When I was at Student Health recently, I found myself stumped by a routine question. The doctor asked if I was a smoker, followed by if I had ever smoked. I flashed him a confused look. Why had he asked me the same question twice? Students who have a cigarette every so often in social settings do not consider themselves smokers, he explained, adding that he finds it necessary to ask both questions to find out if his patient ever smokes.
People who consider themselves to be “social smokers” may never actually purchase their own pack of cigarettes, but if you step outside of the bar, they may join you to “bum a smoke.” Social smoking is on the rise today, according to the Center for Disease Control. Of the 45 million American adults who admit to smoking cigarettes, 24 percent say they only smoke occasionally. Many of these occasional smokers believe they are eliminating the dangers of cigarettes by smoking irregularly. Little do they know that they are still vulnerable to many of the same health risks as regular smokers.
Social smokers look at smoking as a way to pass time, an opportunity to participate in a conversation taking place during a smoking break, a way to feel included. In doing so, they fail to acknowledge the extremely addictive quality of nicotine.
When nicotine is inhaled, it reaches the brain within 10 seconds, making smokers feel calm. Smokers become hooked on the temporary high that nicotine produces, leading users to smoke more. Before they know it, addiction has set in.
According to the American Heart Association, nicotine can be more addictive than both heroin and cocaine. Social smokers believe that by not purchasing their own packs of cigarettes, they are escaping the temptation to feed their desire. They often ignore the fact that smoking someone else’s cigarette has the same effect.
There are many health hazards associated with cigarettes, no matter how often or how many are smoked. Recent studies show that rarely smoking cigarettes can damage coronary artery function which can lead to heart disease. Researchers at the University of Georgia found that the arterial function of ‘social smokers’ was 36 percent less responsive than that of non-smokers. These tests show that there is no such thing as a safe amount of smoking; any type of smoker is putting themselves at risk of serious health problems such as cancer and heart disease, among others.
Patterns of social smoking show that the majority of those who smoke ‘occasionally’ during long periods of time are more likely to become dependent smokers than those who just don’t smoke. The good news for all of the dependent and social smokers out there is that the American Society of Radiologic Technologists found that the risk of coronary heart disease can be reversed within at least one month of quitting smoking.
In conclusion, stay inside when the smokers step out. I’m sure the conversation isn’t that interesting!
Jade Hall is a fourth-year College student. She can be reached at j.hall@cavalierdaily.com.
The new Tobacco Prohibition
I would like to take the time to tell the entire community about a falsehood so big that everyone who believes in freedom should be appauled.
This falsehood is so big it resonates from historical fact forward to this day. This falsehood is so big billions of dollars have been spent to make it believable to those of us who dont take the time to look up the facts.
We all remember reading about alcohol prohibition,but did you know there was also tobacco prohibition going on before alcohol became such a target of the last nanny staters.
Our great grandparents lived thru prohibition and the great depression,they also lived thru tobacco prohibition.
Heres a time line starting in 1900,dont be surprised to see the same thing playing out today nearly 100 years later.
1901: REGULATION: Strong anti-cigarette activity in 43 of the 45 states. “Only Wyoming and Louisiana had paid no attention to the cigarette controversy, while the other forty-three states either already had anti-cigarette laws on the books or were considering new or tougher anti-cigarette laws, or were the scenes of heavy anti- cigarette activity” (Dillow, 1981:10).
1904: New York: A judge sends a woman is sent to jail for 30 days for smoking in front of her children.
1904: New York City. A woman is arrested for smoking a cigarette in an automobile. “You can’t do that on Fifth Avenue,” the arresting officer says.
1907: Business owners are refusing to hire smokers. On August 8, the New York Times writes: “Business … is doing what all the anti-cigarette specialists could not do.”
1917: SMOKEFREE: Tobacco control laws have fallen, including smoking bans in numerous cities, and the states of Arkansas, Iowa, Idaho and Tennessee.
1937: hitler institutes laws against smoking.This one you can google.
Now onto the falsehood……
We have been told for years by smoke free advocates that second hand smoke is the cause of everything from johnnys ear ache to cousin ED’S lung cancer. But wheres the proof!!!
Remember they claim 50,000 deaths a year yet,there are no bodys not even mass graves of the dead to second hand smoke.We await the names of these victims.
A simple stroll down historys road say 10 years or so and we start to get at the truth……
A federal Judge by the name of osteen got a case dropped in his lap in North Carolina,the case was that of EPA’S study on second hand smoke/environmental tobacco smoke.The judge an anti-tobbaco judge by reputation spent 4 years going thru the study and interviewing scientists at EPA and came to the conclusion :
JUNK SCIENCE
”EPA’s 1992 conclusions are not supported by reliable scientific evidence. The report has been largely discredited and, in 1998, was legally vacated by a federal judge.Before its 1992 report, EPA had always used epidemiology’s gold standard CI of 95 percent to measure statistical significance. But because the U.S. studies chosen[cherry picked] for the report were not statistically significant within a 95 percent CI, for the first time in its history EPA changed the rules and used a 90 percent CI, which doubled the chance of being wrong.
This allowed it to report a statistically significant 19 percent increase [a 1.19rr] of lung cancer cases in the nonsmoking spouses of smokers over those cases found in nonsmoking spouses of nonsmokers. Even though the RR was only 1.19–an amount far short of what is normally required to demonstrate correlation or causality–the agency concluded this was proof SHS increased the risk of U.S. nonsmokers developing lung cancer by 19 percent.”
