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nisakiman
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Posts posted by nisakiman
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6 hours ago, badischer Barde said:
No, torrzent asked wether you have any credentials to make such inane statements. That's actually a valid question as you are trying to contradict the vast majority of studies. So unless you are the pope (or better) we're all better off believing what's state of science. After all, it's you that ignores the findings or tries to misinterpret them to rationalize your adiction.
Oh, and a word about the "agenda" of people speaking *against* smoking. It is common knowledge that tobacco companies get the best scientists money can buy to lobby on their behalf. They have billions to spend, and hundreds of billions to loose. Now - your turn. Who pays those speaking against smoking?
There's nothing inane about the two largest, most comprehensive and far reaching studies ever done on the subject of secondary smoke. The vast majority of other studies are very small by comparison, and anyway, most of them came to the same conclusion - that there is no statistically significant risk. What the SG's dept did was a 'meta-analysis', whereby they cherry picked the studies for inclusion, played with the figures some and..........Hey Presto! Second-Hand smoke is a killer! TaDa! Boom-tish! Mission accomplished. All the other studies that didn't come up with the 'right' result are brushed aside. Well, might send the 'wrong message', eh?
Like I said earlier, if you want facts, you have to go to the raw data from the studies themselves, rather than relying on a biased interpretation.
Ha! You are well wide of the mark when you get to finances. The tobacco companies couldn't even hope to dream of having a budget anywhere near that of Tobacco Control! The global Tobacco Control budget exceeds the GDP of most small countries.
Oh, they like to portray themselves as the plucky David battling the evil Goliath of 'Big Tobacco', but in reality nothing could be further from the truth. They are awash with money; from the MSA, from usurious taxes levied on tobacco and from massive funding from the pharmaceutical companies, who have a vested interest in keeping the anti-smoking bandwagon rolling. The WHOs FCTC (Framework Convention on Tobacco Control) is funded by three of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, who have built a multi-billion global business in selling overpriced and useless (98% failure rate) NRT (gums and patches) products on the back of the smoking bans imposed at the behest of the FCTC.
Who pays those speaking against smoking? Don't make me laugh. Tobacco Control is a global gravy train, and they will do and say anything to make sure the wheels don't come off.
Like they say, if you want to get to the truth, just follow the money...
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5 hours ago, torrzent said:
Think I'll go with the Surgeon General on this one. Maybe you can present your scientific credentials for TVF peer review!
Ah, so you think the Surgeon General's interpretation of the results (keeping in mind that the SG's department is virulently anti-smoking and working to an agenda) trumps the actual results found by the original research team, do you?
No wonder this world is going to hell in a handbasket. Never let facts get in the way of a belief system, eh?
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9 hours ago, cookieqw said:
Ha ha sitting next to a black or Irish is not hazardish to your health, a smoker is!!
If you took the time to research the subject, rather than regurgitate what you read in the papers, you will find that the vast majority of research on the subject has found that there is no significant health risk from 'passive smoking' (and they researched people living with smokers, not occasional passers-by). And don't quote to me any 'The Surgeon General says...' crap. The Surgeon General lies by both omission and commission on the subject, because he's a committed anti-smoker. It's easy to cherry pick statistics and then massage them a bit to suit your agenda.
No, the only place you'll find the facts is in the actual research itself, before the manipulators have got hold of the data and tortured it into confessing their version of events. You could start with 'Boffetta et al (one of the biggest studies done, commissioned by the WHO), and then have a look for 'Ernesto and Kabat', who conducted an equally thorough research programme (over decades) in the USA, commissioned and funded by the American Cancer Society. Both those studies concluded that there was no statistically significant risk from other people's cigarette smoke.
So, no. Sitting next to a smoker is not hazardous to your health. It's all in your mind.
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21 minutes ago, mark01 said:
Far more effective would have been to just install ashtrays.
Far more beneficial would be to stop litter and build an effective drainage system instead of skimming off all the money.
Good heavens, no! That's far too sensible!
