smoking makes you stupid

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: GUEST,Dr. Myers
Date: 18 Jun 04 - 10:42 AM

Fact: Nonsmokers die too.

The best way to avoid dying is to wear a seatbelt!

Goodluck to all those trying to quit -

Addiction only gets worse, stop now.

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 29 May 04 - 10:49 PM

I have never need to smoke - I was born this way...

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Sam L
Date: 29 May 04 - 02:22 AM

No. The sensible justification of smoking is that you want to die. Especially all the smug self-righteous pea-brained idiots in the world, they make you want to die. Remember the years before you were born? Wasn't too bad, really. Nobody missed you.

The psychological interest of smoking is, I think, aesthetic distance. And maybe punctuation. It breaks things up, like commas, and you sit back, look, and have to laugh, I think.

Who says the human life-span should be this long, or this long, or this much longer. The fact is the average life span is growing faster than the average reasons for living. Unless it's a good thing to hang around to take reductive pot-shots at dead people like Rick Fielding whose lives were probably more worthwhile than yours if you live to be a thousand you sick-minded child, you dim pitiable window-licking forgetable face on a bus going nowhere.

What kind of rat-cheese notion of intelligence, (exactly as if life was mathmatical, or monetary, exactly the same sort of stupid) what crowd-up-to-the-school-cafeteria lunch-line rationale is there for wanting to gnaw up every second of life you can grubbily claw at? To be sure you get your chicken patty and jello, by God? So you can sit around typing on the internet about how you're much righter than other people? Nice. Get hit by a bus already, you're wasting space some younger decent person could use.

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: freda underhill
Date: 28 May 04 - 08:05 PM

apart from the nicotine addiction, i think the sucking in on a cigarette gives a relaxation response related to the sucking instinct from when we were breastfed or bottlefed as babies. This is a very deep instinct, and a very comforting response.

as someone who has never smoked, I'm glad I never started. my sister started when she was fifteen, and has been trying to give up ever since. I feel just lucky I never started, for some people its extremely difficult to give up, and all the research in the world won't help.

freda

Subject: Surgeon General's new report
From: GUEST,The non-smoking section
Date: 28 May 04 - 03:35 PM

Surgeon General: Smoking causes even more diseases.

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Apr 04 - 02:55 PM

Ahem * heroin

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Apr 04 - 02:53 PM

The only way a person can possibly justify smoking is by saying: "I like it."

But what the heck...a herion addict likes his fix too, doesn't he?

And there actually is no way of justifying such a stupid and unnatural habit.

- LH

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: GUEST,an ex-smoker
Date: 16 Apr 04 - 01:27 PM

It's quite fascinating looking back at this thread from three years ago and the rationalizations by some in defence of their smoking.

To me, the most interesting post was from Bill/Sables on 18 Jun 01 - 03:48 PM. He justifies his being a smoker by listing off the names of smokers he admires. Included on the list was the late Mudcatter Rick Fielding.

I wonder how Rick might feel now being on that list.

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Betsy
Date: 16 Apr 04 - 12:51 PM

Was Monica Lewivnsky stupid before, after (or ever) when being loosely connected with the Presidents's cigar ??
She seems to have done OK out of "smoking".

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: GUEST,Mr. Butts
Date: 16 Apr 04 - 08:47 AM

Smoking on the brain

If they don't wreck your lungs first, cigarettes will wreak havoc in the brain, a new study says. Dutch researchers found that smoking speeds dementia and Alzheimer's -- likely by clogging delicate brain arteries -- and that elderly puffers face mental decline five times faster than non-smokers.

Maclean's Magazine, April 12, 2004

http://www.macleans.ca/topstories/health/article.jsp?content=20040412_78705_78705

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Jul 01 - 03:42 PM

Mimi Farina -- lung cancer -- age 56.

One of approximately 8,000 Americans who died prematurely this week from smoking.

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: GUEST,SharonA
Date: 22 Jun 01 - 12:35 PM

Unless I missed something, no one has yet mentioned the stupidity of smoking in bed, falling asleep, setting one's home ablaze (and possibly neighboring apartments or row houses) and perhaps even dying and/or taking the life of a neighbor in that manner.

Yet another means by which the smoker can affect others.

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Kim C
Date: 22 Jun 01 - 12:17 PM

Fair enough then, Carol. :-)

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: CarolC
Date: 22 Jun 01 - 03:50 AM

Well, I don't know about you GUEST,.gargoyle, but the rightous reefer makes me stupid.

And I really need the few brain cells I have left to take up the load of the ones that seem to have already gone missing.

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 22 Jun 01 - 02:07 AM

Your refering to the noxious weed right?

Not the rightous reefer.

Home grown's all right by me.
Home grown's the way to be.

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: CarolC
Date: 21 Jun 01 - 05:50 PM

I agree with you, Kim, that death and illnesses are inevitable a lot of the time when smoking is not involved. My main point is that the argument that a person's choice to smoke only effects him or her is incorrect. Even when non-smokers do not breathe the smoke, they can still be effected, sometimes under profoundly painful circumstances.

So your choice is not really just a choice effecting you.

By the way, I am not targeting you specifically with these points. I am targeting that one particular argument.

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Kim C
Date: 21 Jun 01 - 05:19 PM

That's true but what I am saying is that even if you choose not to smoke you can still die of cancer, including lung cancer. Even if you live the healthiest lifestyle possible there is no way to guarantee that you won't contract a deadly disease, and your family members will have to empty your bedpan while they watch you waste away. That's not saying you shouldn't try to take care of yourself as best you can, if that's what you want to do.

Illnesses may be preventable. Death is not. That's all I'm saying.

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: CarolC
Date: 21 Jun 01 - 03:54 PM

But as I said before, smoking related illnesses are preventable. So when smokers makes the choice to take that gamble, they are not only making that choice for themselves, they are also making important choices for others as well.

I know that smokers probably don't see it this way, but for those of us who don't smoke but who have loved ones who do, it really is a matter of compassion.

Do smokers have the compassion to stop smoking and eliminate that potential cause of emotional distress for the benefit of their loved ones?

If a smoker becomes ill with a smoking related illness, do the loved ones of that smoker have the compassion to change that person's diapers when they can no longer get out of bed?

Should loved ones even be asked to make that choice?

Are cigarettes more important than your loved ones? Because that's what it really boils down to in the end. Which is more important to you... tobacco or your loved ones?

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Kim C
Date: 21 Jun 01 - 03:26 PM

Probably the same place it would be if they were watching a loved one decline from any sort of illness, smoking-related or not.

Life's a gamble no matter how you play.

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: CarolC
Date: 21 Jun 01 - 02:20 PM

I have a neighbor who is dying from a smoking related illness. She is sort of lucky in that she has a boyfriend who looks after her to the extent that he can. She doesn't appear to have any family.

She has quite a bit of difficulty getting around. Mostly she only leaves her apartment with the assistance of her boyfriend. She looks like a skeleton. Her eyes are sunken in her head. When I see her, she looks too embarrased to say hi to me. She used to be quite friendly. When I first moved here, she looked like she was in her fifties. Now, almost four years later, she looks like she's in her eighties.

It's probably hard enough for her boyfriend to have to see her go through this. Imagine how awful it would be for a husband or children to have to watch her enevitable decline, and certain death. Where is their choice in the matter?

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: GUEST,SharonA
Date: 21 Jun 01 - 10:53 AM

KimC sez: "If you want to change people's minds, the way to do it is to say, hey, I made a choice that is costing my life, here's what's happening, maybe you will make a better choice."

Or you could use the old Spanish Inquisition method of changing minds. Crude, but effective.

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Patrish(inactive)
Date: 21 Jun 01 - 10:23 AM

I can understand or at least I think I can (probably can't)how angry one can become when the result of your folly is terminal. But, and this is hard to say, as the above post it's my choice. I don't smoke in no smoking areas. I always ask if the choice is not hanging on a wall somewhere (no smoking sign) I like smoking - perhaps I am an addict and it may be the thing that causes my demise, but today at lunchtime I was nearly killed by a scaffolding section that landed ten feet away from me. (very scarey - had to have several cigarettes to calm down)This is not an excuse or maybe it is, but the major point is that it is my choice. My first sentence mentions the word "folly" you could always exchange the word for "stupid" if you wanted. You know this is a stupid thread!

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: pavane
Date: 21 Jun 01 - 10:18 AM

Have consideration for others and for the environment.
Many smokers
throw their cigarette butts on the ground wherever they happen to be
Tread them out on people's carpets
Stub them out on plastic fittings
quite apart from polluting the air with noxious fumes when others are trying to eat, drink, sing, etc.
As noted above, consider the relatives who will have to care for you later

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Kim C
Date: 21 Jun 01 - 09:57 AM

If you want to change people's minds, the way to do it is to say, hey, I made a choice that is costing my life, here's what's happening, maybe you will make a better choice. If you want them to fight about it, you tell them they're stupid. What's that old saying about catching more flies with honey?