So here we find that second hand smoke was made a political scapegoat by EPA.Lets not forget how EPA has reworked the global warming studys just this last summer. Where its top scientists paper was rebuked because it didnt carry the EPA’S stand that global warming was real.
The political shenanigans surrounding SHS/ETS go deep not only with the government and its health agencies but also to the big pharmaceutical companies and non-profit orginizations aka ACS,ALA,AHA and a meriad of others. All lobbying for smoking bans and their weapon of choise Propaganda paid for by big pharma and tax dollars. Studys made to order that second hand smoke is deadly. Take a memory note here too,over 250 studys on shs/ets have found it safe.
Yet a simple look at the chemistry shows us that its:
94% of secondary smoke is composed of water vapor and ordinary air with a minor amount of carbon dioxide.
3 % is carbon monoxide.
3 % is those supposed 4,000 chemicals to be found in tobacco smoke. Unfortunatley for the smoke free advocates these supposed chemicals are more theorized than actually found.What is found is so small to even call them threats to humans is beyond belief.Nanograms,picograms and femptograms……
(1989 Report of the Surgeon General p. 80).
Now, how odd that when we search the smoke free activists sites not one of them mentions that water vapor and air are the main components of second hand smoke. Is this just a fluke or an outright omission to further their political healthscare against the general public.
The last informative tid bit I have for you is what does OSHA have to say about all this secondhand smoke stuff.
Here is where it gets interesting,it seems John Banzhaf, founder and president of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) decided to sue OSHA to make a rule on shs/ets not that OSHA didnt want to play ball with him,its just that the scientific facts didnt back up a rule to start with.
Now for a rule to happen Osha has to send out for comments for a period of time and boy did the comments fly in, over 40,000 of them….Osha has whats called PEL’S and limits for an 8 hour period of exposure to chemicals in indoor environments…[epa is in charge of outdoor air]
This is where second hand smoke really becomes a joke,remember its nearly 94% water vapor and air…..now lets get to the facts of toxicology and dose makes the poison:
According to independent Public and Health Policy Research group, Littlewood & Fennel of Austin, Tx, on the subject of secondhand smoke……..
They did the figures for what it takes to meet all of OSHA’S minimum PEL’S on shs/ets…….Did it ever set the debate on fire.
They concluded that:
All this is in a small sealed room 9×20 and must occur in ONE HOUR.
For Benzo[a]pyrene, 222,000 cigarettes
“For Acetone, 118,000 cigarettes
“Toluene would require 50,000 packs of simultaneously smoldering cigarettes.
Acetaldehyde or Hydrazine, more than 14,000 smokers would need to light up.
“For Hydroquinone, “only” 1250 cigarettes
For arsenic 2 million 500,000 smokers at one time
The same number of cigarettes required for the other so called chemicals in shs/ets will have the same outcomes.
So,OSHA finally makes a statement on shs/ets :
Field studies of environmental tobacco smoke indicate that under normal conditions, the components in tobacco smoke are diluted below existing Permissible Exposure Levels (PELS.) as referenced in the Air Contaminant Standard (29 CFR 1910.1000)…It would be very rare to find a workplace with so much smoking that any individual PEL would be exceeded.” -Letter From Greg Watchman, Acting Sec’y, OSHA, To Leroy J Pletten, PHD, July 8, 1997
WHAT! DILUTED BELOW PERMISSABLE LEVELS
By the way ASH dropped their lawsuit because OSHA was going to make a rule and that rule would have been weak and been the law of the land,meaning no smoking bans would ever have been enacted anywhere,simply because an open window or a ventilation system would have covered the rule.
Let me also tell you that the relative risk for shs/ets by the SG report of 2006 was a 1.19 ”EPA study is whats used to call it a carcinogen”……milks is a 2.43 and that glass of chlorinated water your about to drink is a 1.25 yet these things aren’t determined to be a carcinogen….The gold standard in epidemiology is a 3.0….Now had the SURGEON GENERAL included 2 other shs/ets studys the relative risk for disease from shs/ets would have been nearer a.60-.70 meaning it would have a protective effect against ever getting disease.
But,what each of us has is years and years of exposure and the knowledge that our kids all grew up around shs and generations of others,yet we are here alive not dead from a lousy 30 minute exposure to shs as stanton glantz tries to claim…..thats another story and its just as crazy as all the rest of smokefree’s claim about shs/ets.
Oh! have you heard the one about ”laugh” thirdhand smoke or third hand drinking.
Like I said their claims border beyond that of any reasonable persons commomsence.
The next time you see a healthscare claim
consider the source.Especially if it comes from a government or non profit agency!
disclaimer; I am a victim of the smoking bans like tens of millions of smokers and non-smokers who liked to hang with their friends in a public accommodation. We have in effect lost our freedom of association because of the bans.
Property owners have lost their right to their property rights by these laws based upon psuedo-science and propaganda.I dont work for any tobacco company nor do I get anything but the satisfaction that I can make the smoke free activists cringe when the truth gets out.
Harleyrider1978
Report this comment
Agree/Disagree:
0 
0
Here is the problem: It does not matter how small an amount of poison you are huffing into our air, it is still there. Aside from the health consequences, it is horribly unpleasant for most people to smell and breath, and some are allergic to it. Also, you might want to explain why it is that food service workers who do not smoke (but work in building filled with second hand smoke) have dramatically higher rates of lung cancer if it is so harmless. Smokers are a burden to society and a public nuisance. Poison yourself on private property.
Report this comment
Agree/Disagree:
0 
0
John, you epitomize the disease.
Report this comment
Agree/Disagree:
0 
0