No, rather than address the problem of butts on the beach in a way that will suit everyone, better to alienate and persecute smokers, as usual. It's the currently fashionable, PC thing these days. It used to be blacks, Jews and homosexuals that it was acceptable to hate, but they've been rehabilitated now, and so another minority group had to be found to persecute relentlessly. And smokers are an easy target.
It's funny how things change. Back in the 1950s UK, it was common to see signs in the windows of B&B places with "No blacks, no Irish". People today look in horror at the bigotry displayed by those signs, and yet find it quite acceptable for there to be equally bigoted signs saying "No smokers". It's all about being 'on message' in these narrow-minded, Politically Correct times.
It's an unfortunate aspect of human nature that the herd always like to have someone to bully, and currently the victims are smokers, since they have become a minority group and they've been effectively excluded from the liberal PC narrative. They are also easy to identify and target, making them a perfect victim for the self-righteous bullies who so love to tell people what they can and cannot do.
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I've asked this question before on previous threads on this subject, but haven't yet received a sensible answer.
The law has been tagged on to the environmental protection laws, the 'crime' being littering, or polluting the beach rather than smoking per se. That's what all the publicity has been about - the 'terrible pollution' caused by cigarette butts.
So what if I'm a pipe smoker? No butts. No litter. Am I to be prosecuted under the environmental protection laws for polluting the beach with cigarette butts even though I'm doing nothing of the sort? Or what if I always carry a portable ashtray with me, and always take my used cigarette butts away with me. Am I to be prosecuted for polluting the beach, even though I leave no trace of smoking behind me? Or what if I smoke filterless roll-ups, the butt end of which biodegrades in a couple of days (just a bit of rice paper and a few strands of dried leaf)? No polluting cellulose butts involved there.
I really don't think they've thought this one through properly. If the authorities really do start fining people, and they catch someone who falls into one of the above categories who has enough time and money that he or she decides to fight the case, I can't see the authorities being able to win. If they'd banned smoking on the beach on the spurious grounds of 'health', they would have a stronger case, but banning it on the grounds of polluting the environment should, in theory, exempt any smoker who is demonstrably NOT polluting.
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Yes, mine disappeared, too. I just re-uploaded it on my profile page. I'm glad I'm not the only one!
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On 11/4/2017 at 4:08 AM, fry30 said:
That's the first link I found too, it would be interesting to know at which concentration it's not harmful
Always take health advice from government and/or health organisations with a large pinch of salt. Although what they say may well be correct in terms of constituents and their potential for harm, they will always err well on the side of safety, and exaggerate the risks. They will always look at the worst case scenario. They do this because 1) They don't want to be sued for understating the risks, and 2) If they overstate the risks, there will usually be further funding forthcoming for further research, thus ensuring that the mortgage continues to get paid.
The reality of the situation is that since man discovered fire, he has been crouching over open wood fires for both cooking and warmth, and over the millennia has evolved lungs that can easily deal with quite high levels of smoke without damage. So wood smoke from next door, although it may be annoying, is very unlikely to have any detrimental health effects. Fumes from plastics will have a much higher level of toxicity, but unless you are being constantly subjected to them are also unlikely to be damaging, not at the levels you are likely to get in the open air where the smoke becomes very diluted. The first rule of toxicology is that the dose makes the poison, which is something that many of these studies deliberately don't make clear.
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10 hours ago, Ulysses G. said:
Good. Cigarette butts are disgusting and too many smokers just throw them on the ground. Something needs to be done and not just at the beach.
Ashtrays, perhaps? Or is that too simple a solution? It seems to work in other countries.
In fact I remember years ago a beach in Phuket I used to go to had clay pots with sand in under every umbrella to use as an ashtray, and there were no cigarette butts on the beach at all. When smokers are given an ashtray, they tend to use it.
The problem these days is that the anti-smoking zealots think it's clever to remove all ashtrays from everywhere ("that'll show 'em, those nasty smokers"), and then they whine and complain because there are cigarette butts on the ground. Doh...
