Feb 182010
If so, why are we still encouring manufacture of cigarettes and cultivation of tobacco. Can’t it be completely banned? Who needs to take initiative?
Yes, and cigarettes will never be banned so long as some privileged group can turn a big profit off of them, with government support. Same goes with aspartame, unproven chemotherapy agents, mercury fillings, etc. Its the $$$ factor.
it’s not gonna be banned. The government makes too much money off of allowing tobacco companies to produce tobacco products.
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Uhhh yeah it’s harmful, there’s quite a bit of research to back that up. The tobacco companies make a lot of money and the tobacco industry is actually a pretty big part of the economy. So that’s why it will never be completely banned.
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Of course.
Lots of research to Google.
Because it’s free country.
If you want to make a product that kills people you can.
The govt. also needs the tax dollars.
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See: Alcohol prohibition of the 1920′s.
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Smoking anything is awful for your health and cigarettes are the worst. The nicotine instantly raises your heart rate 15% and then the CO your breathing in makes the heart beat faster because the CO molecules jump onto red blood cells and don’t allow the red blood cells to expel and inhale CO2 and oxygen. The amount of other Poison in one cigarette is scary. But the taxes made on the sales is just too great for the government to stop the production. It is really scary that they are still legal
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Im sure you know the answer to your first question, The answer to your next question, Yes it could be completely banned, But, its highly unlikely the Gov will completely banned it, our Gov does Not Give a Rats-Ass about our health, This is a landmark year for US tobacco. After years of being coddled by the Bush administration, Congress will soon pass an aggressive bill that will bring cigarettes under the control of US health authorities. Strict rules on advertising will be introduced and the path will be paved for Congress to raise federal cigarette taxes by 61 cents, to $1 a pack. “I think that 2009 has the potential to be the most historic year in making progress on tobacco since the first surgeon general’s report in 1964,” Matthew Myers of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids told The New York Times.
Why then has US tobacco giant Altria, maker of Marlboros, given its FULL support to the bill? Well, because the firm has read the small print. “This legislation might as well be dubbed the Altria Earnings Protection Act,” says Fortune magazine. For starters, the bill prevents the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) from EVER banning cigarettes. But just as importantly, the wording makes it extremely unlikely that the FDA will ever approve a new cigarette product because the entrant would have to be deemed “appropriate for the protection of the public health”. So the bill basically featherbeds the dominant tobacco groups’ share of the market. It even mandates a crackdown on sales of counterfeit cigarettes, which have been a major thorn in the industry’s side in recent years.
Why are the Democrats going so easy on Big Tobacco? Because they know what every tax-hungry government knows – you can tax the hell out of cigarettes and people won’t stop smoking. The Irish government, for example, worked out that lifting the price of a pack by 30% only led to a 1% fall in smoking. They’ve exploited that fact to take in 53% more revenue from tobacco tax over the last decade,
That’s why Obama supports the bill. He has worked out that the $1-a-pack tax will raise $35bn to fund his health reforms. And why not tax them? The tobacco groups look healthy financially, says Duff Wilson in The New York Times. Total wholesale revenue in America is estimated at well over $40bn this year. And while the volume of cigarettes sold might drop off by 5%-10%, according to Citigroup analyst Adam Spielman, the big tobacco groups won’t lose out, because they can just lift their prices.
ITS ALL ABOUT THE MONEY
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Lung cancer, the most common cause of cancer death in the United States and throughout the world, will cause an estimated 162,000 deaths in the United States during 2008 [1] . In comparison, approximately 121,000 deaths will result from the combined mortality of colorectal, breast, and prostate cancer. Lung cancer stands out from most other cancers because of our recognition of the major modifiable risk factor leading to the disease — exposure to tobacco smoke. (See "Patterns of tobacco use and benefits of smoking cessation").
Not all lung cancer is smoking related, however. Other risk factors include exposure to asbestos, haloethers, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, nickel, and arsenic. Interest has also focused on the potential roles of exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ie, passive exposure to "second-hand" smoke) and to radon. Potential risk factors include dietary factors, genetic factors, and the presence of underlying benign forms of parenchymal lung disease, including chronic obstructive lung disease and pulmonary fibrosis. (See "Lung cancer in never smokers").
The major risk factors for lung cancer will be reviewed here. Issues specific to lung cancer risk in women or HIV-infected patients are discussed separately. (See "Women and lung cancer" and see "HIV infection and lung cancer").
