Smoky Kisses: A Place For UK Smokers to Make their Voices Heard!

A Place For UK Smokers to Make their Voices Heard!

Posted by John Hughes on March 22, 2005, 2:06 am
212.74.96.198

Hi Guys;
Well, you all seem to be a very reasonable and well-balanced bunch of people in this forum, and please let me say this first {before I'm kicked out for inappropriate posts!} - I am NOT pro-smoking, despite what the rest of my message might convey.
Smoking quite definitely IS bad for you, and it will harm both your repiratory health, and your financial health, full stop.
Having said that, I get really mad at all the hype surrounding the issue: "smoking causes cancer, smoking causes heart disease - the bible tells me so" and so on. By all means give up if you possibly can, but for heaven's sake do it for the right reasons - not just because you're being made to feel like a social leper!
I've worked as Chief of Perfusion {which is cardiac surgery support} for over 30 years, and I can tell you quite definitely that quitting smoking - despite the hysterical "statistics" quoted by the government and the media - will certainly NOT guarantee you a "better or longer life".
The vast majority of people who undergo coronary artery bypass surgery for ischaemic heart disease are ex-smokers who quit 5, 10, 20, 30, and even 40 years ago: how does that fit with the assertion that quitting will somehow "improve" your health within months of stopping?
And guess what: the second-biggest group are lifelong non-smokers, followed by lifelong smokers who continue to smoke - which group would you say come off best here?
But please don't just take my word for it - I'm a smoker, and so of course I'm biased.
Instead, would you take the word of The World Health Organisation?
Then look up the results of The MONICA Project: the world's biggest study, spanning 21 countries over 10 years, which set out to "prove" once & for all that heart disease is "caused" by one or more of the four suspected risk factors - obesity, smoking, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol.
And the results, published in August, 1998? Not ONE of the four factors was associated as a causal factor in heart disease! They had the good grace to admit that the results were "surprising" {if only to them!}, but cautioned that we shouldn't become "complacent".
If you take a look at the government's White Paper on Smoking {on which the whole issue of a smoking ban is based}, you'll see a whole list of research papers which it seems only an idiot would choose to challenge. And yet if you look a little more closely: ALL of these papers have been very carefully "cherry-picked" because they happen to support the anti-smoking campaign, while papers which demonstrate the EXACT opposite {and there are thousands} are completely ignored.
That's why the MONICA project isn't listed: it doesn't meet with government agendas. And that's why other research isn't mentioned either - and I'm not just talking about tobacco-sponsored research: even papers published in heart and cancer journals is deliberately ignored too!
I'm not just having a "go" at people who are sincerely trying to quit here: I don't doubt your sincerity at all, but the points you've made ALL sound so much like the kind of things we read in the tabloid press.
When people write that "Infants and young children are at special risk and could suffer permanent damage due to cigarette side-stream smoke", are you aware that several major international studies {not just single-centre, single-country projects, which actually mean very little} have demonstrated precisely the opposite?
And when people state "70% of smokers want to quit" - how could anyone possibly KNOW that??? There has never been a census to determine what smokers do, or don't want to do - other than very small {i.e. less than 1,000 person sample} studies which claim to be "representative".
I would appeal to everyone reading this message to apply just a shred of common sense to the issue of banning smoking:
1} IF it were true that smoking, or passive smoking, "causes" heart disease and/or cancer, then would it be reasonable to assume that the more people smoke, the higher would be the incidence of these diseases?
Strangely, the OPPOSITE is true! In countries with a much higher rate of per-capita smoking than ours {e.g. China, Japan, Algeria, South America, Hungary, etc, etc} there is actually a far SMALLER incidence of "smoking-related" disease.
2} FACT: Cars pour out 74 BILLION times more of exactly the same "toxic" substances as cigarettes - why aren't we screaming about banning cars, and yelling at drivers "You're killing my babies, you selfish morons!".
Also: wood and coal-burning fires produce the SAME "carcinogens" as cigarette smoke, and yet non-smokers are happy to gather round an open fire or barbecue - isn't that perverse? OK, these things maybe smell more pleasant than cigarette smoke, but please don't kid yourself they're any less "harmful".
3} Lastly, let's ask ourselves WHY our government would promote a smoking ban if there was no real health risk. Well for one thing: stop-smoking products are a multi-billion dollar industry, and it's very much in the interests of the pharmaceutical giants to promote them.
And who are major sponsors of our main political parties? Uh..........would "pharmaceutical companies" be the right answer??
Good guess! These companies donate millions of pounds to political parties to make absolutely sure their interests are protected, and so in my view, they're even more despicable than tobacco companies.
No, that's not true: they're BOTH equally despicable.
But when we start to distort the truth in favour of making money, and when we start to ban things purely on the basis of chasing dollars, then what we risk is democracy. Is that what you non-smokers really want - dictatorship?
Nobody is suggesting that you should have to inhale second-hand smoke if you don't want to; however what on earth is wrong with giving people a choice: non-smoking pubs, and smoking pubs. Is that undemocratic?
And before you go quoting all that "smokers cost the NHS millions" nonsense - smokers contribute exactly the same to the NHS as non-smokers, they contribute over Ł21 billion every year to the economy in additional taxes, and - if you believe the "statistics" - they die up to 10 years younger anyway, meaning they don't survive to become a drain on the NHS, and they don't survive to claim the pensions they've worked for all their lives.
Additionally, they pay extra for life and health insurance, and they get reduced benefits at the same time too - all because they will "die early".
There is SO much more I could tell you about the Great Smoking Debate, including pointing out how thousands of our pensioners die of hypothermia every year because they can't afford electricity - and yet we seem to be completely obsessed with media-driven statistics about smoking which, if you take the trouble to work it out, amounts to a few extra deaths per annum.
OK - even one "extra" death is unacceptable, but shouldn't we be concentrating on the areas where we really COULD make a difference, at much less cost and controversy?
The problem is, pensioner deaths don't contribute to political party coffers, and so they are ignored. If they really cared about the nation's health, they'd focus instead on the thousands of people who die needlessly in hospitals every year from MRSA {resulting from cost-cutting on basic cleanliness standards}, botched surgery, and incompetent standards of care.
Think I've gone on for long enough in this reply; however if you'd like to learn more - as a smoker or non-smoker - then please take a few minutes of your time to visit:
http://smokersuniteduk.bravehost.com
where you'll discover the REAL truth about what our elected representatives are up to.
I am not associated with ANY political or tobacco-related party: I'm simply an average, law-abiding citizen who is becoming increasingly concerned with the intrusion into our personal lives by the very people we assume will protect our interests.
Wrong - they're protecting themselves, and will go to any lengths to serve their own interests before ours.
Sincerely,
John Hughes.