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41 minutes ago, London Boy said:
Champix is available in Thailand, I've bought it before from a local pharmacy in Silom, Bangkok. Very effective drug. In fact won the Prix Gallien price for an inovative pharmacetical agent. http://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/champix-receives-top-honour-with-2009-innovative-product-award-538990311.html
Its well documented that its the withdrawal from nicotine that causes the side effects, not the drug itself. Take it from someone who is very familiar with the drug.
That's wrong. Champix is designed to suppress the pleasure centres in the brain, thus removing the pleasure of smoking (and other things as well), which is why in many people it leads to depression, and that in turn drives quite a few people to suicide. It's the drug itself that does it. It has nothing to do with 'nicotine withdrawal'.
Withdrawal from nicotine is a minor and easily dealt with situation. It's not the reason people smoke (although it is a part of it) and it's not any more addictive than caffeine. The reasons smoking is habit forming are many and complex, and nicotine is only a small part of it.
I've read quite extensively about Champix, and I wouldn't recommend it to my worst enemy. If you want to give up smoking, get an e-cig. It's by far the best and most effective method. Yes, I know that Thailand, in its deep wisdom, has made them illegal, but they are still available, illegality notwithstanding, and personally if I was giving up smoking I'd rather take my chances with the law than with a potentially lethal drug like Champix.
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3 hours ago, torrzent said:
Not so...many European countries such as France require proof of medical insurance for those applying for a visa from overseas....
That's all well and good when a visa has to be applied for before travel and the insurance can be checked as part of the visa application, but where you have a visa exemption as does Thailand, that means that all those insurance forms with all their attendant small print have to be checked at immigration, which would lead to massive queues, as if it wasn't bad enough already. The only solution is either to make everyone get a visa, which would decimate the tourist industry, or have kiosks or machines where you have to buy a voucher for 500 Baht or whatever which would go into a central fund to cover hospital treatment for those unlucky enough to need it. That should be to cover basic care in government hospitals, which would mean that most people would still opt to buy travel insurance which would guarantee better service in private hospitals, thus relieving pressure on the fund.
The other factor that has been pointed out several times in this thread is that for someone in their late sixties or early seventies (and that age group make up a significant proportion of visitors to Thailand), health insurance would be very difficult (if not impossible) to find at a reasonable price, so insisting on insurance would deter that high spending group from choosing Thailand as a destination.
No, if they're going to do anything at all, they should insist on everyone paying a fixed sum on arrival. It doesn't have to be so difficult to implement - we used to have to pay 500 Baht departure tax, and that didn't cause any major problems. In fact they could just re-instate that system, and collect the money on departure rather than arrival, thus ensuring that everyone had Thai Baht to pay with. It doesn't make any difference if it's collected on arrival or departure - it still gets paid.
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34 minutes ago, Crossy said:
He did say it was half-cream
My Uncle John (now well into his 80s) always made tea with Nestlé "Ideal" milk and sugar. Sweet, syrupy and delicious.
When we got married back in the UK we went to see him, he made tea as usual with Ideal although I did persuade him to put only one spoonful of sugar in. It was still sweet, syrupy and delicious. A memory of 1960's summers at granny's house. Even Wifey "liked" it (ok she drank it).
That reminds me of the tea they brew (or at least, used to brew when I was there in the late '60s) in India. Tea leaves, sugar (lots), buffalo milk and water all went in a pan and were boiled up together. It sounds awful, but in fact it was a great brew. It was the normal way to drink tea on the street. It was only in 'HiSo' homes that you would get what they called 'separate tea', which was the English way of making the tea in a teapot and combining the tea, milk and sugar in the cup afterwards.
Here in Greece, it's only fairly recently (past ten years) that anything apart from Yellow Label (yuk) has been available. Now the supermarkets stock a good range from Twinings, Dilmah (?) etc, as well as a range of local herbal teas.
