"Cigarette makers have for years deliberately increased nicotine levels in cigarettes to make them more addictive"

[techs]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/19/health/19tobacco.html
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/01/18/news/smoke.php

BOSTON: Data supplied by tobacco companies strongly suggest that manufacturers in recent years deliberately raised nicotine levels in cigarettes to more effectively hook smokers, Harvard University researchers conclude in a study that was to be released Thursday.

The companies increasingly used tobacco richer in nicotine, and also made design changes to give smokers more puffs per cigarette, according to the analysis from the Harvard School of Public Health. The report expands on a landmark Massachusetts Department of Public Health study issued last August showing that the amount of nicotine that could be inhaled from cigarettes increased an average of 10 percent from 1998 through 2004.

The Harvard researchers, who corroborated the basic findings of the state study, wanted to determine why cigarettes were delivering more nicotine.



Wasn't it just about 10 years ago that in front of Congress and under oath the Chairmen of the different tobacco companies claimed they had no evidence smoking was bad for you and no evidence nicotine was addictive and that they never influenced the amount of nicotine in cigarrettes?
Well, we know that they lied in the first case since documents came to light that showed they had incontrovertible evidence smoking was bad for you and that nicotine was addictive FROM THEIR OWN STUDIES.
And now we see that miraculously cigarrettes have more nicotine.
Well, the tobacco companies have a perfectly legal right to sell cigarettes. What they don't have is the right to lie that it is not harmful when they know it is. They don't have the right to lie nicotine is not addictive, when it is. Isn't it time they no longer have the right to change the amount of an addictive and dangerous drug in cigarettes without disclosing it? And isn't it time that criminal charges be filed against people who lied and advertised a product they knew was harmful while claiming they had proof it was not, and that product has killed millions???

 

[Harvey]

I truly hate the tobacco companies. I think every tobacco exec for the last fifty years should be tried for crimes against humanity for the killer products they continue to market. I watched those lying assholes raise their hands before Congress and swear that tobacco was not addictive or carcinogenic.

A few years ago, California passed an initiatiative that is one of the strongest anti-smoking laws in the country. Despite the tobacco lobby spending a record amount for a private interest to defeat this initiative, it passed by a record margin of 80% - 20% margin. In the very next session of the state legislature, our elected representatives in the State Assembly passed a bill to overturn that initiative. Fortunately, the media stink that followed caused the State Senate to think better of the idea and kill it. I still have to wonder how much money it takes to get over half of a state legilative body to overturn a law passed by 80% of the voters.

Now, Philip Morris's saccherine anti-smoking commercials are equally lame. If they believed 10% of what they say, they would immediately stop selling their tobacco products.

To hide the association with their other products, they now call the parent company, Altria. From their site

Marketing Excellence and Innovation

Philip Morris International?s brand portfolio includes seven of the top 20 international brands, including Marlboro, which has been the best-selling international cigarette brand since 1972, and L&M, which is now the No. 3 brand in the world over the last decade. Other brands include [/i]Philip Morris, Chesterfield, Bond Street, Lark and Parliament.[/i]

Does this sound like a company that wants people to stop smoking? Can you say lying, two faced mofos, boys and girls? :|

If you don't smoke, your buying decisions about tobacco are irrelevant to them. However, you, and those with whom you share the info, below, can have an effect by boycotting tobacco-owned food products, depriving them of income from those sources. Here's a list from Philip Morris' Altria/Kraft Foods site:

