About Smoking Attn: Smokers
rwac 18 Mar 2013
Because it's that easy, right?I'd probably go radical here too. I'd start by designing an optimal food source that was filling, and promoted optimal body metrics and prevented obesity.
All we truly have to worry about is forcing people to do the right thing.
Anyways, we're getting off topic, this thread is really about smoking. My point is that healthier people are happier people. Excess food doesn't make anyone happy and food as bonding and social thing is more of a social habit that can be changed. There's no reason to have things that are unhealthy for us. It hurts people.
You are ignoring the fact that there are biochemical (as opposed to social) reasons why people get fat.
YOLF 18 Mar 2013
YOLF 18 Mar 2013
I didn't say it was just that easy, I intimated doing it as fast as possible and pulling out all of the stops.
hippocampus 19 Mar 2013
YOLF 20 Mar 2013
How is that different than people accepting that other people are unhealthy, so it is more okay for them to be unhealthy? Asbestos or fatty fast food, it has a negative impact on anyone who gets near it. Filmmakers making pot movies are promoting pot use, so their use of pot harms others and is quite intentional. Your friend in college who gets good grades but still smokes pot changes the hearts and minds of those around him and leads them to drug use. That overweight friend who everyone else likes may make you feel better about being unhealthy yourself. It all hurts people. The difference only seems to be that we've recognized one (after quite a bit of ignorance) and not the other, or some only to some extent. Like were it was still okay to use asbestos if you ventilated it into the air for a while in Japan. Eventually people realized it was just transferring harm rather than stopping it altogether. In some cases it looks like we're even transferring harm to groups who we'd rather have the harm done to and feeling good about it.
**DEACTIVATED** 20 Mar 2013
Anyway, cryonicsculture, while I have thought similar thoughts as you (quite frequently actually), you cannot tell people what to do and expect a good response..
YOLF 21 Mar 2013
You and I are both from states that allow the death penalty. I don't believe in it, but wouldn't these people get the chair if we had a different perspective?
hippocampus 21 Mar 2013
YOLF 21 Mar 2013
hippocampus 23 Mar 2013
YOLF 24 Mar 2013
In the system we currently have people are forced one way or another (unless they never quit) should they be susceptible to addictive substances and use.
So let me ask you this. If we already lived in a society that didn't allow things like tobacco products to exist, and no one was a smoker, no one had a substance addiction of any kind, and people were happy never having known anything more than Tobacco was a poisonous plant that was found to be a leading cause of cancer, what would be the harm in not having it? Tobacco certainly isn't necessary for human sustenance or procreation, so how does anyone suffer because we don't have it?
Add to that, that the later this day comes, the more of us immortals may have to look back and remember the addiction and see ourselves as having been part of that bygone day and you have what amounts to an existential burden.
hippocampus 24 Mar 2013
But I'm trying to be practical and realistic regarding drugs: of course people wouldn't regret if they never had any drug available - but they do have these drugs available and you can't just force them to quit - this has to be gradual process with harm reduction and feeling of free choice. I have already explained how I would lower smoking incidence - first I would propagate snus (or other less harmful tobacco products) and when most people would use snus, then I'd propagate not using tobacco. IMO, this would be more efficient long-term.
YOLF 24 Mar 2013
As everyone knows, the younger you are when you invest, the more money you will have when you are older. The most efficient way long term is to stem it immediately. When you ban tobacco products, you choose to help everyone. Who would be the casualty of an outright and immediate ban on tobacco? Well maybe the executives of the company that has been torturing most smokers to death with disease for quite some time, maybe some marketing firms and sales executives, but who are we kidding, they'll have golden parachutes and plenty of other things to do.
hippocampus 24 Mar 2013
And do you know what is happening in Sweden which promotes harm reduction with snus? And what is happening in every other EU country that forbids snus sale? You have theory, I have the evidence. :P
YOLF 25 Mar 2013
In China, prior to their revolution, opium was legal, and because of outside influence, drugs were used to make people lazy and addicted. Now they punish drug use with death and don't have a problem. I'm not saying to kill anyone, but it's better not to have them around and better to be free of drugs as a nation. I used to support the LEAP ideas (I think this is what you're referencing), but I outgrew it when I realized drugs would be readily available to the depressed and become a tool used to control people by NGOs. As we speak, these organizations are using ideas such as this to make legalization possible, essentially saying "pot solves your problems by making the socially disconnected stupid and susceptible to manipulation. I can't reconcile that as an existentialist.
