Quote:
Originally posted by asaris
I've asked for a source on this before, and I'll do it again.
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Well, ok, ya militant, selfish a-hole.
Do you know who Philip Morris Inc. is? Yeah, that Philip Morris. The guys who make more cigarettes than anyone else in this country. A published statement from the Philip Morris company:
"We agree with the overwhelming medical and scientific consensus that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema and other serious diseases in smokers. Smokers are far more likely to develop serious diseases, like lung cancer, than non-smokers. There is no "safe" cigarette.
These are and have been the messages of the U.S. Surgeon General and public health authorities worldwide. Smokers and potential smokers should rely on these messages in making all smoking-related decisions."
also from Philip Morris, specifically regarding second-hand smoke:
"Public health officials have concluded that secondhand smoke from cigarettes causes disease, including lung cancer and heart disease, in non-smoking adults, as well as causes conditions in children such as asthma, respiratory infections, cough, wheeze, otitis media (middle ear infection) and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. In addition, public health officials have concluded that secondhand smoke can exacerbate adult asthma and cause eye, throat and nasal irritation. Secondhand smoke, also known as environmental tobacco smoke or ETS, is a combination of the smoke coming from the lit end of a cigarette plus the smoke exhaled by a person smoking.
Philip Morris USA believes that the conclusions of public health officials concerning environmental tobacco smoke are sufficient to warrant measures that regulate smoking in public places. We also believe that where smoking is permitted, the government should require the posting of warning notices"
a little light reading for you:
Center for Disease Control (2001):
Women and Smoking: A Report of the Surgeon General 2001
Surgeon General (1984):
The Health Consequences of Smoking - Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease
WHO-IARC (2002):
SECOND-HAND SMOKE CARCINOGENIC TO HUMANS
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (1993):
Environmental Tobacco Smoke and Lung Cancer
California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assesment (1997):
Health Effects of Exposure to Environmental Tobacco Smoke
U.S Dept. of Health and Human Services (2002):
10th Report on Carcinogens (revised Dec. 2002)
subsection on tobacco and environmental tobacco smoke:
Surgeon General (1986):
The Health Consequences of Involuntary Smoking
("examines the scientific evidence on the health effects resulting from nonsmoker exposure to environmental tobacco smoke.")
The original 1964 Surgeon General...
Report on Smoking and Health
The entire CDC database regarding smoking and health can be found
here.
Surgeon General, in collaboration with the Pan American Health Organization, 1992:
Smoking and Health in the Americas
"The countries of North America --the United States and Canada--are in the midst of a major epidemic of smoking-related disease,
including cancer, heart disease, disease, chronic obstructive lung and adverse outcomes of pregnancy. The countries of Latin America and the Caribbean now show evidence of a rising prevalence of smoking, particularly among young people, and in the absence of efforts to decrease tobacco use, are likely to be swept by a similar epidemic."
UK Dept. of Health 1998:
Report of the Scientific Committee on Tobacco and Health
"Am I really causing more health damage than, say, the smog in LA?"
from the WHO:
Report on Secondhand Smoke
"in the US secondhand smoke causes about 3,000 lung cancer deaths a year, compared to less than 100 lung cancer deaths per year from traditional forms of outdoor air pollution."
I don't have a problem with you choosing to shorten your life. I think everyone can make those choices for themselves and shouldn't have to worry about other people or governing bodies trying to take those choices from us. I think it's hypocritical for the goverment to deem suicide an illegal activity yet allow cigarette smoking. It's an addicitive habit that will certainly shorten your life.
I
do have a problem with you making me join you in that pursuit without my consent. Which, in case anyone's counting, you don't have. Anyone's noise pollution while talking on a cel phone
can be annoying and rude, but does not have to be. You, filling my closed environment (e.g. a restaurant) with smoke known to carry many carcinogens, are directly affecting the quality of my health. My contact lenses will absorb the smoke and cause my eyes to burn for far longer than the period of time when I am in contact with you. My breathing is noticeably affected to a far greater degree by being around smokers than it is just walking around (I, too, live in L.A.) on a normal day. And
that goes far beyond annoying or rude.
Funny thing is, I'm not a militant non-smoker. I've just never cared for it. It just appalls me to see self-righteous smokers getting indignant with selfish denial.