Did you know that smoking is not really harmful at all? Doctors are just too stupid to figure out

[SemiCharmedQuark]

the actual cause of death, so they decided to pick on smokers. I know this because 50 people who smoked lived long lives and that is a random sample.

I are scientist!

[DavidDvorkin]

1. Famous people, moreover

That makes the random data sample even more convincing. Not to mention random.

[TZ]

2. lol

I discovered this "fact" myself last year. More than a little shocked. I guess my chain smoking step father who just had a chunk of cancerous lung removed was unlucky...:crazy:

[DavidDvorkin]

3. Was he famous?

That seems to be an important factor.

[SidDithers]

4. I'm becoming more and more tempted to put that poster on ignore...

but I'm afraid I might miss something really entertaining.

Sid

[Warpy]

5. Damn, I miss all the really good ones

My own mother had 3 packs a day down her lungs until her late 70s and made it to 94, but I wouldn't have wanted the last 25 years she had to go through for my worst enemy, not even Cheney, although he looks like he's enjoying a similar fate.

They just keep denying that smoking is rotting their lungs over time, and while they might live to a ripe old age, they will spend the last couple of decades gasping for every breath they take.

It's not just cancer, people.

[ChadwickHenryWard]

6. Who's the corporate shill now? n/t

[Orrex]

7. I had a conversation with a 41-year-old man who believes that seatbelts are more likely to kill

He actually said that he knows a woman who wasn't wearing her belt and survived a bad accident with just a few broken teeth, while her passengers--wearing their belts--suffered broken bones and had to be cut out of the car.

I said "I know a guy whose parachute didn't open, and he survived. I guess that people shouldn't wear parachutes, either."

He then declared that he's pro-choice, and he chooses not to wear his seat belt. "The airbag will protect me," he said.

Sure, if it's a slow, head-on collision. But if he's hit from the side or in a high-speed head-on, then he's fucked.

(Incidentally, he isn't pro-choice about anything but his "right" not to wear a seatbelt.)


I didn't quite come out and call him an idiot, but I told him rather pointedly that his reasoning was faulty.

[onager]

8. Famous Person Factor for that one...

The famous racing driver Stirling Moss is STILL denouncing seat belts. I saw him do it, live and on-camera, in a BBC documentary not long ago.

Moss claimed he would have been killed in several of his crashes, had he been wearing a seat belt.

This is a man who estimates he broke every major bone in his body TWICE during his racing career, spanning 1948-62. In his last crash (without a seat belt), he was trapped in the car anyway. His Lotus had to be cut out from around him. He spent 6 months in a coma and was partially paralyzed.

To his credit, after that crash Moss went onto a race track alone to test himself. He concluded that his skills were not what they had formerly been, and promptly retired from racing. He didn't hang on, possibly killing himself and other people in an ego-fueled comeback attempt.

I recently picked up a book about American car racing in the early days, 1920s-1940s. These cars were usually cobbled together out of junkyard parts with no safety features. Some drivers tied a rope around the seat to hold themselves in, but most didn't bother.

In several crash photos, you can see the driver's body launching out of the car. Sometimes they landed on the track and were run over by other cars, sometimes they were just impaled on the steering column or various pieces of sharp metal.

[Codeine]

9. Ugh. That was my stepdad.

He didn't let us wear seatbelts because we needed to be "thrown clear" of the accident. Much safer for an eight-year-old to become a human missile aimed at the pavement than to be surrounded by a ton of steel. :crazy:

[Odin2005]

12. Ugh, my mom believes that one.

:banghead:

[Heddi]

10. you know, the thing is that the things the "famous smokers" died from

*were* related to smoking.

Aneurysms, infections from surgery, organ failure...all caused by, or severely exacerbated by smoking.

I smoked for 17 years. From 16 til 33. I have been smoke free for one year, and I can't believe 1) I did it at all and 2) it took me so fucking long to quit. Y'all know what I do for a living, and I see these people that are 40 and look 60, that smell like a fucking ashtray, that come in with oxygen, can't breathe, having chest pain, aorta splitting open, begging for a cigarette....

I am so disgusted by the damage I did to my body and, vis a vis, the bodies of those around me. Generally, though, I didn't smoke around non-smokers, and never really smoked in public...at home, or on a break at work....but still.

It's a dangerous, disgusting habit. I'm not one of "those" ex-smokers. Not a born-again. People have the right to make choices, but shit man....ciggies fuck you up, and you generally won't feel or see or notice the fuck up for years down the road...after you've quit. After you're older than 16. After you're done being cool. Ater your kids are born and you're ready to live a long live with your loved one and retire and bam, now you've got cancer. Or a stroke. Or your aorta is the size of a basketball and getting bigger and the first cpr compression makes it pop like a water balloon.

Atherosclerosis, heart disease, kidney disease, strokes, heart failure, lung problems, COPD, CHF....all caused by or exascerbated by smoking.

The idea that the only "smoking related death" is lung cancer is so fucking wrong. There are plenty of other smoking related deaths. And many people are too stupid to realize that.

[progressoid]

11. Oh my dog, I just read that one,

I'm...well...speechless.

[fadedrose]

13. I smoked for 52 years; quit 2-1/2 years ago, not because

of any health problems caused by smoking - it was more the aggravation of going outside in the cold to smoke and family complaining..

I miss it intensely and in the afterlife hope to go to a smoky planet with lots of dogs.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

14. lol

:thumbsup: