not so much into alcohol education??? Or am I wrong about that? :interested:

@flarin your definitly right i mean ive never smoked a fag and then beat someone up or crashed my car lol

Originally posted by FlaRin:

how come *so much* is put into anti-smoking, and perhaps not so much into alcohol education???

I think I can answer that. 14,000 people dies in Denmark every year because of smoking. And 'only' 2,800 dies because of alcohol.

Originally posted by FlaRin:

but...how come *so much* is put into anti-smoking, and perhaps not so much into alcohol education???

The alcohol lobbyist are saying to the law makers... "Hey, look over there! Aren't those tobacco people doing something unhealthy?"

Originally posted by Pussy Cat:

14,000 people dies in Denmark every year because of smoking. And 'only' 2,800 dies because of alcohol

My God!! Those are serious figures! Yes, then it makes sense, although I suspect the 2000 drink deaths don't include people run over & killed by drunks, or beaten to death outside clubs & suchlike. But that won't make much, if any difference to the stats - 14,000 a year. Fuck! If the Govt. didn't nake *so much* money out of tobacco, it would be as illegal as the drug of choice.

The problem with health statistics and their presumed relationship with either tobacco or alcohol is that they are extremely subjective. Nobody actually dies from 'smoking'. Smoking related illnesses exist even in the absence of smoking. Lung cancer, heart disease and other 'smoking related' illnesses occure anyway, but are automatically attributed to smoking if the patient happens to smoke. Alcohol, however, is treated differently. Only in cases of alcohol poisoning, and similar where a direct link between alcohol and cause of death can be established is alcohol mentioned on the death certificate. So every smoker who dies due to 'natural causes' contributes to the 'smoking related deaths' statistics. But most alcohol related deaths do not affect the alcohol/death statistics at all since alcohol will not be named on the death certificate of someone who was knocked down by a drunk driver, or even that of the drunk driver who wraps himself around a street pole. .
If we treated the facts of each case the same way, the statistics for alcohol related deaths would be far higher than that for smoking related deaths. .

Originally posted by laurajane1987:

ive never smoked a fag and then beat someone up or crashed my car lol

That is so true. And it is all there needs to be said in that discussion. All other arguments fail compared to this simple statement.

Originally posted by Mr M. Scientist:

Nobody actually dies from 'smoking'

Sure. But that's like saying nobody dies of HIV - it's the disease\condition that the body can't combat that actually kills you, but the root cause is the same. Smoking on the one hand, HIV on the other. Don't get me wrong, I'm not comparing the two situations at all, but it's Pragmatics, isn't it - smoking *does* kill you, not everyone that's true - some people are just born lucky - but generally - you smoke, you're chances of a comfortable middle and old age drop off the cliff very quickly indeed.

I don't want to go into whether or not you think society as such should bear the cost of your subsequent medication & treatment...but it's a vaild conversation to have...

...and I agree about 'alcohol related' statistics - the truth of the matter is so obviously much higher than 'the official figures'.

Education, then, rather than higher taxes??? Will making it more expensive just turn plain old Tobacco into Cannabis (so to speak - i.e. drive it underground)? Or.....???

Lung cancer surgery costs an average of 15000 Euros, depending on the specifics of the operation. Plus two years of medical treatment at circa 6000 Euros per year.

Full cost: 21000 Euros

I spend around 4 Euros on a packet of cigarettes, 2,8 of which is state tax. I smoke 5 packets per week. That is 728 Euros per year. I have been smoking for 26 years.

Total tax (up until today): 18928 Euros.

If I smoke for two more years, I have payed the full expense of the surgery/treatment I might need at some point - even if I stop now.

That is true pragmatics.

Plus the interest you *should have* earned, over the years

I'm not saying you shouldn't smoke, Martin - it's not that I don't care either - but long term, either tobacco must be genetically engineered so that it no longer produces all the chemical poisons that do the human body so much damage, or people need to *understand* exactly what unpleasantness they're setting themselves up for when they start (usually early teens or younger). Hard to do, I know.

Scare tactics will only work short term, ditto severe taxing - and so...what? The *real* problem is surely the tobacco companies and the people who invest in them. Any shareholders amongst our readers? - Check your portfolio. If you're anti-smoking in *any* way, look & see if you own shares in BAT, for instance - you are part of the problem, if so!

If you **really* want to do something about the smoking problem, hit the shareholders where it hurts - you, smokers, might think you're in charge, but you're not. Smoking *has* you, is it not so? And thus you are controlled by the finance managers & shareholders of the Tobacco giants. Strike out those shares (and you can, if you want), and lo - the problem might actually start to go away. If there's no *huge* profit, then the business will fade. People's lives will in due course, be unburdened by the need for a smoke and it's attendant health problems.

