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?
Darren…you made me laugh, my choice of cigarettes for most of my life was “Camels.” They still kicked my butt.
Nickos….30 years, eh? give them a few more, like me who smoked for 55 years. Now a two time lung cancer survivor. So far. I know certain as sunrise that one day it will come back, again, and take me out.
My biggest annoyance with cigarette smokers isn’t so much the smoke as it is the disgusting littering of nasty cigarette butts on the ground. Do they think those things just disappear? NO…..they are all over the places in some of the areas that are ‘safe smoking zones’. Garbage and trash on the ground along with their slobbery cigarette butts.
Nasty. Disgusting. Unsanitary. Pigs! Pick up after yourself at least. If no respect for others, have some self respect for yourself.
Did I say pigs? Yes. I did.
i have known at least 48 people, some of them close friends, that have been smoking for at least 30 years … none of them is dead. so I wonder, what kind of cigarettes these people that die from it smoke …or what kind of people they are ….
old nurse, My dad taught Math at a college for 29 years from the 60’s thru the 80’s and it used to drive him nuts that he would consistently see nursing students smoking outside the building. He used to say, “Of all the people who should know the issues with smoking…”
Inga (Annie), My first house fire fatality was due to a smoker on oxygen at about 1:00am. It took him and his wife out. The sad part was that she was in a different room and in the confusion she hid in the bathroom instead of just going out the single story window where she was.
Old nurse, me too. I had a patient who had severely burned his face by smoking while on oxygen. Luckily there was no explosion, IIRC. Truly horrible.
I hate these kind of studies since they are so vague as to what the risk is. The risk of dying is 100 percent – and everyone dies of something. Talking about how Joe was “killed by cigarettes” when he died at 75 or 80 is ridiculous. I’m also wonder how the study teased out the other risk factors, since people who smoke, may also drink and be fat, and do little exercise. I’d love to see the numbers stated this way: “If you smoke the odds of you living to 65 are X, if you don’t its Y. ” That would clearly state the risk.
I smoked for a long time. Every day for ten years, I swore I was quitting and then at 5 pm the next day, I’d give up and start again. So I made about 3500 attempts to quit. Eventually, I did quit and have been cigarette free [and healthier] for 15 years. So if you smoke and want to quit, don’t give up. There are lots of options – medical and alternative – that are proven to help. You can do it.
I took care of hundreds of smokers who died of lung cancer and COPD, many on ventilators in the ICU. I also saw lots of clinic patients go outside the hospital to smoke a cigarette through the tracheotomy opening [the hole] in their neck which was put there to treat their head and neck cancer. They could no longer smoke by inhaling through their mouths. It’s not pretty. Good luck to those who want to quit.
Pogo, It would also be interesting how much people who join a gym or play a recreational sport cost us due to their injuries. Another reason to hate those selfish runners!
issac,
Why stop there. I believe every American should have to open their doors once a month to a govt. employee and have them weigh, do a fat check, make sure everyone in the household has filled out an exercise log, open up the cabinets and fridge to make sure no unauthorized food is in the house. All violations will receive fines “tax” (as you say, “Tax the crap” out of these jerks) repeat offenders if kids are involved should lose their rights to raise them and will be taken away. All phones should have a hotline button on them so kids being violated can get the govt. employee over asap! Every six months kids should have do dissect one of the societal criminals to shock them from becoming one since ads on TV are just not going far enough.
It’s all for the common good right? issac, your world vision is scary.
Danged HTML.
“If ever there was a flagship that represented a ‘pay at the pump’ argument it is tobacco. ”
No, the economics clear that it would be unfair to tax them.
People die quite a bit earlier from smoking, but mostly after retirement.
Smokers actually cost society less than non-smokers.
From the NYTimes 2008:
Don’t forget the discriminating enforcement of the smoking laws say in bars. It is well known here in NY that certain bars get a pass due to certain clientele. I don’t smoke but refuse to view them as lepers. On the issue of cool or not. Sorry but Steve McQueen smoking is way cooler than a non smoking Justin Bieber.
To be fair in this sense no one would want to keep up with the new smokers if there weren’t any other to suggest the opposite. And if you look at it in the bigger picture ..lets face it there wont be any others that could do the ideal and maybe most romantic thing ever! Even if there was someone who can reach out to you and make it go away ..so be honets and everything involved with the SKO skomers and http://smokecartel.com is good.
Cheers.
Banning smoking from public establishments and work places is a good idea. People who are literally trapped in those spaces with smokers are being subjected to something that the do not want and which is harmful to their own health. Other workers, waitresses, bartenders, restaurant patrons had not much choice in the matter when they were in the same room(s) as the smokers.
I do think though, that the smoking ban has become ridiculous in some outdoor areas. Standing in the middle of an open field or on top of a cliff and smoking isn’t really going to harm anyone, other than yourself.
Regulations are good in some areas but can be ridiculous in others.
Regardless of morality, ideology, political bent/bias, personal hygiene, etc. we all pay for the cost of health care. With a seemingly impossible to resolve set of issues concerning how to go about allocating the costs vis a vis private/for profit/parasitical health care insurance or single payer government administered insurance, one thing is constant and has been exposed and illustrated so clearly that it is difficult if not impossible to argue. The bad habits of some cost all of us when it comes to collectively paying for health care.
Whether it be someone who pays out of pocket, some one who pays through an insurance system, or someone who throws their self on the hospital steps without either funds or insurance, the cost is paid by all.
If ever there was a flagship that represented a ‘pay at the pump’ argument it is tobacco. If used properly, occasionally, and in its natural form, tobacco is not remotely as dangerous as how it is used, encouraged by marketing, processing, and the need of the industry to survive. It has been proven through studies that most of the ingredients that cause most of the health problems come from the chemicals that are added to create a more addictive substance. There are, at last report, over two hundred. This may not be relevant but, I have a friend, child of the sixties, who smoked two packs a day. She tried to lower the costs by rolling her own and that helped to some degree. Then she decided to grow her own tobacco. After growing for a few years, she slowly stopped smoking as and addict and began to take an occasional few puffs in the evening. Not a scientific study but something worth thinking about.
If a person had to pay $25 a pack, a substantial number would stop smoking. This is a fact that has been proven during the last attack on ‘Big Tobacco’. Prices rose and caused some reduction in the number of smokers. Graphic illustrations of the potential damage and insertion into the educational system is also a proven way to lower the number of smokers.
If there are freedoms involved here as JT has inferred there is certainly more of that other and equal ingredient that makes up our society, responsibility. In the best interests of all, regardless of whether it is the result of lower health care insurance premiums and other costs or simply better health, it is society’s, as a collective, responsibility to tax the crap out of the crap that costs us collectively as well as individually. Pay at the pump for Twinkies, Tobacco, Alcohol, and other know garbage. Collect the taxes and use them to offset the costs of the medical attention resulting from the use of this crap. Use some of the money to subsidize wholesome food and make it available. If a smoker has the right to smoke his or her self into lung cancer they certainly if only indirectly have the responsibility to pay for it.
Of course this can be labeled in any number of derogatory ways or it can simply be seen as common sense, pay at the pump, societal responsibility.
joan, Vegas is indeed the last bastion of smoking. I see dealers are getting little fans to blow the smoke away. They have it tough, being in smoke for 8 hours a day. I feel for them.
Pogo, Many of the anti tobacco group have the missionary zeal of the global warming gang because they’re the same people. I smoked for ~15 years. Been off cigs since 1989. I don’t like being around smoke. But, I don’t feel the need to vilify those who smoke. And yes, this fervor against vaping shows they are not giving a sh!t about science. They hate nicotine! The new Carrie Nation movement.