Occasionally I'm happy to publish a guest post, with this important qualification: the views expressed are not necessarily mine! The aim of such posts is to stimulate discussion on sometimes taboo subjects – in this instance the argument that, contrary to popular belief, there is a 'safe' level of smoking. Personally I'm of the opinion that smoking is like Russian roulette. There's no doubt in my mind that smoking does pose a risk to the health of the smoker – exacerbated if you're a heavy smoker – yet millions of people smoke for decades without coming to significant harm. Why some smokers develop serious illnesses and others don't could be down to the amount they smoke (common sense suggests the more you smoke the greater the risk) but I don't think the evidence is conclusive. Like Russian roulette there appears to be an element of luck involved, including genetics. Other factors that may reduce smoking-related health risks include diet, regular exercise and generally keeping fit but there's no guarantee that even these factors will dramatically reduce the risks. I'm no expert – I merely defend people's right to make informed choices – but the 'safe level' issue ought to be discussed more widely because it's scandalous that smokers are given just two options by public health – quit or die – when real life experience suggests it's far more complex than that. Comments welcome.
DOSE IS THE POISON by Pat Nurse
The 'no safe level' of smoking claim is as hysterical as claiming there is no safe level of many other of life’s pleasures in this health obsessed century. Cars are sucking the air out of our bodies, a glass of wine is a killer, sitting down is lethal and, of course, if smoking kills (full stop) it follows there must be no safe level of vaping either.
Most people accept the simple truth that anything in moderation is not going to harm you while anything done to excess may lead to a destructive end. I believe there is a safe level of smoking and, like most things, it probably depends on how much you consume, your overall lifestyle and your genetic make up.
If we believe that smoker Jean Calmert, who lived to the age of 120 and stayed healthy and active her whole life, smoked two cigarettes a day for 94 years then that has to be a safe level of smoking for her. Maybe even 30 cigarettes a day is a safe level for some people or smoking home grown tobacco without all those government approved chemicals.
If you take the hysteria out of the issue, and the politics, then common sense would dictate that those of us born in the mid 20th century who are now living to a very old age have either smoked or been around smokers for a significant part our lives, so it would seem there is a safe level of smoking (or exposure to smoking) but it doesn't fit the political agenda to find out or, God forbid, tell smokers what that 'safe level' is.
Today the apocalyptic health warnings have become so grotesque and abusive that the central message that smoking can kill or harm is being lost. The bigger the warnings the more they are ignored. Meanwhile, as non-quitters have stopped listening to these alleged experts' exaggerated forecasts of doom and gloom, they are not being honestly informed or educated on how much is safe to smoke.
Abstain
Like the drinker who wakes up with a whacking hangover knowing the amount they drank the evening before was far too much, or the fatties who know they ate more than they should have, so smokers know the effect heavy smoking has on their own bodies and when they should cut down or abstain.
I knew when I returned from my recent trip to Rotterdam which came at the end of our road trip across France, Italy, Sardinia, Belgium and the Netherlands. In want of a coffee and a smoke inside on a rainy day I ventured into a 'coffee' shop. One week and several spliffs later my chest felt like a furnace. I definitely needed to reduce my tobacco smoking and use aids to help with harm reduction. After a few days the rawness in my chest and the hacking cough was gone.
Weed has ten times the tar level of tobacco but there must be a 'safe level' of cannabis smoking or surely America’s government nannies in Colorado would not have decriminalised it and raked in huge revenues as a result. After all, when it comes to smoke, American lawmakers - like others in alleged 'civilised' Western countries - are hysterical about it and whether you smoke marijuana or tobacco smoke is still smoke with all those nasty particles in it that can send normally reasonable and rational people into a frenzy of irrational fear.
In the same way that some vapers turn their noses up at tobacco smoke, and claim their product saves lives, so do stoners who talk up marijuana’s alleged beneficial qualities and believe the only harmful thing about dope smoking is the tobacco. In Rotterdam I could have a joint with tobacco in it, if I wanted to smoke it outside, but I was told most people prefer their weed raw “without the harmful chemicals of tobacco included". I chuckled at that.
With good ventilation and a bouncer on the door checking people's age, the Dutch coffee shops were an example of how smokers could be accommodated in their own pubs, clubs and meeting places without the need for a blanket indoor ban, which would also get them off the streets and out of the path of those who equate a wisp of smoke with the mustard gas dropped on children in Syria. In fact, if you ask those children the true meaning of 'poison', tobacco smoke wouldn’t even be on the scale.
Reduce
When I want to reduce my smoking I knit to keep my hands busy. I often use two filters - tar filters and carbon filters - and I smoke differently. I inhale less and not as deep. A cigarette holder in addition to those two filters really does make an extra difference.
When I was young I would not have been seen dead with one but those old ladies from the 1920s and 30s knew what they were doing. Not only does it filter away even more tar it prevents stains on the fingers. They come in many shapes and sizes and can be transparent so you can see the tar that isn’t going into your body.
Of course vaping can't be ignored as a harm reduction tool but for those who smoke for the smoke not the nicotine it's unsatisfactory. Heat not burn products are emerging and there were all sorts on sale in the Rotterdam coffee shop including an Enjoint. These things can also be used to burn tobacco.
Meanwhile there's a lack of honest information given to smokers by public health bodies who have abandoned any thought of harm reduction for those who want to smoke in favour of bullying us out of existence to appease those who either hate or fear smoking.
It's high time then that governments considered harm reduction for smokers who don't want to quit. Propaganda and fearmongering to promote an ideological quit smoking agenda are not acceptable to those of us who have smoked for more years than these younger so-called tobacco control 'researchers' have been breathing.