Don't blame the people who buy the smokes - they are in effect the victims - the real culprits are not even the Tobacco companies, but the people who fund them - the shareholders.

In my opinion <<POP>> Oh. I heard someone press the STFU button

The poisons and carcinogens are in the smoke itself rather than the tabacco. Even grilled over charcoal or smoked foods are carcinogenic. .
Nicotine inhalers are banned in some countries and the nicotine refills are banned in other countries, errite being free of the carcinogenic smoke. .

the main point I was making is that the statistical evidence against cigarettes is handled differently to the statistical evidence against alcohol.
While tabacco smoking does contribute to heart disease, for example. There are other contributing factors. The death certificate of a smoker reflects that they are a smoker, but only if they die from a 'smoking related' illness. It does not, however, reflect that a hamburger addict ate five hamburgers a day for most of his adult life. .
Both lung diseases and heart diseases can develop in a non-smoker.
As for AIDS, aka Aquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, there is no evidence that it occurs without HIV. And HIV inevitably results in AIDS. The two are inextricably linked as cause and effect. The link between heart/lung disease is not as exclusive.
Now don't get me wrong. I know that smoking increases the risks of heart and lung disease. But it is neither the exclusive cause, nor is it inevitable that a smoker will develop either illness. Many smoker live to an old age and did natural, disease free deaths. But if a smoker happens to have a heart attack, smoking is automatically listed as a causative factor even if there could possibly be other factors like job stress and greasy fast-foods which are not listed on the death certificate.
This causes a self referential pattern of evidence;
smokers have heart attack=>
heart attack causes death=>
hence smoking causes death

I bet a similar case can be made for refrigerators. I dare you to research how many heart attack victims lived in a house that contained a refrigerator and compare that with cause of death for people who didn't own a fridge. .
(the statistics will show a 'definite' link between heart attacks a fridges, but only because work related stress is less common amongst people who can't afford fridges. But there is still 'compelling' evidence. )

OK. I don't smoke, and I have a refrigerator. However, we both know that if I have a heart attack, or get lung cancer, it *won't* be because I have a fridge. (Just keeping it real )

However, if I smoke, then we *all* know that I'm dramatically increasing my chances of getting very sick, one way or another, just, and solely, because I'm introducing *a lot* of toxins and carcinogens into my body. Genetically, I might be more able to deal with them, but again I might not. It's a lottery. However, if I don't smoke, I don't have those toxins, carcinogens, etc flushing around my bloodstream. Therefore I'm returned to the default human status, with 'normal' chances of developing something nasty. It happens, something gets us all in the end. But. The more you smoke, the more you increase your chances of getting sick because you smoke.

We can bat stats back & forth all we want, but it doesn't chnage the fact that if you smoke, you increase your personal chances of getting Cancer, Heart attack, stroke, whatever...if you have a fridge, you increase the chances that your loved one will spontaniously pour you a glass of chilled Pepsi, but *not* that you'll fall over with a stroke (because you have a fridge).

We know that smoking is bad, we don't need to argue, what we need to do is discuss and see if we can agree on a worthwhile way to convince people that it's a bad idea and that they can spend their money to better effect. That's it, isn't it???

But drinking is ok then? .

Sure, Flarin, everybody knows smoking is bad. The warnings are out there, even on the cigarette pakcs. You read about it in the newspaper and watch it on television. What more can possibly be done?

What annoys me is, that smoking is overexposed as compared to many other dangers of which alcohol is only a small one. Working up a hysteria on the subject of smoking and rejecting and stigmatising smokers sort of turns the attention away from real big-issue problems like fossile fuel emissions.

I know this is a bad pun, but this way the smoking debate becomes a smoke screen, allowing people to carry on driving cars without being dragged along the same guild track as smokers are.

Generating electricity from coal - about 6,743,786,000 short tons per year and counting - doesn't only emmit CO2 but also produces waste sludge, containing mercury, uranium, thorium, arsenic, and other carcinogenic heavy metals.

This has emmidiate effect on people and is the biggest threat to life as we know it. And causes far more cases of lung cancer than cigarette smoking.

People's attention is being kept away from these far bigger issues by focusing on smoking. Smokers become scape goats on a large scale.

Someone, please open the windows and make the smoke in front of everybody's eyes dissapear.

I thought to mention George Burns earlier. .
Changing the packs to a uniform grew colour will have no significant effect on smoking in general. Not long ago, a 'new' brand of cigarettes emerged with each cigarette a different pastel colour. It didn't last very long though because it's not the colour of the packs nor is it the colour of the cigarette paper that starts people smoking.
Unfortunately, once you start smoking you become increasingly addicted to the nicotine. Only someone who has a chemical addiction can understand this really. And smoking is a curse that I wouldn't wish on anyone. .
It's scarry how quickly I became addicted to the shit. .
I have a medical problem in my right hand called Complex Regional Pain Syndrome. It started many years ago, about five years before I started smoking. Yet one doctor made the comment that I should stop smoking because it's already caused this problem. .
Doctors have convinced themselves that any medical problem that a smoker has must be because of the smoking. .
This myopia is distorting the truth. Every smoker who dies of 'natural causes' is used to bolster a distorted statistic that smoking kills. Statistics should not be considered as proof of anything. And in this case, it's the conviction of the medical field that is creating the statistic in the first place.

