There is no risk free exposure to secondhand smoke, I repeat there is NO risk free exposure

[Winterblues]

I hear this advertisement daily. The US Surgeon General says "There is NO risk free exposure to secondhand smoke"
If someone is smoking next to me or my grandchildren what can I do to protect them from risk? The US Government has told me in no uncertain terms that if exposed they are at risk. Can I shoot someone that is exposing them to such risk? What can I do to protect them. Must I just keep them penned up at home or what????

[Fumesucker]

1. Popping up a fresh batch, extra butter...

:popcorn:

[AllieB]

3. Save some for me.

:popcorn:

[Political Tiger]

5. Me too! ;)

:popcorn:

[ecstatic]

27. me too!

I rec'd this thread to reserve my batch. :hide:

[tk2kewl]

2. there is no risk free exposure to car exhaust either

just sayin'

[BR_Parkway]

7. Thank you for just saying - I get so tired of people harping on smokers

while supporting their multiple internal combustion engines - when they give up their cars, trucks, boats and planes - then I'll listen to them bitch how much worse the 2nd hand smoke from a cigarette, pipe or cigar is.

[LanternWaste]

48. if one could drive a cigarette to work...

Would be valid if one could drive a cigarette to work-- but as cigarettes have absolutely no other purpose than to deliver nicotine to the smoker, I can't really see your analogy as valid.

(See also, "cost/benefit analysis")

[tk2kewl]

57. tabacco does employ a lot of people

if you are looking for the cost-benefit analysis you start there

[LanternWaste]

59. I starts with the individual in question

I starts with the individual in question, rather than the industry (if that's incorrect in all cases, I'd love to see a citation to relevant, peer-reviewed work). If it were not a high cost/benefit to me to drive to work, I would not-- regardless of the industry.

Analogy still invalid, I believe...

[northzax]

64. no, environmental risk assessment

which is what second hand smoke falls under, looks at large demographic patterns. because, basically, one exposure to second hand smoke, while increasing your cancer risk, does so in a very small way. in fact, you can't really assess it.

the definition of a carcinogen is something that has the chance of causing cancer with the smallest possible exposure one molecule of a PCB, for instance, increases your cancer risk. not by much, but it does. the commonly accepted threshold is an increase in the cancer rate of one in a million. that means if you expose one million people to the same thing, you will get one additional cancer, on average. once the risk rises above 1:1,000,000 it is usually considered to need addressing.

but even a risk of 1:1,000,000 is almost nothing to one individual. if you are doing something, say, juggling. and I tell you that you have a one in a million chance of dying, are you going to stop? really? cause your odds of dying in your commute tomorrow morning are a lot higher than that.

[LanternWaste]

65. Possibly...

Possibly something to think think about. However I don't think that one precludes the other.

Also Consequential Amortizing. E.g., if I do not drive to work tomorrow, there is a one in one hundred chance I will be fired (resulting in job loss, home & health care loss-- and further increase my my chance of an early death). I must then compare those Consequential Equations (or odds) to the odds of dying in a motor vehicle accident. Look at the result and avoid the most detrimental. And on and on and on.

Or, we could simply rely on common sense by avoiding those things which have one use and one use only, have zero benefit to the individual and/or our surrounding culture, and increase our risk of death.

I say all this as a smoker-- but as a smoker who will not attempt to defend and justify the indefensible and the unjustifiable.

[MikeH]

61. Do you think it benefits society?

Do you think it benefits society to manufacture and market a toxic and deadly product, which has no good uses and serves no good purpose, just so that a certain number of people will have jobs?

[MikeH]

63. To add to my previous point

Don't you think it is demeaning to a worker, especially to a worker with any sense of conscience, for his or her livelihood to depend on having to work for a company which manufactures and promotes such a deadly product?

I don't wish to get into the specifics as to how, but I think society has an obligation to see that such workers can find better employment.

[taterguy]

66. Millions of people who drive to work have other options

Not all of them, but lots use cars on commutes of very small distances in decent weather. I doubt that any studies have been done about this but my gut tells me the toxins emitted by unnecessary car trips far exceed the toxins emitted by smokers. Depending on your definition of necessary of course.

[NC_Nurse]

4. Did you see this thread the other day? It's about how tobacco companies are

now paying "mercenary scientists" to discredit studies about secondhand smoke like they did for years about smoking itself.
Among other industries paying to create doubt about risks of their products. Absolutely disgusting.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=5397388

[CreekDog]

30. yet many idiots here pay for that opportunity

:eyes:

[MADem]

6. Put them next to the car exhaust--the force of those particulates exiting the vehicle

will blow the smoke away from the grandchildren.

See? Problem solved.

