Smokers unite before it is too late.

[andrewb]

You won't win the argument by trying to ban cars, if you want to ban everything that causes pollution and our bad health, then you'll end up banning everything in existance

[jambutty]

I’m not trying to win an argument Cyfr because even the thickest of people will realise that banning cars is never likely to happen.

What I am trying to do is to get those people who use motorised vehicles to accept and acknowledge that vehicle exhaust fumes kill and maim far more people than tobacco ever did. But they won’t because if they do and they still pontificate about smokers and passive smoking they will also have to acknowledge that they are hypocrites of the first order and their anti smoking campaign is nothing more than foisting their views on other people.

[Gayle]

Found this website and this report

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medi...p?newsid=12481

The air pollution emitted by cigarettes is 10 times greater than diesel car exhaust, suggests a controlled experiment, reported in Tobacco Control.

Environmental tobacco smoke produces fine particulate matter, which is the most dangerous element of air pollution for health. Levels indoors can far exceed those outdoors, because new engine models and lead free fuels have cut the levels of particulate matter emissions from car exhausts, say the authors.

The controlled experiment was carried out in a private garage in a small mountain town in northern Italy. The town enjoys very low levels of particulate matter air pollution

A turbo diesel 2 litre engine was started and left idling for 30 minutes in the garage, with the doors closed, after which the doors were left open for four hours. The car was fuelled with low sulphur fuel.

Three filter cigarettes were then lit up sequentially, and left smouldering for a further 30 minutes. The nicotine and tar content of each cigarette was 1 mg and 11.2 mg, respectively.

A portable analyser took readings every two minutes during the experiments.

Combined particulate levels in the first hour after the engine had been started measured 88 ug/m3. Those recorded in the first hour after the cigarettes had been lit measured 830 ug/m3: 10 times greater.

The diesel engine exhaust doubled the particulate matter levels found outdoors at its peak; the environmental tobacco smoke particulate matter reached levels 15 times those measured outdoors.

[SPUGGIE J]

Ok fair point, but, what over a 24 hour period pollutes more smokers or vehicles?

[accymel]

Oh deary me the anti smoking interferring know it alls bit again yeh i heard whilst discussing this with a mate whilst smoking outside in the wind & rain now even that pleasure is being taken away.

As Pendy says its unworkable & quite cant see how enforceable it is, like dont we have enough real criminals cramming the prison system - perverts & violent sods being let out early or given rubbish sentences - yet be a smoker its now on par to that!!! How will it be policed? Think about it what main part of society smoke in sociology terms - usually mainly poor, people work in stressful jobs etc etc no specific but mention poorer less well off because in case of on the spot fines say £50 or £100 - those would be the most effected paying those fines cos they wont be able to - so then what prison term for a fag??? then does this stretch to prisoners whom majority smoke or deal with fags as form of currency in there, so riots in jails. They do bog all with harder drugs & booze which cost the NHS per week. It will drive the fag market underground before long being a smoker will be worse than a herion addict.

As Jambutty rightfully says you cant just label smoking as cause of cancer!! Ive known smokers to have lived a long fruitful life & non smokers even passively be cut short & have cancer - sorry but it simply cant be blamed on smoking alone which its implying. They simply do not know what single handley causes it 100% but seems process of ellimation but bet cancer would still exist!! Even the bloody sunshine can cause cancer [skin] so whats next ban the bloody sun, so whats causing the ozone layer to thin ermmmmm not smoking but pollution where from factories, cars, areosols, nuclear war you name it & its not just coming from our Country but we'd be effected even still!!

This country is going way too far ooooh get the taxes from the tobacco & get the fines from them again for smoking what they have been taxed on Sooo if every smoker gave up who would be next for the tax & fine cull to keep the country going????

....Internet users which you all here are the EU want to put taxation on every email & SMS!!! Next it will be every breath you take!!! Flipping ludicrous!!!

[jambutty]

Although the toxicity of the pollutant must be taken into account, so must the volume.

You don’t need a degree to figure out that 20 cigarettes produce far less volume than one vehicle ticking over for one hour. Lets be really generous and suggest that one fag will produce 10 litres of smoke, that is 200 litres for a packet of 20. Even if one fag were smoked after another it would still take at least 100 minutes to smoke the lot. Lets be generous again and say one hour. In reality it would be one day.

Let’s keep this simple and take a 1 litre car as an example. By definition a 1 litre car will expel 1 litre of gasses for each engine revolution. On tickover the engine revs will be around 800 rpm. That is 800 x 1 litre of gasses every minute. During an hour that will be 48,000 litres of noxious fumes. But cars don’t sit around ticking over, they bomb around at, at the very least some 4,000 rpm or more and there are millions on the move at any one time. Granted there are millions of smokers still but on average each one will only smoke 20 fags in a day.

So smoking will produce 200 litres of smoke in one hour whereas a car at the absolute minimum usage will produce 48,000 litres of exhaust fumes in the same hour. It’s not rocket science.

Someone please remind me again which is the greater polluter?

[shakermaker]

Jambutty; you're making me out to be a hypocrite without reason!
I do not drive - & yes I am for everybody using public transport but I realise it is not feesable for everyone to go and dump their car down at the scrap yard. I do get irate about idiots driving 4x4's without a care in the world about the crap they are guzzling out into the air.
I am merely trying to get the smokers to own up to the fact that smoking is an unnecessary irritant which emits that deadly stench & more importantly is as dangerous to non-smokers as it is to the ones who have paid £4/£5 for a pack of 20.
You cannot compare smoking to car use - car use in this day and age is necessary to inner city commuters especially around the big cities of Manchester & Liverpool.
Smoking is the biggest cause of unnecessary death every year - it's a fact.
How would you feel if a bed on the NHS was unavailable to a non-smoker when an idiot with a disease directly caused by smoking was taking up the space? Well it happens - everyday - unnecessarily.

[andrewb]

Originally Posted by shakermaker

How would you feel if a bed on the NHS was unavailable to a non-smoker when an idiot with a disease directly caused by smoking was taking up the space? Well it happens - everyday - unnecessarily.

I really don't think you can involve that in your otherwise quite sensible argument, if we were to do that with everything thats optional, we could say we won't treat fat people because it's their fault they eat, we won't treat people who have overworked themselves, it's their own fault, we won't treat people who get drunk, we won't treat people who have aids because they shouldn't be injecting themselves or sleeping around..

Not everythings so black and white.

Of course, I don't agree with your argument as a whole, i believe that people should not be controled by the government like that, smoking outdoors should be fine.

[garinda]

Originally Posted by shakermaker

How would you feel if a bed on the NHS was unavailable to a non-smoker when an idiot with a disease directly caused by smoking was taking up the space? Well it happens - everyday - unnecessarily.

Where do you draw the line if you go down that track?

Refuse treatment to women who have been made infertile through contracting a sexually tramsmitted disease when they could have used barrier protection?

Refuse to help drivers involved in car crashes who were going over the speed limit?

Not operating on people who develop skin cancers if they didn't always wear protection from the sun, including hats?

As people have said earlier the cost in financial terms to the NHS is more than made up for in taxes raised from cigarettes.

Like Pendy said if they really cared more about the health of the nation rather than money, they would ban tobacco altogether.

[steeljack]

How come we never heard about asthma in kids caused by smoke pollution during the 40s and 50s when 95% of the homes in the north were heated by open coalfires and lit by gas mantles .

[shakermaker]

Originally Posted by steeljack

How come we never heard about asthma in kids caused by smoke pollution during the 40s and 50s when 95% of the homes in the north were heated by open coalfires and lit by gas mantles

Oh yes it was much better in the good old days when people just died.

[DeShark]

I'm a fairly liberal type of guy, so naturally am in favour of allowing each to his own. But I do think that the smokers of this thread are being irrational. number 1. "Let's ban cars then too! Cars make smoke. Drivers are worse!" Nice point I'm sure and not one that I'm going to pretend doesn't exist. But seriously... cars serve a purpose. Smoking doesn't really. As for the point about Smoking not causing cancer... what? I just don't get it. How you can seriously smoke one of those things and believe that it's not doing you any physical harm is beyond me. "But being fat is worse!"

I also don't understand the people who can't comprehend how smoking could be made illegal. "But rapists are worse!" Of course they are. But is doing dope worse than smoking tobacco? Both can cause cancer when smoked. Both cause psychological changes. Why not classify tobacco as a class C drug?

To say that it impinges on your civil liberty is a fair point but I don't hear you complaining about having to wear a seatbelt, about having to clean up after your dog, about it being illegal to inject heroin into your veins. There are certain liberties which must be removed in order to protect the rest of humanity. This is one of them. I'm personally not against you smoking as you walk down the street, but I have to say that sometimes, particularly on still days, smokers at bus-stops can really annoy me. Why should I have my right to clean air impinged upon by an inconsiderate arrogant and completely self-centred smoker.

I'm not saying that all smokers and like that, far from it! There are quite a few people who will stand away from the crowd in order to enjoy a smoke. And I'm very thankful to them as well. Policemen smoke too. I'm sure that if smoking does become illegal in public places that they won't mind if you're having a smoke at a deserted bus stop. They aren't all unreasonable bafoons.w

[Bazf]

Tobacco kills more people than AIDS, legal and illegal drugs, road accidents, murder and suicide combined. Currently around 5 million people worldwide die each year from tobacco-related causes. In comparison HIV/AIDS is responsible for 3 million deaths per year.

By 2030, tobacco is expected to be the single biggest cause of death worldwide, with an estimated 10 million people world wide dying of tobacco related causes. Around 3 million of these will occur in the developed world and 7 million in developing countries.

