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Research Suggests Tobacco Companies Add Weight Loss Drugs
smitty777 writes "According to an article from the European Journal of Public Health, the tobacco companies have been implicated in adding a number of drugs to tobacco products (PDF) to enhance their weight-reducing properties. Discovery News explains the neurological process for appetite suppression, which involves activating pro-opiomelanocortin cells in the hypothalamus."
Not only is it cool and fun, it will turn your fat ass into a prom queen!
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Who cares what tobacco companies do?
And no, I don't mean "who cares" as in I'm some cruel bastard who could care less what tobacco companies are doing to hook their users even more to their product. I mean who out there really cares what tobacco companies do anymore? Care to tell me exactly what anyone has done to step in and stop them from doing ANYTHING with their product?
Radioactive pesticides. Hundreds of chemicals that are far from "natural". Big Tobacco has become untouchable. Doesn't matter how many evil things they do to their product, so what's the point in publicizing it until someone out there actually starts giving a shit and does something about it. Unfortunately, those who SHOULD give a shit are far too busy getting paid off by tobacco lobbyists and raking in tax dollars. They look past the fact that other than a military grade weapons manufacturer, no other corporation on the planet is legally allowed to kill thousands of people every day by doing nothing more than using their product as intended.
At least they're helping to offset those delicious doner kebabs after a late night. :-)
Not only do I get to lose that extra weight I gained, but, as an added bonus .... lung cancer! Gee, where do I sign up!
Scary. That could make cigarettes unsafe!
More accurately, research finds that Nicotine is an appetite suppressant. And that tobacco companies have looked at adding other appetite suppressors in the past.
As someone who has needed to shed a few kilos every now and then I know that if I am busy I tend not to snack. In fact sometimes if I am really engrossed in something midnight and bed time rolls around and I haven't eaten any dinner. I also know what when I feel crappy it is easy to comfort eat.
Cigarettes help with both these things. Instead of eating you smoke, so they do encourage weight loss for some people. Personally I have never smoked and try to substitute liquid and high-protean cereals (protean makes you feel full) for snacks and find things to occupy myself with.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Unfortunately, those who SHOULD give a shit are far too busy slowly killing themselves with addictive carcinogenic substances.
FTFY.
Car makers? Coal power plants? Gun manufacturers?
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Ah, sorry, I misread, and I completely agree with your post. There's more than one group that should care about this, and politicians are definitely one of them.
don't just cut to the chase and dope their deathsticks with methamphetamine and cocaine. It's hard to beat the brand loyalty engendered by those fabulous and time-tested products. Not even Apple electronic products can directly induce physiological withdrawal symptoms like that!
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
More people die from obesity than smoking. Lets place heavy taxes on food and ban indoor eating!
...staying lean since 2008.
It's also who cares in that they aren't making exciting news anymore. It's really "They're evil, oh well. Oh look! Someone downloaded a copy of the Beatles! Arrest him!!"
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Don't get worked up over this. You know they only have their customers' best interests in mind.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
as well as being the safest addictive substance known to man. There's a reason so many people smoke, and it's a combination of social and genetic factors which creates a tendency for them to establish addictions. Alcohol addiction kills quite quickly as do a lot of illegal drugs. Food addiction only takes about 20 years to kill people and money and sex addictions can easily ruin lives very quickly indeed. Cigarettes take an average of about 50 years of sustained use to kill people and still don't kill all of their users. Pretty good safety record in comparison to any of the alternatives, and they keep you thin too. Win win.
Korma: Good
They tried to market them as a health drink! Only makes sense. I hear chemo is good for weight loss, too.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Surely they would find the market for a reliable weight loss product to be as profitable as the market for tobacco.
-- Perhaps I see less than some, but more than many.
9 out of ten doctors choose pall mall for their smooth flavor across your T zone. Or some other old timey cigarette ad.
Who cares what the cigarette companies do, there are alternative tobacco products made with no additives if someone wants to buy them. There is something called "personal responisibility" that is lacking is society today. If you don't smoke, good for you. I smoke and I like it. I know its bad for me but I like to smoke anyways. On the topic of smoking and all of the anti-freedom anti-smoker tree huggin hippie leftists out there....back off and let us smoke. No need to "nanny" us smokers. We are already taxed enough on them....if you let us smoke the Gov't would have more money to spend and us "evil" smokers would just die off sooner so we wouldn't polute your precious air.
This is kind of funny, seized domain with weird top hat guy
http://lulzsecurity.org/
1. Cigareets and whiskey.
2. The ocean.
Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
What do you suggest?
Perhaps a little background is in order. I am a Mormon. For religious reasons, my family has been telling their children (and anyone else that would listen) not to use tobacco since the mid 1800s. I personally served as a missionary in Chile where a fair portion of my time was spent trying to help people quit smoking. Sometimes I was successful, sometimes not. Apparently giving up smoking is very difficult. I never met a smoker that didn't want to quit, and yet few people actually are successful.
That's the problem. Smokers know that smoking is killing them, but they are addicted. We already have huge taxes on cigarettes. We control their sale to minors, and we control how they can be advertised. Heck, we even run advertisements extolling the many problems caused by smoking, and we force smokers to go to special designated areas to smoke. At this point about the only thing that we could do that we haven't tried is to make tobacco illegal. To be honest, I would not be surprised if that actually *increased* tobacco use. Marijuana manages to be quite popular while still being illegal.
Unfortunately, some people are just stupid. They don't see the harm in trying tobacco until it is too late and they are addicted. It is easy (and comfortable) to blame the politicians, but for the most part politicians have gone out of their way to cast a stigma on tobacco use. It is even easier to blame the tobacco industry, and just about anyone would be forced to admit that those guys are slimy. However, tobacco has a long history of use in the U.S. and I think that it would be counterproductive to try and curtail the rights of individuals in this regard. Our society has done everything it can to curtail the use of tobacco short of throwing people in prison for growing it or using it.
Yet, the government still pays out huge amounts of tax money as tobacco subsidy to grow the stuff every year, then heavily taxes the users. The government gets much more in taxes on each cigarette sold than the tobacco company gets as earnings. They really don't want to end smoking, and lose this huge revenue stream.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
"Care to tell me exactly what anyone has done to step in and stop them from doing ANYTHING with their product?"
Really? Would you like to step back from the hysterics or are you planning on going full retard?
Don't get the impression that I care, I just need to know whether I should go get some popcorn or not.
Sweeet! what a deal, I buy smokes because of the addiction but the value added features never cease
Thank you, Jason. You come across with a mild sense of self rightousness, and you sound a little bit of a prick - but you're honest, and you're right. So, you're tolerable, and your opinion is appreciated.
I hate the ultra self-rightous pricks who feel it is their mission in life to save me, and other smokers, from our own stupidity. If the rest of the anti-smokers had your sense of proportion, they'd be a lot easier to live with!
Enough taxes, enough penalties, enough stigmatism attached to smoking. More than enough, already. As you point out, prohibition is the next step - and prohibition failed in the 1920's, and it has failed since the 1940's as well. A new prohibition will do no good for this country at all.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
what would be needed is to require health insurance to cover inpatient addiction treatment like we do with other drug treatment.
the harm is clear and the tobacco companies do everything they can to make it harder to quit.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
if you smoke a pack a day to you gain points for the day to spend on more food?
And doing it in a very, very unpleasant way. Recently lost a neighbor to lung cancer at 52. The only sane thing would be to shut them down and and put them all in jail for life.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
You say "throwing people in prison for growing or using it" like it's unthinkable.
There are a lot of people sitting in prison right now "for growing or using" another leafy plant.
How different one plant is treated just because a certain group of wealthy white men got here centuries ago and made a bundle selling it.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Don't get high and mighty. The walls around you are exuding the same carcinogens. The tasty grill marks on your food? Those same carginogens. Your car? your comute home puts my pack a day habit to shame. Your drinking water? Bottled or tap it doesn't matter. Your underarm deoderant. Your toothpaste. The brown food coloring in your food and drinks, and don't worry its considered organic so you can't avoid it. Right now as you read this a ray of UV light has worked its way past our ailing protective atmosphere and entering you skin. Will it be "The" ray to damage a skin cell and seed melenoma? It just might.
If you live in the modern world you too are slowly killing yourself. You are just oblivious to that fact. Your damaged DNA and shredded cells are no better off than a smoker's. At least I know what I am getting in to. Do you?
At this point about the only thing that we could do that we haven't tried is to make tobacco illegal.
Take this as anecdotal, but quite a while ago here in Massachusetts they set a aside a portion of the state cigarette tax to fund a series of anti-smoking PSAs.
If I recall, some were pretty graphic; i.e., pictures of smoke damaged lungs. Some were interviews with survivors of lung cancer and various cigarette related disorders. All were uniformly depressing.
I heard they had a significant negative impact on cigarette sales. That's only hearsay, but I wouldn't be a bit surprised.
Then they stopped.
