Tobacco and Caffine

Great Debates
21

Obesity is a leading cause of death in this country.

Cigarettes won’t kill you either, using this logic - They’ll just give you a cigarette buzz and bad breath. Just as cigarettes LEAD to conditions which make diseases more likely to develop, addictive soft drinks laden with sugar lead you to a condition (obesity for those keeping score at home) which will make diseases and illnesses more likely to develop.

“Your perspective” doesn’t meean much. I can point out people who have a cigarette or two the once or twice a year they are out drinking and “from their perspective” nicotine is not addictive.

Heck, I can point out people who smoked several packs a day for several decades until they died a non-cigarette related death at 90 years old or more.

One person’s experience doesn’t count for much statistically. The fact is that caffeine is addictive, even in the amounts found in most sodas, it has withdrawl symptoms like any other addictive substance does when the addictee stops using it, and by the nature of addiction, it leaves the body craving more.

Maybe not YOUR body, but most bodies.

Yer pal,
Satan

[sub]TIME ELAPSED SINCE I QUIT SMOKING:
Four months, one week, 21 hours, 14 minutes and 5 seconds.
5195 cigarettes not smoked, saving $649.42.
Life saved: 2 weeks, 4 days, 55 minutes.[/sub]

"Satan is not an unattractive person."-Drain Bead
[sub]Thanks for the ringing endorsement, honey!*[/sub]

22

I would call adding an addictive harmfull substance to a product simply to get people hooked on the product deceptive. Then they deny that they are adding it for that reason, claiming that it’s only added for taste. That is deceptive.

23

'But there are plenty of soft drinks without caffeine for the consumers who don’t want it, and for the rest of us, it won’t kill us. It’ll just make us fat."
“Obesity is a leading cause of death in this country. Cigarettes won’t kill you either, using this logic - They’ll just give you a cigarette buzz and bad breath. Just as cigarettes LEAD to conditions which make diseases more likely to develop, addictive soft drinks laden with sugar lead you to a condition (obesity for those keeping score at home) which will make diseases and illnesses more likely to develop.”

Ugh, the fat line was a joke. (Yes, with realistic undertones.)
Look, you can counter the effects of soft drinks with exercise and a balanced (read: everything in moderation) diet. I drink sodas, I exercise, I stay healthy.

If you smoke, and exercise to counter the effects of smoking… well, that doesn’t work. Your lungs are still affected, your body is still affected.

The point is the 100% deadly nature of cigarettes and the tobacco companies lying about these effects. Yes, sodas with sugar and caffeine can be bad for you in excess, but in moderation they don’t have to be.

Even eating a Whopper at Burger King won’t kill you. Eating nothing but Whoppers will. Smoking will get you no matter what else you do to counter it. Big difference.

24

First of all yak, smoking in extreme moderation (a cigar every once in a while, an after-dinner Marlboro) will also not kill you.

Also, you seem to be forgetting that cigarettes all have warning labels on them, and have for - what, 30 years now? I don’t see anything on the Coke I’m drinking now which says, “Drinking this purposely addictive product can result in rotting teeth and obesity,” now does it?

Yer pal,
Satan

[sub]I HAVE BEEN SMOKE-FREE FOR:
Four months, one week, one day, 17 hours, 34 minutes and 18 seconds.
5229 cigarettes not smoked, saving $653.66.
Life saved: 2 weeks, 4 days, 3 hours, 45 minutes.[/sub]

"Satan is not an unattractive person."-Drain Bead
[sub]Thanks for the ringing endorsement, honey![/sub]

25

I have the extremely occasional cigar as well. But I am doing damage by smoking them, much more damage than an occasional soft drink does.

Philip Morris has been running an ad campaign on TV these past few weeks, saying that “they have changed” and will no longer be:

advertising towards kids and teens with cartoon characters,
using roadside billboards
and WILL be paying billions towards health care costs,
etc., etc…

saying that they “are a changed company” over and over.

Uh, hello? I don’t think they’ve changed a bit. These are all repurcussions of lawsuits. They are being FORCED to do all these things. None of these are voluntary actions by a company that has been intentionally poisoning people for decades. Even the warning labels were left off until the government forced them to use them.

26

I don’t see anything on a box of See’s Candy [TM] that says “Eating this product can result in rotting teeth and obesity” either.

27

PS, on a 100% unrelated note:

Satan, here’s a book you’ll enjoy. One of my alltime favorites. =)

“Satan : His Psychotherapy and Cure by the Unfortunate Dr. Kassler, J.S.P.S.”
by Jeremy Leven

Sorry for the non-thread reply, but I don’t have his email address. OK, carry on.

28

**

Please show me a cite that says a cigar once a month is more harmful than a six pack of caffinated non-diet soft drinks, thank you.

As for your somewhat irrelevent to the issue we were discussing “Begs The Question” comment about Phillip Morris being a changed company, so what if they were forced to change?

