Which is worse: Cigars or Cigarettes

[Anttech]

The legislation for banning smoking in pubs, clubs, etc. Is utter carp, it's a statement which says "We're going to take away your personal choice". Think about it, you choose to be in a pub or club, you choose to drink. Yet others cannot choose to smoke there.

Im a smoker, and I agree with the legislation. If I want to slowly kill myself, then that's fair enough, but I shouldn't be doing that in front of other people. Nor should I subject them to breath my smoke. This argument is subjective however, the argument for the increased economic benefits to banning smoking is NOT subjective. The banning of smoking in public spaces, decreases the amount of smokers, and thus the health bill smokers cost society.

http://society.guardian.co.uk/publichealth/story/0,,1270896,00.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3930129.stm

 

[NoTime]

Actually, I was talking about cigarettes. Carbon Monoxide, cyanide and carcinogens are some of the components of cigarette smoke.

Cars produce carbon monoxide.
If you're in a closed garage with the engine running you'll be dead in 20 minutes or so. Catalytic converter or not.
Carcinogens, how about MTBA a component of auto fuel?
Now ubiquitous throughout the environment.
You get some in all the food you eat and water you drink, no matter where you live.
There are lots of other things going on here as well, like PM10.

Studies involving 40,000 to 50,000 people can't show an effect of secondhand smoke greater than the error bars of the study.
I just can't find it in me to share your concern.

The thing is that if they had spent the billions of dollars, used on trying to persuade people to stop smoking, on basic biochemical research, you might now have real cures for cancer, heart disease or just getting old.

 

[Loren Booda]

If you can smell someone's tobacco smoke a half mile down the highway, just think of what it's doing to the smoker's lungs!

I think it pompous and rude for people to smoke (especially cigars) in an enclosed area with other patrons. How many people would actually be smoking, in light of its extreme hazards, if it were not addicting?

 

[daveb]

Not to mention the fact that tobacco is radioactive and delivers a healthy dose of alpha radiation from the Po-210 and Pb-210 to the lungs over time.

 

[NoTime]

I think people are missing my point.
I'm complaining about the narrow focus.
This whole business strikes me as whining about the person who spilled their drink on you while the tsunami is crashing down.

Here is something to think about
http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20060819/fob3.asp

I can for sure smell that diesel truck a half mile ahead of me, can't say the same for a smoker.

If a coal fired power plant had to conform to the same radiation requirements as a nuclear power plant they would all get shut down.

 

[verty]

Not to mention the fact that tobacco is radioactive and delivers a healthy dose of alpha radiation from the Po-210 and Pb-210 to the lungs over time.

Isn't tobacco a plant? How does it become radioactive?

 

[DaveC426913]

Isn't tobacco a plant? How does it become radioactive?

I'm not about to add credence to http://www.cannabisculture.com/news/tobacco/" , but you should realize that radioactivity is a normal prcoess that organisms can pick up from selectively ingesting the contents of their surroundings. In fact, radio carbon dating is exists because of the preferential uptake of slightly radioactive carbon (it doesn't mean it glows, it means the particles decay over weeks, years, centuries). Likewise, your basement might be slightly radioactive because the ground around you tends to leak radon gas.


"To grow what the tobacco industry calls "more flavorful" tobacco, US farmers use high-phosphate fertilizers. The phosphate is taken from a rock mineral, apatite, that is ground into powder, dissolved in acid and further processed. Apatite rock also contains radium, and the radioactive elements lead 210 and polonium 210. "

 

[Loren Booda]

Radon inhalation is the second greatest source of lung cancer, next to cigarettes. It is present in many basements.