To have a fag in my garden if I want to?

[WomanInChains]

I only smoke in my garden, never in the street or anywhere else. A footpath runs along the side of it adjoining a woodland area. Footpath is a short cut to supermarket, doctors, hairdressers. I smoke in the alleyway at the side of my garden which runs adjacent with the footpath.

I am getting sick of random people making loud comments when they pass by my fence like 'that stink is disgusting, ohh someone's smoking eurgghh' and etc.

WIBU to shout over to the next person to fuck off away from my fence if it bothers them rather than pausing and making comments?

It's funny you use your 'health' at the moment to carry on. I'm quite a bit older than you and want to remain healthy so not only do I not smoke, I follow a particular way of eating to remain so!

You're right in that it's certainly not just smoking that makes people ill.

I’m not here to convince anyone of anything. It’s the non smokers who are trying to convince me that I don’t know my own mind and that i will definitely “pay” for my smoking with my health. No one can know that.

Smoking hardens the arteries to the brain and destroys blood flow to the brain - this is what vascular dementia is

Is that so?

My non-smoking father had vascular dementia and died of a lung disease (idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis) at 76, which is earlier than average by a fair few years. A friend's non-smoking parents both had vascular dementia, but in his father's case they think it may have been caused by undiagnosed TIAs.

Based on my very unscientific anecdata, I'd say vascular dementia has all sorts of causes.

It's half of all smokers that die from a smoking related illness.

So there will be as many examples of smokers who haven't as though who has. And smoking raises the risk of certain illnesses, some people who have never smoked will also get those illnesses, but smokers are more likely to get them.

50:50. It's not good odds.

The 50% statistic is very consistent in a range of studies world wide.

So there will be as many examples of smokers who haven't as though who has

Should have been "there will be as many examples of smokers who haven't as those who have."

Well Queen just back from an hour weight training in the gym +30 mins cardio, cycled 6 miles there and back.

Had lunch - fruit and egg salad. Just off for my first fag of the day.

Or maybe my dementia has given me delusions and I've been sat on the sofa in stained pj's fagging it all morning .

Or maybe my dementia has given me delusions and I've been sat on the sofa in stained pj's fagging it all morning

Great that you exercise to offset the damage to your body. Not sure why you're so defensive.

@WomanInChains

Be honest. How many fellow gym goers do you know that smoke?

I’m at the gym 5x min a week, for years. No one smokes.

I have zero problem with smoking but your exercise regime for a smoker is, well, highly unusual to say the least!

@LakieLady

There are many possible causes of dementia. My father died from it. I am a health /medical author and have written about it. I have spoken at length to researchers and professionals about it.

This is from the Alzheimer Assoc. website

1. Don't smoke

If you smoke, you’re putting yourself at much higher risk of developing dementia. You’re also increasing your risk of other conditions, including type 2 diabetes, stroke, and lung and other cancers.

Smoking does a lot of harm to the circulation of blood around the body, including the blood vessels in the brain, as well as the heart and lungs.

As an aside, it’s so brilliant how young people are turning away from smoking?!

When I was a teen in the nineties it was still the cool thing to do.

Now it’s not exactly an attractive Instagram pic - dragging on a fag.

Very very rarely see a teen smoking these days. It’s wonderful.

It's half of all smokers that die from a smoking related illness

The issue is though that there is no way of knowing if said smoker would have got the illness anyway without smoking. Like my non smoking uncle that got lung cancer. Had he been a smoker then it would have definitely gone into the "smokers statistics" when it turns out he would get it regardless of smoking or not. So it's impossible to say, of that 50%, who would have suffered those illnesses irrespective of smoking. So no one can definitively say every one of those people would have survived had they not smoked. Especially given how many diseases are "linked" to smoking, it's very easy to call something a smoking related death if said person smokes. It's quite likely that anything I die of will be recorded as a smoking related death when it may not be. I may have got it anyway. So I'm always sceptical of these figures and I think the "odds" are better than 50/50.

I read another study that said that smoking is more prevalent among lower income households and therefore they are also less likely to eat healthily, have good medical care or even go to the GP in the first place so there's a whole myriad of reasons why their health would suffer. This wasn't the original article but here's a link for those that like to ask for them!
www.who.int/tobacco/research/economics/rationale/poverty/en/

@WomanInChains
Enjoy your ciggie

I would be in favour of it being made illegal - perhaps subject to an ASBO - to continue smoking after being asked to stop - no matter who by, no matter where you are (which would address the problem of people's houses being stunk out by neighbours smoking in their gardens, people smoking in flats and it getting into other flats, etc). That would send a very strong societal message indeed. It's obviously not entirely workable immediately, but I think the acceptance and deterrent effect would spread.

That's the problem with smoking. You can be doing it within your own property but whether you accept it or not, it affects others because the smell of it / toxins spread far and wide.

