News you won't see in controlled mainstream media.

When my son was lying in bed the other night he told me he didn't like the smell of people smoking.
He said it was bad for people and bad for the environment &
I agreed with him.
then there was a long silence.
And then he said
"why are people allowed to sell them when they are so bad?"
I said I don't know.I told him that there are greedy people who like to have alot of money who don't care much for people's health or the environment.What else could I say.
I guess I'm writing this because I think children are just brilliant,
so many people, do not question these things.
For me,it was like the emperors new clothes,you know that story,were the child shouts out,"he's not wearing anything!"brilliant.

Children have so much more clarity and say things so simply without the need to complicate. Out of the mouths of babes as they say.

I smoked cigarettes a while back (stupidly). I don't smoke ordinarily, but had a binge on my birthday and another time. I can tell you that from that alone, meant many many months of severe toxicity just from a packet of cigs.

yes it shows my system is screwed up, but should also expose the amount of chemicals and toxins in these things and one must wonder why would they do this to people?

Well we can ask that question with a lot of things. It is summed it in one word I think "Greed".

Hi sunflower, sound like you are bringing up your little one just fine and dandy <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/imnotworthy.gif" alt="" />

I guess the real answer is money. The government wants the money from the taxes it generates and that money is more powerful that peoples lives.

If the government banned tobacco, people will then grow their own. And curing tobacco can be tricky - if you don't know what you are doing, the product can be lethal on the spot. This is what happened with the govt's attempt to ban alcohol many decades ago. People still craved it, tried to make it themselves and then in some cases it was improperly distilled and the consumer was left blind or dead, immediately.

A better question would be: what is creating such intense cravings? If you ban recreational substances, people will find substitutes that may be worse than the legal product.

Yes, it is true that there is hypocrisy involved when the govt. is making large amts of money by taxing these things that people crave so deeply. That does not mean we should not have the freedom to get sick by whatever means we wish.

I started smoking at the tender age of 15 because I thought it was tough, mean & cool. It screwed my health, cost a fortune and was a total and utter nightmare to give up. Giving up smoking remains the most difficult thing I have ever done in my life.

Q: Why are cigars not addictive and cigarettes are addictive?
A: Because of the additives put into cigarettes to make them addictive.

We are talking about a product specially designed to be addictive, so that you cannot give it up and are forced, against your will to continue smoking. Only the toughest minds are able to give up smoking.

Now we know for a fact that smoking causes cancer and numerous other health problems for those smoking and for passive smoking.



I didn’t choose to get sick by smoking , I choice to be tough, mean & cool. I never wanted to be sick. By the time I realised it was harming me I was already addicted. At the tender age of 15 I would not have been able to grown my own, nor smuggle my own, nor steal my own.

What about drugs? Cannabis, escatsy, heroin, speed, crack? If these are illegal surely smoking should be banned too. The ONLY reason it is not is because companies and the government make lots of money.

At least if it is illegal, you know for sure that you are doing something wrong.

Governments are supposed to protect the people. Allowing smoking to continue is irresponsible & negligent.

I do agree that if the government banned it, people would grow there own and that in turn would cause other problems………… but ……… if it was banned then maybe the next generation of kids would not be suckered in, like I was, into such an addictive, expensive, pointless & unhealthy vice.

I am not happy about the suffering you caused yourself by taking up smoking, but would be interested to know: did all the 15-year olds that you knew, say, in your school, also take up smoking? If not, why not? Why did you feel the need to be cool, but those other teenagers did not, at least not to the point where they would take up smoking?

I know that they put bad stuff into the cigs to get you addicted. That is why I can smoke occasionally (haven't in about a year) and then just let it go. It never became a habit with me, because I smoked only additive-free, pure tobacco. I do realize that even pure tobacco was not meant to be abused, of course.

