BS: Smoker/Non-Smoker?

Subject: RE: BS: Smoker/Non-Smoker?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Sep 04 - 02:38 PM

Maybe I should take up smoking a cigar or two a day.

That's not light smoking. One a week might be. Depending on the cigar.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoker/Non-Smoker?
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 01 Sep 04 - 08:01 AM

Just been out for a quick fag, did I miss owt?

Subject: RE: BS: Smoker/Non-Smoker?
From: Scoville
Date: 31 Aug 04 - 11:19 PM

Nonsmoker. (Of course, I've lived around big cities my whole life and have probably inhaled enough other airborne toxins to almost make up for it).

I never started, and nobody in my immediate family smokes. My grandfather smoked all his life and died of a heart attack a week before I was born (I was born in New Jersey because my mother, who had never done the childbearing thing before, didn't know not to travel at 7 1/2 months and went home for his funeral; I arrived early). He was very much looking forward to seeing his only daughter's first child.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoker/Non-Smoker?
From: Joybell
Date: 31 Aug 04 - 09:07 PM

Well that's all very well for those who have the ability to make extra mucus. I've no quarrel with smokers who keep their smoke to themselves, I hasten to say, but I've been given the line about smoking's benefits often enough. It is usually fed to me while the smoker is breathing their smoke in my face. Often in a non-smoking area!
The autoimmune disease from which I suffer is not at all rare. It damages the moisture-producing cells throughout the body. It's particularly damaging to the lungs where it destroys the supporting connective tissue and the mucus lining. Being in a room with even one smoker becomes a very risky encounter. A fatal attack of asthma is not the way I want to go. Joy

Subject: RE: BS: Smoker/Non-Smoker?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 31 Aug 04 - 08:35 PM

Raptor had very bad asthma when he was smoking heavily, daylia. And I think he's still got it now that he quit, but I'm not sure. I do know he used to cough for an hour after waking up in the morning. I think he coughs less now. Again, I'm not sure. Ask him.

I can see how the coating of mucus might protect the lungs from certain irritants.

Another angle on this: When people quit using any drug they go through withdrawal symptoms and become more sensitive to various things. So I'm not surprised that this would happen to a smoker who quit. It's like your system gets a chance to wake up and smell the roses...or the stuff that isn't so pleasant as the roses.

I know for sure that smoking damages the singing voice. So does drinking too much whisky. :-) Listen to Bob Dylan for proof of both of those.

I figure I'm going to die anyway, so I guess I'll chance going without the coating of mucus in the interim.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoker/Non-Smoker?
From: GUEST,*daylia*
Date: 31 Aug 04 - 06:37 PM

LH, the viewpoint on that webpage tolls like a funeral bell. It is lucid, historically accurate, well-presented, and worst of all ... it really does fit in with a lifetime of personal experience with smoking.

As a light-to-moderate smoker, I've often wondered if it's that extra coating of mucous - that little "smoker's cough" which is really more of a throat-clearing than a cough - which protects me from the atmospheric irritants and that cause asthma and allergies in the non-smoking members of my family and so many others I know.

I spend my life teaching private music lessons to kids with colds and various stages of the flu. How is it that I, a supposedly sickly and oh-so-vulnerable-to-every-disease smoker, never "catch" their bugs unless I'm also very over-tired or otherwise stressed? Could it be that same protective coating in my throat and lungs?

Counting my blessings and knocking on wood,

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Smoker/Non-Smoker?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 31 Aug 04 - 05:36 PM

Daylia, that's an absolutely fascinating viewpoint that is presented on that webpage. I wonder if it is accurate? I do not doubt for a moment that the nuclear tests have had very bad effects on the human race (and other living things) and caused many, many cancers to develop, and the governments which authorized the testing are to blame for it. They would indeed wish to find a scapegoat, wouldn't they?

I have also observed that regular heavy tobacco smoking is quite bad for people's health, however, and ages them prematurely in various ways. Light tobacco smoking on the other hand is probably not bad for people's health. It certainly didn't mess up the health of North American Indians in the old days...and they were very light smokers by today's standards.

