Safe Cigarettes?

CDPatten writes "The UK Times Online is reporting that we could see a 'safe cigarette' next year. From the article: 'BRITISH American Tobacco (BAT) is to launch a controversial 'safer cigarette' designed to cut the risk of smoking-related diseases such as cancer and heart failure by up to 90%.' I wonder if this will have any impact on the no smoking bans we have seen in recent years?"

Comments

Cause or Risk Factor? (warning pro-smoking)

[dada21]

No one in my family smoked ever, I was the first. I recently "quit" because of financial reasons, no health. In terms of health, I don't see the causation connection, especially in second hand smoke.

My physician smokes 2+ packs a day. He's 80. He runs, avoids trans fats and high glycemic foods. Many of my older customers smoke but also maintain good diets and exercise.

I started smoking at 21. I had bad bouts with kidney stones that no medications or diet helped. A San Francisco quack Chinese herbal nut told me to smoke. 5 years with zero kidney attacks. Giving it up at 26 gave me 3 years of kidney pains. Smoking again relieved it. Since I stopped a few weeks ago, the pains are back.

My TMJ was also reduced from smoking. It has affected me since the age of 11.

I'm not saying smoking is safe or healthy. I am saying it has some benefits, and the high carb high trans fat diet of most Westerners is far worse. If it wasn't for high taxes and tort suit payments, I'd continue to smoke. I know I live a healthier life because of it.

By the way, I ran a half marathon while smoking 10 cigarettes, and am in great physical shape (good blood pressure, cholesterol, etc). Don't believe the hype.

Re:Cause or Risk Factor? (warning pro-smoking)

[slamb]

I couldn't care less if it's totally harmless to me in the long term - in the short term it gives me what feels like an allergic reaction (stuffiness, watering eyes, lethargy) which isn't very pleasant. [...] But in enclosed public spaces, please refrain from it - those of us who don't smoke find it at best smelly, at worst, feeling a bit ill.

Some of us more than a bit ill. Second-hand smoke causes me real short-term problems. I've heard people say that cigarette smoke isn't an allergen; it's chemical sensitivity. Whatever you call it, the effect is the similar to - but more potent than - my other allergies. My eyes burn and water, I cough and sneeze, and my sinuses fill, which often leads to a sinus infection, which means a week of misery and $100 of antibiotics. Probably a day missed from work. I used to live in Iowa, so there were a number of places I just couldn't go - bars, bowling alleys, etc. I had sinus surgery to to prevent the infections, with disappointing results.

I've moved to California, where they have seen reason. I can go anywhere. I'm incredibly sensitive to smoke, so I do have occasional problems still. I'll smell smoke and see a coworker who walked past and is now 100 feet away; the smell lingers. If I smell it, I know it will cause me problems. If I don't smell it, it still might. (I once had a pretty bad reaction to a hotel room that smelled just fine to me. Never found out why.) I deliberately shun people who smell like smoke. If I am forced to be near them, I take a shower as soon as I get home.

Environment

[GenKreton]

And how will this even attempt to address the environmental issues concerned with smoking?

Not only is it a useless and harmful pastime to people, it greatly hurts the environment. Up here in New England (USA) we even have stories of deer venturing onto roads to eat cigarette butts and causing accidents, all because they are addicted. It is also just unsightly to see them all over roads and sidewalks. All things considered it is harmful to everything and everyone.

Re:We need deadlier cigarettes

[IdleTime]

I agree! While we are at it, why not:
- Make cars more unsafe so people die when they crash? That way we will have fewer crashes
- Make materials more flameable? That way a fire will ensure everyone gets killed. THAT will teach people to be more carefule with matches and lighters.
- Make cellphones give you an electroshock when you say something ungodly? Then everyone will be religious and believe in the same crap.

Yes, by golly! I think you are on to something... Why not just use all the nuclear weapons we have? Then we will not be having this discussion in the future!

Re:tobacco still sucks - canabis

[Anonymous Coward]

Many of us use tobacco to mix with canabis. this makes it burn in a better way, and helps us to regulate dose...

we'd like to see something nicotine free, but burn well. we're going to do canabis whether it's legal or not, as will other smokers smoke. I think this sort of thing is a good thing for most involved.

if they legalised pot, and made better ways of regulating the doses I'm sure we'd all be a lot happier!

Re:Smoke isn't safe.