The nicest explanation I can think of is that enough people complained about being bombarded by a series of really depressing PSAs.
My cynical half suspects they stopped showing them because they negatively affected the state cigarette tax collection.
You know who else is slowly killing themselves with carcinogenic substances? Everyone. Including you. It's kind of a side effect of being alive.
"Dude, pounds are so metric, fuck that." - Noah
Unfortunately, some people are just stupid. They don't see the harm in trying tobacco until it is too late and they are addicted.
Get real. Everyone I know who smokes (including me) started when they were 14, 15, or 16 years old. At that age it's not about being stupid, it's about doing what your friends are doing because you don't want to look like a pussy or a killjoy or a doofus. Damn you, the first time I took a drag off a cigarette I knew it was stupid and I didn't want to be doing it at all, but the fear of being laughed at or pushed around outweighed the logic. I was not stupid, and I did know about the dangers -- the education system actually succeeds quite well in communicating those. What the education system utterly fails at is giving kids the skills and techniques they need to resist peer pressure. The advice seems to be "Don't hang out with those people." Okay... I won't hang out with... all my friends. Okay, yeah. I'll be sure to do that next time around.
Saying I'm just stupid just means you don't remember what childhood is like. I can't think of a single person who smokes who started when they turned legal age to do so. By that time you've pretty much got enough maturity to resist the people trying to push you into it. You think there are people out there who don't understand that the shit is deadly? Seriously?
Finally, about 15 years later I'm finally having some success quitting by using electronic cigarettes -- still getting the nicotine, which isn't exactly like drinking the elixir of life, but I'm not inhaling tar, radioactive particles, ammonia, carbon monoxide and a bunch of other shit. I tried patches and gum before, it never worked because it didn't provide the rest of the "smoking experience," which includes the motion of hand to mouth, the puffing, the exhaling and watching the smoke. I tried the e-cig and bam, immediately stopped the tobacco cigarettes and haven't been tempted to go back. All that's left now is to dial down the nicotine dose, then I can start to deal with the psychological part of it. And if I slip up there, I'll just end up on the e-cig again. Never again will I go back to tobacco cigarettes.
My family got paid a huge amount (by the government) to sell the rights to our tobacco base. Since it's sold, no one else can lease or use the base. In case anyone isn't aware of what tobacco base is, you can only grow tobacco on a small percentage of your farmable land. If you don't wish to grow any, you can lease your base to another farmer. They grow it on their own land but pay you a percentage for allowing them the use of your base. They lease a lot of base so they can have a sizable crop.
Even we we did grow tobacco, we never got any subsidies, at least directly. It was damn profitable on its own.
Gone!
You may have never met a smoker that didn't want to quit, but believe me when I say we are out there. I won't lie, there are days when I think 'hey, I could be doing better things with the money I spend on cigarettes.' Then I light up a cool, refreshing American Spirit Full Flavor Cigarette and I remember: Smoking is a lot of fun. It's just an enjoyable activity. You don't have to do it, and you should really try being less self righteous toward the people that do.
You're not smarter than me because you don't smoke, you're just a religious fundamentalist whose parents forbid it. So, congratulations on believing everything every authority figure you've ever been exposed to told you.
Yes, there are health risks, and it's my right to decide if I chose to accept those risks or not, not yours.
"Dude, pounds are so metric, fuck that." - Noah
Who cares? Everybody who smokes knows it's a mistake, and self-destructive. They've known that for decades. Nobody under the age of fifty became a smoker innocently, without knowing it was a bad decision. Sure, the cigarette manufactures are sleazy. Everybody knows that. If you go and get hooked on their product, you deserve the bulk of the blame.
...Says the man rambling on Slashdot. Speaking of pathetic and weak ass, how is it coming along, that faux tough-guy nerdrage?
That excuse doesn't make you any less stupid. Makes you seem like more of a little bitch, though.
Don't forget your geritol.
Off with the nostalgia goggles pops. The "old days" were far, far worse than you care to admit or remember.
50,000 characters used to live here.
What really blows my mind is that there is no requirement to list ingredients on tobacco products. Labels are required on food items so why not on cigarets? One could argue that it is even more relevant since anything you smoke goes directly into your blood stream as opposed to the multiple processing stages food takes when you ingest it. This is unbelievable and the only reason I can think of is strong lobbyism by tobacco companies.
than the local sewer? Apparently it's possible.
It was my understanding that those PSA's (which were in many states) were funded out of the original big tobacco lawsuit settlement the states reached with the companies a decade or so ago. Eventually the settlement money ran out. I'm not sure that in most states the PSA's were ever funded with the taxes (though yours might have been)...
More info on it Here... Check out the Public Education Fund which apparently only lasted 3 years (2000-2003).
Come play Moral Decay!
I agree, and personally I don't care what the tobacco companies do. If you think cigarettes are bad, don't smoke. If your worried about second hand smoke, stay away from smokers. If you are righteous you can even go tell people not to smoke, its a free country after all. Just don't be surprised if you get some puffs blown in your face.
Anyone can quit smoking cigarettes. Blaming a company or industry for making an addictive product is a cop out. Being unhealthy isn't enough reason to outlaw it (that goes for our other stupid drug laws btw).
I think getting upset about what the tobacco companies do to cigarettes/tobacco is a waste of energy. To your point, it achieves nothing because they are far more powerful than any individual, and as a corollary it has no impact on your non-smoking life. If you are a smoker and you're upset, just quit smoking. Or buy tobacco from a smaller grower. They are out there.
Oh yea I forgot its not really about getting people to quit smoking (negligible sales drops = success) its more about tax revenue...cant really be serious about getting people to quit.
Thank You Big Tobacco!
For every benefit you receive a tax is levied. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
your pack a day habit will always be MUCH worse then any of the things you listed. FOR YOU. hey, my mother said it true; you can't die with dignity if you can't breathe!
CS majors know the time/space tradeoff, but they never get taught the 3rd, crucial, tradeoff of the set: comprehension!
NOTE; chantix was a damned miracle and 99% of the haters are lobbyist shills. Try it out, do EXACTLY what the instructions say, and get off it as *soon* as possible (not 12 weeks, but only 4 if you can). It positively worked in my case not just to make me quit, but to change the fact I ever wanted one.
CS majors know the time/space tradeoff, but they never get taught the 3rd, crucial, tradeoff of the set: comprehension!
Perhaps they could add these weight loss drugs to cannabis cigarettes, as a counter-agent to the THC side effects rather than as a co-agent to nicotine's.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Hint: if you knew it was stupid and did it anyway, then YES, YOU ARE STUPID!.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Prison should be the spot theft by deception.
My family got paid a huge amount (by the government) to sell the rights to our tobacco base... They lease a lot of base so they can have a sizable crop.
So, all your base are belong to us, now?
..because why did I gain 100 lbs while smoking, eat a whole ton of doritos, and just shove food in my face while smoking.... ...wrong smoking! I was using something else.
The above poster is a retard who doesn't remember what childhood is like.
It was my understanding that those PSA's (which were in many states) were funded out of the original big tobacco lawsuit settlement the states reached with the companies a decade or so ago.
You're probably right. I thought they were further back and used cigarette tax dollars, but my recollection is hazy. I never smoked, so I never really cared (except for the belief that smoking is uniformly bad for individuals and society in general).
Pity nobody does fund them out of cigarette tax dollars. I can honestly believe they were very effective.
Yet pretty much all the other carcinogens you mentioned don't make you, and everything near you, smell like a homeless dude's ballsack.
Yes, there are health risks, and it's my right to decide if I chose to accept those risks or not, not yours.
And it's our right to call you out on being stupid, and to ask you to get those reeking sticks away from us. (It's unbelievable how much nicer it is going out to bars now that smoking in them has been banned in my state.)
Also, good for you for rationalizing how "fun" smoking is; the joke is on you though, because once you've built up tolerance to nicotine, smoking just brings you back to the baseline "stimulated" level that the rest of us enjoy without it. I also really enjoy the "experience" of a fountain soda, but I realize that it's mainly from satisfying a caffeine/sugar addiction, not the soda itself, and I don't fool myself into believing that it's some "fun" thing.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
It seems that you have the mistaken belief that your childhood is representative of the population.
Did you forget where you are?
We already have huge taxes on cigarettes. We control their sale to minors, and we control how they can be advertised. Heck, we even run advertisements extolling the many problems caused by smoking, and we force smokers to go to special designated areas to smoke. At this point about the only thing that we could do that we haven't tried is to make tobacco illegal.
But it is working in US & Canada, at least compared to other countries I've been to where smoking is still very prevalent.
Re-reading my post I think that the self-righteousness is more than mild, and for that I am truly sorry. I simply think blaming the *government* for the smoking problem is ridiculous, and I was trying to show that I am not the sort of person that anyone in their right mind could consider pro-tobacco.