So yes, you're perfectly within your rights to smoke in your own garden, but those people who are walking in a public place are also perfectly within their rights to complain about it. You may choose to expose yourself to lethal toxins but it's unfair on you to expect everyone else to, too.

The issue is though that there is no way of knowing if said smoker would have got the illness anyway without smoking.

It's basic epidemiology.
You can't know for individuals, but you can compare rates between smokers and non smokers (controls), adjusting for confounding factors. It thus give the increased risk for smokers.
It gets more complicated because scientists who study this stuff aren't 5 year olds.

I can't believe we have two smokers on here who are determined to argue the toss over whether smoking is that harmful or not.

As women, smoking also increases your risks of all female cancer, so that cervical, breast , earlier menopause (with the knock-on negative impact on your bone health)....

Lung cancer is the least of your worries because the likelihood is, you will suffer from some life-limiting illness long before non-smokers.

You have a right to smoke. But don't keep coming back to try to convince people who don't that it's 'not really so cut and dried' about how bad it is.

This shows you are likely to lose 10 years of your life compared to a non smoker.

eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/01/23/smoking-cessation-life-expectancy/1858913/

But you are likely to have ill health long before you die from something that's been made worse by fags.

Just keep the stink away from other people- that's all we're asking.

I hate smoking, I'm an ex smoker so haven't always hated it but seeing someone close with copd.. I hate it.
However.... Your in your garden and it has fu*k all to do with anyone else, you could loudly comment that you hate people walking past your garden or even offer them one maybe..

Smoke in your garden, it's your garden. But people can also make comments as they choose about the smell too, in a public place.

Why do smokers (I used to smoke) often play down the risks or make comparisons to other risks 'I could be knocked down by a bus tomorrow' - probably due to cognitive dissonance!

My aunt has just been diagnosed with vascular dementia in her early seventies, she has smoked heavily all her life. Her mother got dementia in her early nineties and is still alive at 99. Did smoking contribute to my aunt's dementia - who knows. But this anecdote is as relevant or irrelevant as the stories of people who smoked and lived to an old age in perfect health too!

Dementia risk increases with age. That is why we have more people with it now because life expectancy has gone up, relatively.

There are several types of dementia. Many are caused by proteins clumping together and damaging the neurons. Vascular dementia is caused primarily by loss of blood flow to the brain tissue. This can happen to anyone as they get older because the circulation in the body declines. But if you smoke, the blood vessels will be furred up far sooner than a non-smoker.

People kid themselves. My uncle died just over 50 - he had a heart attack then a 2nd one. He was a heavy smoker. Between the first and second heart attack he stopped smoking. Overnight. But too late.

His wife also a heavy smoker had a benign brain tumour in her 60s then several strokes in her 70s when she died.

Both would have considered themselves 'healthy' until the smoking caught up with them.

The issue is though that there is no way of knowing if said smoker would have got the illness anyway without smoking

To reiterate my previous point - it's impossible to know at an individual level, but we know at a population level the smokers are at a substantially elevated risk for certain diseases.

I read another study that said that smoking is more prevalent among lower income households and therefore they are also less likely to eat healthily, have good medical care or even go to the GP in the first place so there's a whole myriad of reasons why their health would suffer. This wasn't the original article but here's a link for those that like to ask for them!

Any rigorous study will control for such factors. You shouldn't find any kind of comfort in this logic because it's flawed.

Inert There are so many studies,eg. the study that has found that living near or on a main road increases one's risk of breathing difficulties and ill health generally. I always wonder if those studies take into account all the variables including whether the respondents are poor, smoke, eat badly etc etc.

I always wonder if those studies take into account all the variables including whether the respondents are poor, smoke, eat badly etc etc.

I'm sure they do. But even if they don't would you apply the same sort of 'logi'c to say alcoholism? If someone drinks a bottle of vodka a day for 2 years then has cirrhosis, would you still factor in how many fruit and veg they ate and if they were poor (as if it could offset the damage?)

I read an interesting study a while back. They tell people not to give chocolate to dogs because of an allergic reaction but everyone has a story of a dog (often from childhood) that was given loads of chocolate and was fine. Apparently it’s because not all dogs are allergic to chocolate but as there is no way of testing which ones are they just say don’t give any dog chocolate.

This study said smoking is the same. Some people could smoke 100 a day if they wanted and never suffer any ill effects (hence the stories of of people living to 100 on 60 a day) but there is no effective way of testing who is “immune” and who isn’t so they just say “don’t smoke”.

Can you please link to this study?

No I can't as I read it about a year ago and I didn't think to save it as why would I? Hence why I said "a while back".

There was some report a while ago which said that for some reason some people (and not many!) do not appear to get lung cancer despite smoking but they conclude that is only one disease caused by smoking (and you will most likely get something.)

www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-some-smokers-get-lung/