Out of Pod Experience

Lets look at what causes the most deaths shall we?
Granted, these numbers seems to be older, but doubt it has changed that much (please note how far down on the list lung cancer is).

Now lets look at the top one on said list, Cardiovascular disease.
And now just for fun, tell me why you are not upset about the fact that a lot of other things causes this except smoking, and if your going to make a thread to address those as well?
Since i cant trust that you actually will read said post the causes here.

Evidence suggests a number of risk factors for heart disease: age, gender, high blood pressure, high serum cholesterol levels, tobacco smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, sugar consumption,[9][10] family history, obesity, lack of physical activity, psychosocial factors, diabetes mellitus, air pollution.

Now also note that age (yes that thing you cant prevent unless your a bad bad smoker) plays a big factor in this as well.

Age is by far the most important risk factor in developing cardiovascular diseases, with approximately a tripling of risk with each decade of life.[6] It is estimated that 82 percent of people who die of coronary heart disease are 65 and older.[12] At the same time, the risk of stroke doubles every decade after age 55.

But oh my! There is even more dangerous acts you can do that increases the risk for this!
Sex

Men are at greater risk of heart disease than pre-menopausal women.[6][16] Once past menopause, it has been argued that a woman's risk is similar to a man's[16] although more recent data from the WHO and UN disputes this.
Among middle-aged people, coronary heart disease is 2 to 5 times more common in men than in women.[14] In a study done by the World Health Organization, sex contributes to approximately 40% of the variation in the sex ratios of coronary heart disease mortality.

Yes, you parents (and im sure your self) where very very naughty and put them selfes at risk!

So yea...Sorry while there is a lot of truth in how bad smoking is, that does not give you or anyone else the right to lecture smokers or non smokers on how "bad" they are unless you are willing to look at all the other things out there that causes MORE deaths then smoking, and then trash down on them equally to smokers.

Now for why people still smoke... Apparently you have decided to not read any replies where people say why they smoke, and your convinced that everyone smokes for the "cool factor" (which is a stage that passes once your 16 btw), but im sure that if you actually read peoples post you might see that smokers are often more considerate with who they smoke around, where they smoke, when they smoke, and WHY they choose to smoke even if people like you insist that you have any say in what they do in their own homes or designated smoking areas

(Hint, if there is an ashtray around, it means people are allowed to smoke, stay away from the ashtray if it bothers you, and if you work in a casino that allows indoor smoking..well its not the smokers fault that some places still allows indoor smoking while more and more places have been outdoor smoking only for the past 10+ years, take it up with your boss, not smokers who has nothing to do with you, or your work place)

Way to late for this..smoke then bed time for me

Yep, this is all true. Many smokers will throw studies at you that basically all say the same thing: "it's not that bad", or "it's not as bad as [insert something deadly here]", or "my [elderly family member] lived until eleventy-hundred!", but the truth is, they're not trying to convince you, they're trying to convince themselves. Most of those studies still say that smoking will kill you, but they like to ignore that part for the excuses the studies offer them, most of which can be easily traced to corporate tobacco 'research' endeavours.

I am a smoker. I got into the habit working in a high-stress environment, where the high-stress beat down on my self-esteem enough to allow peer pressure to get to me. As a result, I've been smoking for eleven years now, and it's my fault, because I'm the one that made that choice to start.

There is a problem though: at the same time as loving the calming effect a cigarette seems to have on me, I am nervous about the threat to my physical health, and would love to be able to quit. I explore options occasionally, but my life does not allow for much opportunity to start. I have made many attempts in the past, all aborted, because it is highly addictive as well, and incredibly difficult to quit.

Thing is, the studies have been done, for decades now, and they all reach the same conclusion: smoking kills. Not everyone, but usually when it does kill, it kills people before their time. I'm only 30, I'd like to live at least another 30 years and I'll be honest... I don't think I will, and that scares me, but I'm gonna try anyway.

But while I'm still smoking, while I'm making excuses to keep doing it but secretly, on the inside, I want to quit, like every other smoker, I'd rather not be made to feel guilty about it. See, when you make a smoker feel guilty about what they do, that's when the backfire effect kicks in, and suddenly, they want to smoke more, and even blow it in your face for being a right judgemental prick. Here I am, thinking to myself, "man, I really need to quit," and some obnoxious so-and-so that doesn't know the first thing about me comes along and tells me what I already know, worse, tells me I'm a bad person for it? Yep, they're gonna get smoke in their face.

Here's the thing, unless you've been addicted to smoking before, or even better, been in the exact same circumstances as the person you're judging (ie any mental illness they might have, workplace conditions, home life, etc, and I mean the EXACT IDENTICAL circumstances), then you do not know what you're talking about. No matter what studies you've read, you do not know anything about that person's habit and/or addiction.

That's the bottom line, Mirage.

"I have a degree and that makes me right" is called an argument from authority. Let's say, for argument's sake, that this is the internet and no one has any reason to believe your qualifications, even if 'wellness education' was a degree one could take seriously, where is your evidence that the naturally-occurring nicotine in tobacco has nothing to do with the addiction that people get to smoking it, even without adding anything to it, thereby causing them to increase their intake until it becomes an excess, and that inhaling anything other than the native air our bodies evolved to breathe can in any way be beneficial to the point of outweighing the risks?

