Second Hand Smoke

[Mike]

After being a pack a day smoker for years I finally quit two years ago but as of late I've been wondering about how much second hand smoke damage I suffer from. I hang out with friends who smoke and I sometimes frequent a local pub after work and sit around a bunch of friends who chain smoke all night.

I researched the topic online and found the typical studies showing that second hand smoke is MORE dangerous than direct smoke etc. etc. basically stuff I've heard before and read on the front of cigarette packages. But I stumbled upon a study that was done on barmaids and waitresses/servers who work in heavily smoke filled environments and it concluded that after some 20 or 30 years after working full-time in such an evironment, the amount of smoke and toxins inhaled roughly equalled 2 cigarettes!!

Confused to say the least, I thought I'd post here to see what y'all thought?

[Dan Chomycia]

I worked in the Bar & Restaurant Industry for a long time; the smoke does have a significant effect on people. When I left the industry my performance jumped through the roof! I had one final case of Bronchitis that was very serious lasting 5 weeks that plummeted me into de-conditioning. I seems that my body had no longer needed to protect my system from the attack of smoke so it was purging all of that stuff out!

I know through personal experience that Second hand Smoke is a serious health risk. My advice is to avoid as much of it as you can.

Talk to you soon!

[Vbrown]

Or just to be a troublemaker;

Rent Penn & Teller's Bullsh@t! dvds. The first season is out now. They do and hour on the topic. Perhaps you might find it illuminating.

Vince

[James Boelter]

OK, this is going to be a little controversial, but I thought I should toss it in.

A friend of mine had occasion to do some carpentry work for a medical researcher who is very successful indeed - the man has patents in several areas of AZT, AIDS protease inhibitors etc., and is basically rolling in it at this point. My friend came in to do some final estimations in the opening stages of a big bash being thrown by the researcher for his peers and colleagues. My friend was appalled to see these people smoking away as if there were no tomorrow, and he felt compelled to ask the researcher why he would continue to smoke in the face of such obvious health risks, given his knowledge of medicine,etc .

The question was answered with disdainful laughter and much jeering. After a bit, the research relented and took my friend aside and showed him the epidemiological evidence about the 'risks' of smoking and second hand smoke...and essentially, the evidence is that Americans are being sold a bill of goods. The evidence points to refined sugar consumption as a far, far greater risk to the health of the populace than any amount of cigarette smoking - cancer, respiratory health, diabetes, heart disease, you name it, refined sugar makes cigarette smoke look like brewer's yeast by comparison. And my friend is a shrewd, skeptical man with a fanatical interest in optimum wellness, and he had to bow down before the numbers he saw.

I'm not saying that smoking is a GOOD thing :roll: , but Europeans smoke like chimneys and they don't have NEARLY the mortality and degenerative disease problems we 'clean air' Americans do. If the diet is in place, you can get away with a LOT.

[Mike]

OK, this is going to be a little controversial, but I thought I should toss it in.

A friend of mine had occasion to do some carpentry work for a medical researcher who is very successful indeed - the man has patents in several areas of AZT, AIDS protease inhibitors etc., and is basically rolling in it at this point. My friend came in to do some final estimations in the opening stages of a big bash being thrown by the researcher for his peers and colleagues. My friend was appalled to see these people smoking away as if there were no tomorrow, and he felt compelled to ask the researcher why he would continue to smoke in the face of such obvious health risks, given his knowledge of medicine,etc .

The question was answered with disdainful laughter and much jeering. After a bit, the research relented and took my friend aside and showed him the epidemiological evidence about the 'risks' of smoking and second hand smoke...and essentially, the evidence is that Americans are being sold a bill of goods. The evidence points to refined sugar consumption as a far, far greater risk to the health of the populace than any amount of cigarette smoking - cancer, respiratory health, diabetes, heart disease, you name it, refined sugar makes cigarette smoke look like brewer's yeast by comparison. And my friend is a shrewd, skeptical man with a fanatical interest in optimum wellness, and he had to bow down before the numbers he saw.