Like I said, I have helped more than my fair share of people quit smoking, and tried to help many others. My experience tells me that if you attempt to help people quit smoking you have a good chance of ending up with a new friend that happens to be a smoker that can't quit. It doesn't make them a bad person. To be honest, it doesn't even make them a stupid person (I really shouldn't have said that). Everyone makes mistakes. Smokers have simply made a mistake that has caused them to get entangled with something very addictive.
All things considered you certainly could have a worse habit.
How different one plant is treated just because a certain group of wealthy white men got here centuries ago and made a bundle selling it.
Those same wealthy white men made a fortune selling hemp as well. Hemp rope was an integral part of the sea trade networks prior to the end of the sail era.
While there's some racism involved in prohibition of marijuana, it's worth noting that the US even went as far as to ban all alcoholic beverages for a period of time, which as I understand it, is one of the main drugs of choice for rich, white men and has remained so for millennia.
So maybe things happen for reasons other than wealthy, white people centuries ago.
It's true that in layman's terms, everything causes cancer/is carcinogenic, the more we learn about the subject. But ultimately, why add to that list? With driving, well maybe it's the most convenient way to get somewhere so just deal with the fumes. With browned meat, well it's meat that has been cooked, I need food and eating meat is normal even if we now know cooking may increase carcinogens in food. With sunlight, well humans are meant to be in the sun and our body is designed to protect us from UV rays, it just doesn't always do it perfectly.
But with smoking, there is no analogue that is healthier. You could avoid cars and bike/walk. You could eat only raw food or minimize meat intake. You could wear sunscreen and avoid bright patches of the sidewalk. Maybe your risk will go down a bit (or a lot). But with smoking, you could literally just give it up and save money and not have yet another attack vector for cancer because it replaces absolutely nothing we do normally. You need to eat, you need to get around, you need to be outdoors sometimes. You don't need to inhale smoke into your lungs and there is no lesser "natural" version of doing such a thing that tobacco supplants at increased risk and convenience.
I don't judge smokers from a moral high ground. I am not a cigarette smoker but I have given into cheap cigar/hookah/etc type smoking although I have decided to stop (I never did it super often but I definitely understand the desire, manufactured or not). I just realized, what is the point? Down the road, do I want to have mouth cancer and know that it was probably avoidable? A lot of things may cause a lot of cancers but smoking can be cut from one's life with only benefits to be reaped by doing so. You can argue there are non-quantifiable variables like relaxation but there are much better ways to relax in which you better yourself rather than a cheap way of relaxing that slowly kills you.
We are about to enacta law that enforces Tabacco companies to sell in non descript plain paper packets that look all the same except for the brand name in the same font and the warnings. I would argue take the warnings away as well :-)
They are coming all over the world to fight it but it is looking good to go through, and this revelation should take some steam out of their lobby.
I don't know about the other poster, but I remember what childhood was like. I don't feel the need to characterize my stupid actions during that time as somehow not being stupid.
I am not of the opinion that making marijuana illegal is good for our society. I think that people that use marijuana are making a very poor choice, but that's true for a lot of things.
On the other hand, we have historical precedents for what happens when drugs like cocaine (or worse heroine) are legalized. That was not a good idea. Marijuana, on the other hand, probably belongs in the same group as alcohol and tobacco. We'd probably be better off simply trying to control it, and not ban it outright. I personally think that the country would be a better place if we could stop using all of these substances, however, we have already tried prohibition of alcohol and it proved unworkable. My guess is that tobacco would fare similarly, and I personally believe that marijuana probably fits that list.
You are certainly correct that tobacco is currently legal primarily for historical reasons. I personally think tying race into the issue is a bit of a stretch, especially since a fair percentage of the early tobacco plantation owners were Indian (mostly Cherokee), but I can see your point.
Stupid was the wrong thing to say, and I am sorry for that. People make poor choices all of the time. The difference is that with smoking once you are addicted it becomes very difficult to stop. My sincere apologies.
By the way, congratulations on your success giving up cigarettes. That's a big deal, and I have seen enough people try and fail to have a fair appreciation as to how difficult it is to quit.
what would be needed is to require health insurance to cover inpatient addiction treatment like we do with other drug treatment.
I don't think anyone has ever shown (or even suggested) that in-patient addiction treatment for tobacco addiction is better than anything else. Does anyone even OFFER an in-patient program?
I used snus to stop smoking. And now I've cut my snus use down by about half, and working toward being tobacco free in a year or two. Snus isn't nearly as dangerous as cigarettes or snuff, buy many factors. (ie: 99% safer than smoking, 90% safer than American snuff). It would be better to switch to snus for the rest of your life than smoke for 5 more years, for example. No in-patient care needed.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
I would argue that drugs can be used to good effect or bad effect. The same drug. It often depends on dose.
Take an aspirin for a headache? Sure. Take a dozen? Not so much, as it were.
Just how harmful a drug tends to be is still relevant:
drug danger.
I too do not care what these companies do, they only can do so because our governments permit it. Not only do they permit it they profit off of it, if not in more than one way. First by taxes, embedded so that they actually are charging those who use the product twice - first with direct taxes then the embedded taxes from penalties and such assessed by courts.
All our governments are quite happy with the situation, that is what is really wrong here. An addicted person is a customer of the government, a sick person is a customer of government care as well. An addiction to such a drug benefits government by curtailing the long term benefits having to be paid as well.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
You are absolutely right. Saying that smoking stemmed from stupidity was the wrong thing to say. Like I said, I have mostly been acquainted with smokers that were trying to quit. They had gotten entangled with an addictive substance, and they felt trapped. That doesn't make them stupid. It simply means that they made a choice that they later regretted. In your case you apparently don't even regret that choice. So, good for you. I personally believe the choice should be yours to make.
I am very grateful to my parents for the guidance that they gave me while I was growing up. You are certainly correct, however, in that having good parents does not make me smarter than those around me, just luckier.
Nice graph. Thanks.
Some people are just stupid? Kind of like people who believe some money hungry dick in the 1800's actually found some gold plates with writing on them? (of course you needed special optics to read them). Or people who have magic underwear? or Pretend like Polygamy isn't embraced by their "holy text" (hey I'm all for polygamy, embrace who you are) Mormons & Scientologists are among the last people who can call anyone stupid
Also, there's the whole issue that the lungs are delicate tissue. There's something that makes me a bit concerned when thinking about breathing in alpha emitters into one of the only real region where they pose a significant threat (in terms of effective dose and alpha emitters). Your skin is meant to take a pretty good pummelling, and it's quite easy to cut out whatever shouldn't be there; not with lungs, and lungs are kind of important to the whole living thing.
Growing up, I was the only one if my family besides the dog that didn't smoke, and I'm a runner so I hate that shit, but I'd rather spend all day in a smoke filled bar, then spend one minute listening to one self righteous anti smoking jack off , if you haven't already check out the south park on those anti smoking dicks
I'm gonna slowly cure a bunch of life, chop it up and roll it into laser-perforated paper, light it up and breathe that sh*t right into my lungs where it can do its worst.
You shouldn't have sold your rights, without them there is no chance to survive make your time!
On the other hand, we have historical precedents for what happens when drugs like cocaine (or worse heroine) are legalized. That was not a good idea.
It may not be a good idea but is it a worse idea than:
a) Spending billions on enforcement which only stops 1% of the drugs reaching the streets.
b) Watching billions of dollars go overseas to be stacked in huge mansions in Columbia.
c) Making mafia bosses very rich/powerful.
d) Funding gang warfare.
e) Funding all the police/medical care which goes hand in hand with (d)
f) Having to build mega prisons because you're locking up so many people for victimless crimes.
No sig today...
http://www.onenewspage.com/news/Health/20110610/23074734/Japanese-green-tea-contaminated-with-radioactive-cesium.htm
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
Also, good for you for rationalizing how "fun" smoking is; the joke is on you though, because once you've built up tolerance to nicotine, smoking just brings you back to the baseline "stimulated" level that the rest of us enjoy without it.
How would you know?
Hint: that's a lie.
... But with smoking, there is no analogue that is healthier.
I don't smoke, never have, and don't like being around smokers much. But if I was going to smoke, it'd be with organic tobacco in a pipe.
If you search for "radioactive tobacco", you can read about how the US Federal Government took away the tobacco industry's fertilizer supply in WWII, to make munitions. The tobacco industry switched to fertilizing their crops with rock phosphate. Tobacco concentrates radioactive elements in the leaves, and rock phosphate happens to have a lot of radioactive elements.
I think organic tobacco farmers fertilize using traditional methods - manure & the like.
The other problem with cigarettes are the filters. When used, they release microscopic filaments into the lungs.
I'm usually the type who will go out & find supporting links, but I have some other things to attend to this evening. If you're interested they're rather easy to find.
Furthermore, many people know a non-smoker who came down with lung or throat or mouth cancer. WTF? The problem is that humans had been using butter, tallow and lard (animal fats) for a thousand generations. Then the seed oil industry, threatened with extinction because their primary customer (paint industry) switched to petroleum in the 1950's, waged a propaganda campaign against the fats humans have consumed forever. Somehow "saturated" fats became a heart-attack-on-a-plate, when those "paint oils" are actually much more hazardous to human health.