First off, I never said that nicotine was not addictive. Secondly, I never said that smoking was not harmful, actually the direct opposite. I listed my qualifications so as to let people know that my extremely controversial opinion was coming from someone with 'qualifications'. The fact that I used Argumentum ab auctoritate does not bother me as I do not care whether or not people believe my qualifications; my ethics state that I let people know them, whether or not they accept them is up to them.

The problem is not substance abuse or unhealthy behavioral patterns, but why people get stuck in unhealthy cyclical behavioral patterns to begin with. Unless we are able to start teaching our children that the substances are not the evil thing and that the problem is how humans deal with stress and abuse most anything, we will never truly begin to solve the problem that faces many in our world.

I never said tobacco was not unhealthy and I qualified my stance with a statement about something that is touted to be the best thing for you and how it can actually kill you as well. The health and wellness fields are convoluted at best and rely on extremely varied research arenas with varied levels of vetting. The real question is not whether or not tobacco is unhealthy but why people abuse something so blatantly unhealthy so excessively.


In finale, I do believe, that if someone lives a life with a properly balanced diet and exercise routine, they can enjoy the usage of 'dangerous' substances and enjoy stress relief from the 'high', while minimizing the risk of chosen substance's usage through extreme moderation.

Well as long as it's just an opinion, then qualifications are irrelevant, aren't they.

(I slowly light my cherry wood pipe, fill it with cavendish tobacco, light it, puff, and then drink a sip from my glass filled with "Swing" scotch on the rocks and read this very thoroughly)

Yeah, I don't like cigarettes much, that crap isn't real tobacco anyway, but I fully respect people´s desire to smoke and approve of selected smoking areas, anyone here ever went on a metro ride in Madrid before 2005? I remember going anywhere during the morning, every single time the doors opened SWATHES OF BIG HUGE cigarette smoke waded thru the whole station, man it was really really bad back in the day.

I hardly go to places where smoking is allowed, the smell, unlike pipe tobacco, is quite acrid, same reasons I dont like cheap cigars much unless they are grade A tobacco. You can literally smell the quality of a cigar, not an excuse, but a matter of personal tastes.

Tobacco smoking is a pleasant hobby if done well, but people, for several reasons, take it to such extremes, that I sometimes feel bad for guys that I saw light a new cigarette with an old one in succession smoking 2 to 3 packs on a work day, only to see them get more anxious and collapse, since all they had for breakfast was a coffee and nicotine. That´s just bad habits.

I mean, nothing beats a good old Cuban or Dominican Cigar with a cup of rum after a hearty meal, but from there going to chain smoking them, well, people need to set self-boundaries, but I can respect their habits, and as much I might know what they are doing is bad for their bodies, no one can walk in another´s shoes and tell them what to do or how to live their life.

It´s the same with alcohol and any other stimulant. There´s no moderation, there is just this overwhelming need to dull the senses in whatever substances you have at hand. And usually because you tend to do said action under bad circumstances, stress mostly and then ending up addicted.

I don´t see a problem with smoking like OP sees, I see a problem in people´s habits of just going to extremes, cognitive therapy helps a lot with that, but I don´t see the need to sermon others from a high and mighty pedestal telling them its bad and they like need to stop NAO or ELSE!

EVERYONE these days knows smoking is bad for your health. There is no secret there, no evil lizardlord agenda of destruction hidden from the eyes of the populace.

If you want to get alarmed, get alarmed at the atrocities of trans-fats, the perennial Big Pharma campaign against vitamins, the insane amounts of mercury in edible fish, processed foods labeled as healthy that are just laden with chemicals and how Water treatment plants cant filter out hormones/prescription drugs out of the water.

Those are very interesting topics of discussion that make me wanna don a tinfoil hat and add to the discussion, but smoking really?

What´s next? STD´s?

3/10 for you

Well snuff ("snus" in Sweden) and dip are two somewhat different things. Snus does not produce spitting. "Dip" often produces spitting in inexperienced users. After a couple of weeks you no longer need to spit - you can control your salivation and you can control how much of the tobacco "juice" gets into your spit. If you dip for more than a month and you're still spitting, you're doing it wrong. Try a top deck.

Actually, when you do quite, you in fact "just do it".

I just want to point out that all the research done on smoking focuses on heavy smoking. Not as bad as, but similar to the research that shows that one can overdose from inhalation of marijuana smoke. They put chimps in a small enclosed boxes and pumped it full of 'marijuana smoke', which caused the chimps to die from asphyxiation, and then concluded that smoking pot can kill you. Well no **** Sherlock, breathing excessive amounts of smoke into your lungs is bad for you. Again, smoking is not the problem. People's inabilities to control their impulses is what kills people early.

Romeo and Juliet are sitting and smoking the joint.
Juliet gives it a few puffs, then says in a husky, smoky voice:
-I love you so much, Romeo!
Then gives the joint back to Romeo, who smokes it for a bit and replies:
-Same $***!

Russian translation