# How could anyone have ever thought smoking wasn't bad for you? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 31, 2014, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-anyone-have-ever-thought-smoking-wasnt-bad-for-you/708607 "2014-12-31T12:47:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2014, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-anyone-have-ever-thought-smoking-wasnt-bad-for-you/708607/21 "2014-12-31T18:00:50Z")
OP, do you realize: > [@](#): > > From 1890 to 1927 the sale of cigarettes was banned virtually overnight in 15 different US states; and in Austin v. Tennessee (1900) the US Supreme Court upheld the right of states to enact such bans. Those laws all eventually disappeared from industry pressure and the lure of tax revenues. > **[Why ban the sale of cigarettes? The case for abolition](https://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/22/suppl_1/i27.full)** > > The cigarette is the deadliest artefact in the history of human civilisation. Most of the richer countries of the globe, however, are making progress in reducing both smoking rates and overall consumption. Many different methods have been proposed to... ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2014, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-anyone-have-ever-thought-smoking-wasnt-bad-for-you/708607/22 "2014-12-31T18:01:41Z")
> [@dangermom](#): > > Everybody had been marinating in smoke forever when tobacco arrived in Europe, and there were lots of folk beliefs about house smoke being good for you, keeping disease away, and so on. I wonder if that had something to do with it? The smoke in the houses probably kept down the population of lice, rodents, and fleas on rodents, as well as some other bugs; aside from the fact that they can bits you and cause itchy rashes, that can become infected when you scratch them (especially with unwashed, Medieval hands), they could transmit disease by transmitting bacteria. So there may have been a net gain from the smoke. Obviously, we have much better solutions now. ---
**Author:** ![Octarine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/22d042/32.png) [@Octarine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Octarine)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2014, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-anyone-have-ever-thought-smoking-wasnt-bad-for-you/708607/23 "2014-12-31T18:08:00Z")
The expression I always hear in old books and such is that smoking “loosens the lungs”. I guess loose lungs were a good thing to have. There was a time when doctors would actually push their patients to smoke more; I’ve come across characters in older media feeling guilty that they’re not smoking enough. Times change. I’m sure in 100 years - or maybe less - people will be wondering how we could have been so stupid to, say, take those 5-hour-energy things, or use nonstick frying pans, or microwave food, or use a certain lipstick that turns out to be toxic, etc, etc. All you can do is try to use things in moderation and hope you’re not doing too much damage. > [@Hector\_St\_Clare](#): > > One of the greatest scientists and statisticians of the last century, R. A. Fisher (take an introductory evolution, animal behavior or statistics class and his name will be ubiquitous) actually went to his grave denying vociferously that tobacco caused cancer. Fisher was also, IIRC, a huge proponent of eugenics. Nobody’s perfect, I suppose . . . ---
**Author:** ![Grestarian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grestarian/32/3227_2.png) [@Grestarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grestarian)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2014, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-anyone-have-ever-thought-smoking-wasnt-bad-for-you/708607/24 "2014-12-31T21:30:20Z")
If I remember the history correctly\* Tobacco was brought from The New World to civilized lands around the 1600’s as a novelty item. It was introduced to explorers and adventurers by what were then called Indians. Cal Meacham’s quoted documents# seem to support this notion. But the Native Americans weren’t using tobacco the way Europeans (and, later, the Colonists and their descendants) use it, constantly smoking day after day like a perpetual chimney. In Black Elk Speaks the author tells of the males of his tribe using tobacco on rare occasions, as a hallucinogen to help facilitate the dream-walks expected as a rite of passage. That seems to me to suggest they knew it was bad for the body in some ways. Besides, a guy wouldn’t want to be --well, communities and societies wouldn’t want him to be – Dream-Walking on peyote all the time and they wouldn’t want him to be Dream-Walking on Tobacco all the time, either. Furthermore, the relatively modern product of cigarettes is astoundingly different than the unadulterated leaf of the pre-Colombian practice. Shortly after the anonymous insider dropped the Secret Tobacco files on the Stanford Library doorstep@, various periodicals were publishing lists of the additives that Lorimar, RJ Reynolds, et al were squirting onto the dried leaves during the cigarette-making process. My friend read the list aloud to us one evening, adding comments about the additives as he went along. Most of them were known carcinogens (formaldehyde, benzene, lots of chemicals with no fewer than 8 syllables) in their normal form. It’s astounding that anyone could expect people to inhale the smoke from burning them - and pay for the privilege! So, sure, the earliest consumers of tobacco thought it was a useful drug once in a while, but not in the form or frequency that is consumed today. –G! - Since, y’know, I was there at the time. But please forgive the Alzheimer-related memory loss if I’m misrepresenting the facts. # By the way, that doesn’t seem to be a law against tobacco but a proposal to tax it at 6-pence per pound of product. @ Late 1980’s, I believe, though I may have the particular institution incorrectly specified. ---