However, in the case of alcohol, the bottler doesn't have to place any additives in order to make the drink addictive. Alcohol is inherently addictive. Therefore, considering the unspeakable damage that alcohol addiction does to the individual drunk, and to society as a whole from his drunkenness, would you also call for the banning of alcohol? If not, why not? Because some people do NOT become alcoholics? Then what about me and my once-in-a-while smoking? Why should a non-addictive smoker like me be punished by the banning of tobacco just because there are people who don't know about additive-free cigs, or who just have an inherently addictive personality?

Was a long time ago now, from memory 80pct of the kids smoked. Certainly ALL of my friends did, but it’s irrelevant to this discussion because the fact is, I and millions of others did start smoking for a million different reasons.

Throughout my life upto 1.5 years ago, I would have said legalise all drugs and that people should have the choice to smoke as many cigarettes as they wished 24 hours a day, inside or outside. Over my life I have been an avid user of everything. No laws ever held me back.

But…..

Now that I’m so sick……

Now that I have learned what these things do to us……

Now that I have learned how addictive these things are…..

Now that I have learned that the only people who benefit are the share holders…..

Now…….My head says “No” these horrible things should be banned.

Why should share holders benefit from killing and hurting people? Why should governments benefit from the tax? The government’s job is to protect the people not kill ‘em.

Do you really think its ok if you smoke a bit, but in doing so, this enables so many other people to have problems?

Wouldn’t you, kinda feel like you are helping people? Helping the world be a better place if you passed over the opportunity to smoke to save some others? Do you really feel good about having the right to smoke…but in doing so enable millions of other less informed people to get hurt? Is your right to smoke so important that millions of people can die? I’m NOT saying you are responsible, not in the slightest, you are not, but insisting on your right to smoke is a little short sighted given the magnitude of the problem.

Googled at randiom and taken from here…… http://www.inforesearchlab.com/smokingdeaths.chtml

• Around 5.4 million deaths a year are caused by tobacco.
* Smoking is set to kill 6.5 million people in 2015 and 8.3 million humans in 2030, with the biggest rise in low-and middle-income countries.
* Every 6.5 seconds a current or former smoker dies, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
• Over 438,000 Americans (18.1 percent of all deaths) die because of smoking each year. Secondhand smoke kills about 50,000 of them.
• 1.2 million people in China die because of smoking each year. That's 2,000 people a day.
• Tobacco use will kill 1 billion people in the 21st century if current smoking trends continue.
• Around 100 million people died because of tobacco use in the 20th century.
• 650,000 Europeans die each year from tobacco-related diseases, EU figures reveal.
• In India, about 900,000 Indians a year die from smoking-related diseases, that's nearly one in 10 of all deaths in India. Half of Indian males use tobacco and it is becoming more popular with younger people.
• In Russia, smoking kills between 400,000 and 500,000 Russians every year from smoking ailments.
• In Japan, smoking is the leading cause of death and is responsible for 20% of all cancers. 50 percent of men and 14 percent of women smoke.
• About 140,000 Germans die every year from tobacco-related illnesses. Nearly one in three German adults smokes regularly. Some studies estimate that 3,000-4,000 deaths per year can be attributed to passive smoking.
• In Turkey, around 110,000 people each year die of smoking-related illnesses, according to official figures.
• In France, there are about 66,000 smoking-related deaths each year and up to 5,800 deaths from passive smoking, inhaling the smoke of smokers. About 12 million people are smokers, 25 percent of the population.
• Mexico has around 65,000 cigarette-related deaths a year. The country has 105 million people.
• In Spain, there are 50,000 smoking-related deaths annually. About 30 percent of Spaniards smoke.

I see what you're getting at Cara and there is of course more than enough warnings now on cigarettes that people know firsthand the dangers before they even take up the habit. Once upon a time it was not like that!

BUT, in saying this. Here is what I have a big problem with. It's what is added to the cigarettes (the typical ones) that really gets me. The chemicals/metals/additives are dreadful. You only have to read through a list of what goes into them, that in the end you feel like you're sucking on the end of a mini exhaust pipe. Even though I overdid it by smoking a load of them at one evening, why many months later was I still suffering from it! It still shows how poisonous they are, even though I overdid it. Even one cigarette can make me sick.

