Smokers Cost You Money and Other Asinine Anti-Smoking Lies

Smoking is unhealthy. Preventing juveniles from smoking and protecting non-smokers from secondhand smoke in confined spaces are reasonable responses, but the ever increasing demonization and discrimination is becoming morally repugnant. Smokers are increasingly being banned from open-air public places, denied employment, obscenely taxed, and driven underground. Politicians and bureaucrats disguise these cruel and bigoted headline-grabbing stunts as caring heroic acts by using the following lies:

Smokers Cost You Money

When calling for more punitive laws anti-smokers love to trumpet smokers’ healthcare costs. This is a canard. Non-smokers die earlier and therefore do not take advantage of Social Security, Medicare, or pension plans to the extent that non-smokers do. In addition, smokers are more likely to die of relatively quick diseases such as lung cancer, as opposed to lingering ones such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Numerous studies have found that smokers cost tax payers substantially less than non-smokers. (9, 15) A 2008 Dutch study found that health care costs for smokers were about $326,000 from age 20 on, compared to about $417,000 for thin and healthy people. (15) A Canadian study found that in 1986 smokers added $1.4 billion to the pension system by their premature deaths. (6)

Smokers Are Poisoning You with Secondhand Smoke

Secondhand smoke in a confined space is unhealthy. However, the exaggeration of its risk is ridiculous, and the hyping of the dangers of fleeting outdoor exposure are asinine.

We know the sun causes skin cancer but people with common sense realize that does not mean walking down the street will give you cancer. We know being obese can cause heart attacks but that does not mean eating a cheeseburger is unsafe. Yet when it comes to secondhand smoke, even our Surgeon Generals make these moronic exaggerations. (For examples see this LINK and this LINK.)

* Graph uses 20% increase in risk to spouses of smokers. (4, 14)

Many of the spouses in the above study were chronically exposed to smoke in confined spaces for decades and yet their risk is nowhere near that of smokers. As for people whose only exposure to secondhand smoke is catching the occasional whiff, there is no evidence that brief intermittent exposures to smoke cause cancer. (8) Cardiovascular disease requires years of chronic exposure as well.

Smokers Are Poisoning You with Thirdhand Smoke

Thirdhand smoke is smoke left behind on surfaces. The idea is that someone who stands next to someone who smokes will spread cancer via their clothes for the rest of the day. As one thirdhand article warns, “young children are apt to suck on a parent’s clothes.” (5)

The “science” behind thirdhand smoke dangers should repulse anyone who has a puff of integrity. This year Dr. Virender Rehan and his team of investigators directly applied known tobacco carcinogens to removed fetal lung tissue and observed damage. From this he deduced that thirdhand smoke was dangerous and, I’m not making this up, declared that the harm to people cleaning sheets from smokers’ hotel rooms is a global problem. (7, 10)

The issue with thirdhand smoke is not whether smoke is bad, it is how can harmful levels of it fly off of smoke-touched surfaces and get in peoples’ lungs. Applying orange juice directly to lung tissue would cause damage, but that does not mean that smelling orange juice is dangerous. Rehan’s silly study had nothing to do with thirdhand smoke but still made international headlines. UPI’s read “‘Thirdhand’ Smoke Hurts Infant Lungs.” (13)

Smoking Has No Benefits

The meddling whingers who want to force their notions of proper behavior on others rarely consider other peoples’ notions of happiness. Anti-smokers are no different. Cigarettes do bring people pleasure. The journalist Christopher Hitchens wrote in 1994 about his chain-smoking, “cigarettes improve my short-term concentration, aid my digestion, make me a finer writer and a better dinner companion, and, in several other ways, prolong my life.” (12) In 2011, after contracting esophageal cancer, he said that he had knowingly taken a risk with his lifestyle and that he would do it again if he had the opportunity. (2)

Although the cancer risks greatly outweigh the positive effects, cigarettes do have health benefits. Non-smokers are twice as likely to be obese, and three times as likely to be severely obese. (11) Smoking is also linked to lower risk for Parkinson’s disease, endometriosis, ulcerative colitis, Kaposi’s sarcoma, and atopic disorders such as allergic asthma. (A list of supporting studies can be found at Wikipedia’s “Health Benefits of Smoking” page.)

Hypocrisy

Many politicians who ban smokers in parks for public health reasons hypocritically ignore the real cancer risks imposed on us by drivers and corporate polluters. Being in a confined space with a running car will actually kill you and the auto belching in cities dwarfs the gaseous output of smokers. Smog’s “deadly” effects are well known and yet the President recently decided not to further regulate it against the advice of the EPA.

There are scant differences between the physics and chemistry of tobacco smoke and smoke created from burning any biomass. (1) For example, burning wood emits significant amounts of pollutants and carcinogens. (3) Despite this, people are rarely irate about burning candles, tiki torches, lanterns, campfires, and barbeques. The reason is that, just like with cigarette smoke, outdoor exposure is usually trivial.