Butter, which is has a large proportion of stable "saturated" fat, semi-stable monounsaturated fat, and a wee-little bit of unstable polyunsaturated fat, is much less cancer-provoking than "goes rancid as soon as it is made" corn oil or soybean oil or rapeseed oil or linseed oil or...
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
As a smoker, I've noticed a massive loss of appetite in the past few months. I never was a big eater, but now I'm hard pressed to finish a meal when I go out. A few other friends of mine (also smokers), have exhibited the same things. Correlation doesn't equal causation, but when my health and activity remain otherwise the same, and my appetite changes, one has to wonder. I think it's time to switch over to hand-rolling. I've been debating getting an injector for a while now. This may very well be the straw that breaks it.
Sic Semper Tyrannis
I vividly remember why I didn't smoke as an adolescent: because I was smart enough to understand that lung cancer and emphysema could apply to me too. The cool kids smoking cigarettes just looked like retards playing Russian roulette, not something anybody with a working brain would want to emulate.
My parents both smoked, and never actually forbade me to smoke, though I knew they disapproved. I tried it a few times and while it wasn't horrible it certainly wasn't worth dying for.
I tried not to be too judgmental of my friends who smoked but if it came between us I would rather lose a friendship than take up that nasty habit. There were plenty of non-smokers (more than half the population) to be friends with instead.
Adolescents certainly have different priorities than adults, and from our adult perspective their judgment often looks pretty questionable, but they're not all idiots who can't predict the consequences of their choices and actions. Most of them are idiots, sure, but that's true at any age.
hey, my mother said it true; you can't die with dignity if you can't breathe!
Actually, you just can't die with dignity period. It's hard to be dignified when your last actions are, well, undignified.
Having watched someone die of lung cancer - it's about as pleasant to die from as mesothelioma, just quicker.
I totally agree! Some people are dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb!
Get real. Everyone I know who smokes (including me) started when they were 14, 15, or 16 years old. At that age it's not about being stupid, it's about doing what your friends are doing because you don't want to look like a pussy or a killjoy or a doofus. Damn you, the first time I took a drag off a cigarette I knew it was stupid and I didn't want to be doing it at all, but the fear of being laughed at or pushed around outweighed the logic. I was not stupid, and I did know about the dangers
Agreed - except for the knowing the dangers - I didn't know it was addictive or deadly (40 years ago). And I was stupid. It made me sick - yet, like every other (juvenile) smoker I persevered due to peer group pressure. When had my first cigarettes I was in primary school - the only teacher who did not smoke was the drama teacher. Every single role model I had - smoked. Good children played sport - sponsored by tobacco. Rebellious children admired movie and rock stars - who all smoked. The local shops sold single cigarettes. The leaders of industry and politics - all smoked. It was pretty pervasive marketing. Paid a lot of mortgages.
The above poster is a retard who doesn't remember what childhood is like.
The above poster is a retarded child.
There, fixed it for you.
Stupid was the wrong thing to say, and I am sorry for that.
Don't be sorry. It is stupid.
Past stupidity is a good thing. It implies progression.
A life un-reviewed is not a life.
Those that never make mistakes are either liars - or they just never tried. Which is generally why they feel the need to constantly lecture others. Ex-smokers being the worst. As my grandfather used to say - "the hardest thing about giving up smoking is not telling others".
Well of course 'nobody' wants to step on the toes of the tobacco giants.. "Go after the smokers instead..i say'".. do you realize the amount of 'good' these companies do with the immense amount of taxes governments recoup from tobacco tax.. all at the cost of only a few million smokers' lives.. How would Governments be able to 'balance' their budgets with out the immense tax resources they provide.. No.. it's good political sense to be 'anti-smoking' as long as you're not 'anti tobacco'.. that's just so.. so..so .. Un-American... ...Tongue FIRMLY planted you know where...
millions of acres of prime farm land is being used to grow a poisonous weed that people burn. Also that farm land is ruined for decades (due to nicotine contamination plus the heavy toll growing tobacco takes on soil). Smokers drive up the cost of food for me. Plus, smart doctors are busy researching a type of cancer that doesn't need to exists (smoking induced lung cancer), when they could be researching things I (a non-smoker) are likely to die of.
Smokers actions don't take place in a vacuum.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Unfortunately, some people are just stupid.
A Mormon calling someone stupid. That's rich.
For religious reasons, my family has been telling their children (and anyone else that would listen) not to use tobacco since the mid 1800s.
And that makes you smart? The founder of your cult pulled that ban out of his ass or read it off them gold tablets from God that He eventually took back.
Dude being Mormon isn't that much better than being a Scientologist - just say'in.
For example in my city it is now illegal to smoke:
Long ago anti-smokers realized that making smoking outright illegal in one step would raise far too much resistance... so they have been incrementally restricting and restricting a perfectly legal activity making it harder and harder to do... and the cops do come and enforce these bans.
I'm a non-smoker but I have a little problem with this erosion of rights to engage in what is theoretically a perfectly legal activity.
I predict the next step will be to ban smoking anywhere there are children including in cars and in the home. Now this one I might actually see as reasonable.
The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny - Aesop
Been smoking for eleven years.
Your additives have no effect on my divine genetics. I find smoking generally increases my appetite. ...Crap. :(
Bars, restaurants, everywhere is much nicer to visit now that smoking is banned in those places. I remember the bad old days when there was a smoking and non-smoking section. With very few exceptions where the non-smoking section was airtight-sealed, it was still pretty bad even in the non-smoking section. Now if they could just do something about the entrances to buildings. Make all the smokers go 20 meters off to the side or something so we don't have to pass through a cloud of disgusting cloying smoke.
Cigarette smoke is just awful. I've had smoke from camp fires blow into my face plenty of times when it's thick and choking and makes your eyes water. It's a lot stronger than a few people standing around smoking. But I vastly prefer that smoke to the vile stuff that issues out of cigarettes. A few minutes of exposure to it makes you feel unclean all day.
i mean that relly great you got a product that not only helps kill you now will look like a total crack head before you die. fucking win!!.
Super. Epic. Win. I live in Utah so I really feel the same way. :)
There is a similarity here to morphine addiction in the 1900s. People were getting addicted to patent medicines because they didn't know what was in them. See the Kathryn Hepburn movie 'Long Day's Journey into Night.' The Pure Food and Drug Act of 1907 shut down the patent medicine hucksters and solved most of the morphine addiction problem of the time. The best anti-drug tool is the truth, and here the tobacco companies are concealing the truth. All we really need here is truth-in-packaging to apply to them.
Snus beats smoking cigarettes or chewing/dipping American tobacco, but e-cigs are better still (they're just nicotine). Nicotine isn't really good for you, but the harm from the drug itself pales compared to the harm from the delivery system.
You need a real desire to quit and a sufficiently strong stimulus to keep you off the stuff for a month or so (in my case, a drug test for life insurance) to get over the physical dependence hump. I quit one day and haven't touched tobacco since. Won't, either, unless I find out I've got a terminal disease. There's a reason that stuff's addictive.
Asbestos!
It's difficult for politicians to care when 80% of the price of cigarettes is tax.
That's the problem. Smokers know that smoking is killing them, but they are addicted.
Call that "evolution in action".
Who cares if some people act to slowly kill themselves? That's personal freedom in its purest form.
See here's the thing: last I heard this was SUPPOSED to be America, a land where unlike the socialist and communist states one was SUPPOSED to have a lovely combination of FREE CHOICE along with PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY...remember that? Tell you what sparky, as a smoker I will be HAPPY to sign an iron clad contract that says that if I get cancer the ONLY thing I will be given is quite cheap morphine so I don't suffer, in return you remove ANY AND ALL TAXES from the product I CHOOSE to use, okay?
But that will NEVER EVER happen, why? Because it wouldn't let state and federal politicians spend like drunken sailors while at the same time telling what you can and can't do. Nanny state types just LOVE that shit. Did you know they are talking now about a sugar and a fat tax? Yep can't let that peasant decide whether or not he wants a coke or a burger now can we? Meanwhile the things they like, like say the imported vodka for their martini, is taxed much lower than cigarettes, huh isn't that funny. You'd almost think alcohol doesn't splatter hundreds of thousands of innocents all over our roads or something.
Take a look sometime at what the tobacco settlement was supposed to be used for and what it actually was sometime, it'll open your eyes. In my state they got pissed that the state next to us was bragging about how nice their trauma center was so we had to top them in a "our trauma is bigger than yours" penis waving. Didn't matter that the trauma center we had worked just fine for our smaller state, it wasn't like it was their money, right? WAKE UP! The smokers are the canaries in the coal mines. The nany staters don't want you to have ANY control of your life! They will add fat, sugar, hell I wouldn't be surprised if they end up taxing the hell out of white bread so you can only have wheat on your sandwich. Nothing gives those in control a bigger stiffie than controlling the lives of the peasants while having more money to blow on bridges to nowhere and payout to their owners...err...I mean "campaign donors".