I'm not saying that smoking is a GOOD thing :roll: , but Europeans smoke like chimneys and they don't have NEARLY the mortality and degenerative disease problems we 'clean air' Americans do. If the diet is in place, you can get away with a LOT.

I read a study similar to that. It also stated that refined sugar did far more damage than second hand smoke, it didn't go into detail about direct smoke though.

[Brett Jacques]

Holy Moly, you pushed my buttons with this one.

First, Penn and Teller wouldn't know good science if it crawled up their ass and died. That show is the worst of Fox news and Michael Moore put together, overly biased opinion, lopsided reporting and inference of fact without sufficient evidence.

Second, the studies recently purporting the lack of proof for second hand smoke damage were so flawed that many scientist now refuse to submit articles to the journals who published said advertorials. These studies were sponsored by tobacco companies and the primary researcher has long been known to have affiliations and previously published pro-tobacco lobby research.

Third, James' story relates a point of view put forth by a drug addict, a nicotine addict. Pot smokers do the same thing and heroin users don't think heroin is all that bad either.

Fourth, Europeans are not healthier than we are. Don't tell me of your European vacations where everyone walks and is thin. Fat Europeans don't go out much especially to walk and there are a lot of them. They get only slightly less CV disease but their cancer rates equal and sometimes exceed ours (depending upon type).

Fifth, being a researcher with patents doesn't mean you can correctly interpret research. Remember epidemiological evidence is determined by the parameters you seek to study. It can be as much about what is omitted in the study as what is included. We all seek to justify our addictions: Powerful antioxidants in chocolate, cardiovascular health promoting compounds in wine, brain hormone boosting properties in beer etc.

Sixth, sugar is as bad as you guys say it is, just as the woman who has spent years weening people off such an addictive drug-K Desmaisons.

[Scott Sonnon]

I've missed your candor and clarity, amigo. :D

[Vbrown]

Since one cannot design an experiment to prove a negitive, I'm not suprised that journals that would accept such experiments were to be called into question.

As for P&T, certainly they are entertainers and their opinions should be weighted as such. However, I do find it interesting that the EPA felt the need to cook their own books to get the positive correlation they needed. Why not run the study longer, for example?

Having known more than my share of heroin addicts, I can safely say that not a one of them has thought the junk they were shooting wasn't all that bad. Each of the knew it was a slow bullet they fired at their heads. There's justification and then there's just not giving a damn.

[Dan Chomycia]

I believe Bret is right,
I have heard the same people who will say it is hard to give-up smoking say that they found some obscure evidence that there is nothing to really to fuss about.

Personally I don't need someone else's facts to prove what I have lived through and know to be true. You can talk about the issue all you want but, you can't displace the effect my experience had on me.

Smokers generally are people who are largely in denial, in denial about how disgusting their habit is in terms of smell, how dirty it is, how much it inconveniences others. They are in denial about how it adversely affects their moods, health, and relationships with others. In denial about how much their habit pollutes their environment in terms of air, their living space, leaves lasting effects on everyone it touches, and hampers athletic performance.

I can literally could go on and on about the non-Scientific evidence that is right in front of our eyes, but the Smokers with try to find one hitch or chink in the ridiculous amounts of armor that they could use to protect themselves from Smoking. They will think that one technicality is reason to dismiss the overwhelming general common knowledge and keep smoking.

Welcome to your life people that is the effect the DRUG has on you!

[Cilian McHugh]

You should all move over here, where since March 29th it is illegal to smoke in any workplace in the country (including yes, bars and restaurants). Shame about the weather and cost of living though.

[Vbrown]

Dan, no one is trying to convince you to smoke or put yourself in a place where you are not comfortable.

The list of smokers who truly beleive they are in no danger (at least in the US) is mighty small. The rest are in either denial or acceptance and are unwilling to change. Those that are willing to cite fantasy as research are more in reaction to the pressure put on them by society.

I find it interesting that we will extend great emotional charity to all other types of addicts as suffering from a disease. Alcohol, heroin, sugar, sex and all other types of compulsive, destructive behavior is treated as a disease beyond the user's control and should recieve some help.

