Nicotine levels up 10%-20%

[Moses]

Smokers really get screwed with SSI. The early departure limits lifetime payments.

[cstreit]

Originally posted by jluetjen
Tobacco on the other hand isn't a necessity for life, and the tobacco companies apparently are manipulating it's contents to ensure that people can't quit even if they wanted to.

Then you'd have to ban beer too... ...and I'd have to hunt you down and kill ya.

[M.D. Holloway]

Originally posted by jluetjen
I hear you. But food is a requirement for life, and the food companies aren't necessarily manipulating the content to make you eat more of it....

I call BS on that - I bet in a few years somebody will prove that high fructose corn syrup is addictive and causes obesity and a host of other crap.

They make it addictive - sweet, salty...they know all the angles!

[svandamme]

today , marks 3 months clean for me

[jluetjen]

Congratulations on the personal achievement. While personally I detest smoking, I really have to take my hat off to people who can manage to quit. That's a personal battle that I'm not sure that I could win.

[nineoneone]

I quit in January this year! After 30+ yrs of it gave it up cold turkey...............Just damn tired of smokin. I can still be around it and it doesn't seem to bother me. I have several friends that recently found out they had some type of cancer without ever havin smoke!! My sister-in-law was actually pissed at me for smoking when she found out that she had cancer, huh!! She never smoked and working in the medical field she was floored by it. If the doctors tell me I got cancer I'll go back to smoking for sure, by then what the h3ll. bottom line I don't care if you smoke or not and I don't care if you drink or take drugs or what ever. I'm doing what I want you do what you want..... Press 1 for Happy.

[bryanthompson]

Originally posted by sammyg2
I am so tired of people perpetuating urban myths when they have absolutely no accurate knowledge of the subject.
.....
MYTH: second hand smoke is worse than first hand smoke.
BS. Again, the US surgeon general's office has paid for and published studies trying to prove that second hand smoke is worse. What they proved and quitely presented as to not draw much attention is that the opposite was true. Secondhand smoke was shown to be much less dangerous than first hand smoke. In fact, the clinical study that I cited in my term paper in 1999 indicted that they were unable to identify or provide direct evidence that second hand smoke was directly responsible for ANY deaths.
I'm not saying that second hand smoke is safe. I am saying that the stupidass health nazis made up most of their so-called evidence to scare people into supporting their cause and lots of sheep are buying into their propaganda.

The WHO did a study that found similar results. IIRC, it said that second-hand smoke can aggrivate existing conditions, but didn't lead to a statistical rise in household asthma rates or cancer within families of smokers.

I do know one person who absolutely could die from second-hand smoke. He has extreme asthma and a few other conditions that basically combine and cause him to pass out during an attack. Asthma with (i think) laryngeal spasms... a bad combo. The vast majority of people might find the smoke a little irritating, but it's not going to kill them.

At the same time... society bans things that are deemed 'unacceptable' by the majority. Walking down the street naked doesn't hurt anyone, and neither does showing boobs on TV. The majority of people don't want to see it in public, so it's banned. Banning smoking in restaurants and bars seems like the same thing to me. Instead of using phony excuses about cancer, and hyping the evil of second hand smoke, why can't they just be honest and say that they don't want to smell it. There. end of story. If enough people don't want to smell it when they have dinner out with the family, that's a good enough reason for me.

[masraum]

No smokin' for me. My parents smoked when I was growing up, and I thought it was so disgusting, that I've never tried it. I think I am also not a personality to get addicted to things. I like the fact that most places don't allow smoking these days. It always sucks to go someplace to eat, shop, whatever and have smoke wafting at your face. I remember being a kid and seeing cigarette butts laying on the floor in grocery stores, department stores, or pretty much anyplace. Thank goodness times have changed.

Ban them? Well, I suppose in utopia there would be no alcohol, pot, nicotine, coke, heroine, etc..., but in this world even if you could successfully ban cigarettes, something else would just pop up in their place to provide addicts with what they want/need. I think we are doing well to regulate how much cigarettes affect others in public. Besides, cigarettes are potentially less harmful to others these days than alcohol or other drugs. Not many people have been killed because someone was smoking and driving.

[svandamme]

Originally posted by masraum
Not many people have been killed because someone was smoking and driving.

i actually had a low speed curb bang in a sharp turn that took off left front wheel from the Saab , because i dropped a burning ciggie tip in my crotch and had to rescue the equipment from a burning heat the kind you don't wish on your worst enemy....

if that road would have been a mountain road... i could have been dead right there and then

[kach22i]

