DailyDirt: Thank You For Not Smoking
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
People have been smoking tobacco for centuries (if not longer), but the health problems associated with tobacco have only been shifting from correlation to causation over the last decade or so. As usual, technology might be able to help… by improving how tobacco is used — with various kinds of smokeless delivery mechanisms or with better treatments for addiction/cancer/etc. So the trend of a shrinking population of smokers might slow down or reverse course if there’s a breakthrough in tobacco tech someday. But don’t hold your breath.
- Smokers in the US could be extinct by 2046 — not from dying, but because fewer and fewer people are smoking and a simple extrapolation points to about 34 years from now. A Citibank report has a few other linear predictions for the end of smoking: the UK in 2040, France in 2118, Germany in 2280… [url]
- In 2000, Philip Morris commissioned an infamous study in the Czech Republic on the impact of smoking — which found that the cost “benefits” of smokers’ early mortality along with cigarette-tax revenue outweighed the economic drawbacks of the healthcare costs for smokers. Live fast, die young… and help the national debt/deficit. [url]
- The FDA is looking at dissolvable, smokeless tobacco products that look a lot like candy. Chocolate, peanut butter and nicotine — three great tastes that taste great together. [url]
If you’d like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.
Filed Under: fda, healthcare, nicotine, predictions, smoking, tobacco
Companies: citibank, philip morris
Comments on “DailyDirt: Thank You For Not Smoking”
So...
My question is…
Will they still make candy cigarettes?
Man! I haven’t seen those in FOREVER!
Re: So...
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=candy+cigarette
Electronic cigarettes
We could really cut down on those numbers if the FDA would quit fighting against Electronic cigarettes. The FDA took the makers to court and lost, because they wanted to claim they were drug delivery devices. Which is quite silly because if that were the case than so are regular cigarettes.
The industry wants regulation but they refuse to so, instead they are fighting against it because by having people quit smoking it cuts into the profits of big pharma and a few other large entities profits.
https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://www.aaphp.org/Resources/Documents/20100402AAPHPEcigLegisStatemnt.pdf
http://www.acsh.org/healthissues/categoryID.8/category_detail.asp
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/08/science/e-cigarettes-help-smokers-quit-but-they-have-some-unlikely-critics.html?_r=2
Re: Electronic cigarettes
This drives me crazy. There is a cure for deaths due to cigarettes, and idiots in the government make them illegal to import (at least, in Canada). It is not the nicotine that is harmful, but the smoke.
I hope they hold those government officials accountable for the preventable death, just like they held cigarette manufacturers accountable.
“The FDA is looking at dissolvable, smokeless tobacco products that look a lot like candy. “
Perfect for your kids!
“It says ‘tank you for not smoking’. As I am smoking I don’t expect to be thanked”
Re: Re:
“It says ‘tank you for not smoking’. As I am smoking I don’t expect to be thanked”
But you expect to be tanked?
Re: Re: Tank you for not smoking
“Tank you for not smoking” is a play on words referring to tank-style liquid containers of some popular types of e-cigarettes. Nobody expects to be “thanked”. By definition (in this context), if you’re “tanking”, you’re not smoking. Rather, you’re “vaping”; that is, using a personal vaporizor (PV – the so-called “electronic cigarette”) as a delivery device for nicotine in a vegetable glycerine (VG) and/or propylene glycol (PG) suspension.
I switched to e-cigarettes in October 2011, after open-heart surgery, and haven’t looked back. Without using gum or patches, I was immediately able to drop tobacco with no pain, other than a learning curve (there are a lot of excellent and crappy e-cigarettes). Both my cardiologist and my MD approve of the switch, and both consider me an ex-smoker.
I no longer experience limited lung capacity, shortness of breath, or smelly hair and clothing (other than my own ‘eau de afrab’), nor am I expecting cancer to be my eventual cause of death. I appear to have recovered my general health and long-gone sense of taste. I’m grateful for e-cigarettes. I don’t know if I could have held it together to quit cold otherwise.
E-cig's
I started using e-cigs exactly 10 months and 4 days ago(used to smoke heavily 40 or more a day) and I have never regretted it(no withdrawals although my gums bled for a few days when I stopped smoking which I believe is normal). Yes I order all my stuff from China and it costs less than ?100 a year. It has become a hobby with trying all the different flavours and making my own electronic cigarettes from wood with 18650 batteries. So i know a little more than most about how they work.