How about:
*Smokeable tobacco banned this year
*Snus banned a year from then
*All other tobacco such as e-cigs banned a year from snus ban
In the mean time, pre-employment tobacco tests would be done to adjust health insurance premiums accordingly.
Edited by cryonicsculture, 25 March 2013 - 01:22 AM.
hippocampus 25 Mar 2013
platypus 25 Mar 2013
Yes, since tobacco is about as addictive as heroin. Prohibition is fascism and will never work.Do you really think gangsters will be shooting people over illegal cigarette sales? Even to the addict, there is no extreme pleasure from cigarettes as there is with alcohol or other street drugs.
TheKidInside 25 Mar 2013
Yes, since tobacco is about as addictive as heroin. Prohibition is fascism and will never work.Do you really think gangsters will be shooting people over illegal cigarette sales? Even to the addict, there is no extreme pleasure from cigarettes as there is with alcohol or other street drugs.
first off, nothing in life, at least this one, is so black and white. NYC just "banned" sodas over 16 ounces and if it was up to me soda and white sugar would be banned period but alas, it's not. I think there are times when deterrence simply fails and outright bans are needed. I mean it's a catch-22, we don't trust the government to deliver MAIL effectively (at least no one I know does) and this wouldn't be any better but it's a start HOWEVER;
true progress happens when you EDUCATE people. I'm a nutrition consultant and no matter what, if I don't properly prepare a client or an athlete mentally and answer all their stupid questions about "why is white flour so bad?" over and over again without rolling my eyes and simply stating "because I said so, it's bad" then it will never stick.
So, there has to be education along with the prohibition as you would say....
Edited by TheKidInside, 25 March 2013 - 02:11 PM.
YOLF 25 Mar 2013
Yes, since tobacco is about as addictive as heroin. Prohibition is fascism and will never work.Do you really think gangsters will be shooting people over illegal cigarette sales? Even to the addict, there is no extreme pleasure from cigarettes as there is with alcohol or other street drugs.
When you were young, your parents told you not to put your hands near or on the stove. That's a prohibition. No one markets putting your hand near the stove and burning yourself, and no one does it. We all know better. But it could become the next cool scarification method with teenagers. It'll be the same thing when no one smokes anymore and it isn't available.
Anyways, it's like I said, their is no positive reinforcement with smoking as there is with heroin. You don't get high, there is no euphoria. It's just a cigarette and you don't get anything out of it except quenching the addiction. How many smokers do you know who have robbed people when things got bad to keep smoking? The very fact that you respond by calling it fascism is because of covert persistent tobacco marketing. The tobacco seed grows inside you, why do you need to smoke it?
hippocampus 25 Mar 2013
I recommend you reading a chapter about nicotine in Psychopharmacology: Drugs, the brain, and behavior (authors Meyer, J. S., Quenzer, L. F.).
Comparison about putting your hand on the stove is just plainly stupid - we're aversive to heat because it is immediately dangerous to us, with smoking the death is far, most people can't really imagine the damage caused by smoking or there is much cognitive dissonance here.
YOLF 26 Mar 2013
Now on the comparison to putting one's hand on the stove, we never really understand it until we know what getting burned feels like. Until then, we're just curious kids in a world of magic and experiencing the same ignorance or dissonance that a smoker experiences later in life. We may not be likely to burn ourselves twice, but the difference as you say is the immediate nature of getting burned, and again, we cough the first time we smoke, we cough pretty hard, but we treat it as a right of passage and bypass the immediate warning signs because we get a buzz. What if we treated burning our hands as a right of passage until we couldn't feel the sensation on our hands anymore? That's what's happening when people begin to smoke. Even if you quit for 10 years, the next cigarette still won't make you cough. Your lungs are permanently adapted to it.