**Author:** ![Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hilarity_n.suze/32/6223_2.png) [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2014, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-anyone-have-ever-thought-smoking-wasnt-bad-for-you/708607/25 "2014-12-31T21:43:35Z")
> [@grude](#): > > Lets sidestep the cancer decades down the line issue, since it is mostly beside my point. > > I can’t understand how anyone could have ever thought smoking tobacco or marijuana was not unhealthy or even good for you. > > I used to be an occasional smoker and one or two(spread out) cigarettes a day for me personally were imperceptible to not smoking that day. But exceed this amount and actual lung pain, reduced lung capacity, reduced capability for physical exertion all became noticeable. Lower quality marijuana feels so bad on your lungs it can be hard to inhale. > > I mean how can someone think something that makes your lungs HURT isn’t unhealthy? I had asthma as a child. Not really bad asthma, but I had a couple of scary episodes. When I started smoking my asthma went away. And I mean, with my first cigarette (which was a menthol). One of the barriers to quitting was, every time I got three or four days into not smoking, my asthma symptoms returned. It isn’t just me. I’ve actually heard a couple of theories about this including one from a doctor–who, I might add, said it was still better to carry around an inhaler than to carry around and smoke cigarettes. I know quite a few other people who’ve had similar experiences, including a friend who quit smoking because of her bad asthma and, for two years, her asthma got worse (two hospitalizations including one that lasted for weeks and weeks), and then got better but not gone when she started smoking again. Now I knew at the time that all the high school athletes were breaking training if they smoked, including the tennis team. But losing the asthma symptoms actually seemed like a net gain to me at the time. No more wheezing halfway through the first set. No more wheezing at all. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2014, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-anyone-have-ever-thought-smoking-wasnt-bad-for-you/708607/26 "2014-12-31T22:34:23Z")
> [@jz78817](#): > > anybody who bitches about kids using “txt spk” should be condemned to read stuff like the above. What a bunch of over-wrought, wordy bloviation. “Suffumigation”! What a word! I love the way they wrote stuff like that in those days. :dubious: The direct ancestral language of modern-day Legalese as written even unto this very day! //old rolleyes// 😃 ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2014, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-anyone-have-ever-thought-smoking-wasnt-bad-for-you/708607/27 "2014-12-31T22:37:20Z")
Back when I smoked, my mother said it was a “filthy habit,” but she never said it was unhealthy. Nobody did. Plus, my father and brother smoked, and if she was at a party or special occasion, even my mother had a cigaret or two. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2014, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-anyone-have-ever-thought-smoking-wasnt-bad-for-you/708607/28 "2014-12-31T22:38:48Z")
Similarly, at least up through the early 1960’s, dermatologists recommended direct exposure to sunlight as a treatment for acne. I wonder how they feel about _that_ these days! ---
**Author:** ![Becky2844](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Becky2844](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Becky2844)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2015, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-anyone-have-ever-thought-smoking-wasnt-bad-for-you/708607/29 "2015-01-01T00:42:25Z")
Eighteen years ago, after one of my operations, the surgeon asked me if I smoked. Expecting to get jumped on I said Yes. He then told me to go downstairs (& outside) several times a day for a cigarette as the smoke stimulated the bowels and would help me heal faster. ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2015, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-anyone-have-ever-thought-smoking-wasnt-bad-for-you/708607/30 "2015-01-01T01:17:56Z")
> [@MostlyUseless](#): > > In all reality, in times past, it was thought healthy to be fat. It was a sign of health, vigor and prosperity. Everything is obvious after it is known. Wasn’t it more that in times past, being fat was a sign of prosperity, that you could actually afford to eat, and not just eat enough to live another day, but eat enough to get fat. And being able to afford that, you could also afford medical care, such that it was, rather than sit around and die from a cough. And you could also afford a better home, and thus be better sheltered from the elements and possibly not even get that cough in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2015, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-anyone-have-ever-thought-smoking-wasnt-bad-for-you/708607/31 "2015-01-01T01:38:03Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > Decades from now there will be a post titled: **How could anyone have ever thought that a lifetime of addiction to nicotine from e-cigs was harmless?** > > We’re good at fooling ourselves. You can consume nicotine is various forms aside from inhaling smoke like patches, gum etc, I haven’t detected any negative effects so far, unlike cigarettes. But hell if you have any kind of cite about nicotine being harmful, aside from large overdose of course, post it man! ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2015, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-anyone-have-ever-thought-smoking-wasnt-bad-for-you/708607/32 "2015-01-01T01:39:22Z")
> [@Becky2844](#): > > Eighteen years ago, after one of my operations, the surgeon asked me if I smoked. Expecting to get jumped on I said Yes. He then told me to go downstairs (& outside) several times a day for a cigarette as the smoke stimulated the bowels and would help me heal faster. Nicotine is what stimulates the bowels, but at the time cigs might have been the only source. ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2015, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-anyone-have-ever-thought-smoking-wasnt-bad-for-you/708607/33 "2015-01-01T01:48:40Z")
