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"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.
(Score: 1) by VanessaE on Saturday February 14 2015, @07:29AM
I'm not the person you were replying to, but I'll jump in anyway. :-P
Bars aside (obviously), indoor smoking is common in casinos, and I'm not talking about Vegas or Atlantic City, either.
If you just walk away, you're being deprived of the thing you were there to enjoy in the first place. What right does someone who can't control their smoke have to force you to move?
If the smoker is someone you know, they'll probably be nice enough about it and put their cigarette out, but if they're some stranger, half the time they'll ignore you, or tell you to go jump in a lake (to put it mildly). If they're nasty enough, it might earn you a more violent reaction.
Complain to someone higher-up and that higher-up will usually just ask YOU to move (because chances are, the other patron is probably within their rights to smoke).
That's been my experience (well, minus the violent response).
Since it's simply impossible to control where the smoke goes, and person-to-person interaction is too likely to end up as a person-to-person conflict, the only solution is to outright ban smoking inside or near buildings where the general public is expected to routinely spend time (bars aside, since it's kinda expected there).
I have, on more occasions than I care to remember, ended up next to some horrible-smelling people, but they weren't what I'd call hobos. Just average working-class clean-looking people going about their day. Unwashed clothes have no excuse unless you're homeless though (wash your stuff in the sink with hand soap if you have to), but health conditions can easily lead to nasty smells.
I hope no one takes offense to this, but I agree with that sentiment, with the proviso that it applies only to the aforementioned light-up-anywhere-they-can, toss-the-butts-on-the-ground types, because frankly, they DO make life worse for non-smokers. Thankfully, there aren't that many of those people left, but they do still exist. Were they already lower-class to begin with? Maybe, but that doesn't mean they have to exemplify it with their cigarettes.
I have no problem with people who smoke in designated areas, who behave in a polite and civilized manner with their smoking, and who put their spent butts out in the proper place.
Disclosure: I do not use tobacco in any form. I've lost two members of my family directly to diseases caused by their tobacco use (lung cancer followed by a heart attack for one, and cancer of the throat for the other). Two more were smokers who died of cancers that can't clearly be attributed to smoking.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Saturday February 14 2015, @08:54AM
As a kid, I had asthma. Tobacco and sulfur would trip it off big-time.
Often, a smoker would determine whether or not I would have to endure a bout of it.
As a kid, I was powerless. If a smoker wanted to sentence me to this, I did not have much of a say in the matter.
I often could not leave, as the smoker was sometimes my dad's friend or a family member. It was hard to ask a smoker to please take it outside, and even then he comes back into the house, his clothes reeking of it.
Even my dad would defend the rights of the smoker, as he obviously did not want a confrontation.
Me? I just avoided any place they smoked. My main problem was my workplace, which in the 60's, was rife with smokers. There was usually a dozen smokers in every business meeting, which I did my best to breathe as slowly as possible and not have a bout of asthma on the job. Even then a business meeting was often followed by several days of congested respiration.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]