Nov 14 2007

Fears of a smoker

Category: Life Stories,Your Rights - Dwindlingerm @ 5:16 am

I’m really concerned about the future for smokers, and non-smokers. I’m concerned that people are going to loose their children over this.

Seriously how far are the non-smokers willing to go with this one? It’s clear the committed ones hate the smokers so much they are willing to say “let them die.” I’ve read several posts that say so.

We’ve all been in smoke filled restaurants, and I can’t come up with 1 drop dead on the spot second hand smoke story. Maybe you can, but I can’t.

I’m so freaking scared that my kids are going to be taken away from me. I’m scared that one day the law will be escalated to include not only restaurants, not just my car -with kids in in-. but my house with kids in it. I can tell they are already shooting for apartments. The non-smoking control freaks are more than happy to force you to roll up your window in your car, while the hypocrites are driving an SUV.

I’m scared that a loving mother & father will loose their children because some non-smoking fanatic takes away their kids because they smoked in their apartment/house because their poor little lungs just can’t handle it. I smoke out in the garage, is that “in the house?” If I go outside to smoke am I abandoning my children?

I have a couple of friends that have lived with smokers their entire life. They are fine, they don’t have asthma. One of them never had asthma, *until* they moved in with an asthmatic as were exposed to second hand inhalers.

In my eyes is we are giving up one lying cooperation – big tobacco – for another lying cooperation – big pharma, and insurance companies.

Big pharma is responsible for more deaths than big tobacco, all because of med errors. People are dying all the time from complications of taking their medicine.

A perfectly healthy person, can take a pill for one thing like their yellow toe nails, and end up with kidney failure, or a liver failure in end. Taking too many Tylenol results in liver failure. Yes it’s a med error as well. Might not be an intentional med error – ie suicide – either.

I would rather take my chances with a pack of smokes. I can at least smell if my kids are getting into them. You don’t have that luxury if your kids get into “daddy’s special gum” that they want so much. Which honestly I don’t see how you can tell me with a strait face that nicotine gum isn’t being marketed to children *it’s gum*. We don’t know the long term effects nicotine gum, or nicotine patches. Which could be worse. These of course are supposed to be “temporary.” You don’t get it we’re addicted.

The idea of the patch also scares me, you don’t know what’s going to happen.

The problem is many people who smoke are self medicating for something. Perhaps it’s depression, or an anxiety. At least with smoking you know what’s happening. You’re giving yourself cancer in the end, but with some pill your doctor is giving you, you really have no clue. You could go from dying at 80 with smoking to dying at 40 with a pill that trashes your liver.

When was the last time that you heard big pharma actually curing anyone? I mean really curing them, not needing to take a pill for the rest of your life?

They don’t it wouldn’t be profitable.

My point is let’s start measuring with an even stick shall we American Heart/Lung/Cancer Association.

Secondhand smoke causes approximately 3,400 lung cancer deaths and 46,000 heart disease deaths in adult nonsmokers in the United States each year.4

Funny that’s half the number of med errors. You are more likely to die from a med error than second hand smoke.

Please notice “second hand smoke” isn’t included in this list. All “heart disease” and “lung cancer” deaths are not second hand smoke, or even first hand smoke related.

This town has pretty bad COPD problem among it’s elderly in nursing homes. I know this because my wife is a nurse at one. Now here’s the problem, their are people with COPD in her care that have never lived with a smoker, and never worked in a smoking environment. So our problem isn’t second hand smoke in this city. It’s the refinery. Yet I’m sure that some of those deaths are falsely included in those statistics because the healthcare facility might have smoking lounges.

Sure it’s all about public health. 1000 deaths a year happen from Salmonella food poisoning.

What is going to happen when second hand smoke has been exonerated in 10 years? How hard are the smokers going to have to fight to get their rights back?

Oh well I’m sure the non-smokers will win. I know I’ve given up.

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