A-1 Sauces
Altoids mints
Athenos Cheeses
Back to Nature
Baker's Chocolate and Coconut
Barnum's Animals
Biscos
Boca (meat alternatives)
Breakstone's Sour Cream, Cottage Cheese, etc.
Breyer's Ice Cream, Yogurt, etc.
Bull's-Eye barbecue and grilling sauces
Café Creme
California Pizza Kitchen pizza
Callard & Bowser Toffees
Calumet Baking Powder
Cameo
Campbell Soups
Capri Sun
CarbWell
Churny Cheeses
Claussen Pickles
Comet Cups Icecream Cones
Cool Whip
Corn Nuts
Country Time Lemonade
Cracker Barrel cheeses
Cream of Wheat
CremeSavers
Crystal Light
Dad's Cookies
Dream Whip
D-Zerta
Di Giorno Italian foods
Easy Cheese Process Cheese Spread
Ever Fresh Fruit Preservatives
Fruit20 drinks
General Foods (all products)
Gevalia Coffee
Good Seasons Salad Dressing Mixes
Grey Poupon
Handi-Snacks
Harvest Moon cheeses
Hoffman's cheeses
It's Pasta Anytime
Jack's Pizza
Jello
Jet-Puffed
Knudsen dairy products
Kool-Aid
Kool Stuf Toaster Pastries
Kraft Foods
La Vie De La Vosgienne candies
Life Savers
Light n' Lively cottage cheese
Louis Rich lunch meats
Lunchables
Maxwell House Coffee
Milk-Bone Dog Biscuits
Milka L'il Scoops
Miller Beer
Minute Brand Deserts
Minute Rice
Mirácoli pasta
Nabisco products
Oscar Meyer
Oven Fry Coatings
Planters Nuts, etc.
Polly-O Cheeses
Post Cereals
Postum
Ragu Sauces, etc.
Sanka Coffee
Sather's Candies
Sauceworks
Sealtest dairy products
Seattle's Best Coffee (Packaged products in stores)
Seven Seas Salad Dressings
Shake 'N Bake
Starbucks coffees (Packaged products in stores)
Stove Top Stuffings, etc.
Taco Bell dinner kits, Salsa, etc.
Tang
Tazo coffees (Packaged products in stores)
Torrefazione Italia coffees (Packaged products in stores)
Temp-tee cream cheese
Terry's candies
Tobler and Toblerone Candies
Tombstone Pizza
Trolli Candies
Veryfine
Woody's Cold Pack Cheese
Yuban Coffee

I've lost far too many friends in far too short a time to tobacco related illnesses. And before any of you children go off on me about my friends making their own choices, remember, they target their ads at kids. I'm 65, and when my friends and I were kids, there were no warnings on cigarette packs. However, there were lots of ads on radio and TV glamorizing smoking, including ads that said strange things like, more doctors recommend one brand over another.

They still target kids.

Death to the tobacco murderers! :| :| :|

 

[tomywishbone]

When I was 10 yrs old, I smoked a cigarette. It made me cough and feel dizzy.... didn't know why, but figured, "This can't be good for you." IMO, wouldn't smoking be a fairly good example of Darwinism?

My two cents.

 

[Zebo]

So? Being a libertarian I think the state has no right to say what you put in your body from meds to mind bending drugs to tobacco. If I smoked weed I'd hope they grow it stronger - likewise if I smoked cigarettes I'd hope they'd make the drug in there nicotine more. More bang for the buck.

to more effectively hook smokers

Seems like editorializing to me. More likely is they want people to get thier fix faster and more effectivly from a single cigarette instead of two.

 

[Harvey]

Originally posted by: tomywishbone
When I was 10 yrs old, I smoked a cigarette. It made me cough and feel dizzy.... didn't know why, but figured, "This can't be good for you." IMO, wouldn't smoking be a fairly good example of Darwinism?

My two cents.

The problem is, the tobacco companies target kids, and most young teens and pre-teens aren't mature enough to make rational, considered decisions about things like tobacco that are chemically addictive in the face of peer pressure.

Part of Darwinian survival requires parents and the rest of adult society taking appropriate action to protect their young. Chemically dependent adults who want to quit need help. It would be a lot cheaper to educate and protect kids to keep them from getting hooked in the first place, and it would do more to kill the greedy villains whose revenue stream depends on creating new generations of tobacco addicts.

 

[Jaskalas]

Originally posted by: techs
Topic Summary: Isn't it time we put these drug pushers in jail?

As long as you?re referring to all drugs. Why should this one be banned while others made legal?