What we get is a much perverted/degraded version. Perhaps if all that they sold was the real mcoy without the tampering and contaminants, that would be the better way! If they must sell cigarettes, why not sell the much healther alternatives? yes they are more expensive, but hey that too has its advantages. It may force people to limit their intake or seek help for their addiction.

There is also plenty of help out there for those who are addicted, much more information now than they ever had and much more help for that. Those that want to pay extra for the healthier cigarettes, that's up to them. It may also force them to space them out more (another benefit).

Sugar is also bad for people (I'm not talking about natural foods like fruit/honey etc). PEople can become addicted to this also. And there are many health implications involved with high sugar intake. I wish this too would be removed or limited from our food supply because there are PLENTY of healthy alternatives to this. Dark chocolate contains far less sugar and contains many other benefits. Carob, etc etc. I wish junkfoods would be removed, but that'll never happen of course.

That maybe going I know. But I'm just making a point that no there is no way we can ban all of these things that are damaging to our health, it would be wonderful but obviously highly expensive and unrealistic. What a pity the cheaper stuff is also the stuff that hurts. Some people become easily addicted to these things, I've been addicted to sugar, my Mother was addicted to cigarettes, and I know plenty who are.

It's not rare, many people who smoke have big issues giving up and often return to the habit. I can name enough in my own family, let alone how many others out there have the same. I'd imagine if I had not suffered immediate and long term effects from the one off cigarette/s that I would possibly have become addicted also over time. You don't intend to smoke all day, you just want to enjoy it sometimes, but unfortuantely with what they add to them, it's designed to hook you!

And as for alcohol? This is worse. The damage that this has caused in my country alone is so bad, it's beyond belief and that's with the youth alone, not counting the rest. I've seen what it's done to people. I know three people who have had big issues with it. Two became alcoholics and one became beligerant and nasty (effects on liver/brain?). Think of all the damage it's done through drunken behaviours in cars (killing other innocents on the road), family abuse, etc etc. You don't see cigarettes causing somebody to forget who they went home with and where they are when they wake up. Or going home in and beating up their wife or kids through "drunkeness". Or causing accidents on the road with impaired vision/thought.

But banning alcohol would be like opening the flood gates. In my country they lowered the drinking age, because they took the "cop out" idea that they might as well because "they're going to do it anyway". Well, it's now become even worse than what it was. Their cop out excuses didn't work and now they're having to try and pick up the pieces and set up programmes for the worse problems they're having with drunken youths.

<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/looney.gif" alt="" />gee I wonder why things got worse instead of better..

Hey, Sunshine, 20 per cent of your fellow students chose not to smoke. And I choose not to consume alcohol (maybe once a year at a wedding where you have to toast the bride). I am just hoping you will apply the same principles to banning of alcohol as you do toward tobacco.

I am impressed with your statistics. I would like to point out, though, that had tobacco been banned, that would not translate into all those people dying a natural death of plain old age (no pathology - just the end of life as originally designated by our Creator). There are millions of people languishing in homes and hospitals in horrid shape with neither smoke nor drink. There are too many things that can go wrong, no matter how clean you try to live. How about tracking down those 20% of your mates who never took up smoking?

People have physical/emotional cravings that will NOT go away by the banning of drugs, alcohol & tobacco - that is my point. It is understandable that you, having suffered so much, would want to re-tool the world so that others would not suffer in the precise way you did. But they will find something to soothe themselves. I would suggest it might be worse than tobacco.

Thanks for taking the trouble to reply to my viewpoint. It is appreciated to not be ignored, even in the negation of one's opinions.

This thread is about cigarettes. Bunching a load of other mega problems together and saying…”There look….its just too difficult to sort out…too many problems, so we just gotta live with it.” ….. That’s not the right way to think about problems! Problems are there for solving; adding other problems on top of problems just makes it even more difficult and complicated. (Which is why I didn’t discuss alcohol in my previous post.)

