"Besides which, if we're working on banning one kind of smoking, what point is there in encouraging another?"
Yes! This always has me stumped too. I truly think that the main reason smoking is legal is complacency. Smoking was a global habit before the effects were truly known, by which point it may have been almost impossible to make illegal. But everybody knows that it is so very bad for your health (and the health of those around you).
Further, it *does* alter people's behaviour. Any addiction does. My mother has had various doctors tell her that quitting nicotine is harder than quitting other (supposedly more dangerous) drugs due to the way the addiction works in your brain. She began smoking as a social thing after smoking marijuana in her early twenties. She grew out of using marijuana (which, as I understand it, is very different now to then), but nicotine has been a lifelong companion and will, likely as not, kill her. I can see no rational reason why smoking should be legal at all, or why it is seen as "less bad" than other drugs.
This is a huge rant of mine. There is a lot of propaganda from the anti-smoking lobby. Whilst smoking is a FACTOR in many diseases, like heart disease and cancer, it is not the ONLY factor. And passive smoking has such small effects as to be considered negligible.
If you don't smoke, but drink lots of alcohol, eat fatty foods, and don't exercise, you will still be prone to heart disease and cancer.
Many of the diseases blamed on smoking are complex, multi-faceted diseases which require holistic (as in whole body) approaches to treatment.
As to the cancer thing, I have a massive rant about this which basically goes like this - if you have a genetic pre-disposition to cancer (cancer is a genetic disease, one of my final year specialities was cancer and oncogenes at the Beatson Institute in the Western Infirmary, Glasgow) then there is literally nothing you can do which will prevent you getting cancer. Nothing. That's the ugly truth no-one wants the public to face. The health campaigns, the anti-smoking, anti-drinking campaigns, are a panaceae to placate the masses, to obscure the real issue - that unless we spend a lot more money on cancer research, these things are like using a tyre repair kit on the Titanic - far too little, and far too late.
Yep, your age and the type of cancer you developed are a huge indicator of one of the first genetic markers for cancer to be discovered (BRC1 or 2). In the UK, if you have a history of certain types of cancer in your family, you are given genetic screening, and are offered preventative treatment.
The only 'cure' for cancer is a 'cure' for genetic disease as a whole. Everything else is a treatment.
Yes! This always has me stumped too. I truly think that the main reason smoking is legal is complacency. Smoking was a global habit before the effects were truly known, by which point it may have been almost impossible to make illegal. But everybody knows that it is so very bad for your health (and the health of those around you).
Further, it *does* alter people's behaviour. Any addiction does. My mother has had various doctors tell her that quitting nicotine is harder than quitting other (supposedly more dangerous) drugs due to the way the addiction works in your brain. She began smoking as a social thing after smoking marijuana in her early twenties. She grew out of using marijuana (which, as I understand it, is very different now to then), but nicotine has been a lifelong companion and will, likely as not, kill her. I can see no rational reason why smoking should be legal at all, or why it is seen as "less bad" than other drugs.
Reply
This is a huge rant of mine. There is a lot of propaganda from the anti-smoking lobby. Whilst smoking is a FACTOR in many diseases, like heart disease and cancer, it is not the ONLY factor. And passive smoking has such small effects as to be considered negligible.
If you don't smoke, but drink lots of alcohol, eat fatty foods, and don't exercise, you will still be prone to heart disease and cancer.
Many of the diseases blamed on smoking are complex, multi-faceted diseases which require holistic (as in whole body) approaches to treatment.
As to the cancer thing, I have a massive rant about this which basically goes like this - if you have a genetic pre-disposition to cancer (cancer is a genetic disease, one of my final year specialities was cancer and oncogenes at the Beatson Institute in the Western Infirmary, Glasgow) then there is literally nothing you can do which will prevent you getting cancer. Nothing. That's the ugly truth no-one wants the public to face. The health campaigns, the anti-smoking, anti-drinking campaigns, are a panaceae to placate the masses, to obscure the real issue - that unless we spend a lot more money on cancer research, these things are like using a tyre repair kit on the Titanic - far too little, and far too late.
Reply
(The comment has been removed)
The only 'cure' for cancer is a 'cure' for genetic disease as a whole. Everything else is a treatment.
Reply
Leave a comment