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

Still Safe?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought the tobacco industry said that their products already were safe? So these would be just the same again, right?

Re:Still Safe?

[cas2000]

> The ones spewing poisonous disgusting toxins in public,

you're right - cars, trucks, and other hydrocarbon-fuel based engines and generators should be banned from public spaces.

Re:Still Safe?

[cas2000]

> So your sarcastic comment is actually true.

it wasn't really sarcastic. it was highlighting the fact that the "smoking in public places" issue is just a red herring to distract people from the REAL health risk, carcinogens like benzene in petrol fumes, and (worst of all), diesel exhaust.

tobacco still sucks

[hector_uk]

it's still an addictive expensive drug.

Re:tobacco still sucks

[germansausage]

It makes you cough, stink and die. What's not to like?

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.........

Phillip Morris says...

[Palal]

"There is no safe cigarette." I think that's all we need to know.

We need deadlier cigarettes

[Anonymous Coward]

If you really want people to quit smoking, make them 100x more lethal, so that smoking a year will kill you. Then we'll see how many people actually have a motivation to quit.

Re:We need deadlier cigarettes

[MarcQuadra]

Sure thing, then we'll replace ethanol with methanol so all the evil drinkers go blind or die, followed by poisoning bacon and fast food! Surely this will make the world a better place for the rest of us!

I have another idea! We can force everyone to exercise every day, it would save a lot of lives! We'll make it a mandatory part of everyone's workday, right after the two-minutes'-hate.

Smoke isn't safe.

[Rayaru]

This quote from the article says it best:

"Anything involving inhaling smoke is unsafe. These new cigarettes could be more like jumping from the 15th floor instead of the 20th: theoretically the risk is less but you still die."

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)

[Alioth]

Your 80 year old doctor might smoke two packs a day, but my mother died age 48 of smoking related disease. She had a healthy diet, too. You can't draw a conclusion on the safety of smoking from a sample of two (you and your doctor).

As far as passive smoking -vs- unhealthy diets, if someone on the next table eats a bag of pork rinds, my eyes don't start to water and I don't leave the building smelling like an ash-tray. If someone on the next table eats the world's healthiest dinner but lights up, I end up leaving smelling like an ash tray. That's the difference - a person's unhealthy diet doesn't affect nearby strangers but their smoking will. That's the main problem with second hand smoke. 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. That's why there is a move on to ban smoking in public places. In the privacy of your own home, knock yourself out - I couldn't care less whether you smoke marijuana or tobacco. 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.

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

[veeoh]

>By the way, I ran a half marathon while smoking 10 cigarettes,

All at the same time?

They've had these for YEARS!!!

[ferrellcat]

And they're DELICIOUS!

bans?

[Janek Kozicki]

I wonder if this will have any impact on the no smoking bans we have seen in recent years?

hopefully not. All the bans are not about health of smokers, it's about fresh air for non-smokers. Who cares if that stinking person over there inhales deadly stuff, or less deadly? It all stinks the same.

Rather than a 'Safe Cigarette'

[rsilvergun]

why not just make it without Nicotine? Safest thing in the world then, nobody'll want them.

I smoke like a trooper

[Dominic Burns]

To all you puritan non-smokers, I say good luck - hope you enjoy the old folks' home!!

Haaaaaa-ha-ha-ha-ha-haaaaarggghhhhh!!!!

*cough*

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!

Philip Morris LIES

[ikewillis]

Of course Philip Morris says there's no safe cigarette. They don't want to invest the money to make their cigarettes safer...

Internal memos from Philip Morris from April 1980 indicate that the tobacco companies have been fully aware of radioactivity in cigarettes for over two decades. They also knew of ways of eliminating the radioactivity, but wrote them off as a "valid but expensive point":

That phosphate fertilizer (specifically superphosphate fertilizer) contains natural radioactivity is a well established fact.

Natural uranium accumulates in the phosphate rock and has been shown to substitute for calcium in the rock structure. Uranium and its daughters are thus carried through the mining and manufacturing process and appear in the commercial product. Soils to which these products are applied show an increase in radioactivity over that naturally present and this increase is a function of the rate of application and the number of years that the fertilizers have been used.

M. E. Counts has shown that the specific [radio]activity [...] increases as the particle size of the superphosphate fertilizer decreases. Thus the smaller particles, which would be more likely to be made airborne by normal farming practices, would be expected to settle out on the tobacco leaves during the growing season and/or be more readily taken up by the plant root system.

210Pb and 210Po are present in tobacco and smoke. The Martell "Hot Particle Theory" has been addressed in the past and has apparently lost popularity in the scientific community (lack of recent publicity in this field). For -particles from 210Po to be the cause of lung cancers is unlikely due to the amount of radioactivity of a particular energy necessary for induction Evidence to date, however, does not allow one to state that this is an impossibility. (Ed: and of course, more recent evidence says just the opposite)

The recommendation of using ammonium phosphate instead of calcium phosphate as fertilizer is probably a valid but expensive point. What Martell appears to be suggesting is the purification of phosphate rock to obtain P2O5 or H3PO4 free of calcium (uranium and daughters) and inert materials. Preparation of ammonium phosphate for fertilizer would then yield a product greatly reduced in or free of the natural radioactivity present in the parent phosphate rock.

Furthermore, switching to indirect fire curing would eliminate virtually all of another carcinogen, nitrosamine, from cigarettes. Nitrosamine was previously found in BEER thanks to direct fire curing of barley. Switching to indirect fire curing of barley reduced nitrosamine in beer to indetectable levels. Yet Philip Morris makes Marlboros, cigarettes with more nitrosamine than any others in the world.

Yes, believe what Philip Morris says, because if you realized there could be a safe cigarette, it would cost them a lot of money...

Here's two simple manufacturing changes they could make which would eliminate the two most potent carcinogens from cigarettes. But I guess it's just cheaper for Philip Morris to kill their customers.

Re:The Racket

[MasterOfDisaster]

If our government weren't addicted to the $15.7 billion dollars in taxes they collect on an annual basis from cigarettes, we would get safe cigarettes in a heartbeat.

It's quotes like that that really make me wonder why our goverment doesn't legalize marijuana and tax it like tobacco. Save billions on enforcement (~80% of drug arrests are marijuana possession), and make tens of billions in taxes.

Maybe they're too to stoned to realize.

Damn Ex-Smoker words below

[GeekyMike]

I quit smoking 3 years ago while attending college full time and working full time at an ISP tech desk (phone support). I had smoked for about 9 years prior to that. I think if you really want to quit, you will, my (then) 3 year old girl telling me "Daddy, the cigarettes make you cough." I figured if my 3 year old can see that, I should be able to see that as well.

I set a day and time for me to quit (Friday at 17:00) and chainsmoked up to that point. At 17:00 I placed the remainder of the pack on my counter and left them there. When I had a craving, I smelled the tobacco and placed the pack back on the counter. The aches from the wonderful chemicals leaving my joints were relieved by ibuprofin. And I kept saying to myself, I have gone (insert time) without a cigarette, I will wait a few hours and get one if I need it. The mantra kept repeating, setting goals and pushing them higher and higher.

I threw the pack away three months later with the same contents as it had that Friday. Food and drinks tasted better, my newborn son's asthma went away (I smoked outside, but the smoke comes in on your hair, hands, and clothing), and my wallet was fuller.

I feel so much better now that I would suggest quitting to anyone. People around you will understand if you are a bit of a Hellbeast, and will forgive you if you matter to them. If they don't, screw them they don't care for you anyway.