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: pavane
Date: 21 Jun 01 - 09:04 AM

MMario As others have pointed out, there is a difference between avoidable risks and unavoidable risks. Yes, Oxygen is can be very dangerous, especially as Ozone, but no-one has yet learned to live without it. On passive smoking, I was brought up in a family of heavy smokers, and have never smoked, but have what sounds to people like a smokers cough - maybe from too much smoke when I was young (Who knows). A number of members of my family have died of smoking-related illnesses, including lung cancer, stroke, and heart disease, and I don't wish to do the same.

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Bill D
Date: 20 Jun 01 - 11:04 AM

I once knew a man who was a bus driver, and smoked when he could..up to 2 packs a day....then he became owner of a small shop where he sat behind a counter. His smoking rose past 3 packs a day, and he got VERY worried...so he quit! Cold turkey...just stopped. He said he sucked hard candies and such until the worst was past, but as Amos said, what one individual does can't easily be mapped.

The interesting thing about my friend was, that his wife, who smoked only 2 or 3 cigarettes a day...(morning and at bedtime) could NOT give up her 'small' habit, and was almost angry at him for stopping a 3-pack habit. *shrug*....Addiction is a very strange thing, as those of us who post here daily can tell you.

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Wolfgang
Date: 20 Jun 01 - 05:30 AM

The relative frequency of smoking is definitely not a bell curve, in case you meant that distribution, Amos. But one couldn't tell from what you posted.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Amos
Date: 20 Jun 01 - 12:36 AM

Smoking and intelligence are not uniformly correlated variables, obviously. But the proposition that smoking -- as a behavior based on an analysis of risk versus reward on whatever lines you define those things -- might be unintelligent is understandably tempting, especially within a purely mechanical and statistical framework as is favored by disciplined scientists as a correct method for discovering. I can see the calculation clearly and do not even disagree with it, because it is perfectly correct within its own frame of values and methods.

But I have to say again that there is no individual who sits right on the center line of the bell curve of statistical distribution. A bell curve by definition cannot take into account those elements which make up thewhle picture of an individual. One thing it cannot account for, for example, is the strange miracle of shifting forces that occurs when an individual person up and decides something with complete clarity and intention. Another is the effects of non-mechanical intercessions like the communication of love, healing intentions, or the like.

Dear Guest, I believe you have suffered enough and you deserve to turn your lungs back around and begin healing. Now. I will exercisewhatever intention I can bring to bear, in whatever frequency band I can exercise it, toward that decision, and I trust you will do likewise.

Love,

Amos

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: MMario
Date: 19 Jun 01 - 11:42 PM

all true. and I also can't deny I am addicted and should stop. But I also know that the recent posts are far less likely to get my dander up then seeing "smoking makes you stupid"

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: CarolC
Date: 19 Jun 01 - 08:59 PM

Oops. Turned *our* back on her.

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: CarolC
Date: 19 Jun 01 - 08:53 PM

There is one more point that I think is worth making re: the effect that smoking has on people other than the smoker.

If my mother hadn't died suddenly and unexpectedly, she would have died a long, slow, and very difficult death by emphysema. It would have fallen upon us, her family members to care for her and watch her long, slow, painful death. Is it fair or even consionable to put family members through such an experience needlessly?

Had she died a long, slow death, we could have just turned her back on her if we wanted, I suppose. But is it fair or even consionable to put family in the position of having to make such a choice needlessly? Yes, long lasting terminal illnesses happen to non smokers, or for reasons other than smoking. But smoking related illnesses are preventable, and are therefore a needless way to put family members through hell.

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Bill D
Date: 19 Jun 01 - 06:26 PM

In 1927, when my mother started smoking, it was all the rage, and we didn't know much about it,....she wasn't stupid, just part of the crowd....I wqas raised in a house full of smoke, but I always hated it, and NEVER took one puff of a cigarette on my own...my mother died at 78, of things not related to smoking, after 50+ years of cigarettes....statistically, SOME are gonna live a long time anyway, but smoking VERY much increases your odds of having problems.

and, it is very unpleasant to those around you who do NOT smoke.....

please think....it may very well be that it was NOT stupid 30,40,50 years ago, but it is at the very least, foolhardy, to start now, or to continue...

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: CarolC
Date: 19 Jun 01 - 06:20 PM

Well, on the subject of who's smarter... my mother died from cigarette smoking last November. My dad (a non smoker) is now remarried and having a very nice life indeed. In fact, he's happier now than he's ever been.

You be the judge.

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: GUEST,SharonA
Date: 19 Jun 01 - 05:55 PM

I remember, several years ago, describing my unhealthy diet to a co-worker. When he questioned my food choices, I said, "We all have to die sometime."

His response was, "Tomorrow?"

The point has been well made here that risk-taking and thoughts for one's safety and longevity must be weighed in the mind of each individual, and choices made. GUEST(S) has/have endeavored to help some of us make an informed choice. It is a shame that it took a revelation of one GUEST's impending death to change the tone of the thread from spurious to sympathetic.

I could describe, in gory detail, my experience of having a lung biopsy and waiting to hear whether I had lung cancer (I do not, fortunately, but I do have sarcoidosis and must at all costs avoid secondhand smoke, chemical fumes, perfumes, etc.). But would my description convince someone to quit smoking? Would all the statistics in the world? Yes for some, no for others.

A choice — informed, misinformed or not informed at all — is each individual's birthright. As stupid as it may sound, we have a right to be stupid (or, perhaps more properly, willful).

If any of us is to change a habit or habits in an attempt to lead a life that is longer, healthier, more productive, more beneficial to society, more pleasant or whatever the goal(s) may be, one has to weigh one's will against one's willfulness.

SharonA

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Kim C
Date: 19 Jun 01 - 02:45 PM

We are all going to die from one thing or other. Not smoking doesn't ensure that I won't get cancer. As I stated I smoke RARELY, drink moderately, and for all intents and purposes, eat well, and exercise. I could get hit by a bus tomorrow and the only way to prevent that is not go out of the house... unless someone drives the bus INTO the house.

I do not mean to belittle anyone's woes. What I'm saying is, death is inevitable for all of us. There's no getting around it, no matter what you do. And for most of us it is not a comfortable or pretty transition.

Once in awhile I like to watch a show called Mysterious Ways. In one of the installments I watched, a policeman accidentally shot and killed his partner. He said, I wish I could go back and change it. He got his wish. He went back to yesterday, and didn't shoot his partner... who died of a heart attack instead.

Fiction, yes... but it's true that while you may be able to cheat death one way, he will find another.

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: MMario
Date: 19 Jun 01 - 02:26 PM

pavane - oxygen can also trigger cancer, oxygen can cause many types of genetic damage, damage nerve function, cause blindness. Should we all stop breathing?

guest - perhaps if you had mentioned a few facts (such as most of your last post) in your initial post the reactions of many of the rest of us would not have been so defensive.

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Fortunato
Date: 19 Jun 01 - 11:22 AM

Dear Guest, Mr. Butts,
Thank you for your efforts to reduce the risk of illness and death caused by smoking for us all here at the Mudcat. I'm sure you know that many read these threads and never post. Your kindness to us all in raising these questions may have far reaching effects. I hope your days have some happiness in them. cheers, Chance Shiver

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Tedham Porterhouse
Date: 19 Jun 01 - 10:43 AM

It seems to me that if the Guest's posts inspire even one smoker to think about quitting, they've done a valuable service to this community.

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: pavane
Date: 19 Jun 01 - 05:55 AM

Nowhere have I seen the statistical nature of the risk of lung cancer explained, so here goes, in my layman's understanding.

It only takes ONE damaged cell to start a cancer, and therefore ONE cigarette The tumour cells are all basically identical to the original).
The risk of any individual cigarette triggering it are extremely small
The risk is obviously multiplied by the number of times you smoke one

This explains why

a) Some people can smoke for 30 or 40 years and not get cancer - it's just luck b) The risk of cancer diminishes rapidly after you stop smoking – no more intake of risky material c) Passive smokers can get lung cancer

BTW My wife is a non-smoking singer, and her voice is badly affected by a smoky atmosphere.

