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posted by janrinok on Friday February 13 2015, @11:47PM   Printer-friendly
from the it's-never-good-news dept.

"Who still smokes?" as Denise Grady reports at the NYT that however bad you thought smoking was, it’s even worse. A new study has found that in addition to the well-known hazards of lung cancer, artery disease, heart attacks, chronic lung disease and stroke, researchers found that smoking was linked to significantly increased risks of infection, kidney disease, intestinal disease caused by inadequate blood flow, and heart and lung ailments not previously attributed to tobacco. “The smoking epidemic is still ongoing, and there is a need to evaluate how smoking is hurting us as a society, to support clinicians and policy making in public health,” says Brian D. Carter, an author of the study. “It’s not a done story.” Carter says he was inspired to dig deeper into the causes of death in smokers after taking an initial look at data from five large health surveys being conducted by other researchers. As expected, death rates were higher among the smokers but diseases known to be caused by tobacco accounted for only 83 percent of the excess deaths in people who smoked. “I thought, ‘Wow, that’s really low,’ ” Mr. Carter said. “We have this huge cohort. Let’s get into the weeds, cast a wide net and see what is killing smokers that we don’t already know.” The researchers found that, compared with people who had never smoked, smokers were about twice as likely to die from infections, kidney disease, respiratory ailments not previously linked to tobacco, and hypertensive heart disease, in which high blood pressure leads to heart failure. "The Surgeon General's report claims 480,000 deaths directly caused by smoking, but we think that is really quite a bit off," concludes Carter adding that the figure may be closer to 540,000.

 
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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anal Pumpernickel on Saturday February 14 2015, @04:39AM

    by Anal Pumpernickel (776) on Saturday February 14 2015, @04:39AM (#144864)

    The harm that marijuana causes (which is some, but I'm not sure how much) is irrelevant to whether or not it should be legalized. As "the land of the free and the home of the brave," government thugs have absolutely no business deciding that people can't put certain drugs into their bodies for recreational purposes. It's outright unconstitutional for the federal government to ban drugs, despite ridiculous interpretations of the commerce clause by authoritarian courts. Freedom is more important to me than any 'safety' the drug war brings (I'd say it causes more harm, but I'm ignoring that to make a point), but apparently that's a controversial opinion in a country that's supposed to be the land of the free and the home of the brave. Even most people who are "anti-drug war" seem to like to focus on the fact that the drug war isn't working and causes more harm than it solves, and for that, they are missing the point of freedom entirely. This same mentality leads to government thugs molesting people at airports, mass surveillance, DUI checkpoints, and a host of other unconstitutional and freedom-violating policies.

    And of course the pro-pot lobby has no problem dismissing these studies as poorly designed, small sample size, contradicted elsewhere, etc.

    I usually wait until there's overwhelming scientific consensus, rather than citing every study that reaches a conclusion I agree with like many people seem to like to do (no matter what side they take). Scientific consensus is a check on quackery and human error. Studies need to be sufficiently replicated before people declare that the matter is settled.

    It never stops amusing me when I hear one news website cite this new study and claim that it proves X, only for another study to come out later that contradicts that. They won't cite the new study though, because it reaches a conclusion they disagree with. Leave that to the other biased news websites who are biased in a different way.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 14 2015, @04:59AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 14 2015, @04:59AM (#144868)

    You sound like a fundamentalist libertarian, who would have no problem with kids smoking crack cocaine or shooting heroin because the prohibition is "slavery". Or (not sure you're cool with this, but it's consistent with your position) billionaries building coal plants in the middle of a big city because they own the property.

    We live in a modern society. People do not have unlimited individual rights.

    • (Score: 2) by Geotti on Saturday February 14 2015, @06:35AM

      by Geotti (1146) on Saturday February 14 2015, @06:35AM (#144880) Journal

      People do not have unlimited individual rights.

      But they should, as long as these rights stay within their boundaries and away from the freedoms and rights of others. Like a right to a safe environment (re coal plant).

      Or to put it in simpler terms:

      Who the fuck are you to decide what I should do? [wikipedia.org]

    • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anal Pumpernickel on Saturday February 14 2015, @09:39AM

      by Anal Pumpernickel (776) on Saturday February 14 2015, @09:39AM (#144918)

      You sound like a fundamentalist libertarian

      No, just someone who cares about the constitution and fundamental liberties. Do not make the mistake of believing that only a "libertarian" would care about such things. I just firmly believe that the US should strive to be "the land of the free and the home of the brave" rather than just pretending it is and violating people's freedoms in truly heinous ways.

      People do not have unlimited individual rights.

      No one said anything about unlimited. Unlimited individual rights would mean the right to murder, which I do not believe is a right.

      I do, however, believe that we should set a very high bar before we decide to create laws, and I also believe the government should follow the constitution. This standard would eliminate the TSA, the NSA's mass surveillance, the drug war, and a number of other awful things. Indirectly affecting other people should not be enough to prohibit something for everyone, and a federal prohibition is simply unconstitutional, and therefore intolerable.

      If people want to harm themselves with drugs, then so be it. If this indirectly affects me at times, the cost is well worth it.

    • (Score: 1) by Fauxlosopher on Saturday February 21 2015, @09:03PM

      by Fauxlosopher (4804) on Saturday February 21 2015, @09:03PM (#147891) Journal

      Modern society or not, if the underlying enforcement mechanism for malum prohibitum "crimes" is violence, you don't live in a free society. Such a society is literally a slave state, though modern masters are much more generous with privileges than those traditionally thought of as slavers.

      The only alternative that I'm aware of is one that is based upon the consent of the individual, which is what the USA was ostensively supposed to be (and factually initiated as such, using representatives elected by individual voters).

      (You may find it helpful to read my first two journal [soylentnews.org] entries [soylentnews.org] before debating the point further.)

  • (Score: 2) by tathra on Sunday February 15 2015, @03:53AM

    by tathra (3367) on Sunday February 15 2015, @03:53AM (#145158)

    I usually wait until there's overwhelming scientific consensus, rather than citing every study that reaches a conclusion I agree with

    the problem* with Schedule 1 drugs is that studying them is banned, because they're schedule 1; even with zero evidence supporting that they have "no valid medical use", any studies to prove or disprove it are outright banned. pretty much every non-biased schedule 1 drug study from 1970~2005 or so was done outside of the US (there weren't that many of them); its only very recently that schedule 1 drug studies which didn't have their conclusion determined beforehand have been permitted. not like it matters though because the drug laws aren't based on medicine or science, but racism and propaganda.

    * "problem" depends on your viewpoint - they were intentionally designed that way so that they couldn't be proven to be safe or have a valid medical use.