Smoke, not nicotine, is the problem

Sun Times ^ | November 18, 2004 | Dr. Brad Rodu

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

Today is the American Cancer Society's 28th Great American Smokeout. The event is certainly a smoke-out -- clean air laws kick smokers outdoors for their nicotine fixes. But is it really ''great''?

No! Because the event suggests a wrongheaded option: Quit tobacco or die. The reality is that for the 400,000 American smokers who die each year, total abstinence was impossible and entirely unnecessary.

Medical research shows that you can achieve almost all of the health benefits of quitting smoking without quitting tobacco.

Nicotine, while powerfully addictive, is about as safe as caffeine, another widely consumed addictive drug. It's tobacco smoke, with thousands of toxic agents, that leads to cancer, heart disease and emphysema. Eliminate the smoke, and you eliminate virtually all of the risk.

Modern smokeless tobacco products can satisfy your nicotine craving, and save your life. Research proves that smokeless products are 98 percent safer than cigarettes -- a fact that even tobacco prohibitionists have begun to acknowledge. Our university research group has documented that smokers who switch to smokeless tobacco reduce their risk for all smoking-related illnesses, including mouth cancer.

On average, smokers live eight years less than those who never used tobacco; smokeless users lose just 15 days. Statistically, smokeless users have about the same risk of dying as automobile users.

Newer smokeless tobacco products deliver the nicotine kick you crave and can be used invisibly. They are available as wafers or small tobacco pellets the size of breath mints; some completely dissolve during use, leaving no tobacco residue.

Smokeless tobacco is already working as a safer alternative for many former smokers. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 1.5 to 2 million former smokers have already switched. For more information on how you can be smoke-free, visit our research-based university Web page at www.uab.edu/smokersonly.

[peyton randolph]

I'll continue to enjoy my cigars (Monica-free and I don't inhale).

[Izzy Dunne]

Beware of that secondhand spit.

[Minn]

So what should we think of all the lip and throat cancer threats we've been told of?

[Gabz]

Good grief..............

[gubamyster]

Unfortunately, chew is taxed at the same rate as cigarettes. Everytime the tax on smokes goes up, supposedly to deter smoking & fund treatment for tobacco-related illnesses, so does the tax on chew.

[MediaMole]

Research proves that smokeless products are 98 percent safer than cigarettes... and 98percent grosser.

Especially if you are one of the people who develops cancer and has to have his jaw removed.

[k2blader]

Well, the smoke literally stinks. So, I'd say, yeah, it's pretty undesirable.

[theDentist]

I'll light up a cigar once I get home on honor of the Smoke-Out.

[mlbford2]

I plan on smoking 20lbs of pork butt and 3 racks of spare pork ribs this weekend. Oh well.

[TFine80]

I think they are talking about these nicotine breath mints....

[<1/1,000,000th%]

People are born that way and can't change. /sarcasm

[Just another Joe]

The reality is that for the 400,000 American smokers who die each year, total abstinence was impossible and entirely unnecessary.

There's that made up number again.
Amazing how even doctors, professors, and even professional researchers won't do their own research to see how that number is achieved.

[Luddite Patent Counsel]

I tried to smoke pork butt once, but it kept going out...

[peyton randolph]

So what should we think of all the lip and throat cancer threats we've been told of?

We all takes risks. Cigars are one of mine. I'm more likely to die in an auto accident than from smoking cigars.

[Odyssey-x]

Nicotine, while powerfully addictive, is about as safe as caffeine, another widely consumed addictive drug.

http://www.prn2.usm.my/mainsite/bulletin/1995/prn2.html

The fatal dose of pure nicotine is approximately 40-60 mg (0.6-1.0 mg/kg, 1-2 drops) i.e. the quantity contained in 2 g of tobacco (equivalent to 2 common blend cigarettes; 15-25 mg of nicotine per cigarette)

Caffiene is far safer.. http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Caffiene The LD50 is estimated to be about 192 mg/kg of body mass, or about 72 cups of coffee for an average adult.

[Jaysun]

Nicotine, while powerfully addictive, is about as safe as caffeine, another widely consumed addictive drug.

Right. I happen to believe that nicotine is beneficial to one's health. I'm virtually covered in nicotine patches and I keep a golf ball sized wad of nicotine gum in my mouth at all times.

[KarlInOhio]

The fatal dose of pure nicotine is approximately 40-60 mg (0.6-1.0 mg/kg, 1-2 drops) i.e. the quantity contained in 2 g of tobacco (equivalent to 2 common blend cigarettes; 15-25 mg of nicotine per cigarette)

How much of that nicotine actually makes it to the blood stream as opposed to being burned or inhaled and exhaled without being absorbed?

[tfecw]

good work on those stats...but we forgot something, smoking doesn't give you a full dose. Its similar to the idea that you can smoke a lot more crack than you can inject into your blood.

I'm kind of confused how (yes i smoke) if the lethal does of nicotine is 40-60 mg, the amount of 2 normal cigs. I've already smoked 4 today...I'm still going strong. In fact how are people surviving when they smoke upwards of 1,2, and 3 packs a day? are these some sort of super humans? Probably not.

I'm not going to say that nicotine is better then caffeine, but you've left out some facts that are important to those stats. Come on now, you almost sounded like Dan rather ;) Just helping keep the fact straight

[Bigh4u2]

"The fatal dose of pure nicotine is approximately 40-60 mg (0.6-1.0 mg/kg, 1-2 drops) i.e. the quantity contained in 2 g of tobacco (equivalent to 2 common blend cigarettes; 15-25 mg of nicotine per cigarette) "

So you are trying to say that smoking 2 cigarettes is enought nicotine to kill you???