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: GUEST,Denmark
Date: 19 Jun 01 - 05:43 AM

I'm truly sorry for those people who want to live and cannot. But I think we should elevate the discussion and realize that there are a lot of things that we cannot hope to rid the world of. People's smoking being one of them. And I do not believe that we get any wiser when we just team up in to opponent teams, and start discussions over who may og can throw the first, biggest og nicest stone with the strongest og nicest throw. There are more than two positions. Now for instance how much did Einstein smoke 40 or 50 a day? Hardly? How do we get along well across the smoking border. I think of the smoker as an addict, and in Denmark for alcoholics we are now discussing the idea of alcoholics aiming to drink less instead of getting all religion and hatred/fear-propelled Minnesoteans refusing alcohol altogether. I aim for better lives for more people rather than aiming to 'save' just 1-4%. Soften up ya'hear. I find little room in my life for condemming people with selfinflicted diseases. There should be blue skies and peace at mind also for the dying smoker. Nikolaj Severin Grundtvig has had an immense impact on Danish culture. He is the main contributor to the Danish Hymn Book, which is used in the Danish State Church. He said: First be human then believer.

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Patrish(inactive)
Date: 19 Jun 01 - 03:47 AM

Dear Guest, I am very sorry to hear that you have lung cancer and can understand why you have posted as guest. I apologise if any of my postings have made you feel worse.
Patrish

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: bill\sables
Date: 18 Jun 01 - 06:37 PM

GUEST, I too am very sorry to hear of your troubles and appologise if my answer to your thread caused you any discomfort. Bil Sables

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Kim C
Date: 18 Jun 01 - 05:50 PM

GUEST, I am sorry for your troubles. I wish you had made that clear to begin with.

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Jun 01 - 05:37 PM

Dear Bill Sables,

My real name doesn't matter. Just know that I'm dying of lung cancer at the age of 44. Three months ago, I was told I had less than a year left. Sometime in the next few months, I'll make my last posting to Mudcat.

You said about me: "I presume that he/she is a non-smoker and considers him/herself more intelligent than us lesser mortals who do indeed smoke."

I wish I could say that. Unfortunately, I was stupid to start smoking at the age of 15. Less than 30 years of smoking about 15-20 cigarettes a day was enough to kill me.

I was stupid every time I lit a cigarette. Many of the facts about smoking were already well known by the time I was stupid enough to start.

You mention Pat Patterson (Catspaw) as a smoker. In view of the health problems he's suffered through, I hope he's smart enough to stop.

Dear Kim C,

You're right. Not everyone who smokes will die from it. I hope you'll be one of the lucky ones.

BTW, several of the Guest postings to this thread were not by me.

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: mousethief
Date: 18 Jun 01 - 05:25 PM

No, alas, George Burns died at 99. He was shooting for 100, and damned near made it, but not quite.

Alex

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Kim C
Date: 18 Jun 01 - 05:10 PM

People who smoke can't be too stupid. Tobacco is an expensive habit and "you want fries with that" ain't gonna quite pay for it.

Didn't George Burns live to be 100?

Smoking affects different people in different ways. Not everyone is going to get sick and die from it.

In my father's last days, his doctors did not try to dissuade him from smoking. It wasn't going to help him anyway. They told him to do whatever the hell he damn well wanted. And as I said, it was diabetes that killed him, and not Pall Malls.

Last time I checked this was still America and we could still make choices about how we want to live. And I ain't gonna be one of those people on the Titanic who skipped dessert. :-)

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: mousethief
Date: 18 Jun 01 - 04:16 PM

Oh, and on your longetivity list, add George Burns, 99.

Alex

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: mousethief
Date: 18 Jun 01 - 04:15 PM

Add J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, English professors and authors.

Alex

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: bill\sables
Date: 18 Jun 01 - 03:48 PM

In answer to our friend "GUEST" who seems to think that smokers are "Stupid". I presume that he/she is a non-smoker and considers him/herself more intelligent than us lesser mortals who do indeed smoke, I have compiled a list of "Stupid" people who do or did smoke;

Albert Einstein - Philosopher
Frederick Marryatt - Author
Tom Savery - Inventor
Lord Roy Mason - Politician
Tony Benn - Politician
Rt. Hon. Emanual Shinwell Statesman
Sir Ralph Richardson - Actor
Charlie Chaplin - Actor
Enrico Caruso - Opera Singer
George Stephenson - Inventor and Engineer
Groucho Marx - Actor
Henry Cooper - Boxer
Ian Botham - Cricket Player
Chief Sitting Bull - Warrior
Sir Winston Churchill - Statesman
Dr Bull - Arch Bishop
Sir John Millais - Artist
Rudyard Kipling - Author
James Galway - Musician
Rupert Davies - Actor
Andrew Cruickshank - Actor
Peter Cushing - Actor
Jack Hargreaves - Broadcaster
Warren Mitchell - Actor
Eric Morcambe - Comedian
Frank Muir - Broadcaster
Harold Wilson - Statesman Fred Trueman - Cricket Player and Broadcaster
Magnus Magnusson - Scholar and Broadcaster
Dave Lee Travis - Radio DJ
Sir Patrick Moore - Astronomer
Jimmy Greaves - Soccer Star
David Bryant - Bowler
Rod Hull - Entertainer
Prof. Jimmy Edwards - Actor
Thomas Carlyle - Author
General De Gall - Politician
Auberon Waugh - Author
Sir Walter Raleigh - Explorer and Navigator
Isambard Kingdom Brunell Engineer and Inventor
Sir Charles Kingsley - Author
Sir Francis Drake - Explorer
Captain James Cook - Explorer

Our friend "GUEST" also states that smokers die younger, please consider these few facts.
Sir Compton Mackenzie - Author, died at the age of 89
P.G. Wodehouse - Author, died aged 94
Stanley Baldwin - Politician, died aged 80
Sir John Geilgud - Actor, died aged 93
J.B.Priestly - Author, died aged 90

These are just a few "smokers" who are world renowned personalities but there is also: Rick Fielding - Singer and Musician
Max Speigel - Inventor of Mudcat
Pat Patterson (Catspaw) - Thinker and Humorist

I would like to suggest that "GUEST" who started this thread, and thinks that all the above people are "Idiots" , gives us his/her real name so as we can place him/her on a pedestal and honour a really intelligent person as "GUEST" obviously thinks he/she is.
Bill Sables - Idiot Smoker

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Sourdough
Date: 18 Jun 01 - 03:27 PM

While following this thread over the past few days, I have had a number of thoughts:

Several years ago, while I was still a smoker, I created a video program for Simon & Schuster and the American Cancer Society called "Freshstart: 21 Days to Stop Smoking." In the middle of writing the script, I came down with bronchiitis and very naturally stopped smoking for about a week while my lungs recovered. When I started feeling better, I had the thought, "Why don't I stop smoking now? I have already got a one week head start on it?" THis healthy thought was met by a string of rationalizations from another part of my personality, all aimed at telling me that it really was all right for me to return to smoking. Here are some examples of their rather questionable quality: "Now that I have moved from the East Coast to California, I am no longer breathng the exhalations of a continent of home, automobile and industrial air pollution. THe air I am breathing is coming clean off the Pacific. Surely this is the equivalent of having given up smoking in Washington D.C."

"I am smoking low tar and nocotine cigarettes so I'll be fine."

"My grandfathers smoked cigars all their lives and had no problems. I am not genetically predisposed towards these cancers."

I knew better than these arguments because I had dealt with them in a section I had written about the rationalizations people have for smoking. I had been so intent that this video be accurate and powerful that I had really examined my own rationalizations unmercifully even though I had no real intention of giving up smoking. Now that I was going to my own rationalizations for support of the decision I wanted to make, that it is fine for me to continue smoking, I was forced to confront the flimsiness of my rationales. Suddenly, I discovered that to continue smoking, after having admittted to myself what I had, would mean giving up a great deal of self-respect. I was a bit angry at this turn of events but reluctantly I did give up smoking.

Some good things started happenening pretty quickly. The first was that I no longer had to knock the ashes off the tyopescript when I put it into an envelope to send to the Cancer Society for their approval. The second thing was that I dodn't have to sneak out of ACS meetings to hide in their bathrooms for a smoke.

However, the biggest advantage was the removal of what I had learned in college was something called "cognitive dissonance". I no longer had to spend energy defending myself not just those who criticized my smoking but from my own criticism. I think my self-respect had become a little frayed by my having continued to smoke after the Surgeon General's Reports made it clear that it was bad for me. I never was comfortable saying, "It's my life to do with what I want" or "I could give up cigarettes but I really enjoy smoking".

Becasue more and more people were giving up smoking I had also noticed that I had begun doing something I noticed that my friends who had a drinking problem were prone to do, using as a criterion for companionship whether or not a person smoked rather than their interests, personality, etc.

