Science: On second thought, no, secondhand smoke won’t kill you

Hotair.com ^ | 12/19/2013 | Mary Katherine Ham

[rktman]

Now it can be told. Now that smoking has been banned everywhere but the dryer vent at your apartment based on the notion that secondhand smoke kills everyone around you, The Journal of the National Cancer Institute can tell us this via Jacob Sullum:

[JRandomFreeper]

A thoughtful guest always brings something brewed by Trappist monks in Belgium and has about 12% ABV. ;)

/johnny

[Hot Tabasco]

Some folks are probably genetically inclined to develop certain condition regardless of what they do

My Brother-In-Law is an Oncologist and he will echo the same facts. There are genes in our bodies that no matter what we do, will become succeptible to cancer and ultimately kill us.......

[jjsheridan5]

According to the 2012 Surgeon General’s Report, very few people start smoking after age 25. Nearly 9 out of 10 adult smokers started by age 18, and 99% started by age 26.

Very few people start doing anything remotely "adult" after the age of 25 or even 18. They are not "children". They are young adults, certainly by 18. And even 15 and 16 year-olds are not "children", even though legally they are not yet adults.

Anyone who has witnessed adolescent peer pressure knows exactly why children start smoking.

Again with the "children". These young adults generally don't start because of peer pressure. They start because they are in that awkward stage between childhood and true adulthood, and they are experimenting. Almost everyone I know who smokes, started because of drinking. I never once saw someone exert peer pressure on another. In fact, to the extent that there was peer pressure, it went the other way. If others in high school knew you didn't smoke, other smokers would do everything they could to discourage you. In talking to many other smokers over the years, my experience was typical.

And non-smokers almost completely ostracized anyone seen smoking.

The "peer pressure" nonsense is a complete myth in 99% of the cases.

And without packaged cigarettes, smoking would be much less practical for children.

Again with the "children". For teens, packaging made little difference. Roll-your-own tobacco cigarettes were actually popular. But I really don't know what you are arguing for or comparing against. I have never heard of unpackaged cigarettes, except for loose tobacco.

Children cannot get cigarettes without adults providing access. Virtually all smoking adults are participants in this corruption to a degree, either by being a poor role model or actively or passively providing access.

Again with the "children". Teens have little difficulty getting anything without adults there to hold their wee little hands. Maybe PajamaBoy looks to role models to guide his behavior. No-one I knew did. We did what we did, because that is what we wanted to do. No other reason necessary, and no adult was going to stand (successfully) in our way.

Incidentally, smoking was not known in Europe until the 1520’s and people managed just fine before then

People who have never heard of steak can do fine on chicken alone. What possible relevance does this have? Nobody said that smoking was essential to life itself. Just that it is used primarily because people enjoy it.

And tobacco was the reason slavery was first introduced to Virginia.

And the winner of the "completely irrelevant point" goes to ...

Just because your obvious bias does not allow you to accept the truth, doesn’t make you any less wrong.

I am frequently wrong, but not here. And I have never had difficulty accepting truth. What I have difficulty accepting is screeds that appeal solely to emotion and herd mentality, since they have no real connection to any underlying truth.

[Thumper1960]

Nice sermon, preacher.
However, I don’t go to your church.

[cherokee1]

Gotta wonder where this bit of geniosity comes from. Second hand smoke of any sort obviously comes in degrees but there are far too many examples in my extended family, the circumstances I know the most directly about, of non-smoking spouses and non-smoking children getting emphesyma, asthma, and a couple more lung related ailments when the parents constantly light it up in the house and their cars. There is no history of these ailments any place along the family line unless close-in smoking is involved. They can stick their study where the sun don’t shine and by the way-—how do these geniuses live their own lives. Do they blow smoke continually up their children’s noses?

And then there’s my wool shirts. It was a dead giveaway if I stopped at happy hour because bar smoke would ruin one instantly. I learned to either skip happy hour or shuck the shirt. A stinky shirt will get you convicted of bar hopping every time.

[Go_Raiders]

That’s OK. God knows how special you are and loves you, so I will too.

Bless you, and have a Merry Christmas!

[FreedomStar3028]

Only the smokers would live.

[FreedomStar3028]

Mostly everything here is true. I started smoking around 19....on cloves(gross I know), then I graduated to marlb reds, then onto camels and back and forth between different brands. Now I’m smoking camel 99’s. I’m 28 now, I’m seeing the doc in January and gonna give quitting a real shot. But as far as peer pressure goes, I’m sure there were a few times that I was told “just take a drag man” blah blah. But most of the time it was a decision I made on my own. Also, I completely agree that most people will say “don’t smoke, you don’t want to get started”. I even say that to people that don’t smoke. I really wish I never had. I would discourage anyone from lighting up a cigarette for the first time, if they are a smoker, I don’t care. Smokers know what they are doing. Smoking has been vilified to the umpteenth degree. When the only real danger is to the smokers themselves. There is also 0 correlation between cancer and smoking. They keep trying to find it, but it just isn’t there, it is “assumed” that it is there, because it is known that smoking does damage. Although you read scientific studies that say it, it’s spun so it seems like it is a verifiable fact.

[gnarledmaw]

My GGrandfather chainsmoked cigars, even inhaled them. They were right, it finally got him. He only lived to 98.

[Busko]

Once again the junk science of the leftist, marxists,demonkrats is wrong but the damage is done. Allways destroying the industries and then they say “so what”.

[Thumper1960]

God bless you, too. A very Merry Christmas to you and yours.

[kelly4c]

Ahh I envy you. I got such satisfaction from it. I smoked for 22 years but gave it up 8 years ago when I got a scare from some test results. Had the test redone 5 years after quitting (for another reason entirely) and it showed normal. Said the first test result was probably wrong. I COULD go back to smoking now lol BUT I don’t for a couple reasons. It’s too expensive! The hell I went through would be for naught. And...when I smoke it becomes really too much:) Like over a pack a day.

[kelly4c]

Yes COPD. Even if cigarette smoking is debatable to be a cause of lung cancer, people can sometimes forget about other lung diseases which are proven to be induced by smoking but that don’t kill as fast, but do eventually kill, or at the very least lead to a lesser quality of life where one cannot even walk in some cases without the help of oxygen.

[kelly4c]

If I may jump in...I understand where you are coming from but the reality is that a side affect of offering cigarettes throughout the years past to the general public without strict enforcement of age requirement laws HAS led to millions of young kids trying and then becoming addicted to the product before reaching an age where they would have the maturity to understand the ramifications. I started at 12 yrs. old and was addicted by 15. We could buy them everywhere. It was the “cool” thing to do with certain crowds.

[Ouderkirk]

As a smoker, I much prefer no smoking in restaurants.

There is nothing worse than the couple next to you has just finished eating and they blaze up a smoke, while the waiter has just set your meal down in front of you.

As for a bar, you get what you get.

[poobear]

LOL! You two are killing me!

[rktman]

Well, at least it wasn’t second hand, uh, something.

[poobear]

:) Had that one comin’.

[Ditter]

You and I are shouting in the wilderness, none of the smokers want to talk about COPD. Whenever I see a person hauling around the oxygen tanks so they can breathe, I wonder how much they regret smoking all those years. Or will they even admit they did it to themselves.