Sane Voices

Dr. Michael Siegel has worked at the Office on Smoking and Health at the CDC, has published over 70 papers related to tobacco, and has been an important advocate in the movement to ban indoor smoking for over 25 years. In 2005 he started the blog The Rest of the Story to counteract the tobacco control movement’s loss of integrity and its growing bigotry and discrimination against smokers themselves. His posts discredit the numerous lies told by the government and anti-smoking groups in their never-ending pursuit of stricter prohibitions.

Christopher Snowdon is the British author of Velvet Glove, Iron Fist: A History of Anti-Smoking. His blog of the same name counters junk science, junk journalism, and junk propaganda directed against smokers.

Their work made this post possible. I salute Dr. Siegel for choosing integrity over political opportunities and I salute Mr. Snowdon for introducing me to the priceless Daily Show clip below.

The Daily Show’s Take on NYC’s Smoking Ban (6/20/11)

“Are you fucking kidding me? Smoking? Smoking?” Samantha Bee to a meddling whinger

Bonus Link

A photo shoot of a stylish young Barack Obama smoking. LINK

Sources:

1. Simon Chapman (Professor of Public Health, University of Sydney), “Going too Far? Exploring the Limits of Tobacco Regulation.” PDF LINK
2. Jack Mirkinson, “Christopher Hitchens: Despite Cancer, I’d Drink & Smoke Again,” HuffingtonPost.com, 17 Aug. 2010. LINK
3. Luke Naeher, et al., “Woodsmoke Health Effects: A Review,” Inhalation Toxicology, 2007. PDF LINK
4. Office of the Surgeon General, “Health Consequences of Involuntary Exposure to Tobacco Smoke,” 2006. LINK
5. Lynne Peeples, “Your Nose Knows: The Invisible Threat of ‘Thirdhand Smoke’,” HuffingtonPost.com, 26 Aug. 2011. LINK
6. Andre Raynauld and Jean-Pierre Vidal, “Smokers’ Burden on Society: Myth and Reality in Canada,” Canadian Public Policy, 1992. LINK
7. Michael Siegel, “New Study Concludes that Thirdhand Smoke Causes Lung Damage to the Fetus,” Rest of the Story, 17 May 2011. LINK
8. Michael Siegel, “Winner of 2010 Tobacco Control Lie of the Year Award,” Rest of the Story, 28 Dec. 2010. LINK
9. Christopher Snowdon, “Do Smokers Pay Their Way?” Velvet Glove, Iron Fist, 20 Mar. 2010. LINK
10. Christopher Snowdon, “More Thirdhand Smoke Garbage,” Velvet Glove, Iron Fist, 6 May 2011. LINK
11. Christopher Snowdon, “Obesity Rate Is Twice As High Amongst Nonsmokers,” Velvet Glove, Iron Fist, 29 June 2011. LINK
12. Jacob Sullum, “Costs and Benefits of Smoking,” Reason.com, October 3 Oct. 1994. LINK
13. “‘Thirdhand’ Smoke Hurts Infant Lungs,” UPI, 19 Apr. 2011. LINK
14. PJ Villeneuve and Y. Mao, “Lifetime Probability of Developing Lung Cancer,” Canadian Journal of Public Health, Nov-Dec 1994. LINK
15. Erica Werner, “Do Smokers Cost Society Money?” AP, 8 Apr. 2009. LINK

Did Dr. Drew Lie About His Drug Use?

Dr. Drew Pinsky frequently enjoyed cocaine while working at the LA radio station, KROQ, in the early 1980s. This was asserted by two of his former KROQ co-workers earlier this year in this article, “Dr. Drew’s Drug Shocker!”. This allegation is not shocking because at the time cocaine use was commonplace in the LA entertainment industry.

It is also unsurprising that Pinksy would have been like the vast majority of cocaine users who enjoy it for a period and then stop using it. No addiction. No dreaded consequences. Responsible users include our last two presidents, but unlike our last two presidents Pinsky may have lied about his usage.

On the January 12, 2009 Howard Stern Show this interchange occurred:

Howard Stern: Were you ever a user of drugs?

Drew Pinsky: No.

Howard Stern: Never? Never tried pot? Nothing?

Drew Pinsky: Thank god it’s not in me. It doesn’t seem like anyway. I’m thinking – not good.

Robin Quivers: Do you feel you can’t really relate because you don’t have any experience?

Drew Pinsky: No. I can. In fact people in recovery always tell me that it is weird how much I understand it. They don’t understand how a non-recovery person has such a deep appreciation of this condition. I don’t know. It’s like the right side of my brain is overdeveloped and I can just tune into that.

Dr. Drew has not addressed the KROQ allegation. The fact that the most celebrated addiction doctor in America may have lied about his cocaine use will pass unnoticed. Dishonesty has always been an approved strategy in the war on drugs.

Prior Post on Dr. Drew Pinsky: Dr. Drew Is Wrong

Sources:

1. “Dr. Drew’s Drug Shocker!” LifeandStyleMag.com, 13 Jan. 2010. LINK
2. Gary Dell’Abate, The Howard Stern Show, Sirius XM Radio, 12 Jan. 2009.

