10 US? It can’t be that much. 5GBP isn’t 10 US these days, is it?
Cheers.
Today, £1=$1.9
Assuming you weren’t really serious in listing bungee jumping and mountain climbing as public health hazards remotely in the same league as smoking - consider the latter two categories. There is considerable government effort, and in the case of drunken and other dangerous drivers, major law enforcement efforts devoted to reducing hazards to the public at large. By contrast, the education and law enforcement efforts directed at smokers are relatively mild.
Smokers would like to think so, but the prevailing scientific view is that secondhand smoke certainly does pose health hazards to others. What controversy exists is more over the degree of danger than whether there is danger at all.
Smoking is definitely a workplace/productivity issue. The companies that are addressing it are not doing so because they are intrinsically nanny-ish. They are interested in the bottom line.
As to the apparent discrepancy between the U.S. and quoted U.K. figures for smoking costs - I suspect methods of calculation are different in the two cases. I have no way of knowing how the NHS figures are arrived at, and what sorts of smoking-related diseases are included - for instance, are costs of heart disease-related treatment and osteoporosis (both conditions in which smoking is implicated) incorporated in those figures?
I’m glad you set the record straight on what you question, but the facts remain that:
- Nicotine is unquestionably addictive; read more about the physiological effects of nicotine withdrawal syndrome.
- The study you linked to (somewhat disingenuously, since the study doesn’t talk about nicotine at all, yet you linked to it with the phrase “food and nicotine”) suggests that people who really like food experience increased dopamine levels when they look at food. This is hardly revolutionary, and if you undertsand what dopamine is, shouldn’t come as a surprise at all. Equating that to addiction dilutes the meaning of the word “addiction.” Certainly it doesn’t point to what’s commonly considered a physical addiction.
- A physical addiction is not defined, as you suggest, by the idea that withdrawal leads to convulsions etc. Indeed, it looks like the term has no scientific basis; for that reason, I’ll reword what I said previously. Stopping overeating is not associated with serious withdrawal symptoms, unlike stopping smoking.
Daniel
I don’t know if this ad ever aired, but there was a suggestion years ago to find a typical glamorous smoker to be the spokesperson in a public service spot.
The proposed ad would feature a classic (old-style) New York City cabdriver - obese, bald, yellow teeth, saggy skin etc. He would wave his cigarette (displaying nicotine-stained fingers) while saying “By me, it’s Camels”. 
FYI: These are the warnings which now appear on Canadian cigarette and cigar boxes.
My mom lives in a high rise retirement home (not a nursing home) run by a local church group. For some reason, the building is regulated by a federal agency–Federal Housing Authority, maybe?-- and because of this the residents are not allowed to smoke in their own homes. This, I think, is a classic example of the nanny state going to absurd extremes.
Dude! You say that smoking helps you to concentrate?
Well, light up buddy, light up. Maybe then you’ll be able to control your urges to ramble on about the U.S. pension system in an anti-smoking thread. :rolleyes:
I dunno about absurd. Sounds like a good idea to me.
Tell me … is a bunch of old fogeys lighting up in their bedrooms in a high-rise apartment building a high fire hazzard or a low fire hazzard?
There comes a time when the collective rights of a group of people to be safe is more important than the “right” of individuals to smoke in “their own homes.” This is one of those times.
Potential residents who think that their right to smoke in their own homes is more important than the safety of their neighbors can go live alone somewhere else where their habits will not potentially kill dozens of their immediate neighbors.
Or do you think seeing a bunch of crispy senior citizens on the 6:00 news is a good thing?
So except for patio bars , there are still places in FLA that you can smoke in ?
FLA may go back on my vacation list again.
Declan
About time.
Think about it. If you smoke indoors, the nasty stuff you exhale just gets in the A/C and gets circulated again. This is the reason why trans-pacific flights are now completely smoke free.
Few people are physically addicated to bungee jumping, climbing mountains, and fucking. Graphic anti-smoking advertising campaigns go some way towards (i) encouraging addicted smokers to make the effort to quit; and (ii) discourage children from becoming addicted:
Australia will have graphic pictures of diseased body parts on cigarette packets within 18 months.
