Every Three Days, Smoking Kills More Than 9/11
Amazing talk by Chris Jordan at TED, just posted this month. An especially powerful note on the relative tolerance of smoking here:
More than 400,000 people die in the United States every year from smoking cigarettes…It’s a strange thing to think about, that on 9/11, when that tragedy happened, 3,000 Americans died. And do you remember the response? It reverberated around the world and will continue to reverberate through time. It’ll be something that we talk about in 100 years. And—and yet on that same day, 1,100 Americans died from smoking. And the day after that, another 1,100 Americans died from smoking, and every single day since then, 1,100 Americans have died, and today, 1,100 Americans are dying from cigarette smoking, and we aren’t talking about it.
Skip to around 3:30 for the quote, but only if you must skip.
On what do you base your numbers? Are you just picking in a midair because it sounds good?
My uncle has been an medical examiner for 40 years and not once has he ever put smoking as a definitive cause of death. Why? Because smoking does not “cause” cancer, emphysema, COPD, heart disease. Smoking increases the risks, but it does not cause. If you’re genetically predisposed and are susceptible to the above ailments, smoking increases your risk of contracting. More than likely you’re going to get them anyway.
For more you can read http://www.ryomag.com/?p=188
It just boggles the mind how the anti-smoking advocacy groups(Nazis) will lie, stretch the truth, pick numbers out of thin air, to support their quest for power and money.
Enough is enough!
Don’t Tread on Me!
Dave Brown a.k.a. Mr. SCSI
Dave,
These are not my numbers; they are quoted from the embedded video of Chris Jordan’s talk.
Also, your uncle is an idiot.
Best regards,
Ben
Well having never known my uncle I wouldn’t expect anything less from a whiny little liberal anti-smoking Nazi. Science just isn’t on your side on this one.
I will challenge you anyplace anytime anywhere, show me one single single death certificate that sites “smoking” as the cause of death. You can’t do that.
It’s not bad enough that you tax us into oblivion, make us 5th class citizens that have to go out into the heat or cold.
You can’t just allow the free market to dictate things. You can leave it up to the business owner to decide whether he/she wants to allows smoking on their premises. Oh hell no, you insist that we live “your way”.
Why don’t you just build non-smoking restaurants and bars and go to them? let bars and restaurants they want to provide smoking only exist. The problem is you always want to come where we are. You insist that “you have the right” to come where I am and not breathe secondhand smoke.
Why don’t you go out and find somebody to start a non-smoking bar just for you? That would’ve been perfect solution, again no one is willing to take that chance. They don’t make money doing it. Regardless of all the sham propaganda to the contrary, business owners are losing their asses.
Just check out http://www.ryomag.com/?p=217
Over 200 bars and restaurants out of business in a little less than two years. Far higher than the national average for one community.
This entire exercise is not about health, it’s not about doing right, it’s about power and money. Because if it were the American Cancer Society and the American lung Association, ash.org and the American Heritage foundation would not have testified to the South Dakota State Senate that they should NOT ban the sale of tobacco in the state of South Dakota. This happened, it’s not a myth or it’s not propaganda, it’s a matter of public record.
They feared that banning the sale of tobacco in South Dakota would prevent them from doing their work, since 60% of their budget came from the tobacco tax.
They didn’t want people to quit smoking. They wanted to continue to be employed. Power and money Ben, that’s all it’s about.
WELL, I DON’T CARE IF SMOKING CAUSES OR NOT CANCER. THE SMOKERS CAN SMOKE AS LONG AS THEY WISH IF THEY DON’T DISTURB THE OTHERS. THE CIGARETTES SIMPLY STINK (AND THE CARS TOO, SO MORE MONEY SHOULD BE PUT INTO DOING RESEARCH ON REDUCING POLLUTION). WE JUST WANT OUR RIGHT, TO BREATH CLEAN AIR.
Enough is enough!
Don’t Tread on Me!