Oh and another thought:
Look how RJ Reynolds isn't marketing to children anymore with their youth prevention program just a few topics below the sphere of cookiecutter boys and girls going hand in hand with BIG TOBACCO's broken message.
http://www.rjrt.com/
It's also interesting how they are waving the banner of harm prevention on their website! Harm prevention would be announcing that they are giving up the tobacco business altogether and moving into something distinctly healthy. They say they're trying to meet society's expectations, but they are forming our expectations and lowering them, practicing prevention of having high expectations of tobacco, like forming a global exit strategy from tobaccabusiness. Why shouldn't we expect them to come clean and describe how they've been manipulating people into smoking and creating death culture to fill their pockets and practice social engineering.
Harm prevention is bullshit. It doesn't come near to harm prevention unless it prevents harm. Harm prevention would be a complete withdrawal from tobacco sales. Anything else is minimally targeted harm, meaning some demographics are still being targeted for harm and back to the earlier parts of my argument, the desire to smoke and acceptance of smoking harm is a residual of past marketing. Not caring that it kills you is part of a herd mentality and is not valid. There are simply too many influences. You don't let a serial murder keep doing his business as long as he agrees not to kill some people. You take a stand and say it's not going to happen to anyone!
hippocampus 26 Mar 2013
One reason that e-cigs may not be so appealing or have different effect than usual cigs is that e-cig smoke only contains nicotine, whereas tobacco smoke also contains MAOI (type B I think) which is supposed to be responsible for much of the tobacco addictivesness - that means that nicotine isn't so addictive by itself, it is really addictive only in combination with MAOI. And interesting thing with snus is that it is not just plain nicotine but a form of tobacco - that means that it also contains MAOI. Many people find it easier to quit smoking with snus than with other nicotine replacement products. This may be one reason for this.
And one reason that cigarettes are so addictive is that they are similar to crack. In what sense? Read this: http://addiction-dir...ig-tobacco.html
As it turns out, they did it by increasing nicotine’s kick. And they accomplished that, in essence, by means of freebasing, a process invented by the cigarette industry. Adding ammonia or some other alkaline compound transforms a molecule of nicotine from its bound salt version to its “free” base, which volatilizes much more easily, providing low-pH smoke easily absorbed by body tissue.
Besides that it is true that Big Tobbaco puts a lot of other substances in tobacco to make it easier to smoke (like cocoa, sugar and god knows what).
But we already agree that it is harmful, we just don't agree in how to lower incidence of tobacco smoking. I think it is better to do it gradually and with education (but not only that). I have nothing more to say regarding that so I will not repeat myself.
Edited by hippocampus, 26 March 2013 - 10:24 AM.
YOLF 26 Mar 2013
niner 26 Mar 2013
nightlight 26 Mar 2013
This thread is maddening. We've been very successful at reducing smoking rates without being absolute fascists about it. Most people find nicotine pleasant or they never would have had that second dose. Nicotine is addictive as hell- there's pretty much nothing else like it.
That is antismoking mythology. Most long term smokers who can't quit are not smoking because of nicotine. Nicotine is only mildly addictive and its widthdrawal symptoms (which are tolerable even on cold turkey quitting) last only few days. With nicotine replacement one can eliminate these symptoms completely, yet the person will resume smoking (only few percent manage to quit using pharmaceutical NRT). If it were about nicotine addiction NRT would work (hand motions etc, are non addictive trivial habits), but it doesn't even beat cold turkey (except in short term cessation). Neither are MAOI B effects of tobacco smoke since adding selegiline to NRT barely makes a difference in quitting rates.
The reason many smokers can't quit (nearly every one has probably tried after all the pressures and costs) is that tobacco is a potent medicinal plant with myriad unique therapeutic and protective effects that nothing else can replace -- there is no other substance, synthetic or natural, which covers even remotely as wide therapeutic spectrum and in such depth as tobacco smoke. There was an earlier long thread "Smoking is good for you" on this subject. Since there was lots of noise (from antismoking hysterics) the TOC with highlights is here, where item #17 attempts to list what would it take to replace the known major beneficial effects of tobacco smoke (any of which may be the primary reason why a person continues to smoke in the face of all the costs and hardship; there are probably some presently unknown as well).
