Death by Second Hand Smoke

I have not really thought much about this topic in a long time. The area that I live in has enacted laws prohibiting smoking in public places like restaurants and offices. So I was surprised when I read an Associated Press article that began by saying:

Secondhand smoke kills more than 600,000 people worldwide every year, according to a new study.

In the first look at the global impact of secondhand smoking, researchers analyzed data from 2004 for 192 countries. They found 40 percent of children and more than 30 percent of non-smoking men and women regularly breathe in secondhand smoke.

Scientists then estimated that passive smoking causes about 379,000 deaths from heart disease, 165,000 deaths from lower respiratory disease, 36,900 deaths from asthma and 21,400 deaths from lung cancer a year. Altogether, those account for about 1 percent of the world's deaths.

I am not sure how you reacted to this but I am pretty appalled when I think about the impact on helpless children - the image above turns my stomach. My thinking, that kids are exposed to it in their homes, is somewhat substantiated by this part of the article:

Children whose parents smoke have a higher risk of sudden infant death syndrome, ear infections, pneumonia, bronchitis and asthma. Their lungs may also grow more slowly than kids whose parents don't smoke.

Peruga and colleagues found the highest numbers of people exposed to secondhand smoke are in Europe and Asia. The lowest rates of exposure were in the Americas, the Eastern Mediterranean and Africa.

Hard to know what can be done except possibly educate parents and law makers about the ill effects of second hand smoke on children and other non-smokers. I think that education has been the force that helped create bans on smoking in public places in our area.

What do you think? Are their such laws where you live? Do you think there should be?

Global Tobacco Epidemic

According to a Yahoo/Reuters article titled Most of world exposed to deadly tobacco smoke "More than 94 percent of the world's people are not protected by laws against smoking, leaving them exposed to the biggest cause of preventable death".. here are a few excerpts from the article:

In a Global Tobacco Epidemic report the WHO said smoke-free policies were crucial to reducing the harm caused by second-hand smoke, which it said kills around 600,000 people prematurely each year and causes crippling, disfiguring illness and economic losses reaching tens of billions of dollars.
...
Scientific evidence has unequivocally established that exposure to tobacco smoke causes death, disease and disability. Over the past four decades, smoking rates have fallen in rich places such as the United States, Japan and western Europe, but they are rising in much of the developing world.
...
Tobacco is the leading preventable cause of death in the world, killing more than 5 million people a year. A report by the World Lung Foundation in August said smoking could kill a billion people this century if trends hold.

Last week I reviewed Thank You for Smoking.. that movie got me to thinking about the corruption and influence that the Tobacco Industry has had in our world. This morning I googled "famous cigarette smokers" and was surprised at the folks on the list. It seems that we have made some progress in this area but maybe not as much as I thought.

Why do you think people still smoke? Do you smoke or have you ever smoked? If you have quit please share with us why you did. And do find that ashtray image above to present conflicting messages?

Thank You for Smoking | ★★★★★★★

Sometimes a Netflix recommendation really surprises you. Such is the case of this pretty funny 2005 movie satire about the Lobbying and Tobacco Industries. To give you a flavor of what you can expect let me share this dialog that big tobacco lobbyist Nick Naylor has with Hollywood celebrity agent Jeff Megall:

Jeff: Sony has a futuristic sci-fi movie they're looking to make.
Nick: Cigarettes in space?
Jeff: It's the final frontier, Nick.
Nick: But wouldn't they blow up in an all oxygen environment?
Jeff: Probably. But it's an easy fix. One line of dialogue. 'Thank God we invented the... you know, whatever device.'

I think this interchange with Nick's son Joey says it all:

Joey: ...so what happens when you're wrong?
Nick: Whoa, Joey I'm never wrong.
Joey: But you can't always be right...
Nick: Well, if it's your job to be right, then you're never wrong.
Joey: But what if you are wrong?
Nick: OK, let's say that you're defending chocolate, and I'm defending vanilla. Now if I were to say to you: 'Vanilla is the best flavour ice-cream', you'd say...
Joey: No, chocolate is.
Nick: Exactly, but you can't win that argument... so, I'll ask you: so you think chocolate is the end all and the all of ice-cream, do you?
Joey: It's the best ice-cream, I wouldn't order any other.
Nick: Oh! So it's all chocolate for you is it?
Joey: Yes, chocolate is all I need.
Nick: Well, I need more than chocolate, and for that matter I need more than vanilla. I believe that we need freedom. And choice when it comes to our ice-cream, and that Joey Naylor, that is the defintion of liberty.
Joey: But that's not what we're talking about
Nick: Ah! But that's what I'm talking about.
Joey: ...but you didn't prove that vanilla was the best...
Nick: I didn't have to. I proved that you're wrong, and if you're wrong I'm right.
Joey: But you still didn't convince me
Nick: It's that I'm not after you. I'm after them.