Since the 1950s, more than 70,000 scientific articles have shown that prolonged smoking causes premature death and disability worldwide. Overall, one in two smokers will die prematurely, with one quarter dying in middle age, losing 20-25 years of life.

Breathing in other people’s tobacco smoke (secondhand, passive or involuntary smoking) is known to cause a range of disorders from minor eye and throat irritation through to heart disease and lung cancer.

Of course these are just words they don't effect every day people, One thing ever smoker should do is watch someone die from cancer and see if the reaction is ban cars. For those who smoke and have kids just take a second and see what effect it is having on them, passive smoking in the home and car are where the kids suffer most.
Children are particularly vulnerable to the effects of secondhand smoke and exposure increases the risk of cot death, glue ear, asthma and other respiratory disorders.

[jambutty]

Anyone who uses a vehicle or buys goods from shops that were supplied by a vehicle is a hypocrite if they complain about smokers’ pollution shakermaker. So my accusation is not without reason. In fact it is rock solid valid.

If you get so uptight about 4x4’s then you should be really angry with all other vehicles. The modern 4x4, and most are, do not pollute as much as most other vehicles. What about that huge lorry that brings your food to the supermarkets or cash and carry’s? Did your guitar walk to the shop where I presume you bought it or someone bought it for you? Of course you could have nicked it but even then the instrument would have to be transported from where it was made to you. One way or another we all contribute to pollution but the smoker is a soft target.

People who are addicted to smoking find it a necessity and it is not your place to tell a smoker that it isn’t necessary that s/he should smoke. Sorry I forgot your holier than thou attitude takes precedence.

You are merely attacking the smoker and trying to justify your use, in one way or another, of vehicles. And then you have the audacity to claim that cars are necessary so it’s OK to pollute.

People glibly quote figures of alleged smoking related deaths and I would agree if those people didn’t breathe the air around them. But they do, so any death that is claimed to have been caused by tobacco smoke can only be a probable cause. Just because a guy is dying from lung cancer and smoked 20 a day it doesn’t automatically follow that it was the tobacco. What if he was a mechanic in a bus depot or a long distance lorry driver who spent many hours each day amongst traffic? How can anyone say with any degree of certainty that it was tobacco that caused the cancer or for that matter the vehicle fumes that he breathed in day in day out all his working life. They can’t!

I can and do compare car use with smoking because both pollute the air that we all breathe and one vehicle will create umpteen times more pollution in one day than one person smoking 20 fags in one day. Most of the anti-smoking brigade are just jumping on a bandwagon.

The incidence of asthma in the young has been increasing year by year but at the same time smoking has been decreasing and the number of vehicles on our roads has nearly doubled. Now there’s a probable cause.

Beds are always available in the NHS to those who need them. The hospitals do not differentiate as to the reason why someone needs admission. The only criterion is whether they are ill enough to need a bed. You are spouting statistics that exist only in your imagination.

Asthma and other lung diseases were rife in the days of SMOG steeljack. Hundreds of thousands died from SMOG. And what contributed to the SMOG as well as coal fires? Why the early and highly inefficient cars, buses and factories. SMOG was one of the reasons why domestic coal fires were phased out after going through the smokeless fuel phase.

I lived through the 40’s and 50’s and I can tell you that a decent fire did not push smoke into the house. It all went up the chimney. Gas mantles burned the gas quite efficiently.

So you are another one DeShark – cars serve a purpose so it’s OK to pollute the atmosphere. A hypocritical statement if ever I heard one. But smoking does serve a purpose. It creates billions of pounds in taxes and on a personal note I enjoy a smoke.

No one ever stated that smoking is not harmful to the smoker. But then that’s what the anti-smoking brigade do – bring in totally irrelevant issues.

When the compulsory wearing of a seat belt was introduced there was a huge uproar but what has that got to do with the debate in question? Oh! Yes! Of course! Muddying the waters!
“Why should I have my right to clean air impinged upon by an inconsiderate arrogant and completely self-centred smoker.” I would agree with you except for one point. Just exactly where is this clean air that everyone is pontificating about? It’s polluted with vehicle exhaust fumes and not forgetting industrial atmospheric pollution.

[jambutty]

I’ve watched someone die from cancer Bazf and he came from a non smoking household but he did drive a lorry for a living. Now tell me again how tobacco caused his death.

Er! Which part of the lung does glue ear affect?

I have two grandchildren and one great grandchild who all suffer from asthma. None of their parents smoke or ever have done. But they did live on a very busy main road that reeks from exhaust fumes 24 hours a day.

Explain to me how it was tobacco that caused their asthma.

You are all trying to make tobacco a scapegoat when you know full well that the additional culprit is vehicle exhaust fumes but you won’t admit it. By doing so you would have to shoulder some of the responsibility and that would never do. Would it???