 

[JD50]

I agree with Harvey and Techs, this is all the big bad tobacco companies fault, the people that actually buy these cigarettes and support these companies are free from all personal responsibility. I mean really, why should you hold someone responsible that is dumb enough to smoke cigarettes and then complain that its making them sick, these companies must be coming to their house and forcing them to smoke.

 

[Zebo]

Originally posted by: Harvey

Originally posted by: tomywishbone
When I was 10 yrs old, I smoked a cigarette. It made me cough and feel dizzy.... didn't know why, but figured, "This can't be good for you." IMO, wouldn't smoking be a fairly good example of Darwinism?

My two cents.

The problem is, the tobacco companies target kids, and most young teens and pre-teens aren't mature enough to make rational, considered decisions about things like tobacco that are chemically addictive in the face of peer pressure.

Part of Darwinian survival requires parents and the rest of adult society taking appropriate action to protect their young. Chemically dependent adults who want to quit need help. It would be a lot cheaper to educate and protect kids to keep them from getting hooked in the first place, and it would do more to kill the greedy villains whose revenue stream depends on creating new generations of tobacco addicts.

You'd hate europe. I just got back and they have cigarette machines on every corner which children can easily buy and I don't think there is a drinking age. My son 10 had a beer at a bar. I'd be willing to bet they have less alcoholism and smoking related deaths than USA.. sometimes when things are verbotten by puritans like yourself peoples want it more.

 

[HombrePequeno]

In this day and age, if you don't know that it's addictive, you're an idiot. No, they shouldn't be jailed for delivering exactly what people expect: nicotine. That's what people smoke for. I'm not going to complain if a liquor maker makes their drink stronger or if a weed dealer makes their weed stronger. That's what I'm getting the product for.

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: JD50
I agree with Harvey and Techs, this is all the big bad tobacco companies fault, the people that actually buy these cigarettes and support these companies are free from all personal responsibility. I mean really, why should you hold someone responsible that is dumb enough to smoke cigarettes and then complain that its making them sick, these companies must be coming to their house and forcing them to smoke.

A fine example of the ideology of the right missing the larger issue of the human disaster for no good reason.

JD50's policy, as usual, would leave the world a far worse place, while liberals, recognizing how nearly all smokers are suckered in as kids and kept with intentionally added addictive drugs, would see the tradeoff as being against cigarettes and their policy would make the world a much better place, while the cultish libertarian ideologues whine.

 

[ebaycj]

Originally posted by: Zebo
So? Being a libertarian I think the state has no right to say what you put in your body from meds to mind bending drugs to tobacco. If I smoked weed I'd hope they grow it stronger - likewise if I smoked cigarettes I'd hope they'd make the drug in there nicotine more. More bang for the buck.

to more effectively hook smokers

Seems like editorializing to me. More likely is they want people to get thier fix faster and more effectivly from a single cigarette instead of two.

Why on earth would a corporation want to do that? That would basically mean that their sales would be immediately cut in half.

Trust me, it's to get people more addicted so they have a harder time quitting. No question about it.

 

[steppinthrax]

Originally posted by: Harvey
I truly hate the tobacco companies. I think every tobacco exec for the last fifty years should be tried for crimes against humanity for the killer products they continue to market. I watched those lying assholes raise their hands before Congress and swear that tobacco was not addictive or carcinogenic.

A few years ago, California passed an initiatiative that is one of the strongest anti-smoking laws in the country. Despite the tobacco lobby spending a record amount for a private interest to defeat this initiative, it passed by a record margin of 80% - 20% margin. In the very next session of the state legislature, our elected representatives in the State Assembly passed a bill to overturn that initiative. Fortunately, the media stink that followed caused the State Senate to think better of the idea and kill it. I still have to wonder how much money it takes to get over half of a state legilative body to overturn a law passed by 80% of the voters.

Now, Philip Morris's saccherine anti-smoking commercials are equally lame. If they believed 10% of what they say, they would immediately stop selling their tobacco products.