At some point we (as a people) need to take responsibility for our actions. Smoking cigarettes is almost guaranteed to damage a person’s health. Sorry to quote lots of statistics in the previous post, but I was trying to show the seriousness of the problem. Its not small, millions of people are effected worldwide every single day. Every single person in the western world will know close friends affected by tobacco.

I’m not suggesting banned cigarettes overnight…which would obviously cause gigantic upheaval in those countries. There would be rioting in the streets. I’m talking about having a plan of action to stop kids starting smoking and phasing it out. Stop companies from selling and making millions and millions and well billions of dollars by marketing & selling death.

I’m not suggesting it’s easy…its not…..but at some point enough people will sit up and say “No, this is wrong. We as a nation should protect life, not allow death.” When will the “people” collectively sit up and ask this question, in enough numbers, to have an effect, to make a difference? I have no idea…but I know I am asking those questions now. I don’t think there is much I can do, but sticking my head in the sand and saying its not a problem for ME, and “I” want my rights to do whatever “I” want…..i believe is short sighted and morally wrong in today’s world.

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world; indeed it’s the only thing that ever had.” Margaret Mead

“All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third it is accepted as being self-evident.” Arthur Schopenhauer.

I really like that last quote. I guess smoking is at the second stage right now…..its up to us to accept the self-evident truth that smoking kill millions of people needlessly, simply so that a few share holders make some money. How do we protect the people unfortunately enough be to hooked? To my mind…..it can’t be that difficult to it figure out.

– <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />ditto Carla…It’s good to talk…………………even if we don’t see eye to eye.

Took me a while to get what you mean about tracking down my 20pct mates that did not smoke….i thought about it & i get I now……how happy are they now? is there health screwed anyway? Or are they healthy……interesting thought.

Nice post, Bex.

Well, blow me….i don't read the paper much these days, but i saw this was on the FRONT PAGE of The Times this morning!

Maybe people are starting to listen….something does seem to be happening? I wonder if this will actually happen one day?

March 24, 2008
Cigarettes to be sold under shop counters

Francis Elliott, Deputy Political Editor
Cigarettes are to be forced beneath shop counters with supermarkets and cornershops banned from displaying tobacco products, The Times has learnt .
The latest assault on smokers will also see the disappearance of vending machines from pubs and restaurants in an attempt to further limit children’s access to tobacco.
Both measures are to be included in a consultation to be launched later this spring. Legislation, if needed, could be introduced this autumn.
Dawn Primarolo, the Minister for Public Health, last night signalled she was ready to take on retailers to implement changes that she claimed would save hundreds of lives. “It’s vital we get across the message to children that smoking is bad. If that means stripping out vending machines or removing cigarettes from behind the counter, I’m willing to do that,” she said.
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“Children who smoke are putting their lives at risk and are more likely to die of cancer than people who start smoking later.”
When the ban on displaying tobacco products is implemented England will join just a handful of others to have taken the step. Ontario, Canada, has passed legislation forcing cigarettes under the counter which comes into effect this May. Two administrations in Australia - Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory - are also taking steps to keep tobacco out of sight.
The consultation process, due to begin in late May, will set out the range of options under consideration. Ministers are obliged to detail how much the measures are likely to cost businesses and will be expected to show what benefits banning cigarette displays and vending machines will bring. Interest groups will have one to three months to register objections.
The consultation is also expected to include measures that make it easier to sell nicotine replacement gums and patches.
The most recently available statistics show that 22 per cent of adults smoke, a 2 per cent drop since before the smoking ban was introduced last July. The Government has set a target of reducing the figure to 21 per cent by 2010.
Retailers made clear last night that removing cigarettes from sight could carry heavy costs, forcing many convenience stores to carry out refits costing thousands of pounds.
The Association of Convenience Stores said it would challenge the Government to prove that removing cigarettes from display would have any effect. The body’s chief executive, James Lowman, said that the change would carry “major operational and equipment costs”. “We would expect the Government to present a clear case that these measures were necessary before placing yet another significant burden on thousands of retailers across the country,” he said.
A spokesman for the British Retail Consortium said that, while tobacco represented a “very small” part of overall sales in a typical supermarket, banning all tobacco products from sight could be impractical. “Any further regulations should be balanced against the practical implications for serving customers who want to buy these products.”
Action on the display of tobacco products at the point of sale was first raised in a draft copy of the Cancer Reform Strategy last December.
Ministers have grown increasingly bullish over antismoking measures since tobacco advertising was banned in the press and on billboards in February 2003. The successful introduction of the smoking ban last July was followed by the increase of the minimum age of sale from 16 to 18 which came into force last October. From this autumn new explicit picture warnings on tobacco products will be required in addition to written cautions.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article3607714.ece