Much food for thought on that webpage. Maybe I should take up smoking a cigar or two a day, like Chongo. :-)

I suspect that you will get some very intemperate responses to that site from people whose minds are already all made up!

I find it interesting to consider what it says. I still detest the smell of cigarettes and cigars (when they're burning), but I am willing to consider alternative viewpoints on this matter.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoker/Non-Smoker?
From: GUEST,Chongo Chimp
Date: 31 Aug 04 - 05:27 PM

I knew it! Man I had no idea what was goin' on back in the 40's when I helped protect that A-bomb project. I feel kind of sick when I think about it now. I thought I was helping to save the world. Thank God for my daily cigar habit.

Chongo

Subject: RE: BS: Smoker/Non-Smoker?
From: *daylia*
Date: 31 Aug 04 - 05:09 PM

Up the nose is a better choice than in the ear. You never just know when the mice might ROAR!

Subject: RE: BS: Smoker/Non-Smoker?
From: GUEST
Date: 31 Aug 04 - 04:45 PM

McGrath, aren't you lucky you weren't the smoker who had to stuff mice up his nose to discover all of this?

Subject: RE: BS: Smoker/Non-Smoker?
From: *daylia*
Date: 31 Aug 04 - 03:32 PM

No, you are not a mutant McGrath. "Nicotinic receptors" are not mutations at all, but specific proteins on the surface of nerve cells which are there to receive a vital chemical in the brain called acetycholine.   This chemical, called a neurotransmitter, carries information from one nerve cell to another.

Certain types of acetycholine receptors also react with nicotine. In fact, it was through experiments with nicotine that they were discovered in the first place - hence the name "nicotinic receptors". They occur naturally in all humans and most animals - 17 specific genes have been linked to them so far. With repeated exposure to nicotine, these receptors increase in size and number.

Recent experiments with mice show that when the number of a specific type of nicotinic receptor is reduced through genetic alteration, the mice do not become addicted to nicotine. Under normal genetic conditions, mice become addicted to nicotine just as humans do.

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Smoker/Non-Smoker?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 31 Aug 04 - 03:06 PM

Unfortunately I can't do it on demand! Pity really - that could be quite an effective way of getting a smoke-free session...

Subject: RE: BS: Smoker/Non-Smoker?
From: GUEST,Crystal
Date: 31 Aug 04 - 02:25 PM

I don't smoke. Smokey atmospheres give me migrane and make me wheezy.
I have been known to spontaniously spurt blood from my nose if the atmosphere is too thick.
Unfortunatly I can't do it on demand!

Subject: RE: BS: Smoker/Non-Smoker?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 31 Aug 04 - 02:22 PM

So I'm a mutant?

Subject: RE: BS: Smoker/Non-Smoker?
From: Metchosin
Date: 31 Aug 04 - 02:09 PM

The further interesting thing is that it is considered a natural genetic mutation or defect and while male smokers with this mutation are less likely to become addicted to nicotine and more likely to find it easier to quit smoking, the presence or absence of the defective gene does not affect women's smoking.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoker/Non-Smoker?
From: GUEST,*daylia*
Date: 31 Aug 04 - 09:19 AM

That was one long fag, ted! How's the ole receptors now?   :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Smoker/Non-Smoker?
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 31 Aug 04 - 07:23 AM

who pinched the 200th post while I was out having a fag then?

Subject: RE: BS: Smoker/Non-Smoker?
From: GUEST,*daylia*
Date: 31 Aug 04 - 07:12 AM

Everyone has "nicotine receptors", and lots of 'em folks. They are how your neurons (brain cells) process acetycholine - which is one of MANY neurotransmitters (vital nerve chemicals). Acetycholine was the first neurotransmitter discovered, and it's 4 non-muscarinic receptors were dubbed "nicotine receptors" because of their obvious function in processing nicotine in the brain. But that is certainly not their only, or even most vital function.

Smokers develop a lot more of them over time, due to exposure to nicotine. Nicotinic receptors (sorry bout the scientific jargon)

Nicotinic receptors are found in a variety of tissues, including the autonomic nervous system, the neuromuscular junction and the brain in vertebrates. They also are found in high quantities in the electric organs of various electric eels and rays.

