There is an interesting and chilling new study out on smoking. It is well understood that smoking is a leading cause of death. However, the leading study on the morality rate is derived from a 1956 study called the “British Doctors Study” that found a roughly fifty percent mortality rate. A new study however by BMC Medicine has found that the rate is more like 66 percent or two out of three smokers will die as a result of smoking related illness.
The study is huge in size following 204,953 men and women over 45 years old from New South Wales, Australia. The work by the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health at the Australian National University found a much higher rate of morality than previously thought. The study also found that smokers tended to come from less educated and less affluent populations, a fact previously found in other studies.
Despite the findings, I remain convinced that such risks should be left to individuals to measure. However, the study reaffirms the dangers of this product. Indeed, it may be unique. Is there any other product that can be sold that is both so addictive and so ultimately lethal?
The religious fervor of the anti-tobacconists is disturbing.
Now they inveigh against vaping, which is of uncertain -if any- risk, and certainly moves people away from smoking cigarettes.
The Puritans among us just cannot leave the rest of us the hell alone.
Although smoking cigarettes is a cure for nicorette addiction, so there’s that.
Recently American health authorities have all but eliminated standards for acceptable cholesterol levels and sometime ago relaxed standards on acceptable blood pressure. Surely next will be the elimination of taxes on tobacco. All these moves clearly directed toward reducing life expectancy. We the 99% are living too long and are becoming an inconvenience to the 1%.
Once again I see that an official report makes an unscientific political claim, that there is no safe level of second hand smoke. That is unscientific because it cannot define ANY level which constitutes second hand smoke. So it makes the claim, that one person smoking a cigarette in an enclosed stadium 300 yards away from a non-smoker constitutes a risk for a non-smoker who is there at the same time. Common sense and science will show that to be a LIE. We can take it further for the anti-smoking fanatics, and they can state that any smoker in ALL of Houston smoking in their car is a danger to ALL non-smokers in the city. Think that is rational or scientific? This is why such a statement is pure propaganda and NOT science.
It also shows that the writer of that report should get a Nobel prize since they have discovered the most toxic substance in the universe. There are safe levels of plutonium, radiation arsenic, lead, dioxin, ALL of which will kill you fairly quickly. Yet second hand smoke is DEADLIER? Of course, if this were true, there would be NO problem at all since the problem would solve itself since smokers would die rather quickly. Yet we have idiots who will follow this propaganda as being true. Let’s use common sense and science for a change.
Tom Nash:
“The state government are probably as addicted to the enormous tax revenues from cigarettes as the smokers are to the nicotine.”
I think we need some PSAs about our politicians being deeply addicted to taxing and spending in general. The more they tax the more they spend and we still incur more debt. Maybe their parents should have an intervention.
Tom, starting at age 35-40 would be the sweet spot, tax-wise.
Pogo…it’s more effective cost-saving measure to get them smoking LONG before retirement. And on the revenue side, you have a product bringing in huge taxes, which can easily range from 60-80% of the total cost of every pack sold.
When I was in college, I recall a professor stating that, technically, cigarettes should fall under the purview of the FDA, because they contain a drug. And if so, they would be banned, because they are deadly and provide no medical benefit to users.
I finally have the opportunity to proclaim a regulation in CA that I like, namely, the banning of smoking indoors in public. I think that smoking should be an individual’s choice, but an individual does not have the right to expose other people to their cancer sticks.
Instead of preventing people from choosing for themselves, I support public service announcements, anti-smoking campaigns, educating parents on how to talk to their kids about smoking, etc.
At least smoking doesn’t look cool anymore, and carries a bit of a stigma. It’s hard to look cool when you’re freezing outside, smoking in the rain because that little white stick has power over you. So much of a stigma, in fact, that non-smokers who get lung cancer from causes such as radon in the home, feel some judgement from those who assume they smoked.
Pogo – that reminds me of that scene in Practical Magic where Sandra Bullock chastises Nicole Kidman for smoking. She replies, “I’ll probably get life. I should smoke 2 at once. . . shorten the sentence.”
It is true that, smoking kills. But slowly it is reduced
For the common good.
The government should mandate smoking after retirement.
Steven Blackwood- You are correct in pointing out that premature deaths related to smoking results in “fewer years” of collecting Social Security and Medicare benefits. Thus the earlier deaths ” in one respect “save” the system money.
Additionally, the calculations involved in tallying up smoking-related economic costs appear to assume that elderly non-smokers will not incur medical expenses.
So if the assumption is that the 70 year old smoker who dies at age 70 would not have added any medicare expenses had he not smoked and lived to age 80, you get to the economic “justification” for tax revenues for State and Federal governments that exceed by many times the profits of tabacco companies, retailers, etc.
The state government are probably as addicted to the enormous tax revenues from cigarettes as the smokers are to the nicotine.
This really strikes me since Leonard Nimoy just died. He had been a smoker, but became ill and died even though it had been over 30 years.
To answer the question posed at the end of the comment: guns are cheap, available and quicker. To any smoker I say: get it out of my air space and guns are quicker. To any adult who has a child: preach to the child not to smoke. When watching old movies on TCM and all the stars are smoking: tell the kid how gross it is to kiss a woman who smokes, especially if you are French. Tell the kid that Humphrey and Lauren Bacall got paid to smoke in the movies by the tobacco companies. If you smoke, then admit to the kid that you are a dumbschmuck and wont live to see your social security money.
Smokers need to have their own insurance pool to which they pay in and from which it pays for their death delay costs. The rest of us should not share in any common insurance pool. That includes Medicare.
Cigarettes should not be sold anywhere that a minor is allowed to visit.
Teachers and principals who smoke should be fired.
Went in dumb, come out dumb too.
Everyone who smokes thinks he or she is the one out of three who won’t get cancer.
Interesting paradox. It is assumed that smoking causes the cost of healthcare and insurance to rise BUT because smokers tend to die earlier, this partially offsets that.
http://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancercauses/tobaccocancer/secondhand-smoke
“What can be done about secondhand smoke?
Local, state, and federal authorities can enact public policies to protect people from secondhand smoke (SHS) and protect children from tobacco-related diseases and addiction. Because there are no safe levels of SHS, it’s important that any such policies be as strong as possible, and that they do not prevent action at other levels of government.
Many US local and state governments, and even federal governments in some other countries, have decided that protecting the health of employees and others in public places is of the utmost importance. Many have passed clean indoor air laws. Although the laws vary from place to place, they are becoming more common. Detailed information on smoking restrictions in each state is available from the American Lung Association at http://www.lungusa2.org/slati/.”
I’m in Vegas now where, to get from my non-smoking hotel room to meetings, I have to go through a casino. The second-hand smoke is so horrible that I feel even from the back and forth daily, I am smoking too much. I’m not convinced it’s a personal right .. not when it infringes on others and not when it causes insurance costs for others to skyrocket.
“Is there any other product that can be sold that is both so addictive and so ultimately lethal?”
Yes, government subsidies.
Oops, I think “morality” might be a typo.