If you like smart and funny you might like this movie. Aaron Eckhart was simply brilliant as the amoral lobbyist.. his character's interchanges with his son were confounding and revealing.. in a very smart and satirical way. The movie is R-rated, has a few risque scenes and a few F-bombs - so watcher beware.

On a scale of 10 I give this movie ★★★★★★★

E-Cigarettes: Bad for Your Health

File this under "Now I have heard everything"!

Sin Taxes

In today's edition of the Kansas City Star I read this comment about the increase in taxes on cigarettes to cover uninsured children:

“We don’t understand how cigarettes should be paying for children’s health care,” said Rhonda Bowles, manager of the Tobacco House, a smoke shop in North Kansas City.

“Here we thought we had a smoker in the White House, someone on our side,” Bowles said, referring to President Barack Obama’s history of cigarette smoking.

This got me to thinking about how government often excessively taxes items like liquor and cigarettes but does not tax other "sins" like gambling (anyone buy a Lotto ticket lately?), gluttony (yes, some do want to tax junk food) and greed (how would they tax that?).

Do you think that it is right to tax cigarettes because of the burden that smoking puts on our health care costs? If so do you also support other sin taxes? One could argue that the cost of gambling on society is a large and provable one.. and there seems to be a somewhat direct correlation between junk food and bad health. Should things be taxed higher for the good of the nation?

I think that this kind of taxation is a slippery slope. While I do not smoke, and I see the rationale in elevated taxes on smokers, I have to admit that I see a bit of hypocrisy in these kind of taxes. If our government believes what the Surgeon General says about smoking then why not just shut down the tobacco industry. If they cannot then let the free market determine the fate of that industry by increasing health insurance premiums and medical costs for people who smoke.

Gotta wonder.. using this rationale.. what will they tax next? Potato chips? Pork rinds? Soft drinks? Bacon (oh no, not that!)?

I mean really, why does the government have to 'fix' this with taxes?

KC Bans Smoking

"Smoking kills. If you're killed, you've lost a very important part of your life." -Brooke Shields



Apparently Kansas City (my home town) took Brooke's words seriously and, as of today, smoking is officially banned in restaurants, taverns and tobacco stores. Until today, smoking had been allowed in Kansas City’s bars and taverns at all hours, and in restaurants with liquor licenses after 9 p.m. Some think that the law is unfair because smoking is still permitted on the gaming floors of Kansas City’s two casinos.

I am all for the ban. It is nice to be able to dine out and not have to be concerned about where your table is located. On the flipside it does concern me that smokers are becoming outcasts in our city. Maybe these folks need to take some encouragement from Mark Twain who said:

"Giving up smoking is easy...I've done it hundreds of times."

What do you think about these kind of laws? Does your city have any limits on where people can smoke?

Smoker Rebellion

There's a revolt going on in Hawaii as some bar owners openly defy the state's new anti-smoking law by letting their customers light up. Hawaii is one of 16 states that have banned smoking in all public places. I wonder if businesses in other states will follow their Hawaiian counterparts.

Congressional Smokeout

Pelosi Bans Smoking Near House Floor
By Erica Werner
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Smokers may be one minority in Congress with even fewer rights than newly demoted Republicans. Now they are losing one of their last, cherished prerogatives - a smoke break in the ornate Speaker's Lobby just off the House floor.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., announced a ban Wednesday, effective immediately.

"The days of smoke-filled rooms in the United States Capitol are over," Pelosi said. "Medical science has unquestionably established the dangerous effects of secondhand smoke, including an increased risk of cancer and respiratory diseases. I am a firm believer that Congress should lead by example." Read more here.

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I have never smoked and don't like to be in a smoke-filled room but was surprised to hear this news. Mainly because I thought that smoking was banned long ago. Any opinions on this one?