As far as smoking making you stupid goes, I doubt it but I have seen the surveys that show that among mature smokers, (this does not include the new crop of high school and college age smokers), there is an increasing correlation between education level, income level, and smoking. This has been noticed by the cigarette companies who are targeting these people with advertising to take advantage of the predisposition.

And one more topic: There is an argument that goes that society has the right to stop people from smoking because it is society, not the individual, who must pay for the ravages of smoking. I think this is a very dangerous argument. Using it, one could outlaw of at least place some sort of health tax on anyone who skateboards, rock climbs, motorcycles, flies small planes, etc. A "safe" life is one in which the individual does nothing that puts him in harm's way. Not only is that a boring life, I think it is terrible for society. What kind of civilization would that create? I expect that the standards would soon change after the "big" risks were handled. The new big risks might be driving a car, getting on a commercial airliner.

Sourdough

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: GUEST,Patrish
Date: 18 Jun 01 - 11:39 AM

I agree completely with Kim C cookieless or not, infact seem to have cookie problem myself. Enjoy the cigars and you dont have to stand outside for me
Patrish

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: GUEST,Kim C no cookie
Date: 18 Jun 01 - 11:28 AM

I would really like to know who is this GUEST who has a corncob up his/her butt about other people's personal habits, and why he/she is picking on smoking in particular.

Some people would argue that drinking is stupid. Many, many people die every year because of alcohol. Others become very ill.

Some would argue that having sex without protection is stupid. Others might argue that having sex at all is stupid.

I do not cotton to being called stupid by someone who has never met me. I am most definitely not stupid. Have I ever done stupid things, Why, yes, I have. I imagine our GUEST has too.

But as I said before, I am determined to enjoy my life. If it involves a cigar once in awhile, that's my business and none of yours. Unless we happen to be in the same room together and you would rather me not smoke, in which case I am happy to go outdoors.

Pass the Macanudos, please.

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Jun 01 - 03:29 PM

As a high school teacher, I can confirm that, in general, it's the stupider kids that smoke. The smarter kids seem to understand that smoking is for losers.

I can also tell you that the smokers have real problems paying attention when they haven't had a nicofix in the past hour or so.

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: GUEST,Gaffer
Date: 17 Jun 01 - 03:09 PM

On the contrary : stupidity makes you smoke.

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: GUEST,Roger the skiffler
Date: 08 Jun 01 - 10:37 AM

Well, I've never smoked and my stupidity has been amply and embarassingly demonstrated many times in these threads. I'll have to put it down to being raised in a smoking household and too many mis-spent hours in smoky jazz clubs in my "youth". In the 100 Club in London in the '70s you came out reeking of Chinese food as well as tobacco smoke!
RtS (Dim as a TocH lamp)

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Justa Picker
Date: 08 Jun 01 - 10:28 AM

Kim,
As far as Keith Richards, yep he should be dead by now, but what many people do not realize, is that, that curly cord coming out of his guitar is actually an umbilical link, connected to all sorts of life support systems, housed just out of audience site, back stage.

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Jun 01 - 10:16 AM

Joan Baez has suspended all of her activities to care for her younger sister, Mimi Farina. Mimi is in the late stages of terminal lung cancer.

Mimi is also a wonderful folk singer and committed social activist. She has devoted most of the past 20+ years to running Bread & Roses, a non-profit organization that brings free entertainment to people confined to institutions.

Mimi is only 56 years old. Another great person brought down by the utter stupidity of smoking.

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: KingBrilliant
Date: 08 Jun 01 - 06:04 AM

That's fine Patrish - I wouldn't have bothered to vote for you..... :>)

Kris

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Patrish(inactive)
Date: 08 Jun 01 - 04:04 AM

Thanks Kris, I had planned to run in the election and take over the country as leader of the apathy party - but I couldn't be bothered.
Patrish

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: GUEST,Amos
Date: 07 Jun 01 - 04:38 PM

ANd therein lies a tale -- given that averages are based on statistical analyses much revered as a form of validity in some disciplines. The Q of the Century is, "Who DOES qualify as average???". I appreciate the valuable insights one can get using statistical methods, but the problem is that what's under a statistical curve has no owner. What's in an individual very much does.

A

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Kim C
Date: 07 Jun 01 - 01:48 PM

I was talking about the omnipresent surgically attached cigarette.

It may simply be that Keef doesn't qualify as "average."

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Matt_R
Date: 07 Jun 01 - 01:18 PM

You mean he's NOT a lice-infested reanimated corpse with fishing lures in his hair??

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Kim C
Date: 07 Jun 01 - 01:14 PM

How do you explain Keith Richards? He should be dead by now.

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: KingBrilliant
Date: 07 Jun 01 - 12:40 PM

Well what I reckon is .... that all these smokers are actually training their brains to perform on less oxygen, so that when they are not smoking their brains will be basking in unaccustomed oxygen and performing super-brilliant-well.
And then they will take over the world.
They are the agents of a global and very cunning conspiracy.
Anyways - stupid is in the eye of the beholder - so I'm not even gonna look at 'em. Especially that Patrish - she's probably co-ordinator of the whole shebang. She seems terrifyingly not-stupid to me.

Kris

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Patrish(inactive)
Date: 07 Jun 01 - 11:44 AM

Cheers KFC!

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Kim C
Date: 07 Jun 01 - 11:25 AM

GUEST, if you are going to preach, I'd like to know who you are.

Yes, smoking can cause cancer. It does not, however, cause cancer in every single person who smokes or breathes second-hand smoke.

My father smoked unfiltered Pall-Malls for better than 50 years. He did not die of cancer. He didn't even have cancer. He died from diabetes complications. He was 69. MAYBE he would have lived longer if he had left off the smokes. Then again, maybe not.

Did George Burns have cancer?

The husband of a lady I know has just been diagnosed with lung cancer. Never smoked a-tall.

A former PhysEd professor at my college was the fittest person I ever met. Two years ago, after running a biathlon, he literally dropped dead from heart failure. Here was a man who had done EVERYTHING right.

Like Amos said, there are a lot of things that can kill us. I could get hit by a bus tomorrow. Or choke on a green bean. When it's my turn, it's my turn.

I don't smoke often and I enjoy the times that I do. I'm going to die no matter what. So are you. So let's enjoy it while we can and everybody get off your tall horses so we can be on the same level.

Cheers------ KFC

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Patrish(inactive)
Date: 07 Jun 01 - 10:50 AM

The point I was making in the Poem had nothing to do with smoking not killing people. It just doesn't cause as much death as automobiles do. This includes all the asthma sufferers who breathe in the pollution. There are plenty of statistics to prove this.
Patrish

At least many public places are now smoke free, but as soon as you go out into the street - well you have no choice but to breathe.

So smoking is stupid, I agree, but I do think there are greater evils out there
Patrish who is a smoker

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Jun 01 - 05:47 PM

Amos - Dead right! Raising children is extremely hazardous. So are all those other things you listed. Of course if you do succeed in raising a child, then you've got something of value. When you've succeeded in smoking a cigarette, all you've got is some ashes, a butt, and bad breath!

Nonetheless, I have thus far avoided both children and smoking....

- LH

Subject: Utah Phillips
From: GUEST,Patty
Date: 06 Jun 01 - 01:33 PM

Dear Mudcatters,

Reading through this thread made me think about my old friend Bruce Phillips, known to folk music fans around the country as U.Utah Phillips, the Golden Voice of the Great Southwest.

Bruce used to spend all of his time travelling around the country, entertaining folks at the smallest of coffee houses, the biggest of folk festivals, and just about every venue in between.

He also devoted a lot of his time and most of his money to supporting the various causes and fights that he believed in.

These days, he can't do much of that anymore and he relies on the generosity of his friends for support.

Why? Because Bruce suffers from congestive heart failure brought on by years of smoking.

If you'd asked Bruce about health concerns 10 or 15 years ago, he would have shrugged you off. Not anymore.

Another thing. Bruce used to make this big deal about how he was an anarchist and didn't pay taxes to support the government. Well, evertime he bought a deck of smokes he was handing tax $$ directly to the govenment.

Today, Bruce will be the first to tell you that smoking is one of the stupidest things you can do. He blames his years of smoking on his own stupidity.

Patty in Saratoga Springs, NY a friend of Bruce Phillips since 1969

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Peg
Date: 06 Jun 01 - 01:09 PM

ooh, very thought-provoking list, Amos!

One might as well lock oneself in a metal box if one is going to go through life afraid...

BTW on NPR right now is a man discussing the genetic alteration of domestic marijuana over the years; forced in the 1970s when growers wanted to escape Paraquat spraying...

Peg

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 06 Jun 01 - 12:56 PM

Maybe thats why I cant figure out this internet thing then!