Car companies made heavy-pollution cars until the government told them they had to stop that. Factories that make a variety of products polluted streams and oceans with their left-overs until the government came in and told them to stop. Defensive backs in the NFL used a ton of yucky stick-up until the NFL came in and told them to stop.

I don’t see the revelation in saying, “they only changed because they were made to” here, yak.

Further more, even if one wished to question the morality of the tobacco industry, that is between the smokers and them, wouldn’t you say? As a non-smoker, you are already making what you feel is a moral decision - to not partake in their products. Feel free to not use Kraft prodycts either as I believe they own them as well.

Concersely, my father - who is a long-time 2-pack a day smoker - has boycotted McDonald’s ever since they made all of their restaurants totally non-smoking. Won’t even use the druve-thru. HIS morality says them taking away a place for him meant he couldn’t support that company any more.

I guess I need to make my point here again, lest anyone get the wrong idea about where I stand.

Tobacco companies should not be subject to these class action suits because everyone knew what they were getting into and I wish they would take responsibility for their own actions. (I know, a novel concept).

And if you feel that tobacco SHOULD be sued - in spite of what I just said, in spite of warning labels, in spite of the government making money off of this product, in spite of it being legal and i spite of all of the warnings - then you are making it so the fast food, (with even stronger evidence) the soft drink and also (with evidence that makes it just as bad as tobacco) beer, wine and liquor industries should also find themselves subjected to similar class action suits.

That’s all…

Oh, and everyone’s e-mail addresses (for the people who list them) are in our profiles, yak.

Yer pal,
Satan

[sub]I HAVE BEEN SMOKE-FREE FOR:
Four months, one week, one day, 18 hours, 13 minutes and 43 seconds.
5230 cigarettes not smoked, saving $653.80.
Life saved: 2 weeks, 4 days, 3 hours, 50 minutes.[/sub]

"Satan is not an unattractive person."-Drain Bead
[sub]Thanks for the ringing endorsement, honey![/sub]

29

First off, it seems like this is turning into a debate over which is worse for you, and that has very little to do with it. Ideally, the laws should apply to both extremes, i.e. it’s obviously worse to shoot a man than to punch him, but they should both be illegal.

Now, the main difference here is that tobacco companies flat-out denied tabocco’s dangers to a person’s health. They claimed that nicotine wasn’t addictive. But I don’t think anyone who started smoking after the surgeon general’s warning has any right to sue, because they knew what they were getting into.

Coca-cola doesn’t claim that caffeine is non-addictive. And all of the “bad stuff” in soda is listed on the nutritional information. Caffeine is listed on the ingrediants. Therefore, no one would have a case if they tried to sue them. Besides, caffeine is on the FDA’s list of ingrediants that you can legally add to anything, so long as you list it as an ingrediant. Nuff said.

30

On the contrary, my perspective means a great deal…to me. I think that perhaps you might have said, “your example adds nothing to the debate.” Which is true. My example was not meant to be a blanket statement about whether caffeine is addictive. I am fully aware that caffeine is addictive. I am also fully aware that in the vast majority of instances where one hears about caffeine addiction, coffee is mentioned, not soft drinks.
Anyway…
The issue is not whether tobacco or soft drinks or whatever are unhealthy. They are, and so are the vast majority of products which are marketed as “food.” I think it’s incredibly silly to even suggest that any company be sued on these grounds alone.
Both cigarettes and caffeine-containing soft-drinks contain an addictive substance. However, cigarettes kill, sodas don’t (at least, not that I’ve heard). This puts them in rather different leagues, in my opinion. Frankly, I don’t know what grounds can be formulated to sue soda companies, especially since coffee (non-decaf, of course) typically contains more caffeine than any soft drink.

31

Because with coffee they don’t add an addictive substance simply to get people to continue buying the product. It’s naturally occuring.
An analogy would be if Ford added a nicotine patch to the explorer. Every time you got in it you got a small fix. Can anyone justify an action like that? Would it leave them open to a suit?

32

Why is the assumption that caffeine is added to soft-drinks to get people addicted? If that were the case (and soft-drink companies were truly as unscrupulous as tobacco companies), why not add the amounts found in coffee (~80+mg), instead of the smaller amounts that are added (~30mg for Coke)? Heck, if they did, they might even get more business, since some coffee drinkers might switch over.

But they don’t. So, I don’t know that that is a valid assumption.

Besides, cola nuts (from which colas are made) naturally contain caffeine as well. This isn’t to say that extra caffeine isn’t added (most likely, it is), but some of it is already there.

33

Did you bother reading this thread? Do you remember the OP?

It said this. “Now, for the purposes of debate we must make the asumption that they have indeed not added caffine for flavor.”

Why else would they add it? And the ammount from the cola nut is so small as to be un-noticable.

34

I did indeed read the OP, as well as the rest of the thread. However, there is a difference between adding caffeine for a little extra ‘kick’ and adding it with the express intent of addicting an unsuspecting public. Does Brystol-Meyers Squibb Co. add caffeine to Extra Strength Excedrin in order to addict consumers? I think not. There are other reasons besides flavor to add the stuff, and they aren’t all sinister plots.