SMOKING — Smoking prevalence fell among both men and women from 1975 to 2006 [2] . This was accompanied by both a decline in the death rate for lung cancer among men and a leveling off of the death rate for lung cancer among women. Bronchogenic carcinoma is undoubtedly the most preventable of the common forms of cancer because of the indisputable link between cigarette smoking and risk of lung cancer.
Cigarettes — The possibility that inhalation of cigarette smoke might be a common cause of lung cancer was first suggested by Adler in 1912 [3] . However, it was also noted at the time that a "nearly complete consensus of opinion" existed "that primary malignant neoplasms of the lungs are among the rarest forms of the disease." In 1920, lung cancer comprised only 1 percent of all malignancies in the US.
The first scientific report associating cigarette smoking with an increased risk of premature death appeared in 1938 [4] . It was not until 1950, however, that Doll and Hill clearly demonstrated an epidemiologic association between cigarette smoking and lung cancer mortality [5-7] ; this observation was confirmed shortly thereafter by Wynder and Graham [8] .
Evidence — The evidence linking cigarette smoking to human lung cancer has included a large volume of both prospective and retrospective epidemiologic research. Well-established criteria, based upon observational evidence, have been described for the attribution of causality to the association between disease and a disease-associated variable. These include [9] : Consistency Strength Specificity Temporal relationship Coherence
Based upon application of these criteria to an enormous body of observational data, the Surgeon General of the United States definitively concluded in 1964 "cigarette smoking is the major cause of lung cancer…" [10] . This message was again emphasized 40 years later in a 2004 update on the health effects of cigarette smoking [11] .
Until recently, the evidence linking cigarette smoking to lung cancer has been primarily indirect. However, a direct link between tobacco and lung cancer was established, based upon the finding that a specific metabolite of benzo(a)pyrene, a chemical constituent of tobacco smoke, damages three specific loci on the p53 tumor-suppressor gene that are known to be abnormal in approximately 60 percent of cases of primary lung cancer [12] . Related polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons found in smoke appear capable of targeting other lung cancer mutational hotspots [13] . (See "Molecular markers in non-small cell lung cancer").
Magnitude — Estimates of the relative risk of lung cancer in the long-term smoker compared with the lifetime nonsmoker vary from 10- to 30-fold. The cumulative lung cancer risk among heavy smokers may be as high as 30 percent, compared with a lifetime risk of lung cancer of 1 percent or less in nonsmokers [14,15] .
The risk of bronchogenic carcinoma is proportional to the total lifetime consumption of cigarettes. The relative risk increases with both the number of cigarettes smoked per day as well as the lifetime duration of smoking. It has been estimated that a 35 year-old man has a 9 percent likelihood of dying from lung cancer before age 85 if he smokes fewer than 25 cigarettes per day, compared with an 18 percent likelihood if he smokes more than 25 cigarettes per day [16] .
Additional factors include [17-19] : Age at onset of smoking Degree of inhalation Tar and nicotine content of the cigarettes Use of unfiltered cigarettes
The age at which an increased risk of lung cancer becomes apparent among smokers is the middle to late forties. Beyond that point,
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uptodate.com
This is still a free enterprise system and the sale of cigarettes is a safe bet as the government gets a large tax from the sale of such. And yes it is injurious to peoples health. I was told cigarette smoking was one of the big factors in my coming down with leukemia.But Cigarettes alone doesn’t cause cancer. There are other mitigating circumstances such as environment, diet, and genetics. Everyone but 1 aunt on my dad’s side passed away from lung cancer or emphysema whether they smoked or not,so you see that even non-smokers get cancer too. I think the worst thing the tobacco industry ever did was put filters on cigarettes, as there is cardboard,cotton, salt-peter among other things in them.I would be more in favor of eliminating alcohol products as it has killed more people than cigarettes.
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If we banned everything that happens to be bad for your health, we’d have no cigarettes, no ice cream, no beer, no sports cars, and no sex . . . which is to say no thanks!
"I know a man who gave up smoking, drinking, sex, and rich food. He was healthy right up to the time he killed himself." – Johnny Carson
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Yes, and cigarettes will never be banned so long as some privileged group can turn a big profit off of them, with government support. Same goes with aspartame, unproven chemotherapy agents, mercury fillings, etc. Its the $$$ factor.
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