Tobacco is bad for the planet and the health

[OneMoreFarang]

8 hours ago, webfact said:

Tobacco is killing our planet.

What else?

Does anybody really need another reason to stop smoking? Is cancer and the possibility to get sick and die early not enough?

 

But then, personally I really don't care if anybody wants to smoke. As long as they don't do it in an office or my home or i.e. public transport let them smoke.

Many people started smoking when they were young and it was cool. Maybe some of them could stop smoking if they really wanted. But then I could also stop looking at pretty girls if I wanted to. But I don't want that. And some people just want to continue with their habits. Let them!

 

Looking at above argument is someone who smokes 4 packs a day a bigger enemy to our planet or someone who regularly takes planes to go on holiday? Or maybe someone who heats his house? Or someone who likes his AC cold? We all could do more for our environment and maybe we do already a lot more than others. But IMHO nobody should force us all to do only good things all the time. Let's enjoy life from time to time, even it is is not 100% healthy or environmentally positive.

[zyphodb]

2 hours ago, RafPinto said:

It's very rare I see a thai smoking.

 

Mayber the ladies smoking cigars but otherwise.

Just about every Thai male smokes in the villages, and quite a lot of women too...

[HappyExpat57]

It's not the tobacco, it's the dozens of poisons added to make the coffin nails addictive.

[dinsdale]

1 hour ago, spidermike007 said:

Tobacco is utterly heinous, and one of the filthiest habits any person can pick up. It is unbelievably unpleasant for most non smokers to be around these highly addicted, weak willed individuals. 

 

Tell the Thai government to stop getting people addicted, through its highly profitable franchise. Such an abomination. 

Nicotine is more addictive than heroin (pure 100% heroin) and much harder to stop being addicted to. 

Edited May 28, 2022 by dinsdale

[wombat]

13 hours ago, KhunLA said:

 the hardest habit for him to break

Statisticaly nicotine is harder to give up than heroin.

[mikebell]

23 hours ago, webfact said:

Smoking costs Thailand over 350 billion baht per year in health-care expenses and lost productivity

but how much tax does it deliver to state troughs?

[Oracle2022]

Tobacco smoke is a Class 1 Carcinogen.

 

 

HOWEVER

 

Alcohol is also a Class 1 Carcinogen.

 

 

So if you drink half a bottle of whiskey a day, but smoked a few packs of cigarettes when you were 18, if you get cancer of any type it will be labelled as "Smoking related".

 

The stats are completely skewed and irrelevant.   If you drink alcohol you have as much chance of getting cancer as a smoker.

 

This is why cancer cases keep rising, even as smoking is reducing massively...........but hey............shall we ban alcohol ?

 

No......they all scream.

 

And alcohol kills and mains in many ways..........drunk drivers, drunk people, abuse related to alcohol, beatings of wives and children under the influence of alcohol.......

 

 

I think personal choice should be just that, if you want to smoke, then smoke.  if you want to drink, then drink.  Dont complain about one and do the other.

 

 

 

 

[FolkGuitar]

I was a smoker for 46 years. Pack and a half a day of unfiltered menthol's. I stopped 23 years ago. Smokers have a right to smoke. Currently, it's their choice, their freedom. But I sure wish they could understand how badly they smell. It would be enough to get many of them to be more considerate of others.

 

A year or so after I stopped, I went around to all my friends and relatives an apologized for my behavior. As a smoker, I was never aware of just how badly smokers smell, and how badly cigarette smoke can smell to non-smokers. I always thought the non-smokers waving away the smoke were just being histrionic. I was wrong. But as smoking kills off most of one's sense of smell, I never realized the stink I was creating.  Now I do realize it. Now I do smell it. Frankly, I'm amazed that non-smoking women had anything to do with me when I was smoking... Smokers really, really stink. Must taste pretty bad when kissing too!

 

I don't worry about taking in second-hand smoke. There are enough pollutants in the air that one person's cigarette, smoked on the other side of a room amounts to little more. But the smell... especially in restaurants, is enough to cause a person to gag. Certainly ruins the taste of good food.

[jacko45k]

4 minutes ago, FolkGuitar said:

Smokers have a right to smoke

Where did you come up with that concept?

[Lacessit]

The statistics are there in plain sight. If you are a smoker, you are 20 times more likely to die of lung cancer than a non-smoker. That's without counting in the enhanced risk of heart attacks, emphysema and mouth cancer.

I was a pack a day smoker until age 40. One year after quitting, my lung capacity had increased from 3.5 litres to 6 litres, which is back to normal. 5-10 years after quitting, my risk of lung cancer has declined to that of a non-smoker.

I feel a bit sorry for smokers, it is a part of legal history tobacco companies did everything they could to make tobacco more addictive. Having said that, I don't enjoy being around them.

 

[BritManToo]

6 minutes ago, FolkGuitar said:

A year or so after I stopped, I went around to all my friends and relatives an apologized for my behavior. As a smoker, I was never aware of just how badly smokers smell, and how badly cigarette smoke can smell to non-smokers.

Non Smoker here, 

I believe you're wrong and the bad smell is due to you being sensitised by first being an addict and then quitting. I've never smoked tobacco, and don't find the smell particular offensive. It's a bit like those who get religion in later life become more pious than those who always believed.

Edited May 29, 2022 by BritManToo

[BritManToo]

39 minutes ago, Oracle2022 said:

This is why cancer cases keep rising, even as smoking is reducing massively...........but hey............shall we ban alcohol ?

I blame food additives for rising cancer rates.

Or maybe vaccination ........ or pollutants in the water supply ......

 

There are lots of things beyond our control.

Lead pipes were responsible for a reduction in life expectancy of 10 years since Roman times, and that's only recently being fixed.

 

The chemicals in contraceptive pills, urinated into out water supplies, have massively reduced fertility in the western world.

Edited May 29, 2022 by BritManToo

[KhunLA]

7 minutes ago, BritManToo said:

Non Smoker here, 

I believe you're wrong and the bad smell is due to you being sensitised by first being an addict and then quitting. I've never smoked tobacco, and don't find the smell particular offensive. It's a bit like those who get religion in later life become more pious than those who always believed.

Cigs bug the hell out of me.  Strangely some cigars and pipe smoke do not.  Go figure.

[Iamfalang]

Am I in a time machine?

 

1985.

 

Smoking will increase your lungs and allow them to work better!!! addiction?  no!!! only a weak mind!!!  Smoking is cool!!!  Here's a free carton of smokes!!!!   give them to your kids!!!

 

I've made over 100 trillion dollars selling the devil's blood.  lol  

 

[transam]

2 minutes ago, BritManToo said:

I blame food additives for rising cancer rates.

Or maybe vaccination ........ or pollutants in the water supply ......

There are lots of things beyond our control.

Lead pipes were responsible for a reduction in life expectancy of 10 years since Roman times, and that's only recently being fixed.

Life expectancy in Roman times was in their thirties, my old family, who ALL had water through lead pipes, lived till late 80/90's...

If you ever open up old lead water pipe, you will find a layer of scale build up. 

Folk are living longer, even though they lived through an era of massive pollution, cigarette smoking, and the everyday use of animal fats in cooking, he days of chips cooked in beef fat, suet puddings etc.

 

"Vaccination"..................????

[BritManToo]

3 minutes ago, transam said:

Life expectancy in Roman times was in their thirties, my old family, who ALL had water through lead pipes, lived till late 80/90's...

You're just plain wrong, (and my family were all dead by their early 60s).

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20181002-how-long-did-ancient-people-live-life-span-versus-longevity

 

"Back in 1994 a study looked at every man entered into the Oxford Classical Dictionary who lived in ancient Greece or Rome. Their ages of death were compared to men listed in the more recent Chambers Biographical Dictionary.

Of 397 ancients in total, 99 died violently by murder, suicide or in battle. Of the remaining 298, those born before 100BC lived to a median age of 72 years. Those born after 100BC lived to a median age of 66. (The authors speculate that the prevalence of dangerous lead plumbing may have led to this apparent shortening of life).

The median of those who died between 1850 and 1949? Seventy-one years old – just one year less than their pre-100BC cohort."

 

[RafPinto]

16 hours ago, KhunLA said:

Really ... I'm actually surprised with the amount of Thais I see smoking.  Opposite of my peers, growing up, and think all but 1 quit decades ago, and folks I knew in the workplace, before coming here.  Very few smoked actually.

Honestly.
The only one smoking around my condo are farangs.
I could walk for an hour and don't see a single person smoking.
I must live in a different Thailand.

[transam]

5 minutes ago, BritManToo said:

You're just plain wrong, (and my family were all dead by their early 60s).

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20181002-how-long-did-ancient-people-live-life-span-versus-longevity

 

"Back in 1994 a study looked at every man entered into the Oxford Classical Dictionary who lived in ancient Greece or Rome. Their ages of death were compared to men listed in the more recent Chambers Biographical Dictionary.

Of 397 ancients in total, 99 died violently by murder, suicide or in battle. Of the remaining 298, those born before 100BC lived to a median age of 72 years. Those born after 100BC lived to a median age of 66. (The authors speculate that the prevalence of dangerous lead plumbing may have led to this apparent shortening of life).

The median of those who died between 1850 and 1949? Seventy-one years old – just one year less than their pre-100BC cohort."

 

You should read the whole of that article, not just the first bit you quoted..

 

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20181002-how-long-did-ancient-people-live-life-span-versus-longevity

 

Aren't you the bloke that never had his kids vaccinated for anything when they were infants, now saying you were right because they never caught anything......????

[BritManToo]

4 minutes ago, transam said:

Aren't you the bloke that never had his kids vaccinated for anything when they were infants, now saying you were right because they never caught anything......

Back in the UK none of my 4 kids were vaccinated ............ it hasn't appeared to have negatively affected them. Ages vary from 20 to 34, no serious diseases caught so far.

Edited May 29, 2022 by BritManToo

[KhunLA]

6 minutes ago, RafPinto said:

Honestly.
The only one smoking around my condo are farangs.
I could walk for an hour and don't see a single person smoking.
I must live in a different Thailand.

I don't live in tourist area, and there are no condos where I am, and few farangs, which I didn't even make reference to.  Simply a comparison to my peer group in USA, vs Thai smokers here.

 

So a different Thailand indeed.

[transam]

21 minutes ago, BritManToo said:

Back in the UK none of my 4 kids were vaccinated ............ it hasn't appeared to have negatively affected them. Ages vary from 20 to 34, no serious diseases caught so far.

Weren't they lucky, and you have no idea what vaccinations are for.

????

[howlee101]

22 hours ago, worgeordie said:

Don't you just love articles stating the bleeding obvious,

 

regards Worgeordie 

Tomorrow's headline "Driving is the leading cause of accidents on the roadways"

[BritManToo]

27 minutes ago, transam said:

Weren't they lucky, and you have no idea what vaccinations are for.

????

I always thought vaccinations were for making Big Pharma large profits.

I may be wrong, but I don't force my thoughts onto other people's children.

If my children think I was wrong, nothing to stop them walking into any GP and asking to have the missed vaccinations.

 

Their bodies, their choices now they are adults.

Same with tobacco, if they want to smoke, it's entirely up to them.

Edited May 29, 2022 by BritManToo

[KhunLA]

1 minute ago, BritManToo said:

I always thought vaccinations were for making Big Pharma large profits.

I may be wrong, but I don't force my thoughts onto other people's children.

If my children think I was wrong, nothing to stop them walking into any GP and asking to have the missed vaccinations.

 

Their bodies, their choices now they are adults.

Most things they vaccinate for now (USA) are kind of rare to get, and easily treated now, vs when the vaccines were developed, and said disease was an issue.  Most are useless, IMHO but can't stop that money train.

[brianthainess]

[zzaa09]

Lightin' one up as we speak.....

[Lucky Bones]

I smoked from about age 15 until December '09.

Decided I wanted to quit and bought Champix from my doc.

Next day I purposely stopped drinking coffee and quit smokes. Started a Excel spreadsheet to assist me.

Based on 40 (conservative #) smokes a day, the savings are staggering.

Each to their own and I can now drink coffee.

The secret is that you have to want to stop.

[BritManToo]

15 minutes ago, Lucky Bones said:

Based on 40 (conservative #) smokes a day, the savings are staggering.

More to do with the taxation of your nanny state than the actual cost of smoking.

Back in the village, where they grow tobacco, about 500bht for a years worth of 40/day. Shredded tobacco is cheaper than rice.

 

Tobacco, cannabis and opium are probably the cheapest and easiest crops in the world to grow.

Edited May 29, 2022 by BritManToo

[Lucky Bones]

Fair call BritMan2 but I don't know about villages growing their own baccy.

Likely I need to ask more questions in my village.

Back in '06 I smoked "London" brand when touring Thailand.

Couldn't wait to get back to duty free.

[transam]

2 hours ago, BritManToo said:

I always thought vaccinations were for making Big Pharma large profits.

I may be wrong, but I don't force my thoughts onto other people's children.

If my children think I was wrong, nothing to stop them walking into any GP and asking to have the missed vaccinations.

 

Their bodies, their choices now they are adults.

Same with tobacco, if they want to smoke, it's entirely up to them.

Most of my vaccines to protect me as an infant were done by my parents via advice from the medical authorities of the time, sod all to do with kids doing after the risk period is gone, you failed in your kids protection duties, and it seems because you thought someone was making a few quid, sunbeam, all vaccine's were free for your UK kids.. ????