[cooldude]

Everywhere you look, anti-smoking groups are campaigning against smokers. They claim smoking kills one third or even half of all smokers; that secondhand smoke is a major public health problem; that smokers impose enormous costs on the rest of society; and that for all these reasons, taxes on cigarettes should be raised.

There are many reasons to be skeptical about what professional anti-smoking advocates say. They personally profit by exaggerating the health threats of smoking and winning passage of higher taxes and bans on smoking in public places. The anti-smoking movement is hardly a grassroots phenomenon: It is largely funded by taxpayers and a few major foundations with left-liberal agendas.

A growing number of independent policy experts from a wide range of professions and differing political views are speaking out against the anti-smoking campaign. They defend smokers for several reasons:

* Smokers already pay taxes that are too high to be fair, and far above any cost they impose on the rest of society.

* The public health community's campaign to demonize smokers and all forms of tobacco is based on junk science.

* Litigation against the tobacco industry is an example of lawsuit abuse, and has “loaded the gun” for lawsuits against other industries.

* Smoking bans hurt small businesses and violate private property rights.

* The harm caused by smoking can be reduced by educating smokers about their options.

* Punishing smokers “for their own good” is repulsive to the basic libertarian principles that ought to limit the use of government force.

[fullflava]

Also, these damn politicians have more compassion for crack addicts. They'll subsidize ethodone clinics for a crack addict, but us smokers get the short end of the shaft, why? Last time i checked, this is a legal product that my lawmakers stood by and approved while we got hooked, now all of a sudden, they want to keep taxing me and not illegal drugs, give me a break, these people all need to be fired from their seats in Congress!

[barfly]

How harmful is smoking to smokers? Public health advocates who claim one out of every three, or even one out of every two, smokers will die from a smoking-related illness are grossly exaggerating the real threat. The actual odds of a smoker dying from smoking before the age of 75 are about 1 in 12. In other words, 11 out of 12 life-long smokers don’t die before the age of 75 from a smoking-related disease.

In a 1998 article titled “Lies, Damned Lies, and 400,000 Smoking-related Deaths,” Levy and Marimont showed how removing diseases for which a link between smoking and mortality has been alleged but not proven cuts the hypothetical number of smoking-related fatalities in half. Replacing an unrealistically low death rate for never-smokers with the real fatality rate cuts the number by a third.

Controlling for “confounding factors”—such as the fact that smokers tend to exercise less, drink more, and accept high-risk jobs—reduces the estimated number of deaths by about half again. Instead of 400,000 smoking-related deaths a year, Levy and Marimont estimate the number to be around 100,000.

This would place the lifetime odds of dying from smoking at 6 to 1 (45 million smokers divided by 100,000 deaths per year x 75 years), rather than 3 to 1. However, about half (45 percent) of all smoking-related deaths occur at age 75 or higher. Calling these deaths “premature” is stretching common usage of the word. The odds of a life-long smoker dying prematurely of a smoking-related disease, then, are about 12 to 1.

[cooljay788]

If an anti asked that Q: I'd respond with:

I defend smokers cause 1) I smoke myself, and I'm darn proud to be a smoker. And 2) I'm tired of seeing smokers get treated as Blacks of the 21st century.

Before antis argue that smokers ain't comparable with us Blacks since smokers neva get slaved or killed for being smokers...all I can say is two lettas. FU!

Smokers ARE slaves to anti orgs and politicians. Whatthe heck do you call the constant tax increases on cigs? Sounds like MONEY slavery to me when taxes on a legal product go up multiple times per year.

And smokers HAVE lost their lives just cause of them smoking outside. I mentioned the pregnant smoker who got shot by an antismoker. I read that in "Dissecting Antismokers Brains," a book written by Michael McFadden. You can buy this book online by googling that book title. A must read for all smokers.

I don't need to tell you about the otha smoking chicks who get assaulted, raped, or even shot at while they smoke outside in the dark. I recall hearing about a chick in NYC in 2003 who got assaulted and robbed while she simply smoked outside of a tavern late at night.

The smoking ban in Chicago is a good way for bros and sistas who hang in the streets to pretend to be homeless and indirectly rob intoxicated smokers outside of taverns. A drunk smoker can't think straight. So it's VERY easy for a bro or sis to walk up to the smoker and ask "Can you gimme a square?" (smoker gives cig to the bro) "Thanks. Can you help me with 50 bucks?" (smoker kindly gives bro the $50 without realizing what he's doing).

Thanks to the smoking ban, there are some of us in a city like Chicago where we can make easy money off of drunk folks smoking outside of taverns in the dark, without actually pulling a threat or literally robbing the smokers.

From my experience of working at Cub games, I know for a fact a drunk person can't think straight. Which means even I could ask him for anythang, and he'll give it to me without heistation. LOL!!!