Find an effective way to stop people from starting to smoke in the first place, yes. But don't ignore logic and don't ascribe a cause and effect relationship as fact based on a hunch. .

fact based on a hunch.

Fact.Fact.Fact. But OK - deny away. I still don't want to argue particularly, but pushing tobacco smoke into your lungs will hurt you. Fact. You may not develop <whatever etc.> & die straight away. Also Fact. You get a bigger chance of doing so, though. Fact. But up to you - denying the damage is like denying that drinking makes you drunk. One drink one *single* alcoholic drink will affect your judgement or actions\reactions, very slightly, but it will. You can't stop it doing so. You can't stop smoking damaging your body if you smoke. You can't deny that you're doing yourself a measure of harm one way or another by smoking. Agreed?? Or.....?

I'm not really the one who's missing the point, I don't think. I don't care about fridges & house fires at all. But I'm trying to say that Smoking Kills One. Not everyone of course, but the examples of George Burns (amusing name under the circumstances) etc. are bogus, because if someone lives to 70\80\90\100 and smokes, you could argue how long would thay have lived if they didn't smoke - and the examples that there are to offer like that are *so hugely outnumbered* by the examples on the other hand, people who die of lung\throat\mouth cancer caused by hot toxic smoke, provably so, not statistics - I mean - OK, you give George Burns, I riposte with Yul Brynner, who went on public display before his death and said 'don't smoke, it'll kill you like it's killed me' or words to that effect.

I'll shut up now, because I feel very strongly about smoking and would, given the opportunity, participate in 'give up smoking' therapy, as a coach\therapist. So I'm probably more biased against it than this conversation calls for, sorry

\\edit : ...and this post started out as a focus on corporate-driven threats to children's health (McDonald's etc.) and I see Tobacco as exactly that - adults can justify their smoking somewhat (age, responsibility to self etc.) but - if you were 12 now, and *none of your family smoked*, and never had, would you start?? ? I'm pretty sure I know the answer, even if you don't - because I see it in real life all the time - family contains smokers, kid starts. Family has no smokers, kid doesn't start. You can pretty much bet your Subaru on it

Sorry - I got boring about it all - apologies Mik and Mr Scientist......

Discussions about smoking and the damages smoking causes almost always end up in discussions with smokers on one side and non smokers on the other, and that kinda blurs the picture.

People do die of smoking every day. That's a fact that's undeniable. Half the people who die of smoking in Denmark have minors still living at home. That means that it's not 90 year old auntie Hilda who's been smoking, drinking and running with men all her life. That's a fact too. We can spend days throwing facts at each other. But I don't really think it changes anything.

I couldn't care less whether people smoke or not. It's their own business. As long a people know there's a risk, then they can make their own choices.

What I do care about is the kids, who don't chose to be second hand smokers. Please be considerate and don't smoke around them. Be a good example. You would have wanted adults to have done the same when you were a kid.

Bravo That's kinda where I was trying to get, at the end....

But Kitty... Everytime you start the engine of your motorbike, the out-burst of emissions, toxic gasses and heavy metals amounts the smoke from 80.000 cigarettes. Even with combustion filter. That is a fact. And the baby sleeping in its cart in the neighbouring backyard will inhale a fair amount of this.

This fact would not make you consider riding your motorbike, would it?

Are you telling me that people die because I start my motorcycle?

I dispute the figures of 800,000,000 cigarettes, and point out that Pussy Cat probably doesn't do that 40 times a day, every day, indoors with the windows shut. Nor do you, of course, but just joining in the discussion...

Originally posted by FlaRin:

I dispute the figures of 800,000,000 cigarettes

Actually you're right. Thanks for noticing. I accidently added a zero when I wrote the comment. Sorry about that. My source compare ignition of motorbikes with the smoke from 80.000 cigarettes.

@Kitty

If you were the only Kitty starting a motorbike it would propaply not be a problem. But there are 132.768 vehicles with combustion engine in Copenhagen. 41.000 of them are company cars which means they drive every day. That is a lot of smoke. Particle pollution is a very serious deal, and most of all lung cancer deaths are caused by this.

What I am trying to say is, that we are all part of the problem with emissions. And pointing fingers at smokers, yelling 'Bad! Bad!' does not free anybody from responsability.

Compared to cars, factories, planes and cargo ships, smokers are absolutely no threat to the environment.