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Junkie
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Originally Posted by theycallmelisa
If you're a non-smoker, chances are that you live in a non-smoking house and are generally in a non-smoking environment majority of the time. So if you think that by being around a smoker lets say in a restaurant, or standing beside one at a bus stop, that you are going to inhale enough second hand smoke in your lifetime to kill you, I'd say you have some paranoia issues.
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That just goes to show you how much you know about second hand smoke.
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Some non-smokers are able to stay in a room with smokers for quite some time and notice little or no effects. For others, however, just a few minutes or an hour of exposure can make them feel quite ill. Persons with asthma can experience attacks brought on by smoking[2], and by passive smoking [3] whether they are adults or children([4], [5], [6], supporting calls for a smoking ban[7]).
Tobacco smoke is an allergen, and allergy sufferers can experience stuffy, runny noses, watery eyes, sneezing, coughing, wheezing, and all the other typical allergy symptoms within minutes of exposure. Some people with no known allergies and without asthma may cough in smoke-filled rooms, get headaches, feel nauseated, feel sleepy, and experience other ill effects. Many former smokers, and those who are trying to quit do not like to be around smoke as it can cause them to have cravings. Some people simply do not like the odor, which clings to hair and clothing.
Many of these short-term effects terminate after the exposure ends. Repeated exposure, however, is believed to cause more serious long-term effects.
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What can you say about the people who have never smoked a day in their life, but end up with some form of cancer? Are you immediately going to blame it on 2nd hand smoke? A family friend of mine is a health nut, ate only organic foods, never smoked, always excersised, and now only has 1-2 years to live because of lymphoma. Are you going to tell me that is somehow related to her being in our "smoke filled" house at Christmas a couple of years in a row? Sure it's not a cardiac disease, but who can be so sure that it's not caused by something else in the environment. Lung cancer isn't caused ONLY by smoke, although I'm aware it's the leading contributor.
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You'd have to be a fool to believe that all forms of cancer are caused by second hand or smoke or to believe that anyone stated as much. While we don't know the causes of all cancer, it's rather easy to determine whether or not secondhand smoke was a factor in someone's death.
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What about the 85 year old man that has smoked since he was 13 and dies only from old age, compared to a 45 year old who develops COPD from smoking only 10 years?
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What about them? It still doesn't take away from the dangers of smoking/secondhand smoke.
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I'm not saying that smoking is a good thing, or that we should all just take a shot at it, since it's hit and miss whether or not you'll die from it, I'm just saying that there are so many different environmental factors that play into getting a disease, that to pin point it on second hand smoke is and easy target and pretty ignorant.
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What are you talking about? At least 53,000 deaths a year in the United States have been attributed to second hand smoke (That's about 145 deaths per day). Furthermore, there have been quite a few studies done which point out that second hand smoke causes a wide array of medical conditions. To say that second hand smoke is not the cause of a large number of medical problems in the United States is, in your own words, pretty ignorant.
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I believe in equality; Everyone is equally inferior to me.
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