discuss...

[justashooter 430]

The official line is that there are no benefits in smoking which is only an addiction. This is an erroneous view that was peddled by the Temperance Movement in the 1800s and that was also picked up by the Eugenics Movement of early last century. Given the unfounded belief that there are no benefits in smoking, the question then becomes why people continue to smoke. The eugenicists (physicalists) “resolve” this question by claiming that the entire behavior is held together by “nicotine addiction”.

Post WWII, nicotine was, rightly, not considered an addiction. Nicotine was re-defined, contrary to available evidence, as “addictive” by US Surgeon-General C. Everett Koop in 1988 and very much in line with the physicalist view. The Office of the Surgeon-General had long been aligned to antismoking and a “smokefree” society, i.e., ideologically compromised.

It was also defined so in 1994 by an “expert panel” very much aligned to antismoking.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/...o-junkies.html

Some of the benefits of smoking:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20414766

http://diseases-viruses.suite101.com...tory_h1n1_cure

http://news.discovery.com/human/smok...d-for-you.html

http://ajplung.physiology.org/cgi/co...act/289/2/L268

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0918165352.htm

http://www.intelihealth.com/IH/ihtIH...92/317857.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/ar...pregnancy.html

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/19...-pollutant-pa/

http://dengulenegl.dk/English/Nicotine.html

Just nicotine is a cognitive enhancer. It aids focus. It is not surprising that some of the more profound intellectuals, writers, musicians, artists, scientists of the last century were smokers.

The latest that smoking is a habit, not an addiction:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0713144920.htm

Nicotine is not peculiar to tobacco. There are small quantities in potatoes, tomatoes, green peppers, egg plant, and black tea.:

http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/extract/329/6/437

Nicotine is also a precursor of nicotinic acid, also known as niacin or vitamin B3 (NIcotinic ACid vitamIN).

From the Royal College of Physicians (a group very aligned to antismoking since the early-1970s):

“It is now widely accepted that nicotine is the primary addictive component of tobacco smoke. In recent years, however, it has become clear that the psychobiological mechanisms which mediate the addiction are more complex than they first appeared……….However, the experimental animal data also indicate that, when compared with many other drugs of dependence, the reinforcing properties of nicotine appear relatively weak. Thus, it may be that nicotine alone does not have the powerful addictive properties necessary to account for the highly addictive nature of tobacco smoking, and that addiction to tobacco reflects complex interactions between nicotine, other stimuli associated with the inhalation of tobacco smoke, and possibly other environmental, social or behavioural stimuli associated with smoking.” (p.45, 2007)

http://www.rcplondon.ac.uk/pubs/cont...239b09c5db.pdf

A prominent American Tobacco Control advocate (Michael Siegel) recently noted that the idea of “addiction” is highly “flexible” in antismoking circles: “The anti-smoking advocates seem to change the science on whether smoking is a choice or an addiction based on the issue of the day. If the issue is a lawsuit, then smoking is an addiction. If the issue is refusing to hire smokers, then smoking is a choice. If the issue is the FDA regulating nicotine, then smoking is an addiction. If the issue is denying medical care to smokers, then smoking suddenly becomes a choice again.”

Smoking has numerous aspects – psychological, pharmacological, perceptual, behavioral, social. People smoke for different reasons at different times. Nicotine – just one aspect of smoking – is mild in effect, on a par with caffeine.

There are two main, interconnected reasons for the “nicotine addiction” myth. Firstly, it serves the deranged antismoking goal of a smokefree world legitimized by a eugenics framework. Smoking is depicted as useless, maintained only by nicotine addiction and where “addiction” is intended in the most derogatory sense of the term. This fosters the idea that smokers are reckless, “intoxicated”, irrational, irresponsible persons. And it is intended to create outrage in particularly nonsmokers. Nonsmokers who allow themselves to be brainwashed by the propaganda then demand protection from irresponsible “addicts”. Even more perverse is the claim that nicotine is “more addictive” than heroin or cocaine. Such irresponsible, agenda-driven statements trivialize what are profound differences between these substances.

Secondly, the nicotine addiction myth also serves the pharmaceutical cartel. By depicting smoking as due only to nicotine addiction, the pharmaceutical cartel has been able to peddle its nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) as the major/only means of quitting smoking. It was fully expected, according to the nicotine addiction model, that people would simply put on a nicotine patch and they would quit smoking. But it doesn’t quite work that way.

Yet, the success rate of NRT at one year is 3+% above a 3+% placebo baseline. At one year, NRT has a failure rate of ~97%. At two years, it is even closer to a 100% failure rate. This further and greatly undermines the “nicotine addiction” model.

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/extra...urcetype=HWCIT

The pharmaceutical cartel pushes for smoking bans and increased taxes on tobacco by funding antismoking groups. The medical establishment also peddles these essentially useless products. When bans and increased taxes are instituted there is an increase in NRT sales.

http://news.scotsman.com/tobacco/Nic...-in.2766561.jp

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-st...it-456426.html

http://www.sbpost.ie/breakingnews/?c...p=mhkfgbqlidcw

http://www.brudirect.com/index.php/2...says-jpmc.html

Knowing that these products are essentially useless, BP has even managed to weasel these products onto taxpayer-funded Pharmaceutical Benefits Schemes, e.g., Australia, Canada, where they are handed out like candy, making even more profits for BP. Worse still, BP has also been allowed to peddle the dangerous drug Champix/Chantix.

http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2011/01/...versee_pf.html

http://www.lawyersandsettlements.com...-57-15821.html

http://www.bnet.com/blog/drug-busine...eing-them/5163

While it is aware of these serious problems, BP is peddling this drug in Japan.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/04/bu..._r=1&src=busln

[MyLittlePony 340]

I never smoked in my life and i wont be starting anytime soon too expensive habit.

[scandal 951]

I never smoked in my life and i wont be starting anytime soon too expensive habit.

Good lad.

As for me, I hang around near schoolyards and hand out smokes to the kiddies.

[Amby 490]

I smoke a skin pipe from time to time

[scandal 951]

I smoke a skin pipe from time to time

[spookyturtle 9,466]

I smoke a skin pipe from time to time

Even small, crooked ones?

[scandal 951]

Even small, crooked ones?

Especially small, crooked ones.

[Ban Hammer 14,272]

sigh. one personal attack removed.

[scandal 951]

sigh. one personal attack removed.

Sigh. Don't you miss the old days when you used to have fun in threads like this?

[Ban Hammer 14,272]

Sigh. Don't you miss the old days when you used to have fun in threads like this?

a lot less stress, that's for sure. on the bright side, it's egg nog season again, so that helps.

[ScramJet 35]

Very interesting view(s) OP...