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Claimed dangers of tobacco are mostly a result of propaganda
As no cause-effect connection has ever been established between tobacco use and any of the 101 ailments it has been epidemiologically associated with, the latest bout of demonisation which tobacco is currently receiving leaves me decidedly unimpressed. For example, despite 50+ years of subjecting many different laboratory animals (such as dogs, monkeys, rats, mice, and so on) to enormous amounts of tobacco smoke – in one instance laboratory mice were forced to inhale the human equivalent of 62 packs of cigarettes a day – no animal has ever developed lung cancer. For another example, in the USA, where all the furore started back in the ‘fifties’, whilst the number of people using tobacco has dropped from approx. 50% of the population back then to approx. 25% nowadays the incidence of lung cancer has risen, not fallen.
What is of particular note is that the cause of liver cancer, cervical cancer, throat cancer and stomach cancer has recently been discovered to be bacterial/viral, all the while that tobacco was being blamed and valuable research dollars were being allocated elsewhere, and some preliminary research is showing indications that bacteria/viruses might also be the cause of lung cancer ... and maybe even heart disease.
Also, the figures published claiming, say, 350,000 deaths in a given year from tobacco-related diseases are not figures derived from a body-count – there are no such dead bodies in graves to count – as they are 350,000 (or whatever) phantom deaths generated by a computer programme such as SAMMEC II ... meaning that it is the epidemiological data that is fed into the computer which determines the statistical deaths the programme prints out.
Lastly (as I have no interest in belabouring the subject) those graphic photographs showing a slimy-black cancerous lung, labelled ‘smoker’s lung’, and a shiny-pink healthy lung, labelled ‘non-smoker’s lung’, are nothing but propaganda: the slimy-black lung should read ‘cancerous lung’ (and could very well be a non-smoker’s lung) and the shiny-pink lung should read ‘healthy lung’ (and could very well be a smoker’s lung) as it is impossible for a pathologist to determine, from both gross and microscopic examination of lung tissue, whether a person who died from other causes (such as a vehicular accident) is a smoker or a non-smoker.
The following URL covers all this and much more: https://lcolby.myvtoronte.com/
While this is very scholarly, upon reflection let me say:
Fuck you.
My late mother smoked pretty much all her life, tried and failed to stop smoking various times, and over the years I could see that the amount she smoked increased. She tried switching to low-tar cigarettes, but ending up smoking way more of them, presumably to get the same effect. EDIT: My father, on the other hand, smoked but succeeded in quitting and lived to be 81 before he died of an unrelated illness.
Eventually she got lung cancer. It was diagnosed very late, partly as a result of her reluctance to go to the doctor until the symptoms were undeniable (coughing up black phlegm in the mornings) and partly because the tumour was behind her shoulder blade so they didn't pick it up on x-rays until it was too big and too late for anything.
They offered her chemotherapy as more of a sop than any hope it would do anything; the first bout of it made her so sick that she refused any more, and the doctors said "yeah, it wouldn't do anything anyway".
I saw her die of it. It is a horrible, painful, wretched way to die, even with morphine as a palliative.
So maybe, yeah, maybe it's all propaganda that tobacco gives you cancer. But if some fool reads this, and starts smoking, and gets cancer, that is a miserable and avoidable death.
So, once again, Fuck. You.
And don't try to tell me she didn't die of lung cancer or that the smoking didn't cause it or any bullshit. Like your stupid-ass example of "if someone is killed in a car crash, it's not because they smoked so that shouldn't be counted as tobacco-related death" - who the fuck is counting "died in a car crash" as "died from smoking"?
I'm going to cut you some slack here (i.e., not give you a timeout) because there is a strong possibility the OP is a troll, but still, you know better than this. How many times have you been told you don't get to just start cursing people out because you're offended?
When it comes to denying the facts of what KILLED MY MOTHER, I think we're past "being offended" and into "if you said that to my face, you'd get punched in the mouth" territory.
Hit me with a ban and let him continue shit-posting. I don't care at this stage. But he/she/it/they are a fucking liar and I won't eat dogshit and call it chocolate, all in the name of "play nicely, children".
It's almost funny, to see how from the above how I could skirt around a ban on a technicality of "we're not quite sure you're a troll, so we'll keep on letting you shit-post". But on this one topic I am not going to be sweet and calm.
This is about "this thing kills people". I already see young people going back to the notion that tobacco smoking is cool and edgy and trendy. At least some of them will develop a smoking habit, and at least some of them will die from that. And die painful, miserable, awful deaths.
So pardon me if I tread on Sky's toes and their oh-so-edgy "it's all propaganda", while I have a grave of someone who died from not-propaganda to visit.
I love it how our female commentariat is so easily identifiable.
What an insightful comment, males are truly superior, tell me which group you think is biologically inferior and evil this week? Asians? Jews? Women? Anyone not a white guy? You are very smart and cool
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This reads as nothing more than a low-effort dig - "Haha, women so hysterical, amirite?"
Don't do this.
You're also just plain wrong. I assure you, I get the most outrageous hissy fits thrown at me regularly by male posters indignant about being modded.
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Strongly disagree. Every long-time contributor who flames out and gets a lengthy ban follows a similar arc, male or female. They're fine discussing [X monstrous idea] and [Y monstrous idea] from a cool remove. Then one day, someone brings up [Z monstrous idea], and it hits a little too close to home. Suddenly, themotte.org playing nicey-nice with prevaricating evil is unacceptable.
It's a reaction for which I have negative respect. That said, no one has found my [Z] yet.
Yes, this has nothing to do with the uterus.
But no, I think you've misdiagnosed the issue here. Our resident Irishwoman's threshold for "cool remove" vs. "righteous indignation" is set a bit differently than most of the commentariat. I remember when she pissed off an "enlightened being" to the point he threatened breaking her arm. Point is, if I had to pick one person who wouldn't prevaricate on evil...
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