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: GUEST,Amos
Date: 06 Jun 01 - 10:24 AM

There's no arguing with them numbers, of course. The rationale that death was caused by smoking, and therefore wise people will give up smoking, could be extended to other things as well. Here are some of the things we should give up because they lead to premature dying:

Loving overmuch
Raging against ignorance and stupidity
Soaking up the sunlight
Believing in the continuity of time
Fighting against facistic impulses in governments
Defending personal integrity against internal and external waves of compromise
Communicating with people who do not agree with you
Seeing how much better things could be if only....
Taking on areas of responsibility beyond one's immediate grasp
All-night conversations
Going anywhere upon deep waters
Flying small planes
Climbing hills, mountains, or staircases
Raising children from ten to twenty years of ae
Defending strangers who are being attacked in the street
Trying to understand the spirit
Trying to understand the mind
Trying to understand the physical universe
Trying to acheive high goals against high odds
Hating overmuch

Of course we can't all quit all these practices at once. What we should do is start a series of campaigns, like the French government's anti-alcohol campaigns ('Papa! Ne boit pas! Pense a moi!) or the anti-smoking Marlboro man ('Jake...I've got emphysema'). Which one you wanna start with?

I'm in favor of a campaign to get people to stop raising children... if they only knew how risky it REALLY was, the wouldn't even START!

A

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Jun 01 - 09:59 AM

Then there's the guy who drinks and drives, while smoking a cigarette, yakking on a cell phone, and shaving with an electric shaver...all to save "time" of course...

You have to wonder about all those cigarettes Dylan smoked! Hundreds of thousands of them. Oy! What brilliant lyrics he might have come up with if not for the pernicious influence of tobacco on his brain cells...

How do I reconcile the fact that I love Dylan and hate cigarettes? It's a conundrum.

- LH

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Jun 01 - 07:45 AM

According to Patrish's poem:

"I never saw a cigarette stolen or otherwise Ram raid a shop Or in the hand of some drunk Mow down some innocent"

EVERY death caused by a drunk driver is an inexcusable murder. Every year approximately 12,000 Americans are murdered by drunk drivers.

Patrish thinks that cigarettes don't kill innocents.

Well, according to the World Health Organization, 3,000 Americans die every year from lung cancer caused by second-hand smoke and up to 62,000 Americans are killed by heart disease caused by second-hand smoke.

Americans are more than 5 times more likely to be killed by second-hand smoke than by a drunk driver.

Smoking is stupid and smoking is deadly.

P.S. Drinking and driving is stupid and drinking and driving is deadly.

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Patrish(inactive)
Date: 06 Jun 01 - 05:54 AM

When I lit up
You waved the air
And coughed your disapproval
I moved away
Outside your car belched
Along with a thousand others
I chocked and fanned the air
But you stayed
Pouring out your poison
Fogging the poor air
We both wear a dirty habit
Mine carries a government health warning
Yours is appetisingly encouraged
Sleek models selling sleek models
I never saw a cigarette stolen or otherwise
Ram raid a shop
Or in the hand of some drunk
Mow down some innocent

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: nutty
Date: 06 Jun 01 - 05:04 AM

Hope you are up to it Fidele ........ the vast majority of smokers get their pleasure at least 20 times a day !!!! I wonder if you could do it and hold down a full time job

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: mytoycar
Date: 05 Jun 01 - 03:50 PM

In short your suggestion is very valid Fedele, Are you fishing for offers then

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Jun 01 - 10:30 AM

From 1980-2000, approximately 400,000 Americans prematurely died from AIDS.

In the same period, 8 million Americans died prematurely from smoking.

More Americans will die from smoking in 2001 than will have died from AIDS in 20 years.

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Fedele
Date: 02 Jun 01 - 06:09 PM

Our health minister in Italy, Umberto Veronesi, who is a worldwide known oncology surgeon, recently published a "state of Italian health" report. Among the advices for the families, you can read that smoking is one of the major causes of death especially due to cancer and cardio-vascular accidents it brings; while the report says having a satisfactory sexual activity is essential for a healthy living both for its psychological and physical effects.

In short:

STOP SMOKING
START FUCKING

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: GUEST,Beatle fan
Date: 02 Jun 01 - 05:57 PM

George Harrison had lung cancer surgery about five weeks ago. In 1997, he was treated for throat cancer.

I wonder if he now thinks that smoking is stupid.

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Jun 01 - 03:36 PM

Here is Table 1 referred to in the above post:

Table 1. Diseases linked to secondhand smoke Effects Causally Associated with Secondhand Smoke Exposure

Developmental Effects Fetal growth: Low birthweight or small for gestational age Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS)

Respiratory Effects Acute lower respiratory tract infections in children (e.g., bronchitis and pneumonia) Asthma induction and exacerbation in children Chronic respiratory symptoms in children Eye and nasal irritation in adults Middle ear infections in children

Carcinogenic effects Lung cancer Nasal Sinus cancer

Cardiovascular Effects Heart disease mortality Acute and chronic coronary heart disease morbidity

--------

Effects with Suggestive Evidence of a Causal Association with Secondhand Smoke Exposure

Developmental Effects Spontaneous Abortion Adverse impact on cognition and behavior

Respiratory Effects Exacerbation of cystic fibrosis Decreased pulmonary function

Carcinogenic effects Cervical cancer Source: California Environmental Protection Agency (1997).Health effects of exposure to environmental tobacco smoke, Table ES.1.

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Jun 01 - 03:31 PM

Amos says:

"I am not 100% convinced that the occasional whiff of burning leaves is such a harm as all that. Less so, say, than driving a smoggy car."

On the other hand, the World Health Organization says:

"In the US second-hand smoke causes about 3,000 lung cancer deaths a year, compared to less than 100 lung cancer deaths per year from traditional forms of outdoor air pollution.

Second-hand smoke also causes and aggravates asthma and other breathing problems, particularly in children. It is also an important cause of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).

While most discussion about second-hand smoke have concentrated on lung cancer and breathing, the effects on heart disease are more important. The chemicals in second-hand smoke poison the heart muscle, interfere with the ability of blood vessels to adjust themselves to control blood pressure and flow, increase the buildup of blockages of blood vessels (which lead to heart attacks), and make blood stickier. The net effect is that there are about 15 times more deaths from heart disease caused by second-hand smoke - 35,000-62,000 deaths annually in the US- as lung cancer.

While the tobacco industry continues to claim that the evidence that second-hand smoke causes disease - particularly lung cancer- is controversial, every independent authoritative scientific body that has examined the evidence has concluded that second-hand smoke causes many diseases (Table 1). Moreover, the evidence that second-hand smoke causes disease is not new. The first studies linking second-hand smoke with breathing problems in children and lung cancer in adults 20 years or more ago and the studies linking second-hand smoke and heart disease are over 10 years old."

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Amos
Date: 02 Jun 01 - 03:09 PM

Well, me darlin' Peg, I did think on that; I am willing as a smoke to go out of my way to not force others to breathe smoke, and I think forcing exposure on others is crude and rude. But I am not 100% convinced that the occasional whiff of burning leaves is such a harm as all that. Less so, say, than driving a smoggy car.

There's an understandable element of over-correction in campaigns like the anti-smoking campaign, just as their has been in campaigns like sufferage, ERA, temperance, civil rights, handicapped access, porno filtering and encyption of private communication, and on and on -- it is one thing to argue well for a social idea; but it is another thing altogether to get overzealous about controlling other people's ideas, freedoms, and self-determination. I get very leery when i see good (nominally) ideas being used to explain very bad implementations -- which covers 90% of the output of the US Senate for the last fifty years, I guess....

A

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Peg
Date: 02 Jun 01 - 02:56 PM

good points all, Amos.

But I wonder if you have considered that second-hand smoke DOES indeed harm non-smokers, and therefore, this activity can, to some extent, be said to interfere with others' freedoms...

That said, I do think some of the public anti-smoking laws (especially in Boston)are a bit much at times...

Peg

former smoker who hates breathing the stuff in crowded unventilated places...

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: mytoycar
Date: 02 Jun 01 - 02:45 PM

Yeah they may say smoking makes you stupid, but how many smokers do you see in the insane asylem, this might not apply. And smoking may make the brain work slower but gives thoughts and ideas time to...err...mature and improve, making us smokers smarter but its these non-smokers who dont give us time to express our ideas, mainly cause we smell!
OF SMOKE!!
a devoted smoker (with brains) prew

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Tedham Porterhouse
Date: 02 Jun 01 - 02:37 PM

The great Cisco Houston was only 42 years old when he died of lung cancer in 1961.

If he hadn't been a smoker, he might well still be with us today. He'd be the same age as his friend Pete Seeger.