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Smoker/Non-Smoker?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 31 Aug 04 - 06:25 AM

That's interesting, Metchosin   - after I posted that last I started wondering if there'd been any proper research into that kind of thing.

We do seem to be so quick to assume that what is true for us must be true for other people - it comes into discussions about the best way to learn and the best way to teach for example. There's a tendency to react as if, when someone appears to work diffeently, they must somehow be faking.

It comes up a lot in the context of arguments about differences between men and women, but I think thats just one small aspect of much wider differences in the way we are wired-up.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoker/Non-Smoker?
From: Ebbie
Date: 31 Aug 04 - 01:36 AM

Not having that receptor might explain my brother's ability to smoke a cigarette maybe once in three months. He did that for 30 years or so.

There is no way I could have done that. The reason I stopped when I did is that I was smoking more and more heavily and getting more and more obsessive about it. In the old days, if I had a mostly full pack in my purse I was comfortable leaving home. By the time I quit 25 years later, I was lugging up to three extra packs.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoker/Non-Smoker?
From: Metchosin
Date: 31 Aug 04 - 12:18 AM

If I recall correctly, Little Hawk, the receptor for nicotine was also the same one as for heroine or some other hard drug as well.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoker/Non-Smoker?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 31 Aug 04 - 12:02 AM

Interesting. I must not have the corresponding alcohol receptor, and maybe not the nicotine one either, but who knows?

Subject: RE: BS: Smoker/Non-Smoker?
From: Metchosin
Date: 31 Aug 04 - 12:00 AM

McGrath, regarding those who can partake in the use of tobacco, at will, and have no problem putting it aside. There was some research done, within the last year or so, that determined that about 15% of all people genetically lack a certain receptor in their brain, that the the chemical in nicotine "plugs" into. As a result they do not become "addicted" to the nicotine.

The other 85% of the population has the receptor and hence are genetically predisposed to addiction to the chemical.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoker/Non-Smoker?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Aug 04 - 07:54 PM

I'm sure that last applies to people who are regular smokers. I wouldn't be so certain about occasional users, like the husband mentioned up the thread who only smokes at folk festivals.

For some people, of course, occasional smoking isn't possible, the same way that for some people occasional drinking isn't possible. But it just doesn't work that way with everyone. Which isn't a matter of strength of will or anything, I'm certain, it's just that bodies work differently.

(And no, I don't smoke, and dislike being in a room where people are smoking cigarettes.)

Subject: RE: BS: Smoker/Non-Smoker?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 30 Aug 04 - 06:16 PM

A couple of random reactions:

Chicago may be more megopolis than city, but that's not why driving might be harder to avoid there than in Oxford. It's because of fear of crime, at least in the correspondant's neighborhood. New York City is one of the most mega of all megalopoli [?], but it's the one place in the US where you are *least* likely to want or to use a car. Parking is impossible, and public transporation is excellent.

More to the topic at hand: when people claim that tobacco relaxes them, or stimulates them, or somehow makes them more alert or smarter, they're kidding themselves. The only way in which they're making themselves feel better is by alleviating their withdrawal from their last smoke.

It's exactly what happens for hard-core heroin users, who can't even remember the last time they got high, and now recognize that when they need to score another hit, they're doing so to "get straight." Only difference is, the junkies are realistic about their situation while the smokers usually are not.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoker/Non-Smoker?
From: GUEST,*daylia*
Date: 30 Aug 04 - 05:14 PM

Well lucky you, LH! I still have the scars on my leg from an encounter last spring.

Poison ivy is a bit like tobacco in that if you recognize it for what it is, treat it with respect, and stay away from it if you're allergic to it you'll have no problems. It's a bit unlike tobacco in that tobacco DOES have some redeeming qualities!

Person with Schizophrenia, thank you for posting. I know what you say is true ... all of the few people I've known with schizophrenia not only smoked but "self-medicated" in the manner you describe. In the same way when I feel anxiety or depression, I notice I want to smoke more often.

Unfortunately the use of drugs, "self-prescribed" or otherwise, does not address the cause but only the symptoms of depression or schizophrenia - more or less successfully, but always temporarily.

