Smoking stuff
So, there’s an electronic cigarette that supposedly delivers nicotine and flavor without tobacco and its combustion byproducts. It is said that it eliminates virtually all of the health hazards associated with smoking. So, of course, there is a group of anti-smoking extremists who want it banned. I guess because it could save some smokers’ lives or something. Someone somewhere is always upset that someone somewhere else might be enjoying themselves.
In other news, we’ve all heard the justification that smoking should be banned because it costs so much in healthcare costs. Turns out, every pack of cigarettes smoked saves the country $0.32. After all, smokers die earlier than non-smokers so we don’t have to take care of them in their adult diaper wearing years.
Man, I miss the warm weather or tonight I’d having a Rocky Patel 1999.
April 8th, 2009 at 9:05 am
You gotta be shitting me! They want to ban these? They should be calling for them to be mandatory! The fascists! We all have things we don’t like and don’t understand why people would want to participate in that activity. For me, that activity is poker, but I don’t want to ban it! I wonder when they’ll come out with an “E-Joint”, if you know what I mean.
April 8th, 2009 at 9:51 am
Aside from saving medical costs by dying sooner, smokers are paying for their own childrens’ health care via taxes. It’s been shown that poor people smoke much more than people who make good money. Poor people also are more likely to have their kids on CHIP medical programs. So the extra dollar they are now paying in taxes is (ostensibly) going to their own kids’ health care!
Win!
April 8th, 2009 at 11:58 am
I generally consider myself an anti-smoking extremist—or so I’ve been told that I am, because I don’t think smoking should be allowed in any enclosed places open to the public—but hell, anyone who opposes these things is fucking moron.
April 8th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
The .gov and the public health crazies will never stop lying to people about smoking and tobacco.
They just started selling snus in the US. It still has to have the scary warning label, despite the fact that snus has never been shown to lead to increased risks of cancer.
April 8th, 2009 at 3:33 pm
Idiots. That’s all I’ve got to say about them.
I saw adds for this thing the last time I stopped at a truck stop, and thought about getting one for my dad because he’s a fairly heavy smoker (he’s even bought his own cigarette stuffing machine so he can roll his own in order to save money). Only thing that stopped me is that I don’t know how well these work, and I’m not sure my dad actually wants to quit.
April 8th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
NOT news. Smokers have been carrying way more than their share for a long time now. and they die sooner leaving more of their retirement funds uncollected, use less medical care because they don’t usually get into the 80’s and 90’s, and get about 27 cents of product for every $6.00 to $7.00 they spend on their habit.
NOT NEWS.
April 9th, 2009 at 1:56 am
When I was in nursing school, I took care of tracheotomy patients who would smoke through the trach tube. Suctioning grotty trachs is low on my list of fond recollections of those days. Hard-core smokers, indeed. This was also in a big hospital whose primary focus was respiratory, and it was before smoking was banned in such places.
On a lighter note, my late ex-mother-in-law died straining on the commode chair while smoking after being discharged from the hospital for COPD. She’d been on and off a ventilator for a couple of months, and she was 46 when she pulled an Elvis.
As a strict non-smoker myself, I have no objections to people who want to smoke. I do, however, question the .gov when they crank the taxes on the product and subsidize tobacco farmers, all the time mouthing threats about regulating a hitherto legal product at the Federal level.
…pisses me off that chewing tobacco prices just jumped from $3.99 to 4.86 because of the tax increase last week, too.
Regards,
Rabbit.
April 9th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
Good point straightarrow, the artical isn’t clear on if this includes the money saved in reduced Social Security payouts other than medical. Possibly the figure is even bigger.