For some effects, such as strong upregulation of all major detox & antioxidant enzymes (near doubling of glutathione, catalase and SOD, possibly as a hormetic effects), there isn't anything else you can take to replicate these effects. For example, if someone is exposed to high levels of industrial toxins (e.g. heavy metals, paints, solvents etc) or is particularly sensitive to them at lower exposures, smoking, by doubling their detox rates, is the only thing which can make their job or living conditions tolerable. Nicotine, Zyban, Chantix,... won't do a squat for such person.
Similarly, person smoking to keep their autoimmune disease tolerable, won't benefit much from any such replacement since tobacco smoke has unique multilevel anti-inflammatory/anti-sepsis spectrum (pressing anti-inflammatory levers from CNS/vagus controls to nicotinic receptors in somatic cells). Nicotine alone yields only partial anti-inflammatory effects of the full tobacco smoke (e.g. see the TOC link above for rheumatoid arhtirits experiments). Another related benefits without substitute are the potent anti-amyloidosis effects (including protection against beta-amyloidosis of brain a.k.a. Alzheimer's). It is extremely inhumane to keep tormenting & punishing people who are self-medicating with tobacco to compel them quit.
Of course, that's why the chief sponsor of antismoking is none other than pharmaceutical industry, spending many billions over last few decades, on buying antismoking laws, regulations and hypertaxation of smokers, spawning and financing "grass roots" antismoking groups, creating and peddling antismoking junk science,... Of course, pharma invests on wars against other natural medicines & remedies as well, but it fights none as viciously as tobacco, the most beneficial of them all. If you look at the sharp rise of medical costs and of numerous diseases (especially of autoimmune type) as smoking rates more than halved over the last 2-3 decades, it becomes obvious why the pharma and the rest of the sickness industry are doing everything they can to suppress tobacco smoking.
I watched my dad have a freaking seizure from one of his numerous attempts to quite smoking.
Quitting smoking (or starting smoking) doesn't by itself cause seizures. The seizures he had may be due to pharmaceuticals he used in the process (e.g. Zyban & some other antidepressants can cause seizures in some people). Or it may be that he was self-medicating with tobacco for some condition which could lead to seizures if left untreated (e.g. some auto/inflammatory process, or some CNS toxicity kept in check by smoking). Many long-term smokers who have hard time quitting will get very sick, even get lung cancer (see items #6, #11, #12 from the TOC list) shortly after abruptly quitting.
YOLF 27 Mar 2013
This thread is maddening. We've been very successful at reducing smoking rates without being absolute fascists about it. Most people find nicotine pleasant or they never would have had that second dose. Nicotine is addictive as hell- there's pretty much nothing else like it. I watched my dad have a freaking seizure from one of his numerous attempts to quite smoking. Vaccine for nicotine? Does that exist? A lot of people won't even give their kids vaccines for diseases- I doubt this is going to fly.
I wouldn't call what we have a success. Liking cigarettes is all psychological. It's an image people put on with a cigarette. People like the image. People are dieing and suffering. New smokers are being made every day, and they may very well die from it. It's all in what I've said before. There exists manipulative marketing that has persisted and reinforces smoking behaviors. The only way to stop something like this is to end it completely. It's infected our culture and makes people sick.
YOLF 27 Mar 2013
Hippocampus: It's not a conspiracy theory, it's an evolution of culture that isn't clearly understood. I'm trying to illustrate it. One of those thing where, if you are able to learn from history and know it more intimately, you can repeat a phenomena for another purpose and permanently influence the future, at least for those who don't get it.
hippocampus 27 Mar 2013
edit: And yeah, I know that it lowers risk for few diseases and it may alleviate some conditions like ocd or schizophrenia (although more research is needed), but this doesn't make it "a potent medicinal plant with myriad unique therapeutic and protective effects that nothing else can replace".
Edited by hippocampus, 27 March 2013 - 04:33 PM.
TheKidInside 30 Mar 2013
Furthermore if you think heroin addicts simply go on "vacation with counseling" I need not read anything else you have to say lol