I give this thread an eight point five on the OBVIOUS FLAMEBAIT scale.

I have been instructed that this image is the appropriate response:

[napi21]

8. Do you gripe about the exhaust while waiting at a bus stop?

What about walking down a city street when car traffic is heavy?

You're neighbor burning his brush?

The fumes when you fill up your car with gas?

Grilling Steaks out in the yard?

on and on and on................

[CreekDog]

33. Except smoking, unlike traffic, never brought anyone to and from work

smoking never transported food and goods necessary for civilization.

[taterguy]

39. Lots of auto exhaust is caused by laziness and other factors, not necessity

Some trips require a car.

A lot don't. They could be easily done walking or biking.

The problem is that we can't develop a consensus about what constitutes a "necessary" car trip.

There is a consensus that all smoking is bad, even though it is very enjoyable.

[varkam]

9. Shoot them right in the face.

Ohhh, even better - hand the gun to your grandchild and tell them to shoot the evil smoker in the face. But then of course your grandchild would be exposing others to the risks in the gunsmoke, and then I guess that would mean that someone could then shoot them in the face and so on and so forth until someone kill someone else via a non-smoke-producing method. So, on second though, shooting them is not a good idea.

Just stab him a few times. He'll get the point.

Oh the joys of living in a civilized society...

[Oregone]

10. bong smoke will kill you man

[walldude]

13. When?

Fucking 30 years later and I'm still here....

[Oregone]

25. Not sure. Ask the OP

:)

[Fumesucker]

17. Do it right and you can suck it all in and blow almost nothing back out..

Almost zero second hand smoke if you toke on the bong right..

Just sayin'. :hippie:

[Soylent Brice]

24. i was thinking the same thing. lol

nice to see another professional smoker.

[Fumesucker]

41. When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro..

:)

Ex professional in my case, but I was pretty good at it back in the day.

[Soylent Brice]

55. same here. retired the tweeds, but keep up on the culture...

you know, lots of naps, butterfinger ice cream bars, and still watch a lot of comedy central.

[acmavm]

67. Yes, I too can attest to the efficiency and lack of waste when this operation

is performed correctly. Or at least, I could. It's been a while.

I don't smoke cigarettes anymore. Quit a few years ago. But I do know that in the world of polluters, smokers are the easiest ones to beat upon. People love to see them as the only source of air pollution. They can beat up their neighbor, not so much the local industry that belches smoke and poisons up into the atmosphere all day long. That provides jobs and things we need. So...

Oh yeah. Smokers kept renovating Rosenblatt Stadium in Omaha to keep the College World Series people happy. They've performed many a renovation and repair on the stadium that the Nebraska Cornhuskers call home.

<snip>
If you like to light up you're going to have to pay up. The federal government is raising the tax on cigarettes from 39 cents a pack to just over $1.

The increase is part of a five-year plan to raise $35 billion for the Children's Health Insurance program to help insure children not covered by Medicaid.

In Nebraska, the state excise tax on a pack of cigarettes is 64 cents. In Iowa the state tax is $1.36. Now add the federal tax to the price.

http://www.wowt.com/home/headlines/41116937.html

You gotta admit, they are easy pickings. Everyone uses smokers for a piggy bank.

[hlthe2b]

11. Ahh, great... days of gun wars now turn to smoking

I'm just gonna duck out of here....;)

[Touchdown]

12. You must have a good job, no debt, and in excellent health...

To be worried about this shit.:eyes:

[SammyWinstonJack]

53. .

:spray: :evilgrin:

[panader0]

14. While I belive that there is no totally "risk free" exposure to 2nd hand smoke

I wonder what the actual degree is, compared to the actual smoker. Say a smoker is in a room 20 ft. by 20 ft., and dragging hard on a cigarette. Is a person sitting across the room getting the same exposure as the smoker? Or is the smoke diluted, and to what degree? Any tests on this? I smoke about a pack a week, never at home, and never in my friends vehicles, only outdoors, or in my band shed.

[CreekDog]

35. some studies indicate that 2nd hand smoke is worse

because it's unfiltered.

[Democracyinkind]

15. Yeah. "Smoking" in the literal sense, so shoot Duponts CEO while you're at it.

... I'd love to see a study on the health effects of smoking tobacco (and 2ndhand) as opposed to smoking corpotoxic shit provided by insane criminals.
Maybe the cancer comes in after the harvest... just thinking...

[NeedleCast]

16. what can I do to protect them from risk?

Move?

That seems like a pretty simple answer.

Are you having real issues with packs of smokers following you around and smoking next to you and your grandchildren? If so, I would assume you have a much more pressing problem than the issue of second hand smoke.