Dave Brown a.k.a. Mr. SCSI
Comment by Dave Brown — Sat 21 Jun 2008 @ 2117
…………………………
I agree, with what this dude says, but not with his whining self-pity about oh (sob sob) how they persecute us poor nicotine addicts.
Enough is enough, smokers. Don’t tread on me. Don’t spit on me, fart in my face or smoke near me. I don’t want your bodily wastes.
Pursue any dirty personal habit you choose, in the privacy of your own home. I don’t care if you smoke, I don’t care WHAT you smoke. Feel free to spit on your own floor and go ahead, litter your own yard, NOT our streets, with your waste butts.
Bur when you pathetic losers puff your bodily exhausts around unconsenting others that’s an act of assault. You should be restrained by any means necessary.
And don’t bother starting up the addicts’ usual chorus of oh how hard it us to quit weep weep weep, yes WE KNOW THAT, and NOBODY coerced you into taking that first puff that got you hooked. Now take responsibility for what you brought on yourself.
Grow up, smokers. Stop expecting pity for your foolish blunder. Get clean or go away. Beautiful Baghdad awaits you. Have a good life.
Obviously your reading comprehension level could use some improvement. Nowhere in my statement was I whining.
Why is it you antismoking Nazis can’t take your own advice? You tell me to pursue my dirty personal habit in the privacy of my own home. Why is it in your mind that that doesn’t include business owners and property owners who own businesses?
Why do you insist, threaten, sue to make them change to suit you?
You’re right, nobody coerced me to start smoking, but you’re coercing private citizens and business owners every day to adhere to your morality and your choices.
I don’t whine I don’t bitch and I don’t care what you do in your own home or what you do in your life, it eats you my friend and those like you who really care what people do.
If you want to stand on a street corner and have oral sex with a rabbit, that’s your choice. If you want to start a bar where everybody inside has oral sex with a rabbit, knock yourself out.
There’s nobody that’s a smoker is wanting your pity, we just want you to step off and go live your life and stop trying to meddle in ours.
But you don’t like to hear that, so when I say don’t tread on me, I’m basically telling you to fuck off and choke to death and you go do your thing and leave me the fuck alone to do mine.
Go start your own fucking nightclubs and bars and make them 100% non-smoking. That would be the answer. But you want to come into and dictate to private business owners and tell them how you think they should run their business.
So again I say step off, and go fuck yourself and stay in your own area.
Dave,
I’d prefer it if you limit the profanity and Nazi references in your comments, please. The privilege of commenting here is stretched pretty thin. Let’s keep it clean and coherent, eh?
Best regards,
Ben
Wow…someone is feeling sorry for himself.
Pretty sure that in most states where smoking bans have taken place there was a vote. You know, those things were everyone over the age of 18 is allowed to voice their opinion on certain matters i.e. smoking bans? News flash…the majority of people want smoking out of bars and restaurants.
I would have to guess that the 200 bars and restaurants that went out of business weren’t because of smoking bans…they probably weren’t the most well run establishment and had major flaws. I am sure they can’t write down that their cause of failure was “lack of cigarette smoking.” Also what is the 200 based on? If it’s the number of establishment going out of business nation-wide, that seems to be a pretty good number given the economy.
No problem Ben
As far as Peter’s digest, keep telling yourself that the smoking bans are being voted on. That is just not the case in most local situations. Statewide most of them have been. But I can point you to hundreds of stories were local governments and city councils have taken it upon themselves without the vote of the people.
The direct correlation between the 200 bars and restaurants going out of business in such a small area as the Twin Cities in such a short time is abnormal. It is directly attributed to the smoking ban. Not to mismanagement and it’s not the amount of bars and restaurants nationwide, it is a wire story concerning Minneapolis-St. Paul and 200 in that city is enough to raise alarm with their non-smoking editorial staff who wrote the story.
They mention they have on average 12 to 13 businesses fail a year in the hospitality field. So 200 is extreme and since the only thing radically different is the smoking ban in that time period it’s not a stretch to show a direct cause-and-effect. You mentioned today’s economy bar and restaurant receipts nationwide have taken a hit, but not to the point of bankruptcy.