Incidentally, in addition to the grisly skin cancer ads already noted by Otara, we’ve had graphic anti-drink driving ads in print and on television for some time (current starring a slashed-up victim of drink-driving–a restless undead ZOMBIIIIE victim! :eek: )
Yes; after the ridiculous amendment to the state constitution which was required to push through the ban, the legislature came up with the following set of rules:
Quote: “Smoking IS allowed , but not required to be permitted, in the following places:
1.) Stand-alone bars that meet nine criteria, notably:
a) No more than 10-percent gross revenues are derived from food consumed on the premises
b) Not located within, and not sharing any common entryway or common indoor area with, any other enclosed workplace
2.) Retail tobacco shops
3.) Designated guest sleeping rooms in motels and hotels
4.) Outdoor patios and decks that are less than 50-percent enclosed
5.) Certain nonprofit organizations in leased spaces for non-commercial activities
6.) Smoking-cessation programs approved by the Florida Department of Health
7.) Medical or scientific research facilities”
In Orlando, the “stand-alone bars” requirements have essentially limited indoor smoking to a dozen or so nightclubs in the downtown area and perhaps three or four bars in the entire city, given the “10% gross” requirement.
I can’t find the “1 in 30,000” EPA report anymore, so I’m going to retract that claim for now. I’m learning to live with all this, and quitting in three months when I graduate anyway, but still… not being able to smoke in a bar really pisses me off.
Let me guess , those few bars are jamnmed 
Anyway thanks , I may just put FLA back on the vacation list. Hopefully put NYC back on the vacation list ,as that ban seems to be held in place only by the will of Hizzoner. You can only smoke , if your part of the billionaires club.
Declan
Spiff, before responding to your post, I thought of first surfing through your 836 posts since May 2000 to know who am I talking to. Here is the result of the statistics of your posts for the past 3 years (irrespective of the quality of the topics you chose for your posts, or the merit of what you said):
BBQ 50%
IMHO 21%
GQ 16%
Café So, 7%
MPIS 4%
GD 2%
So, among all the topics posted in GD during 2004, you picked up the “Smoking Debate”.
OK. Dude. What do you know about the U.S. Pension System (compared to other industrialized countries of the world), and why do you think it has no place in an anti-smoking thread? You may use as many cites/references as you can to support your position.
Please CONCENTRATE. This is GD. It is not the BBQ, IMHO, GQ, MPIS or Café Society.
[hijack]
What exactly are overly promiscuous people costing the rest of society? I understand the arguments behind the other activities, but how does screwing regularly and (I assume) non-monogamously have a cost that needs to be subsidised? Sorry for the quick detour, but this has been bugging me for a day or two, as I just can’t think of any social costs from frequent sex, and I would love an answer.
[/hijack]
You went back through all his posts? Defensive much?
Honestly, who has that sort of time or inclination? And surely you need to prove your point is relevant rather than the other way around… Or we get ‘how is that relevant?’ ‘how is it not?’, and no-one gets anywhere.
For the record, I thought your personal financial situation was periferal to the deabte, too…
Are you gonna do a search on me?
Cheers.
Three words: sexually transmitted diseases.
Um … because … it’s um … wait, I’ve got it! Because it’s an anti-smokng thread! (Sorry, no cite. :rolleyes: )
Yeah, I was a wee bit snarky toward you and your post, but not anywhere near BBQ Pit level snarky.
And I was snarky to LonesomePolecat in this thread, too, because he or she posted without thinking. The LonesomePolecat seems to have been able to handle it just fine. But I guess your undies are just more bunchable. Whatever …
If someone is too feeble and/or senile to be trusted with a cigarette, then he’s too feeble or senile to be living on his own. He should be in a nursing home.
No, this isn’t one of those times.
There comes a time when the “rights” of the “individual” override the “collective rights” of the “group”. There also comes a “time” when putting “words” into “quotes” as a “tactic” to "make it “look” as though the “person” originally “using” the “words” is somehow “misusing” them becomes rather “silly and obvious.”
The group has to accept some risks for the sake of respecting the rights and liberties of the individual. We could perhaps substantially reduce the risk of another 9/11 by scrapping the Bill of Rights. I’d rather take the risk. The risks involved in allowing individuals to smoke in the privacy of their own homes are far smaller than the risks involved in giving sanctimonious, meddlesome assholes the power to stop them. I am immensely suspicious of anyone who would tell consenting adults what they can or can’t do in the privacy of their own homes and try to justify this on the grounds that someone else * might * get hurt.
I’m an apartment dweller. I smoke. Are you telling me you have the right to forbid me to smoke in my home? If so, you’re a sanctimonious meddlesome asshole. Using your warped logic, promiscuous people are endangering the nation’s supply of blood for transfusion, so obviously that gives me the right to regulate their sex lives.
Oh, yeah, right. Anyone who disagrees with you about this is a monster who doesn’t mind elderly people being burned alive. Moral intimidation ain’t gonna work with me, bub. Or anyone else with a three digit I.Q.