Also tied to the decline of
manufacturing and certains types of mining.
Fewer men spending every day surounded
by carcinogens.

I use a slide in talks to medical students that shows deaths from COPD for men and women in the US from the end of WWII to now. It's amazing how the death rate for men plateaued right around the time the men from WWII and Korea started dying from old age, whereas the death rate for women continues to go up. Similar data is out there for lung cancer deaths.

Thank you Virginia Slims.

I am still waiting for most conservatives to admit that smoking is a pernicious vice best discouraged--if not outlawed!

Vince: It depends on the kind on conservative. We Theocons have no problem with forbidding self-destructive behavior. One's body is not one's own, and justice forbids us to impose the costs of our intemperance on society.

I agree smoking is pernicious and should be discouraged; but outlawed? I don't think so.

erp:

Why wouldn't a decent society outlaw the pernicious?

I believe that there is far too much government interference as it is. Additionally, some might not think smoking pernicious.

erp:

Who cares what they think? Should we legalize pedophilia sonce some say it isn't pernicious?

Equating the charming pastime of smoking with pedophilia illustrates the unhinged nature of the anti-smoking fanatics.

That many of the fanatics are overweight makes it even more ridiculous, they should pull the Kentucky fried drumstick out of their own gaping maws before criticizing the cigarettes dangling off the lips of their brethren.

Weight has gone up, smoking down. Health has improved.

Pedophiles at least have the decency to degrade themselves in secret.

Orrin, not to put too fine a point on it, but you're fat. But then at least you have the decency to degrade yourself in public. This all goes in cycles, I guess. You've had twenty-five years of the joy of ratcheting up restrictions on other people's pleasures, of owning other peoples's bodies, and the only remedy at this point is to keep on ratcheting until your own pleasures get expropriated. All those meat recipes you publish, for instance -- get your weight back down to, oh, 180 or so, and we'll discuss letting you cook one every now and then. Example is the school of mankind, and you at least will learn at no other.

joe:

Fat and healthy, like most Americans. I've got no problem with proposals to limit fat content and such.

What's health got to do with anything? The crusade against fat will proceed on the same basis as the crusade against smoking, namely it gives us much pleasure to take away pleasures from others. Health was never more than a beard.

That's moronic. Cigarettes are under attack because they kill people. Period. If you can show that being overweight is killing people we'll do something about it. The evidence suggests the opposite.

I didn't know gluttony was no longer sin. Notice I don't feel compelled to denigrate fatties, all I'm asking for is shred of consitency.

Perhaps I was wrong about the motivation behind equating smokers and pedophiles. Maybe it's not out of irrational hatred of smokers and smoking, but an attempt to normalize pedophilia by associating it with something delightful and benign? Something to contemplate while enjoying a cigar.

Americans aren't gluttons, we're just wealthy. We can afford more calories than any people ever have.

Eating is a necessity. Pedophilia and smoking serve no decent purpose.

That's a novel excuse: it's not a sin when I do it, because I'm wealthy!

Eating may be necessary, but being an obese slob isn't. If your opposition to smoking were rational (it obviously isn't) you would also favor using the power of the state to do something about the unenviable piggies who can't push away from the trough.

Cigarettes are under attack because it's now fun and easy to attack cigarettes; even though yes, they do kill people. Don't flatter yourself so. And no, eating's not a necessity, at least not the way you do it. By the way, this is how it feels to be on the business end of someone else's spite, which is why we tolerate so many minor vices rather than give aid and comfort to the spiteful.

Carter:

You're confusing simple "overweight", a widespread phenomenon of circumstance, with grotesque obesity and gluttony, which are indeed sinful. Cigarette smoking is self-destructive and therefore always sinful.

joe:

Yes, the anal nature of the smoker would tend to make him think it is all about denying him things he deserves, as when you take a pacifier from a baby he'll wail.

Smoking's oral, not anal. So is overeating. Spite is anal. And the only thing being denied here is self-appointed patrimony, and the only one being denied it is you.

joe:

No, not self, smoking is being done away with by the force of popular will. I've had little to do with it.

Yes, self. Popular will does all sorts of things, the vicarious pleasure we take from that is still selfish.

joe:

Saving other from themselves is, of course, pleasurable. It's also the basis of a decent society.

Folks, great comments on all the posts this evening. Making my Bourbon and cigar very enjoyable. Thank you all.

Good examples are the basis of a decent society, or so I was taught. Surely you'd be safer, and likely society would be no less decent, if you didn't indulge the pleasure of saving others quite so much, but just contented yourself with setting as much of an example as you're able.

joe:

Actually, no. As the falling cancer rates demonstrate, we're a better, more decent, people for our war on tobacco.

In point of fact though, I've never smoked nor done drugs. I did drink excessively when young but stopped when married. I do need to exercise more to get my weight down, but I'm lazy. That's my sin.

Good point joe, but some folks want to convert others at the point of the sword. Where to draw the line is the question. Answers differ.

jd:

It's not hard to draw the line with purely self-destructive behaviors on the other side.

Purely self destructive? I think you would be hard pressed to find any activities that fit that description.

Smoking, anal sex, etc.

suicide.

"saving others from themselves"

We've established that isn't the case, otherwise you wouldn't be making excuses for fat people, and you wouldn't be calling smokers pedophiles. Your opposition to smoking is unprincipled, uncharitable and unconservative, and your motive is spiteful busybodyism.

And as fair as "wailing" goes, I would say I and most smokers have acqueised to the smoking bans you and your liberal allies have been enacting with perhaps too much grace.

carter:

To the contrary--if banning food would likewise end obesity with no ill effects on anyone we'd do it.

Carter is right. Smokers are too gracious. Unlike the cartoon crazed Muslims and cell phone crazed drivers. (Actually I'm against a cell phone ban, but wonder if they don't kill as many as the drunks). Don't deny that smoking is a moral question. Plenty of others around, though. I guess you pick and choose. Choose your poison.

oj. I support laws banning pedophilia and children smoking.

A couple things:

First, IIRC, the article discusses death rates from cancer, not the cancer rate.

If true, OJ, that makes every one of your rants in this thread "inoperative."

Secondly, being overweight does kill, and it does cause significant burdens on the healthcare system.

Google "overweight + diabetes"

Apologies about my IIRC.

I was thinking of another article on this same subject, which focused on the lower death rate.

jeff:

yes, both are wrong. As to the second you mean obesity, not overweight.

OJ:

No, I mean overweight.

Google Type II diabetes and children. I don't know what your definition of obese is -- an awfully subjective thing, that -- but the connection between overweight children and diabetes is just as clear as the link between cancer and smoking.

Jeff:

Yes, if you maintain your weight at an unhealthy level it's unhealthy. Americans being merely overweight has coincided with improving health.

There is no healthy level of smoking other than none.