[croddy]

doubtful.

bans on smoking in public places tend to be based on the annoyance an essentially selfish mob -- despite the lack of any evidence to suggest that there are any detectable consequences to periodic outdoor exposure, or occasional indoor exposure to secondhand smoke.

(when you ask the "smoking ban" crowd about the major reasons to support their proposals, it usually has something to do with not liking how their clothes smell when they get back from a bar.)

smoking bans are centered mostly around "getting rid of the smokers", and not around any sort of logically conceived rationale. certainly, those who spend most days indoors with a smoker are exposed to harmful levels of secondhand smoke, but the "smoking ban" mob has twisted those studies quite dishonestly, applying them to situations, such as public parks and bars, where the exposure is so limited that it has not been possible to prove any health consequences except for the smoker.

merely living in los angeles, for example, is far, far worse than sitting next to someone at the bar who's smoking a cigarette. driving five miles in an SUV, i've read, produces the same amount of airborne toxins as something like twenty packs of cigarettes.

it is natural that the tobacco industry should try to produce a less harmful cigarette for those who do choose to smoke, or find themselves unable to quit. it is, however, entirely unrelated to the recent trend of smoking bans enacted rather dubious reasons.

Re:Yes! deadlier cigarettes!

[genus babbage]

In the UK at least, smokers pay significanly more in taxes than it costs the health system to look after them while they die; IIRC the figure is around an order of magnitude difference. Smokers tend to die earlier than non smokers too, which means they're less of a burden in old age.

Of course, non of this changes the fact that it's a disgusting habit, imposed on others in the form of passive smoking, and leaves clothes and hair stinking, and any rooms/furnishings stinking forever after.

Personally I loath smoking, and would support any taxes or bans imposed on it; morally I think people have a right to kill themselves however they want to - but please do it in your own homes.

Re:tobacco still sucks

[UttBuggly]

" It makes you cough, stink and die. What's not to like? " Absolutely...and does so very effectively and insidiously. Nicotine is amazingly good at the addictive-formation onslaught to the human brain. From personal experience, I can tell you that nicotine is a life-long template in your brain whether you're smoking or not. I smoked 22 years. And I wasn't a "light" smoker. 2-3 packs a day, more when I was drinking alcohol. I quit in 1994. I was thrilled to redsicover the taste of food, drink, and the air in general. I got into incredible physical shape and life was good. I got remarried in 2004 and discovered the wife was "a social smoker". I had only ever known two kinds of people, smokers and non-smokers. I had no idea a SMALL fraction of people get addicted to nicotine so slightly, that they APPEAR to be able to "take or leave" cigarettes. And, to top it off, she smoked my favorite brand. A few months ago, I found myself smoking 2-3 cigarettes every evening after dinner. Right up to the second I lit one up, I'd actually think "I won't be smoking any more of THESE" and do it anyway. I finally quit again 4 weeks ago as has the wife. Nicotine sucks.........

My smoking rule:

[Hosiah]

If it doesn't grow out of the ground, don't smoke it.

This lets all cigarettes off the list, as very little of their content is actual tobacco. The rest is chemicals, mostly formulated to give you an intense rush and keep you addicted. Try smoking pure tobacco out of a pipe for a week. You'll feel better, and you won't get dizzy with the rush of the first smoke of the morning, it tastes and smells better (non-smokers always compliment the aroma of a pipe; when did that ever happen with a Marlboro?), and, while you'll still have the habit, it won't be as extreme. Natural tobacco doesn't make you feel like a crack addict who's going to snap if you don't get your fix NOW! - it's a kinder, gentler urge which makes it easier to gradually cut down. You can make it through a whole day without and it doesn't drive you crazy.

PS Cigarettes are the only thing I can think of that one can purchase for ingestion that doesn't have any ingredient information at all. Everything else - including gum, medicine, and even things you don't ingest like cleaning products has the components listed in meticulous detail. What do you suppose the big secret is?

Re:We need deadlier cigarettes

[Lillesvin]

Yes, you're right. I was a bit fast on the reply-button there. No, we haven't had any all-out wars between major powers since ww2, but I'm not sure that can be attributed to nukes alone. The way of war has changed a lot too. Wars are now fought more through propaganda than ever before, just look at the media... "Keep the people scared, so they're more easilly convinced that invading every middle-eastern country is a capital idea!" :-p (Ok, j/k - at least about the last part of the former sentence.)

You sound like a nice person so I'd rather you didn't die a few years earlier

Why, thank you! :)

[...] I'd ask you to be considerate of where you do smoke. Consider it like talking on your cellphone [...]