Again I am not whining or complaining I am just merely stating facts, unlike the original source for this thread who claims 1000 smokers a day are dying, if that is the fact it shouldn’t be long before were all dead so I guess it won’t matter anyway. But my original contention was that figures like that are completely erroneous and made up.
But I’m sure Peter or whatever your name is, you’ll be laughing out of the other side of your mouth when they get done with us, and come after you for something that you do that is considered strange or unusual to them. Just because you do not like smoking or smokers doesn’t mean we like you either. But were not trying to tax you at an abhorrent rate and otherwise trying to punish you like ash.org is trying to do by advocating that smokers be fired, be barred from employment, and have their use of a 100% legal product considered in child custody disputes.
If you want to tax us, do it. But use the money for what you say you’re going to use for. Currently there are 15 states who passed tax increases citing “higher smoker health care costs” who are now using the money to supplement budgets shortfalls, fund art programs, or build bridges.
You might think this is fair, but in reality it is not. Taxing one segment of the society to benefit everybody is not a fair solution. Unless it happens to you you can’t really relate.
If you want to ban smoking, then make tobacco illegal to sell, to use, or to even possess. They won’t do that, ask yourself why? Because again alluding to one of my points, it is about power and money nothing else. All the junk science in the world is never going to completely cover the that fact up.
If it was not about power and money you would not have that ambulance chaser John Banzhaf III running around suing everybody he can. He’s already extorted tobacco for billions with a B and has moved on to the fast food industry. He’ll becoming at you or something you do in your life eventually.
Then don’t expect smokers to stand up for your rights.
It’s not a case of non-smokers not liking smokers and wanting to be more powerful…it’s a case of non-smokers not understanding why you do what you do. I am from a family of smokers-my mom, dad, stepmom, grandma, brother and uncle have all smoked at some point in their life and many continue to do so. I’ve been exposed it my whole life and I don’t look down on them or think any less of them. I just don’t like being exposed to it in closed rooms and they understand that. I also don’t like the thought of what could happen to them when they are older…my grandmother for example has emphysema and at the age of 74 has decided to quit.
From nosugrefneb’s standpoint…he is spending his career trying to help people who smoke…as has his father. His dad makes a living off of people who have smoked their entire lives and are now wishing they wouldn’t have. It’s not about power and money (in my mind) it’s about helping people who one day will realize what they have done to themselves when they are lying on a surgeons table waiting for them to hack out a massive part of their lung just so they can breathe a little easier.
Somebody needs to go give you’re talking points to people over at ash.org they don’t seem to have gotten your kinder, gentler approach.
They want to have us fired, bar us from reemployment and stick their noses into custody disputes.
As for secondhand smoke there’s a simple solution for you, make the choice not to go there. If you make the choice to go there, then it’s your choice. you mentioned people’s father’s making a living “helping” that makes my point completely.
He’s not the only one employed in the antismoking movement. And where will he have a job if we all quit.
there is a good story on secondhand smoke http://www.ryomag.com/?p=317 or I should say the bogus science concerning secondhand smoke. If you can keep your knees from jerking into the table while reading it and get to the bottom you will see the credentials of the gentlemen who wrote it. Not some tobacco Co. shill by no means.
The bottom line is this, don’t tax us into oblivion, don’t make us second-class citizens, don’t trample our rights. If you don’t agree with our lifestyle, get over it. Don’t be around us, don’t come looking for us and then complain that were smoking.
You guys don’t want to do that. You want to impress your lifestyle on people who do not want to quit. And that my friend is fascism you need to go back and study a little history.
If your grandmother is 74 and is genetically predisposed emphysema there is only a 10% chance that smoking increased that risk. Again you may not like the facts, but smoking does not cause emphysema. It increases the risks. So the chances that she got to 74 before getting emphysema, that sounds about normal.