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Smoker/Non-Smoker?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Aug 04 - 04:45 PM

Yup, that's a good rule to go by, daylia. Thanks for the good wishes, they are returned. :-) As for poison ivy, I have learned to be watchful for it and not to hate it. I am still trying to figure out where it fits into nature's plan...but I haven't had any bad encounters with it in many years now.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoker/Non-Smoker?
From: GUEST,Person with Schizophrenia
Date: 30 Aug 04 - 03:13 PM

persons with schizophrenia not only smoke, but they intake caffene, alcohol and illigal drugs in much higher quantitie than the average person.. It's all about self-medication, whether they are aware of that or not. Various drugs can moderate, not only the symptoms of the disease, but the side affects of their perscription drugs.

With a disease that literally hijacks a person's mind, ANY control, no mater how minor, and no matter how it's accomplished, is a good thing.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoker/Non-Smoker?
From: *daylia*
Date: 30 Aug 04 - 01:25 PM

Thanks for explaining why you wrote the song, LH. I understand exactly how you felt about being subjected to other people's smoke in enclosed space. I know how contradictory this must sound coming from a smoker, but the truth is I am also very grateful for the new bylaws prohibiting smoking in public places.

I couldn't count how many times in my life I lit a cigarette when I didn't really want it ... but smoking myself somehow made being in a room full of second-hand smoke a bit less nauseating.


Remember the Grail, for instance? YUK.   :-(


And you're right - when I lit that first cigarette at the ripe old age of 10, it was of course because of "cultural conditioning". Certainly the idea didn't just pop into my head naturally!
Good comparison with military training - that made your point a lot clearer.

On the other hand, though, you will find that wherever there is increased poverty and ignorance there tends to be a higher per capita daily use of tobacco, alcohol, and all other addictive substances...and that was the point being made in the song lyric.

That's true, statistically ... and it's interesting that a whopping 95% of schizophrenics are smokers. According to the on-line research I've been doing, apparently nicotine helps control hallucinations.

Hey LH, Aloha nui loa. I can be overly-sensitive sometimes when it comes to anti-tobacco songs (and other perceived insults). Thank you for saying you don't mean it personally - now I'll quit taking it that way.

daylia

PS remember, harm nothing with hatred. Not even poison ivy! ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Smoker/Non-Smoker?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Aug 04 - 12:21 PM

Chicago isn't Oxford. Isn't it a megalopolis rather than a city?

Subject: RE: BS: Smoker/Non-Smoker?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Aug 04 - 12:14 PM

Well, actually, I haven't sung it in years. I occasionally get requests to sing "Mean Nicotine", though, another anti-smoking song that several people in song circle seem to like for some reason. Even Mike Latter likes it, and he smokes like the proverbial chimney.

I got around to writing anti-smoking songs mainly because I passively suffered for about 50 years of my life from being trapped on buses, airplanes, in restaurants, in cars, and in various other places where I could not escape from breathing other people's smoke and it always made me feel sick. Writing the songs was my way of fighting back. Once the government started regulating it so people could not smoke in those public enclosed places, I had really little reason to be concerned about it anymore.

But don't forget...for 50 years I was on the receiving end of someone else's bad habit...and could do NOTHING about it. Guess what that is like. That is why I grew to truly hate cigarettes, and believe me, I do hate them.

And I repeat...you started smoking for one reason only...you saw others doing it and wanted to imitate them.

Subsequently, of course, you continued smoking for a whole lot of additional reasons, such as the nicotine connection, the stimulation, and so on. But the initial decision to start (against your own body's better judgement) was triggered by powerful cultural programming.

In the same way, people consent to don a uniform, undergo rigorous and unpleasant military training, surrender their personal independence to officers, and go out on a battlefield and kill and maim other people similar to themselves in a war. It's a dumb thing to do, but people do it because they are culturally programmed to by thousands of years of social custom.

After they have been doing it for awhile, they develop all kinds of additional reasons to keep doing it: pride in their unit, hatred of the enemy, patriotic fervour, the desire for promotion, fear of being seen as "weak" by their comrades, whatever...it becomes a habit.

All culturally induced forms of behaviour are like that. Smoking is just one of them.