All you are inhaling is vaporised water and nicotine and a little flavouring. The nicotine is pure and causes the same amount of damage as drinking a cup of coffee. In fact it has been found that nicotine helps the brain repair itself so is good for old-timers diseases and other brain malfunctions.
It is way way healthier than smoking and I personally am healthier now than I have ever been in my life, my blood pressure is 100% normal. my Lung capacity has increased tremendously, and the biggest benefit I feel is that I smell of cherries and apples and not tobacco and ash.
Re: E-cig's
Yeah, but who could resist a nice ash?
Re: E-cig's
“All you are inhaling is vaporised water and nicotine and a little flavouring. The nicotine is pure and causes the same amount of damage as drinking a cup of coffee. In fact it has been found that nicotine helps the brain repair itself so is good for old-timers diseases and other brain malfunctions.”
Let me guess, the batteries generate heat which is used to vaporize the water/nicotine/flavor mix as you hold a hollow tube in your mouth that resembles a cigarette?
Correct me please if I’m wrong, but I think that is very similar to a huka or bong 🙂
Smokeless delivery systems
I note that nicotine used to be used widely in organic farming as a pest-killer. It worked very well.
It is now no longer used in organic farming because it is too toxic. Changing delivery systems won’t really help with the nicotine. It might help with the other carcinogens that smoking produces, but not with the most toxic substance in cigarettes.
I smoked for years. Loved it. I quit in 1976. Hardest thing I’ve ever done. Haven’t had a craving for months. I suspect I should stay stopped.
e-cigs should be fun
I think e-cigs should be fun, colorful, and taste like jolly ranchers. I don’t know if any studies have been done, but maybe without inhaling the smoke, just the nicotine won’t be as unhealthy. Even if it isn’t all that great for you, think of all the other things we do for fun that aren’t really all that good for us. Eat sweets, drink too much alcohol, skip sleep.
Lung Cancer Trends
I’m just going to leave this here:
http://statecancerprofiles.cancer.gov/cgi-bin/quickprofiles/profile.pl?00&047
Wheeeeeeeze I used to smoke 20 packs of cigarettes a day huhh
Wheeeeeeeze but since I lost one of my lungs huhh
Wheeeeeeeze I cut my smoking in half huhh
Wheeeeeeeze huhhhhh Wheeeeeeeze huhhhhh
Considering more people die or are injured from alcohol (vehicle crashes, drunken brawls and shootings, cirrhosis of the liver) than from tobacco, not to mention pregnancies caused by alcohol, why aren’t we doing something similar with booze?
Re: Re:
“pregnancies caused by alcohol”? Well, thank goodness I don’t drink, ’cause I don’t want to end up pregnant. All this time the fearmongers have been lying to us, telling us that pregnancy is caused by sex. It’s a conspiracy, I tell ya!
There has been a technological breakthrough- no ‘maybe’ or ‘someday’ about it! Vaping is the future of smoking. The Tobacco and pharmaceutical industries are rightly afraid that it will devastate their business’s. There’s a really interesting story about the legal battle re: FDA vs (some ecig company- can’t remember), that you should check out… Did you know the FDA is headed by a former Big tobacco exec? beautiful irony that the industries own pet laws have safeguarded the use of PV’s.
After many torturous failed attempts trying expensive “approved” treatments, I was finally able to quit smoking in April of last year, using a high end ‘mod’ vaporizer- with a big battery and XL fluid tank. This setup is far more convenient then conventional smoking. I smoked 2 1/2 packs a day at the time, and had smoked for 16 years. Quiting still sucked, and I was miserable for a while (likely made worse cause I insisted on immediately reducing my nicotine intake), but I was able to follow it through. Having stuck to a slow and steady nicotine reduction plan, I now take in less then one cigs worth of nicotine a day, and often just forget about wanting to vape. I’m sure I could stop completely without much if any suffering, but I enjoy it, and it seams harmless enough at this point. My health has greatly improved, and I have no doubt I’ve added years to my life. If you buy quality equipment, buy bulk and mix your own fluids, vaping is also very cheap compared to smoking. Mixing should be done with due caution though, as nicotine is not only extremely addictive, but also it’s potentially fatally poisonous when concentrated.
disclaimer
Not medical advice, not a doc/lawyer, not an approved smoking cessation method, your experience my vary, improper use could result in death… /disclaimer