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Amos
Date: 02 Jun 01 - 02:33 PM

Health risks are being identified here with stupidity. As though the smartest thing you could do under all circumstances is to preserve your health.

I am not sure that's an intelligent policy and I hate to think of some of the historical high acheivements that would never have occurred if all of our stupid ancestors had embraced it. I mean really dumb people like Lief Ericson, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, half of those stupid American soldiers who beat back the Third Reich, Lewis and Clark, and, more recently, Hugh Hefner.

I submit that the amount of risk one takes in an urban environment by leaving his house is pretty high too; therefore, this doctrine seems to indicate that what REALLY intelligent people would do is stay cuddled up in their bedrooms. Safe, and therefore intelligent.

Of course in reality, we all trade some risks for some experiences which we believe we want or need. And being free and independent spirits, used to the blessings of liberty and the basic courtesy of non-interference by our fellow men, we tend to make those choices based on our own complex and amazingly multi-variable calculations about the weight of various kinds of experience and the means to acquire them -- love, ownership, physical warmth, emoptional warmth, the thrill of discovery, insight, adventure, what have you....

Given all that, I conclude that the condemnation of any activity as "stupid" which is not interfering with others' freedoms is really juyst condemning another point of view for not thinking what yours thinks...a pretty arrogant, not to mention small-minded and authoritarian attitude to go gallivanting around in public with. I might even be tempted to say it's stupid, but I am sure each person has his own reasons for choosing it! :>)

Regards,

A

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: kendall
Date: 02 Jun 01 - 01:44 PM

Babe Ruth smoked cigars. He died of throat cancer.

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: GUEST,Pam
Date: 02 Jun 01 - 11:38 AM

I don't know if smoking actually makes you stupid, but I do know that smoking IS stupid.

I also know that it makes you stinky. Smokers all smell like dirty ashtrays. Their breath, their hair, their skin, their clothes. YUCK!!!

Pam

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: mousethief
Date: 01 Jun 01 - 05:46 PM

Thank God the Irish have beer!

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Kim C
Date: 01 Jun 01 - 02:27 PM

And your point would be, anonymous Guest?

My husband is just about the smartest person I know. If he left off tobacco maybe he could take over whe world.

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Jun 01 - 01:32 PM

The Scientific Committee on Tobacco and Health of the British Government also says:

"The yields of tar, nicotine, some N-nitroso compounds and carbon monoxide from hand-rolled cigarettes are higher on average than those from manufactured cigarettes."

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Jun 01 - 01:26 PM

If you think you're not as stupid because you smoke hand-rolled cigarettes, the Scientific Committee on Tobacco and Health of the British Government reports:

"Recent studies show that a significant proportion of tar yields from hand-rolled cigarettes can be greater than the current maximum limit of 15 mg per cigarette for commercial cigarettes, although due to the variable nature of the product, measurement of tar yields from hand-rolled cigarettes is not straightforward. A study undertaken by the Laboratory of the Government Chemist showed that few UK hand-rolled cigarette smokers use filters and high-porosity papers, both of which have played an important part in reducing tar yields in commercial products."

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Jun 01 - 01:15 PM

If you think you're not as stupid because you smoke cigars rather than cigarettes, the National Cancer Institute says:

"Smoking only one to two cigars per day has significant health risks. For example, smoking one to two cigars per day doubles the risk for oral cancers and esophageal cancer compared to someone who has never smoked. And someone smoking at the same moderate level (one to two cigars daily) increases the risk of cancer of the larynx by more than six times that of a nonsmoker.

Like cigarette smoking, the risks from cigar smoking increase with the number of cigars smoked per day. Smoking three to four cigars per day increases the risk of oral cancers to 8.5 times greater than the risk of a nonsmoker, and smoking more than five cigars daily raises the oral cancer risk to 16 times the level for nonsmokers."

And that's just for people who don't inhale.

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Kim C
Date: 01 Jun 01 - 11:51 AM

LEJ, like Little Hawk, I don't get stoned and that sounds just like a work day for me!

And Mister quit cigarettes by rolling his own. He said it takes the impulse out of smoking... if you roll your own you have to stop, get the papers out, get the tobacco out, etc., etc. He still takes his pipe and cigars, but no more cigarettes.

Not too long ago there was a brand of cigs called Native Spirit or something like that... claimed to have no additives in the tobacco. Never tried em. Don't know if they're still around.

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Les from Hull
Date: 01 Jun 01 - 11:06 AM

Thanks for pointing that out about rolling your own, Peg.

I only smoke when I drink, which isn't that often really, It's just that I only really do music in pubs, so drinking, smoking, singing and playing all go together for me. They are all part of the same thing.

Roll-ups are the least offensive way of smoking - the smoke from one left in an ashtray while I rattle off a couple of tunes isn't nearly so bad as that from a tailor-made cig. Usually it'll go out on its own as there is less saltpetre in the paper (that's the acrid-smelling element, I think). My partner and I try to limit this disgusting habit when in the company of non-smokers who mind, so we will then share a roll-up.

Any way, If it wasn't for the smoking, I'd be far to intelligent to waste time with Mudcatters.**BG**

Les

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Peg
Date: 01 Jun 01 - 10:30 AM

one thought: tobacco has been sacred to indigenous Americans for centuries. I partipctaed in a pipe ceremony with a Native American friend last year and it was unforgettable. Tobacco is considered a holy offering to the spirits.

I think cigarettes are deadly because so many chemicals etc. have been ADDED to tobacco to make this product. Nicotine is addictive and dangerous, yes, but a lot of research has borne out that it ithe deadly chemicals added to cigarettes that do the real damage...

I have also noted that people who roll their own cigs from loose tobacco smoke a lot less...

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Jun 01 - 09:25 AM

I just saw in the paper that the Minister of Health up in Canada has ordered the tobacco industry to stop claiming that certain brands are "mild," "light," "low tar," etc.

The Minister says that those descriptions are false, that there is "no safer cigarette, that they're just as dangerous as other cigarettes."

He said those descriptions are a con to fool smokers into thinking they're not doing themselves as much harm as with regular cigarettes.

I wonder how many cigarettes one has to smoke before one becomes stupid enough to believe anything that the tobacco industry says.

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: DougR
Date: 31 May 01 - 11:44 PM

"One should not take into one's lungs anything other than the substance that the mighty being (read any religion)made available for folks to breathe."

Zeke Calabasas 1880 Arizona Territory

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: JedMarum
Date: 31 May 01 - 11:33 PM

I did get a kick out of the cartoon ,spaw - though it was poking fun at my man in the White House.

LEJ - good story. Sounds about right, if my memory serves me correctly!

I don't thik I agree with the comment, though about pot smoking being better for you then tobacco smoking. I cannot point to the study right now, but I am sure I've read that smoking pot is much worse for your lungs and throat then tobacco. The saving grace of course is that most people smoke less of it.

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Little Hawk
Date: 31 May 01 - 10:57 PM

LEJ - Gad! That sounds like my normal daily behaviour when I'm NOT stoned! What does this mean? I mean, I never get stoned, never at all, but I am exhibiting all the symptoms you describe, aside from telling my wife...(I don't have one)...that I am not stoned...which in fact, I am not...ummm...where was I going with this?

Got any chips, man?

- LH

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: DougR
Date: 31 May 01 - 10:42 PM

That explains it then.

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Peg
Date: 31 May 01 - 10:40 PM

LEJ: LOL!!!!!!!!

I think the combination of attention-deficit disorder and pot-smoing can be somewhat detrimental to household chores...

That said, I LOVE gardening when I am stoned; I feel a deeper kinship with the plants. :)

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: RichM
Date: 31 May 01 - 04:41 PM

Been there,LEJ. Finally decided it was too exhausting to do chores while stoned. There was way too much 'stopping to smell the roses" :)

Rich

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 31 May 01 - 04:23 PM

I used to enjoy smoking a doobie and doing yard work. It used to go something like this...

1) Fire up doobster, relax for a few minutes to enjoy sun and fresh air

2)Start by deciding to water garden, go to garage for hose

3)While in Garage, decide to clean off work bench

4)Take broken footstool, which wife has placed on workbench, out to trash can

5)Pick up pieces of McDonald's bag scattered around trash can

6)Put trash can in shed to avoid dog getting into trash again

7)Find old copy of Fabulous Furry Freak Bros in shed, start to read it

8)Realize that I'm goofing off when there's work to do, but decide to put comic book in bathroom for later perusal

9)While passing through bedroom, find empty half-bag of cheetoes daughter has left on dresser

10)Decide that something more substantial than Cheetoes are needed before taking on enormous work-load

11)Sit at Kitchen table, dipping pretzels in mustard while reading comic book, deny being stoned to wife

12)Go back outside, trip over hose, and realize initial objective was to water bushes

13)Turn on hose and start to water bushes while humming Rick Fielding's Wind and Rain

14)Turn off hose, go in and put Fielding's CD on outside speakers

15)Leaving through garage, notice partly completed workbench project, and continue putting away clutter

16)When wife calls "are you running the hose?" respond in the negative, but realize that bush-watering still not done.