That's pretty much exactly what I'm trying to. (Though, some teenagers seem to not get that talking on a cellphone in the theatre is annoying to others.) I'm very well aware that non-smokers are easilly annoyed by my smoking, so I try to only smoke where I'm allowed to. (Of course there are the occasional mishaps, where I have missed a "no smoking" sign - but then I leave or extinguish my smoke when I'm made aware of it.) I'm not trying to irritate anyone by smoking, I'm just trying to smoke for my own sake.

However, places where smoking's allowed get more and more rare around here (Denmark), which kind of annoys me, because I hate being tossed outside when it's freezing and snowing. On the university we used to have some designated smokers' rooms with just a couple of tables, ashtrays, some chairs and a window. Now they've removed those and we're only allowed to smoke outside. :-( I really don't think they removed them because the non-smokers on the university got annoyed by the smokers in there. I mean, non-smokers had absolutely nothing to do there, since the only reason for coming there was smoking. So why did they remove them? Government policy, as far as I understand. Smoking is to be prohibited in all public buildings. It's not like there was any cost in maintaining those rooms, but for some reason they chose to remove them all... Just before the winter kicks in...

The witch-hunt has started and smokers are the prey. :-/

Now, regarding the social acceptability of smoking and won't somebody think of the children... ;-p

I don't have any children, but if I did I'd never encourage them to smoke, but neither would I try to stop them if they decided that they wanted to. My parents have always had a strong faith in my siblings and I being capable of making the right choices. I hope that I'll be able to trust my children in the same way. As I said, I have no doubt that I'm happier smoking than I would be not smoking, so for me smoking adds to the quality of my life (yeah, of course not physically, I know).

I don't think social acceptability is really anything to worry about, unless you want to place smokers in the same semantic category as pedophiles, drug addicts and the lot. I know some already do, but does smoking make anyone a bad person? Has a smoker ever commited a crime to pay for cigarettes? (Not that I know of.) This is directly related to the issue with trusting the children. If you trust that your children are capable of making the right decisions, then you needn't worry about them seeing people smoking. It's not like anyone can hide it completely anyways. At some point they will encounter someone smoking - if they're used to it chances are they'll think "hmm, just another smoker", but if it's something completely new, then they might suddenly get curious and maybe even try it because "it's so mysterious". I guess it can work the other way around too, if they start to smoke they'll be "just another smoker" (no big deal) or they'll be "different" (I guess it can be "different" in both a bad and a cool/good way). The issue of social acceptability of smoking is a delicate one and should be handled with care, but I don't think hiding stuff the way american media does is the way. I say, let people see what people do and let's then hope that everyone is able to make a right decision.

Long rant, sorry... I need a smoke. ;-)

Re:Still Safe?

[Doc Ruby]

Of course they should. The cost of discarding internal combustion is much higher than prohibiting smoking in enclosed public spaces. But the cost of keeping the internal combustion is extremely high. Lots of asthma and other respiratory conditions. Greenhouse effect. Addiction to the hydrocarbons is by far the greatest security risk ever, as well as producing some of the worst tyranny imagined.

So your sarcastic comment is actually true. Which are all reasons why we've already decreased that pollution quite a bit - for our own good, despite our self-destructive desire to just burn away. But it's not enough - we're still burning too much, polluting ourselves too much. We need to cut down more. Especially as we're now approaching a forced quitting as the hydrocarbons run out. Thank you for seeing the light.

Re:What I'm waiting for is...

[lithiumfrost]

You can't be serious. Of the 4 drugs you listed there, MDMA (ecstasy) and cocaine are proven to possess a dose and tolerance independent mortality. In fact, you could snort one line of coke and die, or do it for a year at the same dose and then die. There's no way to know.
 
As far as ecstasy is concerned, it's pretty much the same story, and they believe that use results in serious long time repercussions, not to mention the same problem as cocaine. You never know when the same dose will kill you.

another threat from smoking

[SethJohnson]

Tobacco addicts endanger our lives more than by the carcinogens they exhale into the air. Their habit also is the leading cause for fire-related deaths. If you live in an apartment building and smokers also live in that building, you are depending on them not to fall asleep with a cigarrette burning in an ashtray on their beds. It's really common for an entire building to go up in flames due to unsupervised cigarrettes. So, yeah, smoking is a pretty significant threat to non-smokers.

Seth