RE: O/T: DAMN CIGARTTES

At least fast food provides some nourishment and the offerings are a bit better than 20 years ago. They are also non-addictive and we can easily make choices. Once nicotine gets hold of you, it is very difficult to get away from it.

There are those who would disagree with you. The issue is endorphins. Junk food, sugar, chocolate, and all, release endorphins (in a round-about way) and thus are *quite* addictive.

Mostly because professionals have their own cats to skin.

You certainly haven't changed. A conversation with anyone you disagree with is impossible. Please keep me killfiled. I wouldn't want you to hurt yourself and you'll live longer.

Cigarettes were *WELL KNOWN* to cause cancer at least as far back as WWII.

You haven't stated any facts, only anecdotes.

Why don't you pick on coffee?

---------------------------------------- Early in my career was involved with dispensing equipment for Coca Cola.

Every time you walked into the lab, you walked right past a dispenser on test.

If you wanted a Coke, it was there for the taking.

Didn't take long to pick up 5 pounds I didn't need.

Took longer to take it off after stopping drinking that free Coke.

Today it's pretty easy to spot the Coke/Pepsi (sugar) sucking addicits.

They are the ones with an extra 30-50 pounds hanging on their hips and a quart cup with a straw sticking out of it they are sucking on as they walk down the street.

Lew

On Sun, 21 Sep 2014 13:41:01 -0500, Leon

Sure, there's more evidence today, but the rest I've got to disagree with this. The scientific proof has been there. The evidence of thousands of years of smokers was there. Sixty years ago, or even six hundred years ago, autopsies were performed. Just as black lung disease was known for thousands of years, many of the deleterious effects of smoking has been known and proven for many thousands of years.

Maybe the proof hasn't been there on a microscope level, but it's still been very obvious.

--------------------------------------------------------------- The first Surgeon General's report outlining the hazards of tobacco that I remember was 1963.

The tobacco lobby spent a tidy sum suppressing it.

Warning labels came later.

Lew

But, were they given, or were they owed, a fair warning?

On Sun, 21 Sep 2014 21:08:12 -0700, "Lew Hodgett"

No argument there Lew. Public/Comerica admittance concerning the dangers of tobacco are a more recent thing. That doesn't for one second take away from the very obvious dangers attached to smoking for decades and centuries before that.

Update: That should read:

... 30-50 pounds/hip hanging on their hips...

Lew

-------------------------------------------

Good trick as tobacco was unknown except in the western hemisphere until the Spanish took it back to Europe.

Six hundred years ago they didn't have a clue as to what caused disease. Leeuwenhoek didn't even discover microrganisms until the late 1600s.

If that is the main criteria, then most every pleasurable activity is addictive. Sex, roller coaster rides, playing with puppies,

Yes but as I have stated three times now, the young teenagers did not pay attention to "what the parents said". They still drank alcohol and smoked. I recall the only primary warning was that smoking was bad for you. And drinking alcohol, and holding your breath til you passed out, and drinking coffee, and something else that was sure to make you go blind. Since many of the warnings held no more weight than the next, again to a teenager, the fact that many of the warnings did not hold true sorta watered down the seriousness.

Simply stated, the possible side effects of smoking 50 years ago were not taken as seriously as they are today.

Exactly!

Ed Pawlowski wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Two different kinds of addiction. Doctors categorize things as being physically addictive, meaning the body develops a dependency on them and there are withdrawal symptoms if it doesn't get them; and behavioral addiction, where a person is emotionally dependant on the reward of a particular activity.

Tobacco (nicotine) addiction is physical. Junk food, etc, are behavioral.

John

On Mon, 22 Sep 2014 05:50:36 -0400, "dadiOH"

Sorry, but that's a naive viewpoint. There's ample examples of ingesting substance into the lungs throughout history that showed the dangers of inhaling various substances.

The Chinese smoked. North American Aboriginals smoked. And even your Europeon and English inhaled coal dust giving rise to black lung disease. Societies and various histories were well aware of the dangers of inhaling undesirable substances.

Do you really believe nobody in various societies were aware of where of the what caused a number of illnesses?

Yes

As I said in a previous post, that's true for most people - but not for some.

As the average life expectancy increases, effects and side effects of smoking become more obvious too.