My first drink of the day is coffee brewed in one of those little espresso pots you cook on the stove, but the rest of the day I tend to drink tea, usually English Breakfast. Too much coffee gives me the jitters these days.
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8 hours ago, mommysboy said:
I am not saying anything. As for this being a facile argument- eh! anything but. However, it can be reduced to a simple comparison: walking along the street and the occasional, and these days it is occasional, puff of smoke versus a constant stream of fumes from cars.
Of course, smokers would not have a leg to stand on imo if vaping wasnt illegal in Thailand. Even this safe method of nicotine inhalation gets the anti-smoking lobby full on treatment. So, yes, you have to wonder what it is all about, because this and your sensitivity is simply not rational or in perspective.
I still say people like yourself are fighting yesterday's war. If it was 1970, or even 2010, then you might have a point.
He, like many others these days has been thoroughly indoctrinated by the relentless propaganda pumped out by the Tobacco Control propaganda machine. There is no respite from it, so it's unsurprising that so many people have succumbed to the constant barrage. I read so many comments under articles castigating and denigrating people who enjoy smoking, and in nearly every case, they will include one of the Tobacco Control propaganda soundbites, like 'smokers stink', and 'smokers are addicts', and ' you don't have the right to poison my air' etc etc etc. And they're all soundbites that have been used in advertising campaigns demonising smokers. And the indoctrinated trot them out parrot fashion, because that's what you have to think and say nowadays if you want to be accepted into mainstream, PC, non-smoking society.
Years ago, it would never have occurred to anyone to say something like 'smokers stink', because the thought would never have occurred to them. Nor would they have 'avoided tobacco smoke in the street'. What on earth for? That's just plain silly! Nobody took any notice of whether someone smoked or not. It was a non-issue.
But propaganda is a powerful tool, and when you have countless billions of dollars available to spend on propaganda campaigns, it's not that difficult to inculcate a feeling of intense dislike, even hatred, in one section of society for another section of society. Do you think the ordinary German people hated the Jews before the propaganda campaigns started in the 1930s? Of course they didn't. They lived next door to them, they bought their groceries from them, they chatted to them on the street corner. The Jewish Germans were just other people, unremarkable and unremarked on.
As Goebbels said:
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
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On 10/23/2017 at 6:55 AM, joeyg said:
Lots more like this. Like Mark Twain said though, "never ruin a good story with the facts." https://www.webmd.com/smoking-cessation/effects-of-secondhand-smoke
http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/causes-of-cancer/smoking-and-cancer/passive-smoking
On the subject of the great Mark Twain:
“The Moral Statistician.”
Originally published in Sketches, Old and New, 1893
“I don’t want any of your statistics; I took your whole batch and lit my pipe with it.
I hate your kind of people. You are always ciphering out how much a man’s health is injured, and how much his intellect is impaired, and how many pitiful dollars and cents he wastes in the course of ninety-two years’ indulgence in the fatal practice of smoking; and in the equally fatal practice of drinking coffee; and in playing billiards occasionally; and in taking a glass of wine at dinner, etc. etc. And you are always figuring out how many women have been burned to death because of the dangerous fashion of wearing expansive hoops, etc. etc. You never see more than one side of the question.
You are blind to the fact that most old men in America smoke and drink coffee, although, according to your theory, they ought to have died young; and that hearty old Englishmen drink wine and survive it, and portly old Dutchmen both drink and smoke freely, and yet grow older and fatter all the time. And you never try to find out how much solid comfort, relaxation, and enjoyment a man derives from smoking in the course of a lifetime (which is worth ten times the money he would save by letting it alone), nor the appalling aggregate of happiness lost in a lifetime by your kind of people from not smoking. Of course you can save money by denying yourself all those little vicious enjoyments for fifty years; but then what can you do with it? What use can you put it to? Money can’t save your infinitesimal soul. All the use that money can be put to is to purchase comfort and enjoyment in this life; therefore, as you are an enemy to comfort and enjoyment where is the use of accumulating cash?