It's also true, as you and I well know, that many of the brightest and most brilliant people in the history of the World have been enthusiastic and lifelong smokers...so my depiction of the typical smoker as a bottom-end "loser" in the song was obviously a gross generalization. You don't fit that picture and neither do a great many other smokers. On the other hand, though, you will find that wherever there is increased poverty and ignorance there tends to be a higher per capita daily use of tobacco, alcohol, and all other addictive substances...and that was the point being made in the song lyric.

It was not an attack on you, it was an attack on an addictive drug habit and its general consequences upon society.

I could've written a similar song about alcoholism...but it hasn't bothered me near as much in my actual day to day life as cigarette smoke did for those 50 years I mentioned...because I don't get a hangover by sitting 6 feet away from someone else who is drinking. (I just have to watch out for him when he's behind the wheel of a car.)

Subject: RE: BS: Smoker/Non-Smoker?
From: GUEST,*daylia*
Date: 30 Aug 04 - 07:56 AM

Oops, I must have messed up the cut and paste ... here's the link to the Guardian article.

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Smoker/Non-Smoker?
From: GUEST,*daylia*
Date: 30 Aug 04 - 07:51 AM

You smoke because you saw others doing it when you were young.

I smoke for a lot of reasons, LH - then and now. Nicotine is a physical and mental stimulant as well as an anti-depressant.

No, the 'evidence' posted above is not bogus - here is a Guardian article documenting the href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/smoking/Story/0,2763,1263918,00.html">benefits of nicotine. This sheds more light on why people smoke, instead of just blaming peer pressure, labelling them "stupid sheep" etc.

And here's another about the theurapeutic effects of nicotine on such conditions as Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, colitis etc.

Type "Yale studies on nicotine" into your search bar, and you'll find the "straight dopamine" right down to the receptors and neurotransmitters (brain chemistry), straight from the horse's mouth.

These studies DO NOT advocate smoking as a means of stimulating the growth of nicotine receptors though. The risks associated with inhaling smoke of any kind may outweigh any benefits - depending on the genetics, diet and lifestyle of the smoker.

LH, you say you wrote the song for laughs, and I'm sure you did. Have you ever noticed who laughs and who doesn't when you sing it, I wonder?

Singing it may amuse you, but for people like me those lyrics feel like a kick in the face.

Just so you know.

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Smoker/Non-Smoker?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Aug 04 - 06:37 PM

I wrote that song for laughs, daylia, back some considerable time before society started putting health warnings on cigarette packages and passing laws restricting smoking in public places (not that I didn't have a real point in it, though). I haven't bothered writing any more anti-smoking songs since the government started passing restrictive legislation or since it became fashionable in the mainstream to attack smoking. I only tend to write stuff like that when I'm still more or less a voice in the wilderness. I don't need to write it anymore now. No point belabouring something that's obvious to most people already.

You don't seem to be getting my humour on this particular issue.

I have smoked...in Native ceremonies. (And grass on a handful of occasions.) Like I said in an earlier post, I could see right away what was pleasant about it. It's not pleasant to breathe someone else's secondhand smoke, but it is definitey pleasant to smoke oneself...once past childhood and the exquisitely fine senses of a young body (you said yourself that when you first clandestinely tried cigarettes as a youngster they tended to make you feel sick).

Children's bodies are rather wiser in some respects than older bodies. A child knows right away that the smoke doesn't taste or feel good...but with an adult it's different. A child knows right away that beer doesn't taste good, but an adult relates differently to that too. (usually)

No animal would willingly inhale smoke, but a human would. That's because humans are programmed by culture and it overrides their most natural impulses with artificially acquired thinking.

If we lived in a society where it was taken for granted that the little finger of the left hand MUST be surgically removed in youth (like tonsils, foreskins, or wisdom teeth for example)...then you... and I suspect pretty well everyone else (including probably me) would have had it done without a second thought...and we would look askance at people who had not had it done!!!

That's how programmed we are.

You smoke because you saw others doing it when you were young. And now you like it. Perfectly understandable. That's why I shave. (I don't need to, but I'm used to the idea.) And it's also why we customarily cover certain parts of the body when in public...but men's nipples are not seen as obligatory to cover in public...except when in a restaurant, business meeting, movie theater, or another somewhat more formal situation, perhaps! Women's bare nipples, on the other hand, are a totally contraband item, except in certain carefully prescribed circumstances (strip clubs, certain magazines, certain movies, and in private, of course).