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Don't get high and mighty. The walls around you are exuding the same carcinogens. The tasty grill marks on your food? Those same carginogens. Your car? your comute home puts my pack a day habit to shame. Your drinking water? Bottled or tap it doesn't matter. Your underarm deoderant. Your toothpaste. The brown food coloring in your food and drinks, and don't worry its considered organic so you can't avoid it. Right now as you read this a ray of UV light has worked its way past our ailing protective atmosphere and entering you skin. Will it be "The" ray to damage a skin cell and seed melenoma? It just might.
If you live in the modern world you too are slowly killing yourself. You are just oblivious to that fact. Your damaged DNA and shredded cells are no better off than a smoker's. At least I know what I am getting in to. Do you?
Statistics prove quite clearly that any smoker stands a FAR greater chance of decreasing their lifespan than ANY of the examples you've brought forth, many of which can be counteracted with the many alternatives out there, to include even purifying the air you breathe. Humans have a 100% mortality rate, so yeah science tells me what I'm "getting into". Being mortal is slowly killing me, so don't talk to me about being "oblivious". It really is sad to find smokers actually justifying their physical addiction in this way, but that is merely part of the psychological addiction too. To each their own. I'm not mad at the choices you've made. If anyone should be mad here, it should be you, over the fact that you have not been left with a choice anymore, which that chemical brainwashing still remains legal and by design, for no other reason than greed. If I'm wrong, then prove me wrong, and quit cold turkey.
Car makers? Coal power plants? Gun manufacturers?
Uh...you're kidding, right?
A the major difference between a cigarette and every example you've brought forth is they are not specifically designed to create such a powerful physical and psychological addiction in that even when the end user wants to quit using the product, far too often they find they simply can't.
And yes, I use the term specifically designed because TFA points out yet another step in the hundreds taken to refine that particular product to make it just about the most powerfully addictive legal product on the planet. And again, those who care turn a blind eye and hold their (greased) palm out.
Car safety, gun safety, and safety regulations around coal mining have come a LONG way in the last 100 years to save lives. You won't even hear of the term "safety" within the tobacco industry. Even they are not that stupid.
I can move closer to my work (my only REAL need for a car) and simply use a bike or walk, and many have. People can easily replace coal with many other forms of electricity, and many have. Guns are a heated topic ripe with debate and personal opinion, so I'm not really going to go there, save for the fact that millions of lives have directly been saved by guns, which is hardly the case with tobacco.
What do you suggest?
Perhaps a little background is in order. I am a Mormon. For religious reasons, my family has been telling their children (and anyone else that would listen) not to use tobacco since the mid 1800s. I personally served as a missionary in Chile where a fair portion of my time was spent trying to help people quit smoking. Sometimes I was successful, sometimes not. Apparently giving up smoking is very difficult. I never met a smoker that didn't want to quit, and yet few people actually are successful.
That's the problem. Smokers know that smoking is killing them, but they are addicted. We already have huge taxes on cigarettes. We control their sale to minors, and we control how they can be advertised. Heck, we even run advertisements extolling the many problems caused by smoking, and we force smokers to go to special designated areas to smoke. At this point about the only thing that we could do that we haven't tried is to make tobacco illegal. To be honest, I would not be surprised if that actually *increased* tobacco use. Marijuana manages to be quite popular while still being illegal.
Unfortunately, some people are just stupid. They don't see the harm in trying tobacco until it is too late and they are addicted. It is easy (and comfortable) to blame the politicians, but for the most part politicians have gone out of their way to cast a stigma on tobacco use. It is even easier to blame the tobacco industry, and just about anyone would be forced to admit that those guys are slimy. However, tobacco has a long history of use in the U.S. and I think that it would be counterproductive to try and curtail the rights of individuals in this regard. Our society has done everything it can to curtail the use of tobacco short of throwing people in prison for growing it or using it.
Casting a "stigma" doesn't do anything, so don't give me this nonsense that politicians have gone "out of their way". We don't need "stigmas", we need regulation. Nicotine is a drug, one of the most powerful on the planet, so put it under the regulatory agency it should have always been under, the FDA. Of course, when that happens, chances are they'll become illegal (yeah, try and pass muster with the FDA stamp of a approval on a pack of cancer sticks). There is also zero reason to make cigarettes as addictive as they are(other than greed), so at least regulate them into an all-natural product, and give users at least a fighting chance to quit. And globally, we control exactly ZERO with cigarette use with minors and advertising, both have which done nothing to effect any real impact.
Tobacco does have a long history, but there is one product that puts the tobacco history to shame, dating back thousands of years, and to date, has never killed a single human being with it's direct use. It is physically impossible to overdose from it, and has absolutely no physically addictive properties whatsoever, yet after thousands of years of use, it was made illegal for the same reason tobacco is legal today; greed. The answer has been staring us in the face for a long time now. Our nation was founded upon its use in many forms, and its crops would resolve many global issues we face today that drive mankind into extinction, yet it remains demonized. I'm not trying to necessarily advocate legalization here, but clearly it is an alternative that should be considered, and likely never will, all because of greed. What do I suggest? There is little point in making suggestions anymore when ears cannot hear through sand and greed and corruption conquers all.
Perhaps greed is the real addiction that must be cured to save mankind from killing itself prematurely.
no other corporation on the planet is legally allowed to kill thousands of people every day by doing nothing more than using their product as intended
Car makers?
-- Braden's law of data: All data spends some of its lifetime in an excel spreadsheet.
Thank you, Jason. You come across with a mild sense of self rightousness, and you sound a little bit of a prick - but you're honest, and you're right. So, you're tolerable, and your opinion is appreciated.
I hate the ultra self-rightous pricks who feel it is their mission in life to save me, and other smokers, from our own stupidity. If the rest of the anti-smokers had your sense of proportion, they'd be a lot easier to live with!
Enough taxes, enough penalties, enough stigmatism attached to smoking. More than enough, already. As you point out, prohibition is the next step - and prohibition failed in the 1920's, and it has failed since the 1940's as well. A new prohibition will do no good for this country at all.
I never said prohibition was the answer, or that it works. Regulation around the product that you are hopelessly addicted to is the better alternative. At least make it illegal to add chemicals to it to make it even more addictive than it already naturally is. Give users a fighting chance to quit.
Prohibition doesn't work, yet it is the tax revenue generated from your addiction that helps feed prohibition around viable alternatives that companies and governments known damn well you would probably end up preferring over alcohol and tobacco both if it were legal. The alternative isn't about saving you, it's about saving mankind from premature death. Yet, greed and corruption wins, even when facing such obvious benefits.
Who cares? Everybody who smokes knows it's a mistake, and self-destructive. They've known that for decades. Nobody under the age of fifty became a smoker innocently, without knowing it was a bad decision. Sure, the cigarette manufactures are sleazy. Everybody knows that. If you go and get hooked on their product, you deserve the bulk of the blame.
You are missing the point here. All I'm asking is to give the end user at least a fighting chance to quit. Regulate the product as it should be, put under the FDA where it always should have been, instead of it's own untouchable agency. Make it all-natural, and prohibit the use of radioactive pesticides that are one of the primary drivers in the creation of cancer. Humans, are well, human, and we all make bad decisions from time to time. However, 99.9% of those decisions we do not find ourselves in a situation where we simply cannot quit making those bad decisions, over and over again, due to physical and psychological addiction.
It is the continued lack of regulation around this particular product, all for greed, that is wrong here, not necessarily the product itself, or people that choose to use it. To each their own. The main issue is even those who want to quit, find they cannot, and that eradication of choice is by design.
Well of course 'nobody' wants to step on the toes of the tobacco giants.. "Go after the smokers instead..i say'".. do you realize the amount of 'good' these companies do with the immense amount of taxes governments recoup from tobacco tax.. all at the cost of only a few million smokers' lives.. How would Governments be able to 'balance' their budgets with out the immense tax resources they provide.. No.. it's good political sense to be 'anti-smoking' as long as you're not 'anti tobacco'.. that's just so.. so..so .. Un-American... ...Tongue FIRMLY planted you know where...
Giving the many proven benefits of alternatives such as growing hemp for a multitude of solutions we face today that drive all of mankind into premature extinction, your views are ridiculously short-sighted. Tobacco doesn't just cost a "few million smokers lives".
Greed is the real addiction that will ultimately kill all of us prematurely. Perhaps I was wrong or short-sighted myself in thinking that one of the largest global contributors to that greed should not be a target? Hardly. And as we sit here facing trillions in debt, I find out laughable that you would even bring up Governments and their "budgets". That word doesn't even hold meaning anymore within Government. As my example would undoubtedly prove, just as it has in the past when it helped found our very Government and country, there are alternatives out there that would generate just as much (if not more) tax revenue. Unfortunately, greed will likely never allow it's legalization ever again.