17)Again deny being stoned to wife

et cetera. You get the picture.

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: mousethief
Date: 31 May 01 - 03:52 PM

All I know is, you can't be a Rhodes Scholar if you inhale. :-)

Alex

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: smq
Date: 31 May 01 - 03:38 PM

Just read the first message and a handful of the others. I'm not a tobacco smoker - never was and don't have any plans to go there. I did smoke weed in the past - most recently to curb my nausea during chemotherapy. I don't have any moral feelings toward smoking much of anything. If I didn't have allergies, I'd probably be a two pack a day kind of gal.

Almost everything done to excess is not good for you. So, you choose to smoke whatever? Go for it, babe. It's your decision, Just be careful about how much and where and when. "Dying for a cigarette" should be a cliche, not a life goal. And going to the joint for a joint - now that's dumb!!!

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Kim C
Date: 31 May 01 - 03:36 PM

I don't think my two cigars a month keep me from being above average. ;-)

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Bill D
Date: 31 May 01 - 03:29 PM

*reading the original statistic carefully*,,,

"the averagesmokers brain functions at 86% of the average non-smokers brain" ....which tell me that smoking may indeed affect brain function, but that NO individual case or story proves much. 86% is not enough to keep you from going to college, and 'function' is a vague term anyway......but just think how smart Amos MIGHT be if....*wink*...(you see though, that never having smoked, I analyzed that quite clearly)

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Dave (the ancient mariner)
Date: 31 May 01 - 03:06 PM

A friend of mine on joining a new ship walked into the officers lounge and asked the only occupant (ch engineer) "mind if I smoke" to which the elderly Scotsman replied "Laddie I dinna care if ye burst in-tay f**king flames"
15 years ago I quit, if I had continued smoking I would be dead by now. Yours, Aye. Dave

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: GUEST
Date: 31 May 01 - 02:45 PM

Approximately 1100 Americans died prematurely yesterday from cancers, heart attacks and strokes caused by their smoking. A similar number will die today and again tomorrow.

In all, more than 400,000 Americans have died, or will die, from smoking in 2001. By contrast, 40,000 Americans died in the Vietnam war.

Smoking, a stupid way to die.

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Matt_R
Date: 31 May 01 - 01:31 PM

Unlike Dylan in the movies...

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: kendall
Date: 31 May 01 - 12:20 PM

Sorry Matt, but, old folks like to look back! hehehe

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Matt_R
Date: 31 May 01 - 12:08 PM

Kendall on pot...now there's an image I DIDN'T need.

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Ebbie
Date: 31 May 01 - 12:03 PM

Ah ha! That explains your dichotomy, Spaw! LOL

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: catspaw49
Date: 31 May 01 - 11:54 AM

Oh yeah..........and Jed, here's one you'll enjoy in the spirit that it's sent......"The Dukes of D.C."...Let it load, it's worth it.

Spaw

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: catspaw49
Date: 31 May 01 - 11:26 AM

Like the rest of you, I found the Mensa experience very weird. Boring? Oh yeah........and there seems to be a requirement to check your humor at the door.

Pot is such a riot though. I quit a long time ago, but there have been times since that I would have loved a joint! The paranoia and the sense of movement in combination though............I'm completely goofed up, trying to drive home and I am crawling along at probably 10 mph on a state highway and one side of my mind is yelling, "SLOW DOWN!!! TOO FAST!!! TOO FAST!!!" The other side is screaming, "GO FASTER FOOL!!! If the cops see you your ass is going to jail....FASTER!!!" I finally managed to pull into a restaurant parking lot and pass out.

Spaw

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Peg
Date: 31 May 01 - 10:48 AM

no problem Jed, and I was not insulted at all...

cuz I know you do make a valuable point, and I HAVE seen the effects of chronic, long-term pot smoking and it DOES seem to have an effect on peoples' synapses; then again I would not know if that was also due to the use/abuse of other drugs over the years in tandem with marijuana, including LSD or alcohol...

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Kim C
Date: 31 May 01 - 10:45 AM

There are a lot of things in this world that are stupid but we do them anyway. It's called FUN.

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: JedMarum
Date: 31 May 01 - 10:45 AM

Leave it to me to insult my casual pot smoking friends with one careless attempt at humor! I'm sure the occasional use of pot doesn't make you stupid ... but I am convinced long term abuse does. And I was half playing on the title of the thread rather then making a serious social statement. Sorry about that.

And as for my president??? Well, his occasional verbal twists remind me of some heavy dope smokers I've known - but I don't suppose he's touched reefer for years! Now, his daughters on the other hand ...

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Amos
Date: 31 May 01 - 01:56 AM

Gee -- I have smoked all my life, and even my most energetic detractors don't call me stupid, although they somehow come up with a lot of other things to call me. I went to Mensa, qualified, but found it abysmally uninteresting and left.

And I have to say I concur with the highly intelligent analysis by Kendall Morse, obviously a man of elevated analytical ability, when he states that the error in all this is in the judging. This is so true that one step on the path to genuine enlightenment, I am told, is to recover the ability to willingly be a _____ person -- where the blank contains all the attributes you use for those who should be locked up, shot, sent back to where they came from, kept indoors, made illegal, or otherwise kept safely beyond the borders of your world.

Once you recover the ability to tolerate ALL those abhorred identities without judgement, and even wear them or drop them at will, why, you're half-way off the Wheel right there!!!

A

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Peg
Date: 30 May 01 - 09:57 PM

kendall;

now that a lot of the pot available in the US is grown hydroponically, much of it is VERY strong and the usual 2 or 3 tokes has a much stronger effect than it used to. In the old days you could smke a whole joint for whatever and different varieties from different countries (Columbia, Mexico, Thailand, etc.) had very different effects. The whole ritual of smoking is now altered forever, because most people can't handle more than a puff or two...

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: kendall
Date: 30 May 01 - 09:43 PM

I tried pot a couple of times, didn't like the feeling of loss of control and paranoia. On the other hand, smoking pot and having sex at the same time was a real hoot! Havn't had either for some time now, but, I have a great memory.

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Peg
Date: 30 May 01 - 09:24 PM

Jed;

with all due respect, smoking cigarettes and cigars is far more likely to cause cancer of the liungs, throat, or esophagus than smoking marijuana.

Marijauna has been prove to have medical applicationsl cigarettes do not. Pure tobacco, who knows? very few smoke it any more.

Smoking too much pot (daily consumption) will no doubt have a negative effect; so will doiing too much of anything over time. I know plenty of people, myself included, who smoke marijuana occasionally (once a week or less) and are intelligent, and highly produtive members of society...they miss less work from illness than cigarette smokers, for one thing...and certainly are much healthier than alcoholics...

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: GUEST
Date: 30 May 01 - 06:35 PM

Does smoking make you stupid or is it a predisposition to being stupid that makes one take up smoking?

Obviously, smoking is a pretty stupid thing to do.

The evidence in this thread suggests that many Mudcatters are smokers.

That must explain why the most popular discussion topics at Mudcat includes the color of one's underwear and how often one changes his/her underwear.

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: GUEST,Blind Drunk in Blind River
Date: 30 May 01 - 03:32 PM

Yeah right. What would you Fin Fowkies know about it? So, Whio are you calleing sutpid? I snmoke all the teime and do I look tupid? Do I? I smoke cigs and I smoke weed. All I can get, which is enough most of the time, ecsdept when my dork brother smokes it all first, eh? I have not notice any bad effecs from eether one. Or both. Witchever. If enyone tries to take away my rite to smoke anytime I want to I will kick his ass. Pot is not insideous, its' transemdental, man! Woud I know a word like that if I was stupid? I dont think so. Case Fin closed.

- BDiBR

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: GUEST
Date: 30 May 01 - 03:22 PM

What president? I'm still hoping Gore will come trhough...

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Kim C
Date: 30 May 01 - 03:21 PM

Never cared for pot. Made my contact lenses stick to my eyeballs. Not to mention that everyone can easily smell what you've been doing.

I'll stick to cigars and spirits, thank you.

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Matt_R
Date: 30 May 01 - 03:15 PM

Get 'em Jed!!

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 30 May 01 - 03:06 PM

Damn it Jed, show a little respect for your President!!! Ha Ha!