It's custom! Programmed behaviour. And it's totally arbitrary, in most cases. It has nothing to do with good or evil. No one was ever yet attacked or injured by a bare nipple! But people have been attacked and prosecuted for violating the custom.

Doesn't any of that strike you as just a bit amusing...from a certain point of detachment?

I shall remember, Greg, to avoid standing on the street in Oxford...if at all possible. :-)

To ban cars from downtown areas and replace them with excellent public transportation of a non-polluting nature would be a superb idea! Another superb idea would be to ban the burning of fossil fuels by internal combustion engines beyond a specified date (like 5 years from now) and to replace them all with non-polluting power in as short a time as humanly possible. It could be done.

It just so happens that there is a corporate oligarchy ruling us that doesn't want that done. They have money to make by burning gasoline...just like the tobacco companies have money to make by selling cigarettes. Money calls the shots under the present system and funds and controls the politicians. What do you suggest, Greg?

Subject: RE: BS: Smoker/Non-Smoker?
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Aug 04 - 06:22 PM

Hey McGrath
Try walking or riding your bicycle around my part of Chicago and then tell me how many days you last before being assualted.Thanks anyway, but I think I'd rather pollute than be dead.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoker/Non-Smoker?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Aug 04 - 11:15 AM

"and that way you can do without cats."

Sorry, moggies, as if - I meant "cars"...

Subject: RE: BS: Smoker/Non-Smoker?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 29 Aug 04 - 10:58 AM

It's OK, Kevin. I did realise - Just couldn't resist taking the same argument to a ridiculous conclusion. And I do agree about the cities. I would dearly love the whole transport system to be overhauled so there was less traffic everywhere - but it is not going to happen overnight.

It is futile to try and group smoking in with the nightmare of global polution. We might as well say there is no point arresting thieves while there is global theft taking place amongst the worldwide businesses or that we should not imprison murders until war is dealt with.

The big issues will be be dealt with (hopefuly!) but lets start where we can. Large oaks, small acorns eh?

Incidentaly the Guardian article which started this train of thought was based on statistics commisioned by Calor, who make LPG. Now does that give an indication of why the statistics are so against the petrol engine???

If we read a bit further on we find that "A pedestrian hanging about in Marylebone Road in London would draw in the pollutants of one cigarette from the ambient air in 48 minutes. In Oxford it would take just 24 minutes." So, to take in the equivalent of 60 cigarettes our pedestrian would need to hang around the high street in Oxford for a full 24 hours. What was it about lies, damned lies and statistics?

I cannot give any scientific evidence of this but my body tells me that I can walk around Manchester and Salford all day with no apparant ill effects. But if I sit next to smokers in our folk club for an hour I start to wheeze, my eyes go red and mu nose streams. If I wait another 30 minutes I need my inhalor. If I don't have my inhalor I could die. Yet I am still not totaly anti-smoking in pubs.

Just please, please, please give me somewhere where I can walk to and enjoy a pint without staring death in the face and don't try to cloud (pun intended) the issues with irrelevancies.

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Smoker/Non-Smoker?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Aug 04 - 09:02 AM

Cities are much pleasanter places without cars all over the place. There are already some cities which have banned cars, and someday I hope it'll be the normal thing. Rather like banning smoking in cinemas and pubs. There's a place and a time for everything - well, most things, anyway. Cities just aren't the place for cars.

The whole point of cities is to have lots of things close together, and that way you can do without cats. (Yes I know there are places that cll themselves cities that aren't like that. But Oxford isn't one of them.)

Subject: RE: BS: Smoker/Non-Smoker?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 29 Aug 04 - 08:04 AM

It would be quite possible to ban motor vehicles from central Oxford. Or peripheral Oxford for that matter. And it would greatly improve the place. It managed perfectly well before they invented the things.