It won’t do for you to say that you can use it to better purpose in furnishing a good table, and in charities, and in supporting tract societies, because you know yourself that you people who have no petty vices are never known to give away a cent, and that you stint yourselves so in the matter of food that you are always feeble and hungry. And you never dare to laugh in the daytime for fear some poor wretch, seeing you in a good humor, will try to borrow a dollar of you; and in church you are always down on your knees, with your ears buried in the cushion, when the contribution-box comes around; and you never give the revenue officers a full statement of your income.
Now you know all these things yourself, don’t you? Very well, then, what is the use of your stringing out your miserable lives to a lean and withered old age? What is the use of your saving money that is so utterly worthless to you? In a word, why don’t you go off somewhere and die, and not be always trying to seduce people into becoming as ornery and unlovable as you are yourselves, by your villainous “moral statistics”?”
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Mark Twain did not suffer fools gladly...
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On 10/23/2017 at 6:53 AM, joeyg said:
"The dangers of 'second hand smoke' from smokers is still theory" On contraire the dangers are very well documented. I'll leave it at that. https://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancer-causes/tobacco-and-cancer/secondhand-smoke.html
No Clear Link Between Passive Smoking and Lung Cancer
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Multicenter case-control study of exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and lung cancer in Europe.
RESULTS:
ETS exposure during childhood was not associated with an increased risk of lung cancer (odds ratio [OR] for ever exposure = 0.78; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.64-0.96). The OR for ever exposure to spousal ETS was 1.16 (95% CI = 0.93-1.44). No clear dose-response relationship could be demonstrated for cumulative spousal ETS exposure. The OR for ever exposure to workplace ETS was 1.17 (95% CI = 0.94-1.45), with possible evidence of increasing risk for increasing duration of exposure. No increase in risk was detected in subjects whose exposure to spousal or workplace ETS ended more than 15 years earlier. Ever exposure to ETS from other sources was not associated with lung cancer risk. Risks from combined exposure to spousal and workplace ETS were higher for squamous cell carcinoma and small-cell carcinoma than for adenocarcinoma, but the differences were not statistically significant.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9776409
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Environmental tobacco smoke in the nonsmoking section of a restaurant: a case study.
Jenkins RA1, Finn D, Tomkins BA, Maskarinec MP.
Author information
Abstract
This study tested the concentrations of environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) components in a small restaurant/pub with smoking and nonsmoking areas-a facility outfitted with a heat-recovery ventilation system and directional airflow. The ETS levels in the nonsmoking area were compared with those in other similar restaurants/pubs where indoor smoking is altogether prohibited. The results indicate that ETS component concentrations in the nonsmoking section of the facility in question were not statistically different (P < 0.05) from those measured in similar facilities where smoking is prohibited. The regulatory implications of these findings are that ventilation techniques for restaurants/pubs with separate smoking and nonsmoking areas are capable of achieving nonsmoking area ETS concentrations that are comparable to those of similar facilities that prohibit smoking outright.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11754526
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Results
For participants followed from 1960 until 1998 the age adjusted relative risk (95% confidence interval) for never smokers married to ever smokers compared with never smokers married to never smokers was 0.94 (0.85 to 1.05) for coronary heart disease, 0.75 (0.42 to 1.35) for lung cancer, and 1.27 (0.78 to 2.08) for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease among 9619 men, and 1.01 (0.94 to 1.08), 0.99 (0.72 to 1.37), and 1.13 (0.80 to 1.58), respectively, among 25 942 women. No significant associations were found for current or former exposure to environmental tobacco smoke before or after adjusting for seven confounders and before or after excluding participants with pre-existing disease. No significant associations were found during the shorter follow up periods of 1960-5, 1966-72, 1973-85, and 1973-98.
Conclusions The results do not support a causal relation between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality, although they do not rule out a small effect. The association between exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and coronary heart disease and lung cancer may be considerably weaker than generally believed.
http://www.bmj.com/content/326/7398/1057.full
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The second and fourth link above refer to the two biggest studies ever carried out on ETS.