> [@dangermom](#): > > Aw, I was going to quote King Jamie. > > Here’s a thought, though. We tend to forget that for thousands of years, people had fires and the accompanying smoke in their houses most of the day. Peasants barely had chimneys in a lot of places. Everybody had been marinating in smoke forever when tobacco arrived in Europe, and there were lots of folk beliefs about house smoke being good for you, keeping disease away, and so on. I wonder if that had something to do with it? Huh I will admit I did not consider that, that people were basically accustomed to inhaling smoke from birth and probably didn’t even notice the negative effects. ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2015, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-anyone-have-ever-thought-smoking-wasnt-bad-for-you/708607/34 "2015-01-01T01:52:30Z")
> [@Aquadementia](#): > > Following the reasoning of the OP. Sure, never said the logic was foolproof. If I with no knowledge of what capsaicin was encountered a chili pepper plant in the wild and had no cultural exposure to it, tasted it, I’d probably mark it as non-edible and move on. ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2015, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-anyone-have-ever-thought-smoking-wasnt-bad-for-you/708607/35 "2015-01-01T01:55:09Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > Similarly, at least up through the early 1960’s, dermatologists recommended direct exposure to sunlight as a treatment for acne. I wonder how they feel about _that_ these days! Applying my OP logic to that I guess I’d hope people would realize with a painful sunburn ok too much sun exposure is NOT good, a little isn’t so bad. I’d hope no rational person would keep going out to sunbathe until they had cracked fractals of skin with pus oozing between them and still insist this is healthy as hell. PS I really need to learn how to multi quote! ---
**Author:** ![Aquadementia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aquadementia/32/555_2.png) [@Aquadementia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aquadementia)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2015, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-anyone-have-ever-thought-smoking-wasnt-bad-for-you/708607/36 "2015-01-01T01:57:19Z")
> [@grude](#): > > Sure, never said the logic was foolproof. If I with no knowledge of what capsaicin was encountered a chili pepper plant in the wild and had no cultural exposure to it, tasted it, I’d probably mark it as non-edible and move on. The same with broccoli. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Arrogance\_Ex\_Machina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/arrogance_ex_machina/32/192_2.png) [@Arrogance\_Ex\_Machina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arrogance_Ex_Machina)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2015, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-anyone-have-ever-thought-smoking-wasnt-bad-for-you/708607/37 "2015-01-01T02:01:52Z")
Was just reading a book about the first Emperor of China and there’s stuff about “elixir of immortality” and how they used various toxic materials for it, lead and quicksilver and whatnot. There’s a long list of horrible side-effects but the alchemists and wise men just claimed that those were signs of the diseases leaving the body, which meant it was working. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2015, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-anyone-have-ever-thought-smoking-wasnt-bad-for-you/708607/38 "2015-01-01T02:36:09Z")
“Hey! Let’s all hold microwaves up to our heads!” ---
**Author:** ![seal\_cleaner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@seal\_cleaner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/seal_cleaner)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2015, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-anyone-have-ever-thought-smoking-wasnt-bad-for-you/708607/39 "2015-01-01T03:44:45Z")
I smoked non-filters for 40 years. Health aside, I could always stop a coughing fit by having a cigarette. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2015, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-anyone-have-ever-thought-smoking-wasnt-bad-for-you/708607/40 "2015-01-01T05:44:25Z")
When Virginia colonists took tobacco back to Europe, the atmosphere in European cities in general and British ones in particular were so horribly polluted with smoke and other particulates, that tobacco smoke was probably on the relatively benign side as far as health was concerned. And over the next few centuries, it got worse before it got better. Obviously, it took at least a person’s lifetime before anyone could have possibly thought there was any particular harm that tobacco smoking could do. This was probably recognized in the first century of the tobacco era, and for that reason, every tobacco-using culture discouraged or prohibited children from smoking and/or chewing, so its adverse effects must have been recognized. In the USA, the widespread autumn burning of grass clippings, leaves and lawn cuttings was not banned until about 50 years ago, because there was insufficient medical data to associate that kind of smoke particulate with health hazards. It’s like asking how come it took people so long to figure out that salt, refined sugar and tropical oils were hazardous to one’s health. There was nothing about them that was blatantly obvious to consumers. And even if there was, there was quite correctly a presumption that moderate consumption would be harmless. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-anyone-have-ever-thought-smoking-wasnt-bad-for-you/708607.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-anyone-have-ever-thought-smoking-wasnt-bad-for-you/708607.md?page=3)