Rick

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: JedMarum
Date: 30 May 01 - 02:03 PM

... smoking makes you stupid? I think I would change that sentence to say "smoking dope makes you stupid!" I am convinced frequent, long term pot smoking reduces your intelligence.

I'm not too bothered about cigarettes. Don't smoke, don't mind those who do, don't mind being around it, but pot on the other is insidious!

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Kim C
Date: 30 May 01 - 01:52 PM

Well, Alex, it's like this.........

I smoked cigarettes in college some, and there is a BIG difference in the taste of a Camel (which I used to smoke) and a Dunhill (which I used to smoke when I had a little more money). A "good" cigarette is smoother and doesn't "burn" as much. With tobacco, just like everything else, you get what you pay for.

Nowadays, I only want a cigarette if there is some great emotional upheaval going on. When my stepmother called Mister and me up to the hospital because my dad was dying, the first thing I said to Paul was, have you got any cigarettes? Because we're going to need a pack.

I practically chain-smoked (Camels!) for three days. When the funeral was over, I had my cigar, and that was that. Haven't had a cigarette since. Although I will probably want one when Fathers Day comes around this year...

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: kendall
Date: 30 May 01 - 01:02 PM

JUDGE NOT, LEST YE BE JUDGED. I know at least one smoker pretty well, Jeri, and she is a long way from stupid. In fact I admire her clarity of thought. Curmudgeon also smokes, I dont know him well, but, I didn't see any evidence that he is not threaded all the way on.

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: UB Ed
Date: 30 May 01 - 11:52 AM

All cigarettes are good! All! ALL! HAHAHAHAHa....

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: mousethief
Date: 30 May 01 - 11:48 AM

What's the difference between a yucky cigarette and a good cigarette?

-an inquiring mind

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Peg
Date: 30 May 01 - 11:39 AM

I used to smoke. I smoked yucky cigarettes: Camel Lights and Marlboro Lights. I smoked while I was an avid runner, even. I was in grad school and my office and mailbox were on the 4th floor of a bulding where the elevator was only for the handicapped. I started noticing I could not get to the top flight of stairs without wheezing (despite running 4-5 miles every day). Stopped smoking; no more wheezing.

Sadly I discovered "good" cigarettes right when I decided to quit: Exports, Dunhill,s Nat Sherman's, English Ovals...

I can still smoke an occasional cigarette but usually get light-headed and nauseous quickly...keeps me off 'em.

I do smoke pot occasionally though...

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: mousethief
Date: 30 May 01 - 11:38 AM

After some of the hybridised home-grown I've known I can barely raise my IQ to room-temperature.

Fahrenheit or Celsius?

I passed the Mensa admissions test, but decided not to join when I got the flyer with all the Mensawear in it -- t-shirts, key rings, polo shirts, frisbees, good heavens what a lot of dreck. And the thought of going to a meeting with a bunch of people, the only thing you have in common with is IQ -- what a bore!

"So what's your IQ?"
"143, what's yours?"
"174."
"Wow."
"Yeah."
"Um...."
"Oh, look at the time!"

So I figure anybody who is eligible to enter Mensa but doesn't it smarter than anybody who did. :)

(Actually it means you're very good at taking a certain kind of test -- big whoop! That and $3.80 will get me a Venti chai at my favorite cafe.)

Alex

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: nutty
Date: 30 May 01 - 11:13 AM

Such statements mean absolutely nothing unless precisely defined.

What exactly is meant by "average", " significantly less" or "stupid".

I was a smoker for over 30 years and during that time I achieved a teachinhg certificate ... a number of diplomas and advanced diplomas and a Master of Arts Degree ...achieving the later while running a house , raising a child and holding down a full time teaching job.I suggest that without the cigarettes , high stress levels would have done similar damage to my interlectual capabilities.

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Mrrzy
Date: 30 May 01 - 11:10 AM

GO, UBEd! Keep right on not smoking, and bully for you!
... and KimC, water has long been correlated with all kinds of things, so definitely to be wary! LOL!

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 30 May 01 - 11:10 AM

Went to a MENSA gathering about 10 years ago (forced by a friend). Now there's "boring" and then there's "stupifyingly boring"! A visit to "Neurotics Anonymous" would have been a lot more fun. In the words of another anonymous poster, "Phooey"!

Rick

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Kim C
Date: 30 May 01 - 10:57 AM

Maybe it's something in the water. We all drink water, and so many of us are stupid.............. (ducking and running)

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: UB Ed
Date: 30 May 01 - 10:52 AM

Well, I haven't smoked for 11 days now. Just yesterday I was able to remember the dog's name. Clearly I'm missing my nicotene edge (one of THE basic food groups). Here's hoping I get on the upward side of the smarty curve with the elevated brain oxygen.

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Jim the Bart
Date: 30 May 01 - 10:28 AM

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Mrrzy
Date: 30 May 01 - 10:05 AM

Always remember, correlation is not causation. And (since I quibble), everyone always has the right to judge everyone at all times, regardless of their knowledge of what they are judging. It's called "forming an opinion" and is a fundemental right. The problem arises when judges act on their judgments in the absence of facts. That's called prejudice. And somehow, prejudice against smokers (or fat people, but that's another thread) is allowed, whereas other types are not. I have a dream...I'm waiting for the day when people will not be judged by the color of their nicotine-stained fingers!

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Kim C
Date: 30 May 01 - 09:48 AM

I smoke a cigar now and then. I recently took an IQ test that said I was above average. Maybe if I leave off the cigars and eat more Smarties I could get into Mensa.

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Patrish(inactive)
Date: 30 May 01 - 08:52 AM

me neither...........

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Catrin
Date: 30 May 01 - 08:46 AM

duh! don't understand nuffin of wot this thred is abowt.

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: GUEST
Date: 30 May 01 - 07:26 AM

The New England Journal of Medicine study that Mr. Butts cites was widely reported in the mass media two or three months ago. I saw the story in the New York Times, on CNN and on NBC.

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: kendall
Date: 30 May 01 - 05:53 AM

I dont think anyone who has never smoked has a right to judge those who did or do. It has nothing to do with IQ, anymore than being attracted to women/men who are not good for us, and, who among us hasn't?

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Gervase
Date: 30 May 01 - 05:39 AM

Depends what you smoke. After some of the hybridised home-grown I've known I can barely raise my IQ to room-temperature.

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: hesperis
Date: 30 May 01 - 01:52 AM

Maybe the good effects of nicotine are taken away by the bad effects from all the other stuff that's in them?

Or maybe it was nicotine in pure form, not nicotine in smoke form?

LH - GOOD point, lol!

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 May 01 - 01:23 AM

Really? Smoking makes you stupid? I thought it was the other way around...

- LH

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Amos
Date: 30 May 01 - 12:41 AM

The current edition of Nature magazine features an indepth peer-reviewed analysis and cites nictonine as a cognitive enhancer. Go figger. Maybe smokers are twice as smart with half the effort?

A

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Chicken Charlie
Date: 29 May 01 - 11:08 PM

Like post flamers on Mudcat? Yeah, there's dum and there's dum.

CC

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: catspaw49
Date: 29 May 01 - 11:07 PM

Because I've already posted equally stupid crap to the others (except Polygamy). Hope this doesn't trouble you too much.....I see you've already forgotten your own name as has the gumdrop who started this one. Try to adjust.

Spaw

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: Peg
Date: 29 May 01 - 11:06 PM

I would agree smoking is stupid.

So is drinking to excess, overeating, taking too many over-the-counter or prescription drugs, not getting enough exercise, or exposing oneself to undue stress.

Lots of us do unhealthy, stupid things.

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: GUEST,confused non-smoker
Date: 29 May 01 - 11:02 PM

Umm Spaw, I just read these thread titles all lined up at the top of the list:
smoking makes you stupid
Polygamy
BS: Vegemite and Marmite - - The CHOICE
What color is your underwear
POL:IT'S ALL ABOUT LITTLE HAWK
Why are you writing a silly piss off message to this one in particular?

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: hesperis
Date: 29 May 01 - 10:52 PM

LOL!

Subject: RE: smoking makes you stupid
From: catspaw49
Date: 29 May 01 - 10:42 PM

tHa nKs for leTtIng US knOw. MuCCH oBlGeD.

now bugger off

Spaw

Subject: smoking makes you stupid
From: GUEST,Mr. Butts
Date: 29 May 01 - 10:38 PM

Findings published recently in the New England Journal of Medicine show that an average pack a day smoker's brain functions at only 86% of the level of the average non-smoker.

The explanation is that smokers' brains receive significantly less oxygen through the blood than those of non-smokers. With less oxygen, the brain functions less well.

In effect, smoking makes you stupid.