Smokers, however, are seen as disgusting, destructive, smelly....yet the drugs that are working on the brain are at least as powerful as those other drugs. In most cases, even more so. Why not extend them the same care and regard?

My earlier point was not that smoke (of any type) is not dangerous. But rather that the "any means nessecary" approach is not acceptable. There is already a pile of evidence direct and inferrential that smoking is bad. There is no need to indulge in shady or questionable proceedures just to affect more laws.

It's the proccess that bothers me, not the answers they come up with.

Vince

[Scott Sonnon]

Vince,

I hear you. Nicotine addiction was significantly more difficult for me to recover from than sugar addiction. Chewing tobacco and wrestling are still considered to be necessary brothers in some parts of rural America. :roll:

[Vbrown]

Think about it; You can put people in prison, feed them bad food, give them exercise 1x per day, isolate them, deny them sex and their families. Even alcohol. But if you were to cut off cigarrettes, you'd have an explosive riot. It's an extraordinary drug. And to think that fingerpointing and shaming is going to be enough to help people is to not acknowledge what they are going thru.

As to wrestling and chew...that's nothing like jello wrestling is it? :shock:

Vince

[Brett Jacques]

No one is bashing nicotine addicts and I'm not sure of your reference to the EPA cooking its books, where did you get that?

Only after it's too late do addicts realize the drug rules them. In the beginning, every budding addict thinks they own the drug but it is always the other way around.

Smokers are being pushed around a bit I agree but all addict's behaviours affect others around them from the damage of second hand smoke to the crime perpetrated by other junkies to get a fix to the spread of communicable diseases through shared needles.

[Vbrown]

On the EPA thing...my bad. I confused that with the Cal. EPA on MTBE additives to gasoline. They cut some studies short when the data was coming in that it rips thru gas tank linings (of gas stations) and leeching into ground water.

The Fed. EPA set recommendations based on loosely interpreted meta-analysis of some journal articles.

Prohibition doesn't work; heavy tax burdens don't work; finger wagging doesn't work. What does it take to purge an addiction? Societally more than personally.

I do still find it odd that smoking is band in BARS. It's like making pot illegal in a crack house....You don't want your lungs bothered while you tear your liver to shreads? :?

Vince

[JasonE]

Headline News: St. Paul Pioneer Press, Saturday, July 24, 2004


MINNEAPOLIS GOING SMOKE-FREE IN MARCH

City Council votes 12-1 for bar/restaurant ordinance.

..."We're excited" that Minnesota's biggest and third-biggest cities, Minneapolis and Bloomington, "are going to protect their workers from seconhand smoke, and (we) look forward to a decision next week in St. Paul," said Corrine Ertz of the American Cancer Society.


The St. Paul City Council is expected to attempt an override of Mayor Randy Kelly's smoking-ban veto next week. The veto earlier this month was prompted by his opposition to a provision for separately ventilated "smoking rooms" and because he didn't want to see St. Paul go it alone on a smoking ban. Meanwhile, officials in both Ramsey and Hennepin counties say they are looking into introducing countywide bans.

I'm pretty excited by this, as I've stopped going to many places because of the smoke. My visits to cities that had smoking bans have been great in part because I could go anywhere and not smell like an ashtray afterwards. Because many people I know have allergies to smoke, this ban will open up a lot of places that I would like to take them.

[Kelt]

Just stumbled across this post- was done with my rowing and CB workout and wanted to see what was new...
I'm a respiratory therapist and cardiopulmonary exercise stress test technologist at our local V.A., and what always amazes me are the employees in my department who continue to smoke, year after year...going out for those cigarettes every couple of hours to the "butt hut." None of the smokers in my dept. are men, they're all women, all of them mothers who know for a fact how bad their habit is...the kicker for me is when they go out for their smokes, most of the time they say, "time to go out for a breath of fresh air."
:roll:

[Coach Gostnell]

Health costs aside, $moking is Ex$pensive - I almost wished I did so I could give it up and use the money to buy clubbells and the video that much sooner :wink: