I was just interested in what everyone's opinion is for smoking on here. Couldn't make a poll for whatever reason though.
From the CDC:2. Second hand smoke is no more harmful than chlorinated water by real studies and should not be considered a health risk.
Good information. A lot has been learned about this kind of thing recently. There is a whole new field of study concerning how genes are switched on and off by environmental factors. So even twins, who are supposed to be genetically identical are not because their exposures, lifestyle, etc., are never identical.I smoked about 3 packs a day from 61 till 70. Started in the Navy. I quit about 1,000 times. I worked for Collins Radio at the time. I was having headaches that I would take 6 to 8 excederins at one time and still not effect it.
I finally found out the main reason I could not quit. I realized that if I quit I could NEVER have another cigarette. Finally I accepted that and went and bought a Sears Radial Arm Saw with my 1st year savings. I never had another cigarette. I still have that saw and it still works great.
My headaches stopped after awhile but I never really tied it to the cigarettes because I still had some. My wife still smoked.
In the 80's I had an engineering company in Idaho and we had a client that had gotten extreme exposure to urea-formeldahyde from the insulation put into their house. We were working in that area and did an huge amount of research into allergies, toxins, etc. We had 3' and 4' stacks of research papers.
During that time I would get a splitting headache just passing someone on the street that was smoking. Others I could be in a room for 30 minutes with smokers before getting a headache. It was due to the particular chemicals in that praticular brand of cigarettes.
Since then it has gotten somewhat better but I still get sinus swelling and head congestion from being around someone that is smoking or even has recently smoked. So, there is really no way anyone can smoke without seriously impacting someone else.
What we determined from the research is that every person begins life with a specific level of tolerance to every individual toxin. It depends on that individual just what that level is. During life we are exposed to a varying level of toxins. Every exposure reduces our tolerance to that toxin. Eventually we get to the level where we are impaired by that toxin. Some people are born below the level, such as peanut butter allergy.
Those born with the reactions may grow less intolerant but those who are exposed during life do not recover very much. So, as you are exosed to the toxins in cigarettes you gradually become more and more susceptable to adverse effects of the toxin. Just as I did.
Once you have gotten to the point where it is easily discernable it is too late. It will get worse but you will never get much better. If you are around kids they are affected vastly more than adults and will be adversly affected for life.
The idea that smoking cigarettes only affects those that actually smoke is not supported by any research or evidence. 100% of the evidence demonstrates that anyone who is contacted by that smoke WILL be adversly affected. Those that have allready been sensitized will be immediately impacted by having headaches, congestion and other impairments.
If you think the smoke isn't reaching them, a good comparative is to consider our little hunting buddy, the skunk. If a skunk sprays where you are smoking, anyplace that scent is detected is where you smoke will be detected also. Anyone that could smell the skunk spray will be negatively affected by your smoke.
Hope this might shed a little light on the subject.
Is it legal for me to fire my gun anywhere I want?Well i do believe it is a right to smoke, why is it any less a right to smoke than to own a gun? And why should some pub owner or anyone else be forced not to allow people to smoke in THEIR building because the government wants to stick their nose in it and say it doesn't smell nice, costing them money. If anti-smokers want to ban indoor smoking, they should pay the end result in the company's losses in taxes, sounds fair to me. No company should ever go out of business because anti-smokers don't like the smell, if they don't like smoking go find a place where the owner decides himself he doesn't want smoking inside. Everyone always says the government should mind their own business but somehow forget these thoughts when the subject of smoking comes up.
A friend of mine was in the Navy on submarines. He said that their cook made the BEST coffee in the world. Everyone on the sub loved it and could never find anything that came close but they could never get the cook to divulge his secret. Then, one day, someone found out what it was.Some of us are old enough to remember employees smoking in offices, mechanics smoking out in the shop while working on our car, and when I was in college I worked nights as a janitor and had to clean the ashtrays in the banks I cleaned and even the doctors offices.
When you mentioned restaurants, I remember watching smokers put their cigarettes out in the plates or the the food they did not eat and then smearing the black ash all in the food and around the plate....remember even seeing the old "short order cooks" cooking with a cigarette hanging out of their mouth with an ash about an inch long ready to fall off it.
Not even close, actually.The high taxes on cigarettes more than covers those problems so that is a non-issue.