Is smoking good for you?
Tuesday, June 14, 2011 at 8:00 Another busy week so blogging may be light.
It's the third of our Voices of Freedom series of debates tomorrow and this time we're discussing 'Risk and the Pursuit of Happiness: is smoking, drinking, gambling good for you?'.
Chaired by Angela Harbutt of Liberal Vision, the discussion will feature Dr Patrick Basham (Democracy Institute), Mark Littlewood (IEA), cigar consultant Simon Chase and gambling addict Jake Brindell.
Venue: IEA, 2 Lord North Street, Westminster
Drinks from 6.15pm, discussion from 7.00pm.
'Is smoking good for you?' is a question I thought readers of Taking Liberties might like to answer, especially if you can't attend the actual event.
We know about the potential health risks but David Hockney, for example, has often argued that smoking is good for his mental health. What about you? And is smoking good for you in other ways?
And what about drinking? Or indeed gambling.
I will forward your comments to the chairman, Angela Harbutt, who may be able to include them in the discussion.
Reader Comments (6)
Whilst I never pull my punches on the potential medical harm tobacco can cause, I often wonder what would happen to smokers if we all gave up. Psychologists say that when someone gives up one addiction/embedded habit it is replaced by another. For example I read recovering alcoholics who previously had not smoked take it up. Some people who give up smoking become born again gym bores and become addicted to the body's natural heroin derivative endorphin. Some comfort eat from the fridge and become obese.
As someone who is not an obsessive, compulsive but has some traits that are similar such as if I am interested in something I will find out to the nth degree about it, if I did not smoke what else would I be doing? I have never taken class A or B drugs have no interest in cannabis, but if I did not smoke would I have been tempted, would I drink a lot more? With the rise of the black market in cigarettes I have been reading up on the long term effects of crack cocaine and heroin. After 20 years of daily consumption 66% of users have catastrophic health problems. Cancer, heart failure and organ failure. You probably are dead by 50.
That is one of the reasons I never apologise for smoking and defend others to smoke too.
When I was playing football I used to burn off 4-5,000 calories a day and my real hunger had to satisfied with eating carbohydrates. To this very day I cannot eat anything that does not contain starch, bread, potatoes or if we must rice. I get very grumpy if I cannot have by daily fix of bread.
In conclusion it is easy to demonise tobacco but society and the individual may in many ways, be better off by smoking.
Perhaps the chair may like to introduce Patrick Basham with his correct title, "the patron saint of gambling, drinking, and carrying on".
;)
I think as much as anything it's about having a broader take on what in life is 'good for us'.
Smoking often gives me pleasure, anticipatory and during; it helps me feel calmer in a stressful situation; it makes me feel bonded to a friend in a shared activity; it signals the end of my working day and the transition into my own time.
All these things can be good for me in their own way.
I don't believe in the "one size fits all" health approach and there is evidence to suggest that sudden quitting for lifelong smokers is dangerous and more harmful to their health. What we need is unbiased, balanced scientific studies that look at individuals not random groups, meaningless stats, and driven by ideological as opposed to health agendas.
I don't know if smoking can be said to be good for you but it certainly hasn't done me any harm in 43 years from childhood to older age.
What exactly is 'good for you' and 'bad for you'?
As Pat says, she has been smoking a considerable number of years, without any visible problems so far. Smoking in Pat's case therefore is not bad for her. She also seems to be a hell of a lot happier when smoking, than when being coerced into quitting, whether it be temporary, as in being forced to vacate the interior of a building whilst indulging her habit, or 'nudged' by our ever present health fanatics, into giving it up completely, for her own good. It would seem then that smoking is most definitely good for Pat, as it makes her feel happy, and does her no harm.
What does do the likes of Pat, and millions of other smokers harm, is the constant barracking by so called health professionals - do-gooders - fake charities - and Governments, all of whom only have their self interest at heart. These people are not interested in what is good and what is bad for us, and don't forget there are between 12 and 20 million smokers in this country alone. If they were, then why do they never offer an alternative for people who wish to smoke, and I do not mean some plastic stick, which emits vapour, to me that is akin to giving a baby a dummy, or a pacifier, as it is called in the USA. I mean 'alternative' places in which to smoke. Places where adults are given the choice to make up their own minds whether to enter or not. Is there something wrong with that? Not in my book there isn't.
Should Governments really have the power to tell adults what they think is good for them, and to stop them doing something because they think it could be bad for them? The simple answer is, of course they shouldn't. This is why we are called adults when we get to a certain age - it means that from the age of adulthood, we are old enough to vote, to go to war, to pay taxes, and to make our own minds up about how we live our lives. But we are being stopped from making our own minds up in this one important issue. Why? After all, it makes us happy, and is therefore good for so many of us.
I disagree with Pat on many issues, but in this particular case I am with her all the way. We can argue about this forever, but until someone comes up with a good solid point of law that will defeat the smoking-ban law in court, I am afraid we are stuck with it. Anyone know a brilliant lawyer that is willing to work for nothing?
It seems the ACS has done an almost about face of late.
"We are being bombarded" with messages about the dangers posed by common things in our lives, yet most exposures "are not at a level that are going to cause cancer," said Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, the American Cancer Society's deputy chief medical officer. Carcinogens are things that can cause cancer, but that label doesn't mean that they will or that they pose a risk to anyone exposed to them in any amount at any time."
www.dispatch.com/live/content/national_world/stories/2011/06/16/dontfret-over-list-ofcancer-risks.html?sid=101
The ACS Action Network is the “advocacy arm” for big pharma and also own millions of dollars worth of tax exempt real estate. They lobby for Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The RWJF was created by the founder of Johnson and Johnson. As of their 2009 annual report, RWJF owned 42,343,491 shares of JnJ stock. RWJF has given over half a billion dollars in “grants” for tobacco-control/smoking bans.
This all lands on the heads of incompetent legislators falling for pharma’s marketing scams for their own brand of nicotine! A decrease in the number of smokers has increased the incidence of chilhood asthma by 500%. Coincidence? The revelation that tobacco is good for you is reported in non-mainstream media: An Owensboro bioprocessing group is working on a vaccine for the human papillomavirus that’s made with tobacco protein. Smoking lowers Parkinson’s disease risk associated with non-smoking, protects against Alzheimer’s Disease and ulcerative Colitis. Children of mothers who smoke 15 cigarettes a day tend to have lower odds for suffering from allergic rhino-conjunctivitis, allergic asthma, atopic eczema, food allergy, compared to children of mothers who never smoked.‘Villain’ nicotine slays TB. Carbon Monoxide May Alleviate Heart Attacks And Stroke, carbon monoxide's a by-product of tobacco smoke. Smoking Prevents Rare Skin Cancer, reduces The Risk Of Breast Cancer. Tourette’s Syndrome, schizophrenia and cocaine addiction are disorders that are alleviated by tobacco.
The ACS will NEVER find any cure from any cancer! Take breast cancer, they say mammograms "prevent" BC due to early detection. Annual exams increase the risk by 2% per year, over 10 years that's 20% increased risk. Here's the math: a $150 mammogram for 70 million American women over 40 amounts to $10 BILLION per year for the industry. Can you imagine this kind of money disappearing from that industry? Do you really think they would let it!