[rvablue]

20. LOL! n/t

[CreekDog]

36. don't smoke around kids

that's a start.

and don't smoke around people.

[NeedleCast]

38. Of course the converse of that would be

don't bring your kids around people who are smoking.

Ban Brigade has made it clear that smoking is the most evil thing anyone has ever done. I just wonder where the OP is going that she (and her grandkids) are constantly being exposed to 2nd hand smoke, considering the fact that smoking has been banned pretty much everywhere.

[The Traveler]

18. My doctor -- long on my case to quit smoking --

has recently begged me to keep the weeds and ditch the cell phone. Intense RF fields and all that. Possible brain and other cancer links. Rates might be much higher than smoking. So he says. Anyway.

And examine your wall-to-wall carpet and house insulation with a jaundiced eye. A little bit of google will tell ya about the chemicals out gassed by the materials used in the constructions in our own homes. Scary stuff. I hate it when my Doc talks about stuff like that. Cell phones. Shit. I have to carry two of 'em, believe it or not. Total suckage.

Bottom line: It is likely there are NO risk free exposures to ANY of the materials and radiations used to construct and operate a modern society. Still, this knowledge does not compel us to suggest we set torches to our houses.

This does not justify smoking ... which I, as a hopeless addict, would love to surrender. (Trav is all big, cool and bad until you take his cigs away. Then he crumples like a juice box.) I just think people get monomaniacal about the risks of smoking while ignoring other matters.

Risk in living is existentially unavoidable in any event. I suppose, of course, you could choose the course of perfect safety and self-terminate, but that would seem an excessive response. Or you can live in fear and resentment of all possible sources of risk, but that path leads one to a roof top chugging a bottle of scope while clutching a high powered rifle ... and I doubt that is your style, either.

My advice ... pour yourself a stiff one, light up a cigar (or a doobie) and enjoy some livin'. And don't worry over much about the risk to your kids due to smoking. Here's the grim truth ... the effects of climate change are likely to produce a massive (80% or worse) and sudden collapse of human population sometime in the next 30-50 years. Now that, my friend, is a risk to be in arms about.

Trav

[CreekDog]

37. there is no place fully free of toxic chemicals, therefore suck down a whole bunch you don't need to

yeah, that's intelligent. :eyes:

[The Traveler]

49. Not very, my friend

Not very intelligent at all. Hack. Wheeze. Cough.

But that, though true, that is not pertinent to the argument. The point is there are many ways we can reduce our health risk. If you and I and all our friends and co-workers were to turn off the cell phones, our exposure to Ghz range RF would dramatically reduced, for example. BTW smoking seems to reduce risk of Alzheimer's and other brain disorders ... possibly because the smoker dies before these diseases have a chance to manifest? (Don't know. My grand father died at age 96. He smoked. He drank. He grew tomatoes. A punk ran a red light and T-Boned his car. He never quite recovered from the injuries.)

And global carbon emissions probably present the greatest risk to the greatest number of people. Still, more emotional investment in controlling the behavior of smokers is made each day than in controlling the behavior of global polluters. It is easier, after all.

And it is emotional investment with which I take issue.

Trav

[B Whale]

19. There is no risk free exposure to other everyday activities i repeat NO risk free exposure to living

in general.

Walking down the main street of any town wis more harmful than a whiff of cigarette smoke. Life is not a risk free zone

[etherealtruth]

21. What can I do to protect them?

Teach them to live sanely. I would not join a car pool where one of the parents smoked in the enclosed car, I generally do not allow my children to sleep over at homes where the parents smoke in the house (if the parents smoke outdoors i don't see it as my business/ concern) and I'm not inclined to take my children to smoky bars. Your grandchildren are going to face risks the entirety of their lives .... you may want to teach them to evaluate the risks sanely. automobiles are dangerous .... wearing a seat belt reduces the risk while in the car .... crossing at crosswalks reduces the risk. Sticking them in a field in Montana where they won't encounter cars is probably not the most sane response.

[B Whale]

22. Relax, that's what you should do. Your kids are more likely to

get run down by a car, break their neck playing in the garden or other general activities.

Planet earth and life is not a risk free zone.

[LeftishBrit]

23. There's no risk-free anything if it comes to that...

[NeedleCast]

26. The Price of Recession

Packs of wild smokers just traveling across the nation with no jobs, sidling up to people and smoking next to them, preventing them from walking away...

[Cid_B]

28. Wrap yourself in bubble wrap...

... and breathe pre-filtered air. Sheesh.

Flamebait..