Nicotine increasing in cigarettes

Washington.– Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health say they have confirmed a study by the state that found nicotine levels in cigarettes increased from 1997 until 2005.
The analysis, based on data submitted to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health by cigarette manufacturers, found that increases in smoke nicotine yield per cigarette averaged 1.6 percent each year, for a total of about 11 percent over a seven-year period.
"Cigarettes are finely tuned drug delivery devices, designed to perpetuate a tobacco pandemic," said Howard Koh, an associate dean for public health practice who worked on the analysis. "Yet precise information about these products remains shrouded in secrecy, hidden from the public."
The health department study released last October examined nicotine levels in more than 100 brands over a six-year period. The study showed a steady climb in the amount of nicotine delivered to the lungs of smokers.
Gregory Connolly, head of the Tobacco Control Research Program at the Harvard School of Public Health, said the increase found in Harvard's study is due primarily to an increase in nicotine in the raw tobacco used in the cigarettes.
"There's something going on either with the type of tobacco they're using or the addition of more nicotine to the reconstituted tobacco. We just don't know," Connolly said.
He also said the findings call into question whether the tobacco industry is living up to its 1998 agreement with states that it would launch a campaign to reduce smoking by young people.
"If that same industry turns around and advances the availability of nicotine in the product, you may not get fewer kids smoking," he said.

I wonder if it's because of cloned plants?

"There's something going on either with the type of tobacco they're using or the addition of more nicotine to the reconstituted tobacco. We just don't know," Connolly said.

[livi]

I receive at least twice the nicotine levels as a heavy smoker. Swedish wet snuff.

If, hypothetically, someone were to invent cigarette smoking today it would probably be as illegal as heroin. And alcohol too. Culture and tradition are strong legislation steering wheels.

[cstreit]

Markus,

I thought you were quitting dude....?

Tomorrow is week 6 of smoke-free for me. Still on the 1/2 dose patch. Based on the crazy junky brain antics going on in my head, there is no doubt that it's an incidious drug. [tinfoil hat] I wouldn't be suprised if they were maniupulating other chemicals in it too. [/tinfoil hat]

[Superman]

Originally posted by scottmandue
As a sideline... do they still sell low nicotine cigarettes?

(for you young-ins back in the 70's and 80's they had such things)

Here's another myth. Since the tobacco industry successfully avoided FDA scrutiny, that industry did it's own regulating. They made "Tar" the culprit.

There are low tar cigarettes. But the really insidious finding is that the tobacco companies found a way to grow tobacco that yields less tar while delivering more nicotine. Yeah, you can get low tar cigarettes......that are more addictive than the regular variety.

[speeder]

I quit a few years ago after smoking since adolescence, and I am sure that it destroys your health since my Dad is dying from throat cancer, but I would be 100% opposed to outlawing cigarettes. I have no doubt whatsoever that life was immeasurably better 50 years ago when every aspect of our existence was not legislated to death.

jluetjen, you say that you "detest smoking", do you mean when others smoke? Do you detest smokers? Because it's easy enough to solve the first problem by not smoking if you do not like it, but if you have a burning desire to control the lives of others that is another matter. If you detest people w/ vices, I hope that we never meet. I would be offended by your very presence.

They need to start a new country somewhere for all of the people who believe in never-ending, socialist/fascist legislating of life. Sort of a permanent exile/retreat for people w/ extreme control issues. They would all kill each other over condo association disputes and the like, but we could get rid of them and America could be a great place once again. Smoke 'em if you got 'em.

[tdatk]

Originally posted by speeder


They need to start a new country somewhere for all of the people who believe in never-ending, socialist/fascist legislating of life. Sort of a permanent exile/retreat for people w/ extreme control issues. They would all kill each other over condo association disputes and the like, but we could get rid of them and America could be a great place once again. Smoke 'em if you got 'em.

Well said speeder!
I also take issue with the remark about the workers being slackers taking a smoke break.... they wouldn't have to if there wasn't a ban in workplaces for smoking, they would simply keep on working and smoking. I quit years ago but I simply hate all this shiet regulations dropped down from the chosen ones.

As a side note,
It's funny how people in general express how nasty smoke smells, but burn leaves or seer some rotting flesh on a grill and that just wonderful. Seems bandwagon biased to me.

[berettafan]

Originally posted by tdatk
Well said speeder!
As a side note,
It's funny how people in general express how nasty smoke smells, but burn leaves or seer some rotting flesh on a grill and that just wonderful. Seems bandwagon biased to me.

If you don't seer it you lose flavor! No way i'm wasting a quality cut of meat by letting the juice of life (aka protein) find its way into the grease trap.


Regarding smoking i'd like to make 4 points:

1-Menthols are soooo much better than regulars (and no i'm not black)
2-5 minute breaks behind the restaurant bull****ting with friends whilst enjoying a smokey treat (Kurt if you're out there i miss ya buddy!) are among my most fond memories from years ago.
3-It needs to be banned.
4-Every dollar spent on researching a cure for smoking caused illness is a dollar not spent on cures for childhood cancers, autism, etc.

The waste of resources spent essentially trying to find a way to allow people to smoke without consequence is disgusting and shameful.

[livi]

Originally posted by cstreit
Markus,

I thought you were quitting dude....?

Tomorrow is week 6 of smoke-free for me. Still on the 1/2 dose patch. Based on the crazy junky brain antics going on in my head, there is no doubt that it's an incidious drug. [tinfoil hat] I wouldn't be suprised if they were maniupulating other chemicals in it too. [/tinfoil hat]

You are doing great, Chris!

I am not. Obviously..