Surgeon General's report on secondhand smoke

More ample proof.

 

You're a moron.

 

I am worried about that - worried sick, in fact. Worried to the point that I bought a friggin' hybrid.

I'm also very worried about secondhand smoke.

A person can worry very much about more than one thing.

 

Here's a story about people smoking outside.

For the last two weeks, I've had pretty much the same daily routine: Wake up, shower, eat breakfast, go downstairs to the hotel lobby and wait for the shuttle to M.D. Anderson Cancer Hospital, sit next to mom in ICU, go back to the hotel, go to sleep. There are breaks for lunch and e-mails and the occasional update on SportsJournalists.com.

The first day, I waited for the shuttle from inside the lobby. The driver never stopped. I asked the girl at the front desk about it, and she called him on a walkie-talkie. He explained he essentially does a drive-by, and if he doesn't see anyone out front, he skips this hotel and goes on to the next stop. So that means I have to stand outside in the blazing heat to wait for him. OK, fine.

But not fine. In front of the hotel is where the smokers congregate. The noxious, toxic fumes linger long after the smokers have put out their last cigarette, and just standing near them my clothes and my person accumulate enough second-hand smoke that when I get to the hospital, the ICU nurses often ask me if I've been smoking. See, we have to put on gloves, surgical masks and gowns before we can enter the room, because mom not only has lymphoma, but she's fighting various respiratory issues, including multiple pneumonias and the threat of new infection daily.

So every day I look for creative ways to stand close enough to the front entrance of the hotel to make sure I get on the shuttle, yet not so close that I em enveloped in smoke when I get on the shuttle. Problem is, the same two or three people who exhale smoke like chimneys every day are also on their way to M.D. Anderson, and after 20 minutes of smoking, they put out their butts when the shuttle arrives and quickly hop aboard. The cloud of smoke around them follows them into the shuttle. So no matter what I do, I'm going to smell like smoke and carry those toxins with me into ICU.

I suppose I should take a cab or drive, but what will end up being 18 or more hotel nights is setting me back a pretty penny, and I have to try to save somewhere. Cab fare and parking fees would eat me up, so the shuttle is my only real option unless I decide to sleep outside.

Yesterday I had enough, and I asked one of the women if she could refrain from smoking for about 5-10 minutes before getting on the shuttle, to let the smoke dissipate as much as possible before she gets on the shuttle. She shot me a fierce glance, then told me it's none of my business if she smokes outside. I told her I was visiting my mom in ICU, and that I'm wary of the dangers of second-hand smoke. My mom lived for 30 years with a smoker, my dad, and he died at 52 of lung cancer. We're now wondering if my mom is paying the second-hand-smoke price with her life at 75.

"Everybody dies of something," the smoking lady said to me. "You don't look like you miss many meals. You don't see me telling you to cut back, do you?"

"When the surgeon general comes out with a report on the dangers of second-hand fat," I told her, "feel free."

Later I heard her telling someone about her mom, who is also in ICU. With lung cancer. Then she got off the shuttle and smoked another before going into the hospital.

That is when I fully realized how addictive cigarettes must be.

 

Oh Geez. :

Good retort by you, though.

 

I don't think you can really compare tobacco to alcohol or junk food for another reason. Most health experts agree that an occasional Big Mac or candy bar won't cause any harm. It may not cause any good either, but once in a while having one won't hurt. It's when you eat a lot of them, all the time, like Morgan Spurlock did, that you'll have problems.
Alcohol in moderation may be good for you, according to some people.
While common sense tells you that moderate or occasional smoking isn't is bad for you as heavy smoking, I have yet to hear any health experts claim that an occasional cigarette is harmless.

 

Zeke, just because there are other health threats out there doesn't mean that second-hand smoke is any less of a problem. This is what smokers and tobacco companies do now. Point out other threats because you have to be an idiot not to see the dangers of cigarettes not only to smokers but to those around them.

Every time I hear or read about this stuff, I remember sitting in a car outside a movie theater with my wife, waiting for her parents to come out. I look over and here is this woman with a little boy who I'd guess was about six years old. She's kneeling down, fixing his coat, cigarette dangling from her lips and smoke blowing right in the kid's face. My wife had to basically threaten to leave without me to keep me from getting out and yelling at this sorry excuse for a parent.. and even though I know she would never have listened, I still regret not saying something.

That's the real danger. With exceptions like Johnny Dangerously's story, adults can usually get away from the second-hand smoke. Often small children can't and the second-hand smoke is even more damaging to their developing lungs than to the rest of us.

I know I get overly passionate about this subject. I've lost too damn many people to cancer that were smokers, and every single one of them was a child when they picked up the habit. Just remember tobacco companies survive by getting underage kids to start smoking and by the time they are old enough and smart enough to want to stop, they are stuck battling a chemical addiction the rest of their lives.

Stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

 

Where's your answer?

I don't think anyone will say that breathing in smoke, secondhand or firsthand, isn't bad for you. So then breathing in fumes from automobiles as well as the multitude of other sources should be as bad, esp. if you live in a high-density urban area and are subjected to it frequently.

Have doctors been able to delineate the damage of secondhand smoke from that from other sources? I've never seen this type of information which, of course, doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. Can you point me to it if it does exist?

And the answer might mean that secondhand smoke is less of a probem than it has been made out to be.

I've lost people to cancer. I've worked on tobacco farms in eastern N.C. I used to smoke but don't anymore. I prefer that people don't smoke indoors and when I smoked, I didn't smoke in my house. But I'm not fanatically going to jump on the secondhand smoke bandwagon when this very pertinent question has still never been answered.

 

stupid - Yes or no answer, go with your gut: Do you think secondhand smoke is good?

 

The only sufficient ending to that story would have been: ... so the following day she stepped off the bus to go to Anderson and a cab struck her. The cab got her so hard, in fact, that her cigarette got stuck in the windshield.

That lady will live to be 108.