Why stop at Oxford, Kevin? Lets ban all traffic from everywhere. After all, why should it only be Oxford that benefits from this piece of imaginative, environmentaly friendly legislation? There is nothing to stop us doing it now. We don't need motorised transport at all. We don't need computers. We don't need TV. In fact. Lets ban everything we don't need!

After all its just a matter of politcal will.

Now, let me think. Does music and culture come under that heading Possibly even Folk music...;-)

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Smoker/Non-Smoker?
From: GUEST,*daylia*
Date: 29 Aug 04 - 07:20 AM

Johnny, I didn't mean to imply you're a liar - I've just never seen or heard of anything like you've described before, and thought maybe you were kidding me. That's one of the most disgusting things I've ever heard!   

GUEST says the scientific 'evidence' in the article I posted is probably funded or slanted by the tobacco industry. Well, for all I know s/he's right!   The article posted claims that the scientific 'evidence' against smoking is mere speculation guised as "truth" ... nothing more than a deceiving propaganda machine paid by pharmaceutical and public money to promote frauds, fears, and puritanical rhetoric dressed up in white coats. Well, that makes LOT of sense to me too.

Consequently, I don't know what to believe about so-called "scientific evidence"! So it feels wisest to trust my own experiences and observations first - because that doesn't require a leap of faith. IT's the only 'evidence' I KNOW, without a doubt, to be true.

It's also true that at today's prices, smoking only 6-12 cigarettes/day costs me about $1000/year, $900 of which goes straight to the gov't and the anti-smoking lobby. THAT's the fact that gives me this most godawful pain right in the heart - (or rather, the wallet). It's a MOST excellent reason to quit!

And like McGrath says, there's other things to smoke anyway (not that I'd ever want to ... although I've heard that morning glory seeds and mugwort make quite the interesting combo!   ;-)

So when I do quit, I'll start a thread about it. I'm sure I'll get all kinds of kindly support here! JUst PLEASE don't sing me any anti-smoking-let's-all-hate-those-stupid-smoker songs!   All that does is give me a powerful urge to light up and blow it all away.

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Smoker/Non-Smoker?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Aug 04 - 06:52 AM

It would be quite possible to ban motor vehicles from central Oxford. Or peripheral Oxford for that matter. And it would greatly improve the place. It managed perfectly well before they invented the things.

It's just a matter of political will.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoker/Non-Smoker?
From: Sooz
Date: 29 Aug 04 - 05:50 AM

While I wouldn't want to spend all day standing in a busy street, I might well want to spend a similar amount of time in a singaround!

Subject: RE: BS: Smoker/Non-Smoker?
From: HuwG
Date: 29 Aug 04 - 05:30 AM

I do not and never have smoked, and normally would leave this debate well alone. However, I once had the misfortune to work alongside a heavy smoker. It wasn't that the smoke bothered me. It was that his daily schedule went, roughly:

09:00 Arrive. Turn on PC. Demand coffee
09:05 Go outside for cigarette
09:20 Log in to system. Check e-mails
09:25 Go outside for cigarette
09:40 Read first e-mail. Forward it to HuwG.
09:45 Go outside for cigarette
10:00 Take telephone call from manager. (The manager has been funing on the other end of the phone for ten minutes, and venting his frustration on a secretary and myself when we decline to physically drag my co-worker inside). Tell manager that he has passed the matter to HuwG to deal with.
10:05 Go outside for cigarette.
10:20 Demand coffee. Read second e-mail. Decide that time is too short to read through the archived messages to determine the full extent of the subject under discussion. Send second e-mail to deleted items.
10:25 Go outside for cigarette

and so on.

Obviously, the management were at fault here for allowing this state of affairs, and to an extent so was I, for acquiescing in it. However, this doesn't excuse the fact that the man in question could smoke twenty cigarettes and do between thirty-five and forty minutes work in a day, while those less self-indulgent had to put in a full working day but earn no more recognition and salary.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoker/Non-Smoker?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 29 Aug 04 - 05:01 AM

Article in the Guardian today says that research on traffic exhaust pollution in Oxford says that standing in the main street in Oxford gives toxic levels equivalent to smoking sixty cigarettes a day. But I rather doubt if most of the ban-smking in pubs brigade will be prepared to draw the obvious conclusion from this interesting statistic.