The second link is to the study carried out by Boffetta et al, and was commissioned by the WHO, a fanatically anti-smoking organisation. When the results came in, and they realised that these weren't the results they wanted, they buried the report and just lied instead, telling everyone that second-hand smoke was lethal, even though the report they had commissioned found that not to be the case at all.
The fourth link is to the study carried out by Enstrom and Kabat, and was commissioned by the American Cancer Society. The study was very comprehensive, and was done over a period of 39 years. When the results started to come in, the ACS who had commissioned and paid for the study were horrified, because (as in the case of the WHO study) the results weren't what they wanted to hear. So before the results of this 39 year study could be published, they pulled the plug on the funding, hoping that it would never see the light of day.
Do you see a trend emerging here?
When you have researched this subject as much as I have, you realise that Tobacco Control and all their assorted hangers-on lie through their teeth as a matter of course. They will tell you that black is white if it suits their agenda.
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2 hours ago, joeyg said:
The facts are pretty clear. If your a smoker I recommend doubling or Tripling you intake. It's one of the best things you can do.
Why on earth would I do that? Whatever makes you think doubling or tripling ones consumption of cigarettes would be 'the best thing you can do'?
Or was that an attempt at sarcasm?
Whatever, everything I've written above is fact. I can find the links to all that info if you like, although I suspect you're uncomfortable with having your belief system challenged.
I could fill pages of this forum with examples of the chicanery employed by Tobacco Control. They are completely amoral. They care not one iota for the huge amount of economic and social damage they cause. It stopped being about health decades ago. It's all about money and ideology now, and has been for years, even more so since the big pharmaceutical companies realised they could make fortunes out of punitive smoking legislation. That's why they fund the WHO's FCTC. The more countries that introduce smoking bans, the more massively overpriced (and useless - 98% failure rate) nicotine patches and gum they can sell. It's a multi-billion dollar global business now, and the few millions a year they throw to the avidly anti-smoking WHO is small change compared to the profits they make from the persecution of smokers. It's a good investment.
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53 minutes ago, joeyg said:
I just hope cutting back on smoking in public areas will save some lives. Tobacco Control propaganda? Seriously? it's not just my opinion. it's a fact. How can you build a "rational" argument for smoking period? https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/secondhand_smoke/health_effects/index.htm
I'm sorry to disillusion you, but all anti-tobacco organisations lie. Either directly or by omission. They take the attitude that the ends (that is, their ideological ends) justify the means, and if they have to bend the truth to make a point, then they will.
From your link:
Secondhand smoke is the combination of smoke from the burning end of a cigarette and the smoke breathed out by smokers. Secondhand smoke contains more than 7,000 chemicals. Hundreds are toxic and about 70 can cause cancer.1,2,3,4
Since the 1964 Surgeon General’s Report, 2.5 million adults who were nonsmokers died because they breathed secondhand smoke.1
There is no risk-free level of exposure to secondhand smoke.
Ok, we'll take this point by point.
Secondhand smoke contains more than 7,000 chemicals
Here they are more or less telling the truth. However, what they aren't saying is that the vast majority of those 7000 chemicals are present in such minute amounts that they can't even be measured, only theorised. They also don't mention that most of the remainder that can be measured are present in normal exhaled breath of a non-smoker. They then fail to mention that the toxic / carcinogenic elements unique to tobacco smoke are measured in femtograms (0.000 000 000 000 001 grams), nanograms (a millionth of a femtogram) and picograms (one thousandth of a nanogram). You see what they did there? "7000 chemicals!" Scary, eh? But that's a normal day in the office for Tobacco Control. It's standard MO. They do a lot of that sort of stuff, like telling you how much arsenic is in tobacco smoke; and of course everyone knows how poisonous arsenic is. However, they fail to mention that an average glass of drinking water contains eight times more arsenic than a packet of Marlboro. Tricky, eh?
Hundreds are toxic and about 70 can cause cancer
Again, not exactly a lie. Hundreds are indeed toxic and / or carcinogenic. However, see my point about arsenic above. They will NEVER tell you that the first rule of toxicology is "The dose makes the poison". Sure those chemicals can be toxic - if you take enough of them. Even water is toxic if you drink too much.
Since the 1964 Surgeon General’s Report, 2.5 million adults who were nonsmokers died because they breathed secondhand smoke
Now here they are really stretching things. There aren't actually 2.5 million body bags. In fact, there aren't any body bags at all, because nobody has actually died from being exposed to second-hand smoke. They get those figures by feeding theoretical data into a computer model known as SAMMEC (Smoking Attributable Mortality, Morbidity, and Economic Costs), same as they get their figures for 'smoking related deaths'. They are all 'virtual' deaths. Nobody has ever actually checked any death certificates to come up with the figures. It's all theoretical, based on estimated figures and calculated by a computer program written by people who have a visceral hatred of smoking and fed theoretical data by people who also have a visceral hatred of smoking, so I think we can safely assume that there will be a massive bias involved in both the programming and the estimates fed to it. And as they say in computing: "Garbage In, Garbage Out".
There is no risk-free level of exposure to secondhand smoke.
This is a favourite soundbite of Tobacco Control, because it conveys the impression that SHS is dangerous. The sentence is in fact meaningless. It only means they haven't tested for a 'safe level', and even if they could, it would still be meaningless. You can say with equal certainty that there is no safe level of coffee, or no safe level of bacon, or no safe level of shower gel. All those statements are as meaningful as 'no safe level of SHS'.
Someone wrote a truly inspired web page to illustrate how the Tobacco Control propaganda machine works. I urge you to read it, as it will open your eyes as to how easy it is to fool people into thinking that something completely harmless is really, really dangerous:
http://www.dhmo.org/facts.html
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58 minutes ago, Jingthing said:
Sounds like right wing ideologically driven PROPAGANDA.
More objective sources conclude there has been modest success in Mexico.
Mexico's Soda Tax Success
Sales of sugary drinks fell in the developed world's second-most-obese country.https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-01-08/mexico-s-soda-tax-success
That is why I would like to see a major nation (could be THAILAND) consider a more radical tactic and test that out -- much, much higher even PUNISHING taxes on sugar drinks.
Ha! That's rich! Making accusations of propaganda and then quoting Bloomberg! :) Bloomberg the fanatical anti-smoker who just recently jumped on the anti-sugar bandwagon and spent millions of dollars pushing for sugar taxes all over the USA.
... but let's take a moment here to savour the defeat of that evil old fossil Michael Bloomberg who has been bankrolling soda tax campaigns all around America (and beyond). He's not short of money but even a billionaire must smart from pouring millions of dollars down the drain, as he has in Chicago.
In 2016, Bloomberg handed over $1 million for ads to build support for the tax, and then donated another $2 million in August 2017.
In September, Bloomberg funnelled in another $3 million to the pro-tax cause.
And two weeks ago, in an extraordinary act of hubris, he handed out a $2.5 million grant to some 'public health' researchers at the University of Illinois to study the effects of the tax.Cook County, it should be noted, just threw the hated soda tax out after just two months.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/kass/ct-met-cook-county-soda-tax-kass-1011-story.html
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1 minute ago, joeyg said:
I think everyone will agree it's a filthy and disgusting habit that non-smokers should not have to be forced to be anywhere near. Just have designated smoking areas, right?
No, I don't think everyone will agree at all, not by a long shot. I certainly don't.
This is a fairly recent phenomenon, driven by relentless propaganda from people with a financial and ideological vested interest in persecuting smokers. Back when I was a lad, nobody took any notice if someone was smoking - they hadn't been indoctrinated with all sorts of rubbish about 'passive smoking' and similar junk science.
