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First of all, who DOESN'T experience "Environmental Tobacco Smoke"? You can make any association you'd like with it when it's everywhere. Linked with MIDDLE EAR INFECTIONS?! Ha. I think I might have made an observation, too. My uncle smokes and my aunt just had a baby a little while ago. SECONDHAND SMOKE CAN CAUSE PREGNANCY!!!!
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<p>If you read the study carefully, you wouldnt be spouting out these random illusory correlations.</p>
<p>Ok, Chris07, do you agree that secondhand smoke, a known carcinogen, can cause lung cancer?</p>
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haha how can you try to prevent someone from smoking OUTSIDE?!
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<p>I didnt. I am against smokers who light up in public places, not necessarily everywhere. I have no problem with people who want to smoke in their backyard or somewhere else on their property...</p>
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It has occurred to me that some people believe a little bit of secondhand smoke can be harmful. It has also occurred to me that those people are stupid.
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<h2>Another naive poster...</h2>
<p>btw, the initial post was a rhetorical question meant to get a discussion going...thanks for responding evryone</p>
<p>alipes07, do you realize that all of your rebuttals so far have consisted of you calling us "naive," wrong, or just shrugging off our points in some other non-responsive way? How about giving some reasons for why I would see your view if I actually "read the study carefully" (that's not the study, btw, it's an article about the study, which I'm sure has been exaggerated in the media's normal fashion).</p>
<p>Yes, I can see how smoke can cause lung cancer. I can also see how radiation from cell phones can cause brain tumors (do NOT tell me how these things are completely different, I hate that argument, accept the analogy for once). There's little amounts coming from the phone, and I'm not holding it up to my ear all day, so I could care less. The chances of me getting a tumor, even though it's possible, are tiny enough to ignore. It's the same with secondhand smoke. I'm not constantly inhaling it, so I'm not worried about getting lung cancer. I don't think anybody else should be.</p>
<p>Like someone else on this thread said. If you're worried about getting cancer (or, of course, middle ear infections) from secondhand smoke, don't get into a car, airplane, cross the street, or step outside of your house for that matter.</p>
<p>1.) Automobile exhaust and secondhand smoke derived from cigarettes, cigars, etc are different. SH smoke contains 10 x the particulate matter of an idling engine. Automobile engines have reduced pm levels in accordance w/ emission standards. Sidestream smoke contains more than 4000 chemicals, w/ more than 60 known carcinogens.</p>
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that's not the study, btw, it's an article about the study, which I'm sure has been exaggerated in the media's normal fashion
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<p>2.) I'm not sure what your talking about. Yes, it was an article, but an article about a study which was conducted by the same organization...the article was on a website of one of the gov funded national institutes of health...</p>
<p>As for the cell-phones, the data on that is mixed. SH smoke studies have confirmed what I have said on many levels. Even if it was found that cell-phone use is unequivocally bad for you, you'd have to consider the need/functionality argument.</p>
<p>Are cell phones needed? In many ways yes, they serve as an important communication device.</p>
<p>Are cigarettes needed? Is there a need for cigarettes in public areas? No, in fact they serve no beneficial purpose whatsoever</p>
<p>Nearly every US health agency is in accord that SH smoke has serious health risks.</p>
<p>As someone who smokes now and then I don't see whats wrong with smoking in public. I strongly doubt that walking past smokers every day will cause you lung cancer. How many cases of lung cancer occur in people who do not smoke, do not live with a smoker, and do not work in smoke-filled environments? I would guess that it's a pretty small number. While emissions from a cigarette are 10X worse than those from a car, how many cars zoom by you every day and how many people do you walk by who are smoking? My guess is that the number is greater than 10X.</p>
<p>I'm glad I live in a society where it is more acceptable to do illegal drugs like meth than it is to do legal drugs legally in public like smoke cigarettes.</p>
<p>My english teacher would always say more people die a year from cabbage than 2nd hand smoke.
The few times that I have smoked in public I make sure im not exhaling in someones face, but they have the option to move or walk away.
I think if I walk down town smoking meth, people would be more poed than if it were a cig.
People should chill out, because everyone has an annoying habit that probably angers others, and for some, its smoking.</p>
<p>My old Latin teacher used to ditch class, usually during tests, to smoke a cigarette all the time. When some students complained about this, he informed us very tactically that were it not for his cigarettes, he would have strangled and/or failed us all a long, long, time ago. I am thankful for how mellow those cigarettes made him.</p>
<p>The point is, alipes, smokers can be a ***<em>y bunch and likely don't give a damn what you think. Way to be passive-aggressive and gripe on a *CC</em> board.</p>
<p>Still, the most killing diesease isn't from smoking. Maybe you should mcdonalds. You say theres a functionality/need argument, but without tobacco the world economy would never have been as good and the America we know today would not exist. OR even the world. Besides the persians will be really angry. I guess you're communist and hate farmers because youre basically asking them that they are the source of all evil and that they should find alternative sources of income.
America hater. World hater.
YOU should do some real research and not google second hand smoking and use the first result. .</p>
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My old Latin teacher used to ditch class, usually during tests, to smoke a cigarette all the time. When some students complained about this, he informed us very tactically that were it not for his cigarettes, he would have strangled and/or failed us all a long, long, time ago. I am thankful for how mellow those cigarettes made him.
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<p>What class was this that a nicotine-withdrawn professor could strangle all his students unimpeded? Sissies 101?</p>
<p>i dont even smoke and i think you are being ridiculous. most states have already banned smoking in bars/restaurants and most indoor places. let the smokers smoke outside. just move upwind.</p>
<p>Easy: Latin 300, actually, so you'd be close. Pale, pasty people who translate Virgil all day aren't exactly masters of self-defense. </p>
<p>And said professor's been at the school for about eighty years and has had the yearbook dedicated to him at least 20 times, so he could probably get away with murder if he wanted to.</p>
<p>Haha, I thought some of the responses here were kind of funny.
But I live in Maryland, and smokers are banned pretty much everywhere, so it's not really a huge problem. Is it that big of an issue in other places?</p>
<p>And my cousin got some kind of sinus infection from secondhand smoke when she was around five or six, and it's been with her all her life (she's 18 now). But that was because of her babysitter, who she was with for hours each day. I don't think walking past someone who's smoking is going to have life-altering effects.</p>
<p>I think the worse secondhand smoke (combined with pollution and car exhaust) I've ever experienced was in Beijing, which triggered asthma attacks left and right every single day. I hadn't had problems with asthma since I was 11, so it was a huge surprise.</p>
<p>Plattsburgh Loser, I've studied environmental issues in China and it's frightening and major emerging and contributing factor to China's future. Right now, I hear it's superficially clean for the Olympics, as in I you can kind of see clean air. A friend, who's a good source, told me that the average life expectancy for a traffic police officer is 36 because of the air pollution.</p>
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Plattsburgh Loser, I've studied environmental issues in China and it's frightening and major emerging and contributing factor to China's future. Right now, I hear it's superficially clean for the Olympics, as in I you can kind of see clean air. A friend, who's a good source, told me that the average life expectancy for a traffic police officer is 36 because of the air pollution.
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<p>Figures like that are kind of useless without controlling for other factors, like the non-air pollution aspects of the job and lifestyle. All that tells us is that traffic police officers die early, but not necessarily because of air pollution.</p>