35

Then why do they add an addictive substance to their product? Is it coincidence that 70% of the sodas sold are caffinated? No more a coincidence than most smokers starting in their teens.

36

oldscratch said: *But, when I went back to caffinated soda I couldn’t tell the difference. Could it be your addiction to caffine is influencing your taste? *

I’ve wondered about that myself. I too gave up caffeinated sodas on doctor’s orders (that fibrous-cyst stuff), and at first I found the caffeine-free versions unsatisfying; but now if I have an occasional caffeinated soda I notice no difference from the caffeine-free version at all. (Not in taste, that is. I can sure tell the difference in my sleep patterns.) Does kind of make you wonder about the validity of the “we add it for flavor” argument.

37

Just one day i stopped drinking caffinated drinks and switched to the decaf and at first they just tasted plainer and i had no side effects from addiction(and i drank alot of them) Now i can eaisly tell when caffene is in a drink or not and cant stand the caffinated stuff.

I think we should put a all encompassing label on food saying that its bad for you and is a direct cause of your death(it keeps you alive and being alive causes your death.)

38

Because it’s a stimulant. Because people like to be stimulated. Is it a coincidence that it’s in there? No, because that’s apparently what people want. People also want non-caffeinated soft drinks. And you can find and purchase either one. Can you buy cigarettes without nicotine?

As for the addiction stuff, I don’t buy it. Certainly not for ‘soda levels,’ as I said earlier. But, as Satan also said earlier, my opinions count for nothing. So, here’re some links:

http://ificinfo.health.org/brochure/caffeine.htm
Here’s a quote from that link:

http://www.mochajen.com/coffee/caffeine.html
And a pair of quotes:

Here’s one that’s somewhat inconclusive:
http://www.jsonline.com/alive/news/0329caf.asp

And here’s one that discusses both caffeine and nicotine:
http://www.viterbo.edu/personalpages/faculty/DWillman/p431_caff&nico.htm
For Caffeine tolerance and dependence, the site has this to say:

And for nicotine tolerance and dependence, this:

And one more for good measure:
http://www.netasia.net/users/truehealth/Soft%20Drinks.htm

If, in fact, soft-drink companies are lying when they say “caffeine is only added for flavor”, at best they might get busted for false advertising. It seems highly unlikely that they are using caffeine as a ‘hook’ to addict hapless consumers. Sure, people may buy it because of the caffeine (I, for one, don’t like the non-caffeinated stuff), but that doesn’t mean they’re buying it because they’re addicted.

Besides, caffeine ‘addiction’ and nicotine addiction are neither in the same ballpark nor even the same league. I doubt they’re even playing the same game!

39

I haven’t found caffeine terribly addictive. At college I consume about 2 liters of Mountain Dew a day (at the end of a semester, this can get up to 5 liters in a day). When I go home, my rate goes down to about a bottle every month. If there’s a caffeineated beverage available, I usually have one, otherwise I don’t bother.

Either way, I don’t see the makers of Mountain Dew as any more deceptive than beer companies. Let’s face it, people don’t drink beer because it tastes good. Likewise, caffeine is an integral part of the appeal of Mountain Dew.

40

Now, the main difference here is that tobacco companies flat-out denied tabocco’s dangers to a person’s health. They claimed that nicotine wasn’t addictive. But I don’t think anyone who started smoking after the surgeon general’s warning has any right to sue, because they knew what they were getting into.

I agree with the first part. But even after the surgeon general’s warnings were added, there were some problems.

First, many people were already addicted.
Second, the warnings weren’t very strong. They had to be reworded in the 1980’s (I think that timeframe is right, been a while.)
And lastly, back to my point about tobacco companies being FORCED to change… even though the warnings were posted, the tobacco co’s were still advertising heavily, and marketing specifically towards teenagers.
Do you remember being a teen? Those warnings were irrelevant. Teens don’t usually think 40 years down the road. I know I didn’t, and neither did most of my friends.
So the marketing was aimed at people going through significant social and physical changes, who then started smoking, and then got addicted. (I know, not all teens, but a significant amount of them.) And all the while, regardless of the warnings on the box, the tobacco companies were stating that the government warnings were wrong, nicotine was NOT addictive and it was NOT harmful to you.
While they were saying this, they KNEW it was a blatant lie.
So yes, I think it’s fair to sue them.
And to the best of my knowledge, they are continuing their illicit tactics in most of the world. While ciagarette use is declining in the U.S. thanks to education and government action, it’s steadily increasing in the rest of the world.
Tobacco companies are not letting the world know that their product is addicting and harmful, and they continue to advertise and push it worldwide.
I am not for making tobacco illegal by any stretch. But I do think that tobacco companies have a moral responsibility to educate their users about their products. And they’ve shunned this responsibility for far too long.