"Care to tell me exactly what anyone has done to step in and stop them from doing ANYTHING with their product?"
Really? Would you like to step back from the hysterics or are you planning on going full retard?
Don't get the impression that I care, I just need to know whether I should go get some popcorn or not.
You want to sit here and believe that marketing bullshit like "ultra-low-tar" is something that has been done to modify their recipe to effect benefit? Show me the proof that it has done anything beyond placate soccer Moms into believing Government "cares". Not to mention that full-tar alternatives are still legal.
Warning labels on the outside? That hasn't changed a damn thing as to what they are allowed to put inside the box.
Age restrictions on buying? Uh, news flash. Prohibition has never worked. Ever. And it still does nothing to what gets written inside the recipe book.
Why has nicotine, a drug, one of the most powerful on the planet, never been placed under the FDA, and instead sits outside the regulatory controls of that agency in it's own little special (and very untouchable) world?
Products such as hemp have proven to solve many of the worlds crises that drive mankind into premature extinction, so my concerns are not for a handful of people that for whatever reason, chose to pick up a cigarette. And yet hemp remains illegal due to greed.
And I'm the one going "full on retard"? If anything has gone that route, it is the greed that will kill us all prematurely. Ignorance has never seen 20/20 my friend.
I'm not sure where your graph comes from, but it is incorrect. It shows heroin as having a very high level of physical harm. That's not true. While it causes a great physical dependence, there is negligible harm caused to the body from the use of heroin. Now, dirty needles and the lifestyle associated with heroin addiction are extremely harmful, but the drug itself does not cause physical harm. The worst thing it does is cause a little constipation.
Cocaine on the other hand, causes much more physical harm, especially when used in its rock or freebase form.
I've got a feeling that chart was designed to be part of a marijuana legalization campaign and was put together from anecdotal information or simply someone's opinion.
Also, the use of khat can be very bad for the teeth, I hear, and cause the same mouth cancers as chewing tobacco.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Two months smoke free after 20 years of smoking. Quit cold turkey and no desire to start again. Woke up the morning I quit and like a switch threw out what I had left and that was it.
"Keep at least 3-6 full bottles of hard alcohol on hand, a 2 week resignation notice,..." - Poetmatt
And rich, white men continued to drink it with impunity during Prohibition.
Here in Chicago, there are several downtown restaurants and bars that were speakeasies during Prohibition, with many judges, politicians and captains of industry among their patrons. You can see photos of movie stars (all white at the time - pre Dorothy Dandridge) and movie producers (ditto) all hoisting their ethanol-filled glasses in salute.
You make an interesting point, though. Why is hemp farming not associated with slavery as is tobacco farming?
You are welcome on my lawn.
no other corporation on the planet is legally allowed to kill thousands of people every day by doing nothing more than using their product as intended
Car makers?
There are so many differences between your example and tobacco that it is almost impossible to list. Cars have become MUCH safer over the years. Cigarettes have gone the opposite route. It is the massive increase of users that have really fed the automobile mortality rate, not the product itself. The term "safe" isn't even used by tobacco executives. Even they are not that stupid.
I'm not hopelessly addicted to my car. I can move closer to work and give it up. Quit "cold turkey". At an individual level, chances are my car will not kill me prematurely, as long as I make safe decisions while using it. There is no such thing as a "safe decision" when using cigarettes, and even the decision to quit using an unsafe product has been chemically removed for you, all due to non-regulation and greed.
Again, I could go on and on here, but the most glaring one is this. The world could exist without cigarettes. Cars, not so much. Some things have become a necessary evil, while others do nothing but feed unnecessary greed.
Two months smoke free after 20 years of smoking. Quit cold turkey and no desire to start again. Woke up the morning I quit and like a switch threw out what I had left and that was it.
Congratulations!(while I may have come across to you as some self-righteous prick before, I do sincerely mean this.) That is great, and I hope you feel good, both mentally and physically about your decision, and I hope you can continue to fight any craving to start again.
Unfortunately, you stand within the 3% of users of that particular product who were actually able to do what you've done, which speaks volumes as to what cigarette manufacturers are still legally allowed to get away with due to non-regulation. It would be wrong for me to tell someone what to do or not to do. I simply wish this global killer were more under control. To each their own, as long as that choice is not chemically removed by greed.
Again, congrats. Hope you can take the money you're saving and go on vacation.
Actually, you just can't die with dignity period. It's hard to be dignified when your last actions are, well, undignified.
Lots of people die with dignity. They say something pithy, go to sleep, and never wake up. By the time they void their bowels they aren't there any more; they're dead.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
rock phosphate happens to have a lot of radioactive elements.
I think organic tobacco farmers fertilize using traditional methods - manure & the like.
You only think that because the USDA took over the word "organic" and made it mean fuck-all. Guess what? Rock Phosphate can be USDA certified organic. Remember, Organic tobacco DOES NOT mean safer tobacco. They tell you right on the can.
Once upon a time "organic" farming meant basically what "permacultural" means today, except a little less specific and strict. Today it means jack diddly shit, unless it's a reputable third party certification. A USDA organic seal will actually push me towards another product if I can find one with something more reputable.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
From a simple question: http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2225174&cid=36390518
?
LMAO! Proof he's nothing but a damned troll, because he runs from clearcut evidence he is nothing but another "ne'er-do-well" slashdot troll.
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2225174&cid=36390518
?
LMAO! Proof he's nothing but a damned troll, because he runs from clearcut evidence he is nothing but another "ne'er-do-well" slashdot troll.
From a simple question: http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2225174&cid=36390518
?
LMAO! Proof he's nothing but a damned troll, because he runs from clearcut evidence he is nothing but another "ne'er-do-well" slashdot troll.
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2225174&cid=36390518
Proof drinkypoo's nothing but a damned troll, because he runs from clearcut evidence he is nothing but another "ne'er-do-well" slashdot troll. Why'd you run away from a simple question troll? Hmmm?? Perhaps because it clearly illustrates you're nothing but a trolling scumbag loudmouth who hasn't accomplished a damn thing in the computer sciences (though you like to play "big blogger" - what a joke!).
Hundreds of chemicals? Now, honestly, where can you get that kind of value for your money? If you tried to round up and ingest each one of those chemicals, it would probably take you over a year and cost you a fortune. Instead, you just buy one pack of smokes. Yet another service provided to you by the tobacco companies.
I have always dreamed of having my own troll. If I'd know it was so easy I'd have told apk what I thought of him years ago.
Slashdotters take note! Although I suspect you would have a hard time taking him away from me now.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Proof? Ok, see here http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2225174&cid=36390518
Why'd you run away from answering a simple question there, troll?
Answer = Because it's clearcut proof drinkypoo's nothing but a damned troll, because he runs from answering a simple question that shows clearcut evidence drinkypoo is nothing but another "ne'er-do-well" slashdot troll.
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2225174&cid=36390518
Why'd you run away from answering a simple question there, troll?
Answer = Because it's clearcut proof drinkypoo's nothing but a damned troll, because he runs from answering a simple question that shows clearcut evidence drinkypoo is nothing but another "ne'er-do-well" slashdot troll.
Pot calling the kettle black, troll? Then if not, why'd you run from where you are shown as off topic & trolling, hmmm??
You are trying to appeal to their reason. I'm telling you, they have not any. The elite know better what is best for riffraff.
Most smokers have what psychologists/psychiatrists call an "oral fixation." So when they quit smoking, they try to ease those cravings by chewing on gum, crunching on veggies or fruit, or eating more.
The other thing is that when you quit smoking, your tastebuds are soon free of the coating of tars and nicotine from smoking, and you can taste more, so food simply tastes better. And if it's tasty, of course you're gonna want to eat more!
Personally I don't think there are any real appetite "suppresant" properties to nicotine. If there are, they're negligable.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
It appears that you started trolling others first drinkypoo. What's the matter? "Can't cash checks your loud trolling mouth wrote"?? Apparently so, because you ran from a simple question that showed you came into a thread, off topic, and trolling, here http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2225174&cid=36390518 You sow the wind drinkypoo, and now comes the whirlwind in a re-trolling. Just so you know how it feels, and because of your own trolling ways. You sure can dish it out, but you cannot take it.
It seems to me that every diet program assumes people eat because they are hungry. But what if that's not it?
I think people eat when they are not really hungry all the time. Maybe you don't know when you will have another chance to eat, so you want to eat a ton of food now. Maybe the food just tastes great. Maybe the social situation calls for you to have some birthday cake, or whatever. Maybe you don't want to waste that expensive dinner. Maybe it's just some psychological thing, i.e. "comfort food." Maybe you are getting your calories from alcohol and not food. Maybe you are not stuffing yourself, but just eating the wrong kind of food. Maybe you are not hungry but it's dinnertime.
See here http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2225174&cid=36390518 So, why'd you run from a simple question there, drinkypoo? Perhaps because it exposes you as the troll here?? Absolutely.