I know this is your hobby horse, Greg, and you know my views so it should be no surprise but I refer to my earlier statement. I have to drive to do my job! So do millions of others. So what is the 'obvous conclusion'? Traffic is bad for you? If so, what do we do about it? We can ban smoking in pubs as a possitive step. I would be more than happy if we had the same proportion of no smoking pubs as non smokers. We cannot, yet, ban traffic. Roll on the day when we do find the way but it is not possible yet. Unless you know something that the rest of us don't?

The statement about standing in Oxfords main street being equivalent to smoking 60 a day is very misleading as well. Standing for how long? What day? What part of the day? Just another statistic I'm afraid and how many of them do you believe?

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Smoker/Non-Smoker?
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 29 Aug 04 - 04:37 AM

Daylia - absolutely NOT. I am many things, but I'm not a liar! They were on sale in the UK a number of years ago. There was a very heavy TV campaign against them (Esther Rantzen I think) as they are so highly carcinogenic, she had plenty of horrific photos and video footage of the damage and disease they caused and I believe they were banned here (never see them nowadays anyway). I just introduced my experience of the Swedes here to illustrate the skewed thinking that your post about 'smoking's good for you' seemed to be based on.

Nowt personal lass, I recognise your right to enjoy smoking and I don't suggest it makes you a second-class citizen the way some people around here do - I just don't believe it's a sensible pastime, and it's certainly bad for anyone within a 5-metre radius of any smoker. Not to mention the vast number of hospital beds taken up by sufferers of self-inflicted smoking-related illnesses which could otherwise be put to more beneficial use.

SJ :0)

Subject: RE: BS: Smoker/Non-Smoker?
From: *daylia*
Date: 28 Aug 04 - 07:10 PM

Are you just pulling my antlers about those Swedes, Johnny?       :-E

Daylia - most of the negativity on this thread is either generated by you or directed to you. NOT to smokers in general.

Blackcatter, are you sure we're talking about the same thread here???

But if you don't like anti-smokers gloating, maybe, just maybe, you shouldn't gloat yorself. Besides, if smoking is such a healthy exercise, you should be in the norm, and it's just silly to gloat as you're just part of the herd.

Everything I've said here is the truth. Not a word of it was posted to "gloat" - only to present the truth and in so doing, give readers a more complete, balanced - if paradoxical - perspective.

It's disappointing that this is interpreted as "gloating", but given the nature of the topic at hand I suppose it's understandable. :-(


Under the table this one is funded by smoking industry supporters, if not the industry itself.

If that's what you'd prefer to believe, be my GUEST.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoker/Non-Smoker?
From: greg stephens
Date: 28 Aug 04 - 06:58 PM

Daylia: while I appreciate your sticking it to the health nazis from time to time, I think personally you just might be pushing your luck a bit. I hope you touch wood when you write your posts.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoker/Non-Smoker?
From: GUEST,GROK
Date: 28 Aug 04 - 06:55 PM

Also, lest anyone think the addictions were light ones, they weren't.

They were heroin, amphetamine and alcohol.

Respectively, I have not used H for over 30 years, A for over 35 years and alcohol for over 19 years. I have had four cigarettes today, and it is hard to pace my smoking for another 42 minutes until the next one. Stewpid.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoker/Non-Smoker?
From: GUEST,GROK
Date: 28 Aug 04 - 06:47 PM

I have smoked for decades. I wish I had never started. Best I have been able to do is get down to about eight a day. If you don't smoke, don't start. I figure I have smoked a house during my life--a quarter million dollar house. I have also no doubt cut ten years off my life. I wish I could quit, but I know I can't. I have been able to beat every addiction in my life but this one--and coffee. So, while I appreciate Daylia's right to smoke, I hope she appreciates my right to tell you that smoking is stupid. Period.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoker/Non-Smoker?
From: greg stephens
Date: 28 Aug 04 - 06:47 PM

Article in the Guardian today says that research on traffic exhaust pollution in Oxford says that standing in the main street in Oxford gives toxic levels equivalent to smoking sixty cigarettes a day. But I rather doubt if most of the ban-smking in pubs brigade will be prepared to draw the obvious conclusion from this interesting statistic.