Please understand that I am not pushing heavy smoking, or even any smoking.

If all those well-meaning, and not so well-meaning, activists would put the same effort into promoting the regular eating of whole, healthful, individually-appropriate, homecooked food, tobacco or lack thereof would not be an issue at all.

You can stop smoking, yet keep eating fast foods (in your home), heavily processed non-foods and fast foods outside the home. And I am saying that probably this description fits most folks who have somehow managed to stop smoking. But because of the poor diet (and probably a whole range of drugs of all kinds) your health will continue to break down. Thirty years later, you "get" cancer and say, oh, that's because it takes lung cancer 30 years to incubate and manifest. What a load of hogwash.

If along with smoking cessation you clean up the rest of your life also, then you can act shocked if decades later cancer of the lung shows up. To stop smoking alone means virtually nothing, except your clothes and home won't smell bad. But if you place other forms of junk into your body, don't expect good results.

All the exsmokers I know eat poorly. There's more to health than just foregoing tobacco.

That's true Carla, but at least the warning about cigarettes is doing "something". So it's better than nothing. It's far from the source of all our woes, but it's a pretty potent concoction of chemicals.

It'll never be ideal and people have to take responsibility for themselves too. It would be nice if junkfoods had warning labels on them like cigarettes <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> That'll probably never happen. Too much temptation too, even with all the promotions of healthier eating now, the promotion of take aways and junkfood seems just as strong. Also, sedentary lifestyles as well. Once upon a time people people moved much more. I think that is also part of it. The whole deal.

It's not part of our lifestyle. Exercise now seems like something you "should" do, rather than something that we do automatically.

Not to mention the high mercury content in cigarettes ... Lot of us were mercury poisoned by our mercury fillings but also by smoking our mercury-filled cigarettes.

This would make sense. Both times I smoked cigarettes, I wound up with metal toxic symptoms from then on. Didn't know if it was mercury or lead or what (goodness knows) as well as all the other chemicals, but it's remained in my system ever since and this was many months ago now that I smoked them.

I'm on ALA right now and hoping it might help to get rid of any metals that "might" be there. DMSA doesn't seem to do much for me right now, I gather that's because it's more effective at chelating blood and tissue levels, rather than brain and organs....either that or the poisons are not as much related to mercury and maybe related to the other undesirables.

I smoked roll-ups for 14 years but gave up 2 years ago because of the pains I was getting in my chest from them. Horrible things. Cannabis is illegal and it's an herb with good healthy uses. Why?

People can smoke tobacco and get on with their jobs no problem. Cannabis, people would not be able to get on with their jobs, the economy would suffer hence illegal!

Ha...never thought of it like that....nice!

I admit, even I had the same thought... ain't that the truth.

Cannibis and tobacco have completely opposite effects. They are the same only in that they are ingested thru smoking, rather than taking as a pill or a tea.

Tobacco firms up your mind, helps you concentrate (so long as you have not had too much at once). It assists some people in their creativity.

Marijuana just makes you stupid. You laugh like crazy, get a little paranoid, then terribly hungry and you raid the fridge. Then that's it. Totally useless.