Cigarettes kill – what am I missing here?

Let's just call a spade a spade. For 40 years we've known that these things called cigarettes are death sticks. Meaning: if you smoke consistently for years, some how, some way, smoking will undoubtedly lead to death.

Our government has no problem cracking down and halting the sale of prescription based or OTC drugs that have this effect. It also demonstrates very little passive aggressive behavior in removing products that pose serious health hazards to the public (like lead paint, asbestos, arsenic, etc.).

Yet, a product that has been PROVEN (even in moderate amounts) to cause lung cancer, stroke, heart attacks, emphysema, and countless other terminal diseases (read today's NY Times about women and COPD), can still be sold to adults freely. What a crock of…

Yes, I know that tobacco is a multi-billion dollar industry with powerful lobbying forces. And, it's also crystal clear that because of the addictive nature of nicotine, millions of smokers would go ballistic if the product was suddenly banned altogether. Realistically, these and other forces will prevent this monumental change from taking place (at least anytime soon).

But, just for fun, I'd like to pretend for a moment that I'm new to this earth and have just learned about cigarettes and their health impact on humans for the first time. Thus, all the cool and hip marketing and cultural biases that I've grown up with surrounding cigarettes don't exist. The obvious, most basic question I would ask myself is – if I care about living, why in the world would I ever start smoking (rhetorical question)?

The answer would be just as obvious. I wouldn’t. I might as well chug a bottle of vodka every day, or sprinkle lead paint into my food. The long term end result would be the same.

Comments

[Bubbles]

As a non-smoker I say amen. And as an ex-smoker I say the tight restrictions on where smoking is allowed influenced my decision to stop.
But. I have to say that long-term smoking will not "undoubtedly lead to death." Rather, it CAN lead to death and will contribute to an early death. Hate to be a nit picker but... well, actually I love to pick nits.

[Alicia]

What about the effects of second-hand smoke on non-smokers? Sure, it's a smoker's right to light-up whenever they choose (outside of those restricted areas). But only a non-smoker can understand how aggravating it is to be caught walking behind a smoker, on your way to work, at 8:30 in the morning. In rush hour there's just no getting around them. Can the law help me there?

[Bubbles]

Ed, to your point of the government watching over us vis a vis lead paint, "dangerous" OTC drugs, etc... there are news reports this am about how the government now may regulate salt intake.
"US regulators should limit salt in foods to combat high blood pressure among Americans, according to a consumer group and the AMA... The FDA is considering replacing voluntary guidelines with mandatory regulations. Cutting salt in foods by half may save more than 150,000 lives a year." Full story: http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2007/11/30/doctors_group_urges_us_to_limit_salt_in_foods?mode=PF (But of course cigarettes will continue to be peddled.)

[Steve]

I'm a nonsmoker and I hate second-hand smoke. I still support the right of people to smoke because I worry about the precedent of the government banning activities that are primarily bad for the user (yes, there's spillover from second hand smoke, but the primary impact is on the smoker--*all* activities have greater or lesser spillovers on other people).

If you ban cigarrettes, then logically you should ban alchohol also--it's another addictive substance with negative health effects.

What about motorcycles? Statistics show they are much more dangerous to drive than cars and no body "needs" to have a motorcycle. Maybe they should be banned, too.

How about extreme sports? Private planes?

I know: it's easy to get carried away w/slippery slope arguments and start positing all sorts of apocalyptic scenarios. Usually the slope doesn't slide all the way down.

But still: if cigarettes are banned, then there certainly other behaviors that could be logically banned under the same reasoning. Since I don't want the government making that many lifestyle choices for me, I'd rather put up with other people smoking.

[Bubbles]

Steve: I am too busy right now to explain, but you're wrong :-)

[ed]

Steve,

We can get into a much bigger philisophical conversation about how much we want the government to act as big brother to control out lives (that's for another day). You make some good points on this....and clearly we don't want our government clamping down on everything just because these activities may pose some danger.

But, I don't see cigarettes and alcohol the same way here. In moderation, alcohol doesn't kill people. No studies have ever proven that. In fact, many studies do show that consistent, moderate amounts of red wine are actually healthy.

There isn't one redeeming quality about smoking. It's only negative. Let me ask you a question -- pretend that cigarettes never existed. All of a sudden some bio tech company decided to make them and needed FDA approval. Do you think they'd get it? I don't. Not in this day and age.

Consistent, moderate amounts of smoking...over time....will kill.

[Steve Zweig]

There are many people who think that alcohol doesn't have redeeming features, either. After all, while there is some evidence of some heart healthful effects in moderation, it does cause liver damage and kill brain cells; it is addictive; it leads to deaths through DUI, damages careers and families, and leads to other socially irresponsible behavior.

While tobacco and alcohol are not 100% parallel, it is very tough to legislate against one but not the other on any sort of logical basis.

So, in answer, Ed--know, I don't think that tobacco would be approved had it only just been discovered in the 2000's. But I also don't think alcohol would be approved in that context, either.

For the record, I also don't think that government should regulate transfat or salt content. I think that adults should be responsible for making their own health decisions.

And again, I acknowledge that cigarettes do impose costs on others--second hand smoke, health care costs and lost productivity, etc. But so does alcohol; so does non-healthy food; so does people being couch potatoes and not making sure they're in good shape. *Everything* has some degree of externalities.

Personally, I just think that banning cigarrettes is going too far in the way of gov't regulation.

[x-ray fluorescence]

Hi,
I think i can say that long-term smoking will not "undoubtedly lead to death." Rather, it can lead to death and will contribute to an early death.

[Kamila]

you should not start smkoing in the first place since you are under age, however, if you have already started this habit, it would be wise to stop as soon as possible other wise the smkoing WILL lead to all sorts of cancers, infections and diseases in your body.If you are only doing it on social occasions, it isn't really any better than smkoing a packet a day, because the same chemicals are still in your systems, and it only takes a litte, for it to trigger the cancerous cell and end up in you hvaing to have many operations.signs of addiction isnt really hard to pick, you will just start to REALLY want a smoke.hope this helps and you dont die from cancer, infections or diseases xx(ps. Both my mother and grandfather died from smkoing related causes)