On the other hand, we have historical precedents for what happens when drugs like cocaine (or worse heroine) are legalized.
We sure do.
That was not a good idea.
The War on Drugs is not a good idea. It has resulted in billions of wasted Dollars, millions of incarcerations, tens of thousands of deaths, and a huge crime spree. Which is an entirely predictable result. Just look at all the warring going on among the wine and beer cartels.
And this doesn't even account for the healthcare denied to addicts because of the legal stigma. That's perhaps the most unconscionable part.
I personally think that the country would be a better place if we could stop using all of these substances, however, we have already tried prohibition of alcohol and it proved unworkable.
100% agree on both counts.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I know that this argument is legitimate to a degree, but tobacco smoking regardless of whether you organically farmed the crop yourself or Philip Morris poisoned it doesn't make smoking safer. There are a lot of ways to make it more dangerous, but burning plant material is chock full of carcinogens by it's nature. The particulate makeup of smoke is filled with tar and carcinogens. If you are a pipe smoker or cigar smoker and you don't inhale, you are still filling at least your upper airways and mouth and entire facial cavity system with this stuff. Anyone who smokes cigarettes know that the filters turn yellow. Anyone who doesn't but smokes other things, try exhaling through a paper towel. Or exhale through a paper towel after smoking through a filter. I bet you it's still going to yellow it. The makeup of smoke from burned up plant material is carcinogenic and unhealthy to place in your lungs/body.
Okay, so it's popcorn time!
Age restrictions work and it's a proven fact that they reduced the number of smokers.
Marketing restrictions work and it's a proven fact that they reduced the number of smokers.
Smoking reduction is best accomplished with a comprehensive tobacco control program that addresses education, taxation, marketing, and age restrictions.
While you claim nothing has been done the percentage of the population that smokes has fallen from a high of over 70% to it's current national rate of under 25%.
Tens of millions of smokers have quit and the smoking rate continues to fall. This while, according to you, nothing was being done!
My wife is working on her Masters in Public Health and I helped her write a Masters level paper on this topic last semester so come at me bro'.
You're fall will be mighty.
And yes, I use the term specifically designed because TFA points out yet another step in the hundreds taken to refine that particular product to make it just about the most powerfully addictive legal product on the planet. And again, those who care turn a blind eye and hold their (greased) palm out.
I'm wondering what the likes of Philip Morris, BAT, etc would do to marijuana or cocaine if it were legalized. They already free-base tobacco: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/freebase-nicotine--why-some-some-cigarettes-may-be-more-addictive-588248.html
I don't find pipe tobacco smoke that offensive, some of it actually smells quite nice, so they've definitely made a difference to the product.
It's all still legal of course ;).
You're using a whole lot of words to justify yourself, but really it just comes back to stupid. Not in the low IQ sense, but in the weak minded and easilily manipulated sense. Plenty of people made it through adolescence without smoking. Own up and take responsibility for yourself and grow from it. End of the tough love talk.
Shut the fuck up about coal plants, faggot. You're talking out your ass.
Just get out, have fun and make friends. That'll get you into their pants a lot more surely than trying to get in through their heads.
Women are said to have two different ladders: the "friend" ladder and the "lover" ladder.
This is why I hope weed stays illegal.
Actually, you just can't die with dignity period. It's hard to be dignified when your last actions are, well, undignified.
Lots of people die with dignity. They say something pithy, go to sleep, and never wake up. By the time they void their bowels they aren't there any more; they're dead.
...lying in there own effluence. Very dignified. Not that there isn't degrees of undignified. Spending your last years lying in your own effluence for instance.
It would be nice if the FDA and others would get over their all or nothing obsessions and recognize that their "solutions" don't work.
The FDA approved aids to quitting smoking have an 8% success rate (yes, just 8%) after a year. There is reason to believe it declines after that (that is, some portion of the "successful" 8% return to smoking). However, they and several non-government organizations keep pushing the FDA approved methods while doing their best to kill off harm reduction methods like snus, lozenges, and e-cigarettes. All of those are less damaging to health than smoking (some evidence suggests no more dangerous than coffee) and none of them produce any sort of "second hand smoke". If a person switched to one of those and then fails to ultimately quit nicotine entirely, they're still far better off, but the FDA, American Lung Association and others are desperately fighting to get them banned everywhere they can (why the ALA would object to something you don't inhale, I can't imagine!). It's as if they're paid shills of the big tobacco companies (perhaps they are).
Meanwhile, there is growing evidence that some smokers are, in fact, unknowingly self-medicating for real and undiagnosed mental health issues. In the very few studies conducted, nicotine has proven more effective than anti-depressants and anti-psychotics for some people (without the nasty side effects such as occasional homicidal rage and destruction of the liver) and is the only known drug that helps the negative symptoms of schizophrenia. But because it's the devil incarnate (and because it can't be patented and sold to a captive audience for megabucks) it's only use is in the form of people taking up smoking and feeling better for it until the downsides start kicking in.
Meanwhile, now that states and local governments are starting to feel the budgetary pinch, more than one have revealed their hypocrisy by introducing bills to adjust their tobacco taxes to increase revenue (that is, lower the tax a bit so people will smoke more and improve their tax revenue).
What you should really fear is a stupid tax.
And yes, I use the term specifically designed because TFA points out yet another step in the hundreds taken to refine that particular product to make it just about the most powerfully addictive legal product on the planet. And again, those who care turn a blind eye and hold their (greased) palm out.
I'm wondering what the likes of Philip Morris, BAT, etc would do to marijuana or cocaine if it were legalized. They already free-base tobacco: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/freebase-nicotine--why-some-some-cigarettes-may-be-more-addictive-588248.html
I don't find pipe tobacco smoke that offensive, some of it actually smells quite nice, so they've definitely made a difference to the product.
It's all still legal of course ;).
You're right about pipe tobacco, and even cigar tobacco, but those two products are FAR different than cigarettes, which is the specific product I'm speaking towards. Neither pipe or cigar tobacco, even in comparable numbers, are as deadly as cigarettes, mainly due to the difference (or lack) of chemical processing.
As far as what Big Tobacco would do with marijuana or cocaine, the answer is simple. They would change nothing in their game plan. They already have a working and hugely profitable model, so why wouldn't they fold those products into the deadly mix any different? They would process them in the same way, and make them as absolutely addictive as possible. Again, because no one is there to stop them or say otherwise.
The irony there is we all sit back and listen to the lies about how deadly and dangerous marijuana is, and yet it will ultimately be the Government who will be responsible, by legalizing it and handing it over to Big Tobacco, who will be the ones left with blood on their hands, as they'll ultimately be responsible for the first death directly attributed to marijuana use in its documented history dating back thousands of years, simply by allowing Big Tobacco to do what they do best.
drinkypoo exposed himself as a troll here by running from a simple question http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2225174&cid=36390518
The funniest part is that when you search google for slashdot site queries on drinkypoo, all of these questions drinkypoo runs from show up, exposing you for what he is - a troll.
(Hilarious: drinkypoo runs away from a question, & is thus exposing himself to the planet as a troll by running away from that question in the link above, and the more he runs from answering it, the more of the he is obviously becomes apparent).
Okay, so it's popcorn time!
Age restrictions work and it's a proven fact that they reduced the number of smokers.
Marketing restrictions work and it's a proven fact that they reduced the number of smokers.
Smoking reduction is best accomplished with a comprehensive tobacco control program that addresses education, taxation, marketing, and age restrictions.
While you claim nothing has been done the percentage of the population that smokes has fallen from a high of over 70% to it's current national rate of under 25%.
Tens of millions of smokers have quit and the smoking rate continues to fall. This while, according to you, nothing was being done!
My wife is working on her Masters in Public Health and I helped her write a Masters level paper on this topic last semester so come at me bro'.
You're fall will be mighty.
Really? How is that marketing plan going in India where bidis are also a huge issue, just as deadly, and outsell cigarettes 7 to 1? Let me know how well that age restriction thing is going in China, where there are more smokers aged 15 and up than the entire population of the US. Please let me know what Russia is doing to try and remove themselves from being one of the worst continents on the planet for smokers.
Yes, US cities are fed up over the lack of Government regulation, and smoking is on the decrease in certain areas. Is is pure education, or is it also attributed to the fact that it is damn near illegal to smoke anywhere in certain cities? Restaurants are fed up and have banned it. Airlines stopped allowing smokers years ago. Is it truly marketing, or is it the fact that smokers have been demonized so much that THEY are fed up over it and quit(or try to)? Taxes? How many smokers actually DID quit when cigarettes reached XX dollars a pack, or flat out couldn't afford the habit anymore? There are many other factors here, but most importantly, this goes well beyond the American ignorance that the world somehow ceases to exist beyond our borders, and other countries "regulations" around cigarette use continue to be laughable.