World Class Athletes Promote Marijuana

World class athletes have been caught using recreational drugs for years but what makes the recent cases of Tim Lincecum, Michael Phelps, and Santonio Holmes remarkable is that they have been outed at the peak of their careers. In these three instances, law enforcement has helped obliterate the mainstream myth that marijuana smokers cannot be overachievers in amazing physical conditions.

They All Do It

Rob Dibble, an all-star pitcher who played in the late 1980s and early 1990s, estimated that teams he played for varied from 20-60% in marijuana usage rates. In the late 1990s a New York Times investigation estimated the marijuana usage rate of players in the NBA to be at 60-70%. (A figure Josh Howard reasserted in 2008, LINK.)

Of course, the New York Times piece portrayed this as a sign “the party life style associated with the game is spinning out of control.” It then interviewed NBA players like Derek Harper who said it was “scary” because you might be playing against a guy on drugs and not know it, and Karl Malone who thought fans had a right to know if the players used recreational drugs and that privacy concerns about testing were ridiculous because, “you have too many knuckleheads out there, too many guys doing crazy things without realizing the consequences.”

Those Consequences

There is a strong case that – just like with alcohol – the moderate use of marijuana and other recreational drugs in one’s free time has little or no effect on performance. Professional athletics is hyper-competitive. As soon as you lose a step to the countless competitors behind you, you are gone. If marijuana use impeded performance it is doubtful the usage rates would be so high with million dollar salaries at stake.

Mark Stepnoski (pictured) played 13 seasons in the NFL as a center winning two Super Bowls and going to five pro bowls. He smoked marijuana throughout his college and professional career saying, “To me it’s all about responsibility. There’s a time and a place for everything.”

Stepnoski, who is now a marijuana legalization activist, has also pointed out his Super Bowl coach, Jimmy Johnson, had a different theory than Karl Malone.

As long as you did your job for him and did it well, he wasn’t going to snoop into what you were doing the rest of the time. It wasn’t his responsibility to be your parent or your guardian or anything else.

Despite the New York Times dire warning in the late 1990s the NBA is still thriving.

Other Notable Outed Athletes

NFL

Randy Moss (WR) – In high school spent a week in solitary confinement for smoking marijuana. Was kicked out of Florida State for smoking marijuana. Caught with marijuana by law enforcement in 2001. Tested positive for marijuana in the NFL in 2002. Implied was still smoking marijuana in 2005. In 1998 broke rookie NFL record for touchdown catches in a season. In 2007 broke NFL record for touchdown catches in a season.

Others: Kevin Faulk (caught at a Lil Wayne concert with marijuana in 2008), Percy Harvin, Michael Irvin, Curtis Johnson, Marshawn Lynch, Mario Manningham, Amobi Okoye, Lawrence Taylor, Ricky Williams

Link to a dozen NFL players caught with possession since 2008.

NBA

Kareem Abdul Jabbar (C) – In his 20 year career he scored more points than anyone else in the history of the game. Won six MVP awards and six NBA championships. Has been caught with marijuana by law enforcement twice, in 1998 and 2000.

Others: Carmelo Anthony, Mookie Blaylock, Marcus Camby, Josh Howard, Allen Iverson, LeBron James, Shawn Kemp, Vernon Maxwell, Lamar Odom, Robert Parish, Isaiah Rider, Damon Stoudamire, Rasheed Wallace, Chris Webber

MLB

Ferguson Jenkins (P) – Eighteen year veteran won the Cy Young Award in 1971. Was caught with cocaine and marijuana in 1980 and retired in 1983.

Joe Pepitone (OF) – Three time all-star and Gold Glove winner Pepitone wrote in his 1975 memoir that he once shared a joint with Mickey Mantle before a spring training game. Mantle had never had marijuana before. He struck out four times in that game and spent much of his time in the dugout giggling. He told Pepitone, “I don’t know what that shit is, but keep it away from me.”

Others: Dock Ellis, Dwight Gooden, Keith Hernandez (testified that in the early 1980s 40% of MLB players used cocaine), Steve Howe, Paul Molitor, Otis Nixon, Dave Parker, Tim Raines (confessed to sliding into bases head first to avoid breaking the vial of cocaine he kept in his back pocket), Darryl Strawberry, Willie Wilson

Note: Much of the baseball outing in the 1980s stemmed from the Pittsburgh drug trials in which the legendary Willie Stargell was accused of distributing amphetamines by two players on the stand.

Fastest Man In the World

Usain Bolt – In 2009 admitted to smoking marijuana as a kid. LINK

Links of Note:

In 1970 Dock Ellis pitched a no-hitter while on LSD. (Less than 300 have been thrown in Major League Baseball history since 1875.) Here is a great animated short set to him recounting the tale. (Thanks to Chip for tip.)

Hall of Fame baseball player Mike Schmidt discussing how amphetamines, “greenies,” were readily available in baseball clubhouses during his career (1972-1989) – LINK.

Sources:
1. “Outside the Lines: Marijuana in Sports,” ESPN, 24 Feb. 2003. LINK
2. Albert Theodore Powers, The Business of Baseball (2003).
3. Selena Roberts, “Marijuana and Pro Basketball,” New York Times, 26 Oct. 1997. LINK