Neither of my parents smoked, but they always had a box of various brand cigarettes (and ashtrays) to offer guests. My mother said on several occasions how much she liked the smell of tobacco smoke, particularly pipe tobacco. But she, of course, had never been subjected to anti-smoking propaganda, so her opinions were her own.
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Standard smoker-hater rant, completely devoid of fact, just lots of Tobacco Control propaganda soundbites. The author knows nothing at all about the subject apart from what he's read in the tabloids. It just illustrates how easily some people can be indoctrinated with the current Politically Correct meme. The same type of propaganda (almost exactly) was used in Germany in the 1930s to turn people against the Jews.
"Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it..."
Winston Churchill.
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6 hours ago, transam said:
I like a ciggy the same as I like a beer...I never annoy anyone when having a fag..
I find it funny when non smokers come on here slagging smokers off just because they don't smoke. Yet many of the moaners drive diesel rides, use BBQ's and burn horrendous amounts of cheap fuel on cheap flights which to them is OK..
I don't particularly like looking at obese folk, but l don't tell them this is 2017 and the info is out there to become a normal size do l...
Folk should mind there own business and let folk live their own life..
Standing next to a BBQ cooking an average BBQ meal for half an hour exposes you to the equivalent of 200,000 cigarettes worth of carcinogenic smoke.
And as for wood smoke:
...wood smoke 30 times more potent than cigarette smoke.
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6 hours ago, darksidedog said:
I'd like to know if putting tax on these drinks actually has any effect on consumption levels. If mummy is just going to pay an extra 2 baht to keep her kid happy, the only winner is the tax department. Getting kids involved in activity sports is far more beneficial for the bodys weight, not to mention the cardio vascular system.
Since the quantities of sugary drinks consumed didn't change after the soda taxes were introduced in Mexico and Berkeley, it is inconceivable that they could have any effect on obesity. The authors of the Berkeley study (who include soda tax fanatic Barry Popkin) admitted that there was no statistically significant change in calorie intake from sugary drinks and that 'caloric intake of untaxed beverages (milk and other diary-based [sic] beverages) increased.'
http://velvetgloveironfist.blogspot.gr/2017/10/jamie-olivers-sugar-tax-success.html
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I've found most of the beds I've slept on in Thailand over the past twenty years have been like bloody mortuary slabs, with absolutely no give in them at all. Perhaps it's because traditionally they slept on the floor, so when beds and mattresses started to become the norm, they opted for a similar firmness. Whatever, at my age now, I prefer a nice soft sprung mattress. Hard ones just give me backache.
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Why?
USA, Europe and Japan all have similarly high wage economies, yet still produce cars, so why has it become uneconomical in Aus? I never owned a Holden when I lived there back in the '70s (I had a couple of Chrysler Valiants), but it will be a great shame to see the marque disappear. It was an Australian icon.
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16 minutes ago, tryasimight said:
There is one working there currently with the full on Muzzy outfit...can only see her eyes.
That's interesting - the ultimate 'surprise package'! I wonder if you get to unwrap it back at the hotel, or whether she just lifts her skirt? Still, one to appeal to those with a gambling instinct I suppose...
"Foreigners against smoking ban" video hits the internet as authorities scurry to explain
in Pattaya News
Posted
You do realise, don't you, that all those chemicals are measures in nanograms, picograms and femtograms? That is, in barely detectable amounts - in fact many of those chemicals are in such minute quantities that they can't actually be measured, only theorised (which is a fancy way of saying 'made up').
And you do also realise, don't you, that nearly all those chemicals in tobacco smoke are also present in the normal exhaled breath of a non-smoker? In fact we're surrounded by them, and breathe them in all the time.
What the fanatical zealots will never tell you is that the first rule of toxicology is "The Dose Makes The Poison". They will tell you about how much arsenic there is in tobacco smoke, while omitting to mention that a glass of ordinary tap water contains eight times more arsenic than a 200 carton of cigarettes. It's just scaremongering propaganda.
It's all lies by omission. Making stuff sound really, really scary by not telling you the whole story. They've been at it for years.