[CreekDog]

29. You are too dumb to do anything to help

seriously. :eyes:

[mitchum]

31. Better kill those grandkids before life kills them

[Blue-Jay]

32. Quick! Someone start a breastfeeding thread!

[MazeRat7]

34. Buy them some lawn darts ???

:shrug:

Peace,
MZr7

[SammyWinstonJack]

54. LOL!

[Fuzz]

40. When this is what you complain about, you should thank the stars that your life is as cushy

as it is.

Seriously.

[The Straight Story]

42. Yeah well, global warming is killing the whole planet. Let's all junk our cars, live like amish

and all will be well.

[taterguy]

43. Might smell bad if we all used horses to get around

[The Straight Story]

44. Well, as long as they don't poop in bars people won't complain

:)

[Egnever]

45. You must get over the idea that you can protect yourself from death

It will happen eventually no matter what you do, and could happen tomorrow. You need to stop spending your life worrying about every little thing that could possibly harm you and live life to its fullest enjoying your time on this planet. There are no guarentees tomorrow will come.

[Stellabella]

52. Well, if you want a death where you choke and slowly, slowly drown

in excruciating pain, years earlier than you should, go ahead and smoke.

Smoking is the number one cause of preventable death.

[Egnever]

68. Or maybe you will die from something else

There is no guarentee smoking will give you cancer. It is just a possibility. Despite the more outlandish claims. My grandfather smoked till he died of numonia at 89. No cancer despite heavy smoking most of his life.

[peacetalksforall]

46. Would we be where we are at if the FDA HAD NOT APPROVED 200 chemicals to be added to

the tobacco and paper?

Where we're at:
Death
Illness
Rotten debilitating illness
High insurance costs
No insurance provided - turned down - if not prevalent today, wait until 'tomorrow'
Ever increasing taxes.
Money for law suits and defense.
Lies, distortions, lack of knowledge.
An issue of job availability.
Harassement accusations defense of addiction.
An FDA that can't be trusted.

Why we're where we're at:
Addiction - no one should be harped on for
addiction - everyone has an addiction. Also,
addicition is built in 'through lab chemistry'.

Where we could go:
Know what it does to infants, children as well
as fetuses?

Know what every single chemical is that is
added to the tobacco and paper and its effects.

Classes with graphic pictures.

[The Bakery Wagon]

50. A very good and overlooked point

In the mid 90's I saw a program that detailed how name brand cigarettes are made and decided to switch to organic tobacco.

I started snuffing my hand rolled organic cigs in a separate ashtray, as any smoker knows that after a pack or so the bottom of the ashtray has to be scraped to clean it. Ugly stuff. (wish I had access to a GS/MS device- one day I'm going to have the money to send some of those scrapings from someone else's ashtray to have it analyzed.)

Anyway, I used that ashtray for NINE YEARS (before I retired it for evidence) and *never ever* had to scrape clingy stuff off the bottom. Now I didn't smoke that much, maybe a pack a week or something, but this is direct proof that these chemicals are definitely accumulating in the bottom of peoples lungs. Next time you're in the vicinity of a well used ashtray ask yourself why organic tobacco doesn't leave residue. And what exactly is it that builds up in ashtrays that "regular" (...) cigarette smokers use.

Oh yeah, the replacement ashtray (since 2005) hasn't had to be cleaned a *single time* either.

signed, a happy and proud part time smoker :D

[kiva]

47. Am I the only one who thinks this is a bit of sarcasm from the OP? n/t

[etherealtruth]

51. You may be ...

... and you may be the only one of us that is right ;)

[SOS]

56. Grandchildren?!

How did you live long enough to have grandchildren with all those smokers standing next to you?

[Mari333]

58. KILL THEM KILL THEM ALL

KIll all the smokers!!! they are vile vermin that must be eliminated!! they sit in dark corners, slobbering as cigarettes hang precipitously from their yawling fetid lips..oozing pustules on society!! they must be ELIMINATED! we cannot have them befouling Gods Green Earth any longer!! The ice shelfs are falling off BECAUSE OF SMOKERS.. the air is afoul in Los Angeles BECAUSE OF SMOKERS.. Three Mile Island? SMOKERS!
I have seen them myself, they come out at night!! they dare not show themselves during the day!!
I have garlic, and a silver bullet. also, a stake.
I am prepared.
ARE YOU?

[cloudbase]

60. Yes! Keel dem all.

With a flame thrower. Turn them into smoldering heaps of burnt flesh. That'll learn 'em.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

62. Ehhhhhh, Second Hand Smoke In That Sort Of Environment Is Harmless Anyway. Don't Sweat It!

You'd have to live in a house with a smoker who smokes at least a pack of day in the house while you're in the room for years at a time before there would be any real need to worry anyway.

One of the greatest ruses of our time is the false debacle that is second hand smoke risk. Most overblown thing ever.