India knight on smoking in times

[FluffyMummy123]

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It's one of the many things that are bad for an individual's health@greyriverside. But obviously smoking has just a detrimental effect on the health of others that is a 'special case'. You can't really outlaw someone eating 10 burgers in a row in a public place! Although, drinking alcohol on the street is outlawed in some places isn't it?

Monkeybird. So they ARE right that smoking aids memory! You clearly have a short one.

Was being provocative GRS. Cos as I keep saying I told KS off not for smoking (even though I think she's daft for that) but for her glib and offensive attitude towards the idea that a. smoking only affects her, which it patently doesn't and b. the notion that she wouldn't care if she got cancer, which frankly (and though I'm not in martianbishop's awful position, my DH has just come back from the hospice where his mother is dying, horribly, dirtily and unwillingly, from cancer) was incredibly annoying. And I just said that.

It's the pure (in denial) individualist claptrap I can't stand more than anything.

MrsMattie, Fair enough. I do accept that distinction.

I think the thing on these topics that annoys me the most (and this does not apply to you at all) is that people probably wouldn't be snarling so viciously at overeaters or people who don't go to the gym enough. Even smokers who do only smoke indoors come under attack.

MonkeyBird, I think a responbible smoker affects no one but themselves.
So lets talk about SUVs again.....

nope, not true DWP.

I am not making any case at all for smoking above and beyond any other stupid health-damaging behaviour (jesus, I have a cake addiction and know what the costs to my health might be...)

But smokers need to know that half of them die young from smoking related diseases. THIS affects their family.

Moreover, when smoking bans are introduced they lead to a MASSIVE decrease in smoking related hospital admissions and related deaths. See this report to show how heart attacks decreased by 17% - nearly a fifth - in the year after the ban was introduced in Scotland. I imagine we'll similar figures in England next year.

Lifestyle diseases cost the NHS (ie all of us) millions. Smoking cessation has lots of money ploughed into it. There are not similar programmes yet for weight and alcohol reduction. Why? Perhaps because smoking has the biggest impact on health? I don't know.

I wouldn't dream of saying 'yeah, I'm overweight, I don't care if I die young of a heart attack, my kids can go fuck themselves'. My grandmother did die young of a heart attack, with obesity and diabetes in tow.

But smokers somehow feel they have to defend their right to personal pleasure and individual choice. It's denial fuelled by addiction actually and it is annoying because actually it does affect all of us, as described above.

Why shouldn't the government legislate for better public health? And why shouldn't I point out where someone is deluding themselves about their freedom which is actually dependent on quite a lot of other peoples costs?

Firepile, I have no idea of the answers to your questions. The study was reported but I don't know where; to be honest, it was about 25 years ago and I wasn't particularly interested at the time.

Of course I would care if I got a terminal illness, monkey. However, I will accept full responsibility for MY actions. It will serve me right.

"exposed for the addicts that they are", I'm not in denial, of course smoking is an addiction. But it's one I don't want to stop.

I have never heard such sanctimonious, vicious, hysterical crap on any thread (other than the great SAHM debate). If I had come on all apologetic about how I really, reall, wanted to stop, bur I am addicted, poor me. I CAN GUARANTEE that the replys would have been sympathetic. But because I have the temerity to be honest, I am idiotic, glib, a bad person/parent/partner, etc ad infinitum.

Take a good long hard look at yourselves. Can any of the judgey brigade honestly say that they liver a perfect life, never eating what could cause health problems in the future, no alcohol, vegetarian, etc, etc, etc.

How angry would you be if someone like me who has had her family ripped apart by alcoholism (just disclosed to get the moral high ground, there like so many other posters)berated you for drinking, quoting statistics about how alcohol ruins lives and calling you selfish, stupid and sanctimonious for enjoying a drink?

Thought not.

The government make far too much money from taxes to to really care.

Same with alcohol.

If they banned both they would be skint.

There are actually huge weightloss programmes, they are just not as heavily publicised.

Sorry KatieScarlett but I will NEVER agree with you.

I don't know if you are referring to me, but I really don't think anything I have said is vicious or sanctimonious.

Smoking is not just an indvidual matter (unless you are a hermit who only smokes in isolation, or one of those rare people who only ever smoke outside and away from others).

It's fine for you to die happily of lung cancer knowing that you caused it. It's not fine for others to die of lung cancer caused by passive smoking.

Smoking is a public health risk and that has been recognised by the law of this country, thank God.

Look Katie, I am sorry I pissed you off. I am guilty of wanting to be right all the time . I didn't actually call you stupid, only your views on this particular issue.

I would agree with you if you did, in fact, come over all moral highground on the other issues. I think smokers feel they must defend their position more than overeaters/drinkers - it is just less socially acceptable. That isn't a good thing for alcoholism or obesity either.

You did say that it affects no-one else if you get smoking related diseases. I (still) beg to differ.

Mrs mattie, please read my earlier posts.

Monkey, thanks for that, can we just agree to differ? . I have been very upset (I have anxiety issues)that I may have caused you distress yesterday. if that is the case, I'm sorry as I did not set out to hurt you or anyone intentionally.

Pax?

Agree with you totally Mrs Mattie on the tobacco compnaies. there's no doubt who the real villains are - and it isn't the smokers.

Greyriverside. Links please. Has anyone really said or is this more rhetoric?

And your more substantive point: we can surmise where the truth lies on secondhand smoke and harm. What happens is that you look at the published research, you assess the quality of that research against objective criteria, and you look at its outcomes.

That's how science works.

That's what IARC and the US Surgeon General (who incidentally was sacked by George W Bush for making life harder for tobacco companies), did (see earlier links). The result: the evidence shows that secondhand smoke causes cancer and heart disease.

And your point about car pollution is - what? That because we are concerned about indoor air pollution we are not allowed to have other concerns about outdoor air pollution?

Actually, the evidence shows that secondhand smoke in enclosed places reaches higher levels of harmful pollutants than outdoor spaces by busy roads. One study conducted in New York showed that the levels of small particle pollution (the stuff that really damages heart and lungs) were up to 50 times higher in a smokefilled room than at the mouth of the Holland Road tunnel at rush hour - see report

But you can opt to go into a 'smokefled room' , you can't choose what roads you walk along.

Right. So no action on any pollution until it's all resolved, then? That's a helpful approach, DWP.

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Was?

Is he dead?

Died of lung cancer

Oh, when?

I thought he'd quit ages ago.

Mrs Mattie

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true

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Oh I know, I'm being awful again. Sorry.