And yet even with all of our regulations and education, coupled with your research, we still rank in the top five countries for cigarette consumption. In fact, we may still be ahead of Russia there at the #2 spot, second only to China. Global consumption has tripled between 1950 and 2000. Perhaps you could explain that "little" statistic. Are billions of cigarettes being manufactured to inflate numbers that never get sold to validate your statistics that smoking is on the overall decrease? I seriously doubt that, as it would never support a sustainable profit model, sales have to happen.
And all of this says nothing to the fact that Big Tobacco remains untouchable, and most of the age and marketing restrictions, no matter how effective, have ever put a large tobacco company out of business. Age restrictions and education are mainly there to placate the soccer Moms into actually believing that Government cares. The continued lack of regulation on the product itself and turning a blind eye due to greed says otherwise. They're doing nothing to tackle the root cause with any real effort. God forbid we disrupt that revenue stream that helps fund the fat cats and their six-figure salaries.
This IS a global problem, not just a US one. It is a global problem not just due to cigarettes either. Because of greed of tobacco companies and their powerful lobbyists, hemp crops (marijuana) will likely never be legal again on a broad scale, even though it could solve many of the worlds crises with its 40,000+ uses. No, we would rather continue "supporting" the greed and corruption model, which will drive mankind into premature extinction.
The plain and simple reality. Smoking cessation would be MOST effective if cigarettes failed to exist. When you want to cut down a tree, you don't pluck at the leaves and claim you're "trying".
we should ban drive thru restaurants (a major source of unnecessary idling) and start making public transportation usable.
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I'm not sure where your graph comes from, but it is incorrect. It shows heroin as having a very high level of physical harm. That's not true. While it causes a great physical dependence, there is negligible harm caused to the body from the use of heroin. Now, dirty needles and the lifestyle associated with heroin addiction are extremely harmful, but the drug itself does not cause physical harm. The worst thing it does is cause a little constipation.
Cocaine on the other hand, causes much more physical harm, especially when used in its rock or freebase form.
I've got a feeling that chart was designed to be part of a marijuana legalization campaign and was put together from anecdotal information or simply someone's opinion.
Also, the use of khat can be very bad for the teeth, I hear, and cause the same mouth cancers as chewing tobacco.
Uh, if that chart were part of a marijuana legalization movement, marijuana would be sitting at the bottom, causing the least amount of harm of any other drug.
That chart is likely part of an anti-marijuana legalization movement, because marijuana should be sitting at the bottom, because it actually does cause the least amount of harm, compared to any other drug.
And please do your research before responding against my statement here. Go find me the mortality numbers caused by use of the marijuana plant, with any delivery method. Thousands of years, and yet, we cannot attribute a single human death to its use. Not even a single case of emphysema, much less cancer. In fact, the only deaths you will find associated with marijuana are those caused by Government, and their bloody war against a harmless plant.
Sorry I provided the chart out of context.
Chart visible at WP article on drug abuse:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_abuse
Data from 2007 Lancet article "Development of a rational scale to assess the harm of drugs of potential misuse":
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(07)60464-4/fulltext
I absolutely agree that marijuana is very nearly harmless and should definitely be legalized.
I just had a feeling that there was an agenda behind that chart because it seemed a little warped. For example, it lists khat as being almost harmless and without dependance and it's actually very harmful. If you don't believe me, take a look at pictures of older heavy khat chewers. Also, heroin is listed at the top and though it causes dependency, it does not directly cause physical harm. Cocaine on the other hand, can cause great physical harm in rock or freebase form. Also, I don't know where "solvents" are a legal drug, but certainly not in the US. I can't imagine it is legal to consume in that way anywhere in the world.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I absolutely agree that marijuana is very nearly harmless and should definitely be legalized.
I just had a feeling that there was an agenda behind that chart because it seemed a little warped. For example, it lists khat as being almost harmless and without dependance and it's actually very harmful. If you don't believe me, take a look at pictures of older heavy khat chewers. Also, heroin is listed at the top and though it causes dependency, it does not directly cause physical harm. Cocaine on the other hand, can cause great physical harm in rock or freebase form. Also, I don't know where "solvents" are a legal drug, but certainly not in the US. I can't imagine it is legal to consume in that way anywhere in the world.
You are absolutely right with your conclusions here. In fact, I think we're both struggling to understand exactly which group out there (pro or anti-???) came up with this chart, because it seems so flawed in many, many ways. Somewhere buried in there is someones agenda. Perhaps there is a campaign out there supporting khat legalization in some way? Dunno.
And "solvents" is possibly referring to the abuse of legal products such as paint (paint huffing).
All out of popcorn? Seems for someone who is going to take a "mighty" fall, strangely I'm still standing.
Cigarettes will cease to exist at the same time other controlled substances do. You cannot legislatively deny the existence of a plant and you're naive if you believe otherwise.
Also, we weren't discussing the global market but the domestic (United States) one.
Cigarettes will cease to exist at the same time other controlled substances do. You cannot legislatively deny the existence of a plant and you're naive if you believe otherwise.
Speaking of plants, explain marijuana laws. Seems legislation has done plenty to deny the existence of that truly harmless plant. 5000 people are arrested every single day for it. And yes, that's just in the Unites States. I am not naive, and marijuana laws have nothing to do with being naive. They have to do with greed and corruption, and are no different than tobacco laws. Lawmakers aren't stupid or naive, they're just greedy and corrupt.
And I gave a solution to really effect change in smoking statistics, by removing the source. I never said it was the answer, much less a realistic one. I'm only looking for more regulation to make the product far less deadly and addictive, and control those who want to make it so addictive. It would be naive to think we could ever eradicate tobacco from the earth, or many other drugs for that matter.
Also, we weren't discussing the global market but the domestic (United States) one.
Fine. Then go ahead and explain your "massive decline" statistics vs. the United States position in the global market as the #2 consumer of cigarettes, ahead of other countries who have little or no education or age restrictions. Consumption vs. cessation numbers just don't add up, and the numbers aren't off by just a "little" either. Weird. Must be that "new" math...the kind politicians and lobbyists use to obtain more funding to feed or create pointless "anti-tobacco" programs and jobs. Oh wait...job "creation". I almost forgot that is this Administrations solution for everything.
The more I read smoking cessation statistics and quotes, the more I question where the funding is coming from behind them. Wouldn't be the first time we've heard organizations claim they're "winning" the war against something "deadly" (War on Dru..er, Marijuana) to ensure they continue to receive government funding, when the glaring evidence staring us in the face says otherwise.
The movie is over, and all I'm all out of popcorn.
That's what I figure too, which is really strange because the chart lists "solvents" on the low side of physical damage, which I know for sure is wrong.
Huffing Carbona will destroy you much faster than Heroin.
There are many ways to administer drugs like heroin, cocaine, marijuana. Some of them will cause more damage than others. Using a vaporizer is safer than smoking marijuana, which is already pretty safe (I am told).
[If my daughter reads this, Daddy knows these things only from books he read in college.]
You are welcome on my lawn.
I am totally fine with you killing yourself any way you want, I am a firm believer in personal responsibility and choice provided your actions do not harm others blah blah blah (you know the spiel)
What I am not fine with is as an Englishman I pay taxes into a public healthcare system, this guarantees when you keel over from some smoking related illness if you are fortunate enough to live in this decrepit countries economy rather than wherever you hail from you will be rushed to hospital at no charge, and made better as to the best of their abilities, at no charge, and then are able to keep smoking happily.
Now in a society of 2 people, I just paid for half of your health care, assuming all tax contributions between us were even. Why should I pay for half of your choice?
So yes, kill yourself with smoke, kill yourself with heroin, kill yourself with a gun to the head, I don't care. But I firmly believe that people who smoke should automatically "opt-out" of the NHS and be expected to buy their own health insurance, and if they don't have insurance I am fine with them being left alone.
Oh and if something else gets you, that honestly has nothing to do with your smoking, tough titties, consider it a risk of your habit.
p.s. This isn't directed personally at you, sub any "you" with "Smokers in general"
Does anyone have any stats for the average lifetime healthcare costs of smokers VS non-smokers and how the extra costs (if any) compare to the money the government makes from tobacco taxes?
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
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Why is hemp farming not associated with slavery as is tobacco farming?
Who associates tobacco farming with slavery? I imagine those folks tend to have a more favorable view of marijuana use than they do of tobacco use. Observing that hemp (and a variety of other agricultural products) came from the work of slaves gets in the way of that story.
The number of people who die directly from smoking are actually very small. Cancer is the byproduct that kills most users and if you're going to bring that stat into play I'd like to point out that Marijuana causes cancer just like smokes do. Sorry to burst your bubble but this is the truth.
And before you go off on some rant, I'm 100% behind the legalization of Marijuana. I find no social or economic reasoning for its prohibition. At the same time I also believe that telling business owners that an otherwise legal product cannot be used in their establishments to be overreaching on the part of the government.
Get off your high horse about cigarettes. Don't like it? Don't go where they are.
Oh... and BTW, I'm also a non-smoker.