To hide the association with their other products, they now call the parent company, Altria. From their site

Marketing Excellence and Innovation

Philip Morris International?s brand portfolio includes seven of the top 20 international brands, including Marlboro, which has been the best-selling international cigarette brand since 1972, and L&M, which is now the No. 3 brand in the world over the last decade. Other brands include [/i]Philip Morris, Chesterfield, Bond Street, Lark and Parliament.[/i]

Does this sound like a company that wants people to stop smoking? Can you say lying, two faced mofos, boys and girls? :|

If you don't smoke, your buying decisions about tobacco are irrelevant to them. However, you, and those with whom you share the info, below, can have an effect by boycotting tobacco-owned food products, depriving them of income from those sources. Here's a list from Philip Morris' Altria/Kraft Foods site:

A-1 Sauces
Altoids mints
Athenos Cheeses
Back to Nature
Baker's Chocolate and Coconut
Barnum's Animals
Biscos....................................

I've lost far too many friends in far too short a time to tobacco related illnesses. And before any of you children go off on me about my friends making their own choices, remember, they target their ads at kids. I'm 65, and when my friends and I were kids, there were no warnings on cigarette packs. However, there were lots of ads on radio and TV glamorizing smoking, including ads that said strange things like, more doctors recommend one brand over another.

They still target kids.

Death to the tobacco murderers! :| :| :|

I shortened your list to make this post shorter. Anyway, I can name at lease 20 items on that list that I've purchased or still am purchasing today. It is hard to know who is connected to who. IBM for example assisted Nazi's in the persecution of jews with their Tabulation card reading device. Bayer Pharm and other drug companies made the posions for the gas chambers duing the hosicost. But everybody forgets this.......

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: Harvey
I truly hate the tobacco companies. I think every tobacco exec for the last fifty years should be tried for crimes against humanity for the killer products they continue to market. I watched those lying assholes raise their hands before Congress and swear that tobacco was not addictive or carcinogenic.

A few years ago, California passed an initiatiative that is one of the strongest anti-smoking laws in the country. Despite the tobacco lobby spending a record amount for a private interest to defeat this initiative, it passed by a record margin of 80% - 20% margin. In the very next session of the state legislature, our elected representatives in the State Assembly passed a bill to overturn that initiative. Fortunately, the media stink that followed caused the State Senate to think better of the idea and kill it. I still have to wonder how much money it takes to get over half of a state legilative body to overturn a law passed by 80% of the voters.

Now, Philip Morris's saccherine anti-smoking commercials are equally lame. If they believed 10% of what they say, they would immediately stop selling their tobacco products.

To hide the association with their other products, they now call the parent company, Altria. From their site

Marketing Excellence and Innovation

Philip Morris International?s brand portfolio includes seven of the top 20 international brands, including Marlboro, which has been the best-selling international cigarette brand since 1972, and L&M, which is now the No. 3 brand in the world over the last decade. Other brands include [/i]Philip Morris, Chesterfield, Bond Street, Lark and Parliament.[/i]

Does this sound like a company that wants people to stop smoking? Can you say lying, two faced mofos, boys and girls? :|

If you don't smoke, your buying decisions about tobacco are irrelevant to them. However, you, and those with whom you share the info, below, can have an effect by boycotting tobacco-owned food products, depriving them of income from those sources. Here's a list from Philip Morris' Altria/Kraft Foods site:

A-1 Sauces
Altoids mints
Athenos Cheeses
Back to Nature
Baker's Chocolate and Coconut
Barnum's Animals
Biscos
Boca (meat alternatives)
Breakstone's Sour Cream, Cottage Cheese, etc.
Breyer's Ice Cream, Yogurt, etc.
Bull's-Eye barbecue and grilling sauces
Café Creme
California Pizza Kitchen pizza
Callard & Bowser Toffees
Calumet Baking Powder
Cameo
Campbell Soups
Capri Sun
CarbWell
Churny Cheeses
Claussen Pickles
Comet Cups Icecream Cones
Cool Whip
Corn Nuts
Country Time Lemonade
Cracker Barrel cheeses
Cream of Wheat
CremeSavers
Crystal Light
Dad's Cookies
Dream Whip
D-Zerta
Di Giorno Italian foods
Easy Cheese Process Cheese Spread
Ever Fresh Fruit Preservatives
Fruit20 drinks
General Foods (all products)
Gevalia Coffee
Good Seasons Salad Dressing Mixes
Grey Poupon
Handi-Snacks
Harvest Moon cheeses
Hoffman's cheeses
It's Pasta Anytime
Jack's Pizza
Jello
Jet-Puffed
Knudsen dairy products
Kool-Aid
Kool Stuf Toaster Pastries
Kraft Foods
La Vie De La Vosgienne candies
Life Savers
Light n' Lively cottage cheese
Louis Rich lunch meats
Lunchables
Maxwell House Coffee
Milk-Bone Dog Biscuits
Milka L'il Scoops
Miller Beer
Minute Brand Deserts
Minute Rice
Mirácoli pasta
Nabisco products
Oscar Meyer
Oven Fry Coatings
Planters Nuts, etc.
Polly-O Cheeses
Post Cereals
Postum
Ragu Sauces, etc.
Sanka Coffee
Sather's Candies
Sauceworks
Sealtest dairy products
Seattle's Best Coffee (Packaged products in stores)
Seven Seas Salad Dressings
Shake 'N Bake
Starbucks coffees (Packaged products in stores)
Stove Top Stuffings, etc.
Taco Bell dinner kits, Salsa, etc.
Tang
Tazo coffees (Packaged products in stores)
Torrefazione Italia coffees (Packaged products in stores)
Temp-tee cream cheese
Terry's candies
Tobler and Toblerone Candies
Tombstone Pizza
Trolli Candies
Veryfine
Woody's Cold Pack Cheese
Yuban Coffee

I've lost far too many friends in far too short a time to tobacco related illnesses. And before any of you children go off on me about my friends making their own choices, remember, they target their ads at kids. I'm 65, and when my friends and I were kids, there were no warnings on cigarette packs. However, there were lots of ads on radio and TV glamorizing smoking, including ads that said strange things like, more doctors recommend one brand over another.

They still target kids.

Death to the tobacco murderers! :| :| :|

Wow, so basically, every product on the market is somehow affiliated with a tobacco company. A-1, Altoids, Cream of Wheat, Campbell's Soup, Boca, Kraft Foods, Life Savers, Maxwell House Coffee, Nabisco Products, Planter's Nuts, Sather's Candies, Seven Seas Salad Dressings, Tang, and Tombstone Pizza. That's just the stuff I buy regularly.

My take on the tobacco companies: People want to kill themselves with tobacco anyway. And in our free market economy, if there is a market for something, someone's going to try to make money off of it. So in that respect, hey, go right ahead and sell tobacco. Everyone with a shred of a neuron knows that it's a health hazard, and it's addictive, and expensive. And hey, I support right-to-die issues, and physician assisted suicide. It's your life, if you want to cut it short, go right ahead. You should deal with the consequences though.

The parts I don't like: Making the product more addictive, nor the marketing that appeals to children. I don't like the idea of marketing these products in mainstream media - keep it restricted to areas more likely to be read exclusively by adults, such as select magazines. Adults will likely buy the tobacco anyway based on what their tastes are, not because some cowboy guy in an ad says that his cigarette is better. (Or maybe adults are more gullible than I like to think.)
I also don't like tobacco related illnesses being a financial drain on our health system. but, Prohibition, and the recent trans-fat debate, help show that people will NOT be deprived of their addictive, or simply tasty, food items, even if they have proven health risks. Everyone says stupidity should hurt. Alcohol, trans fats, and tobacco make stupidity deadly.

 

[BrownTown]

Honestly, my parents neve told me that cigarettes are bad for you and still I've know it for as long as I can remember. Everywhere you look there are antismoking propaganda, I find it really hard to beleive that someone could take up smoking without knowing it was bad for them. I'm sure most people who do it know it is bad but still do it based on peer pressure, to look cool etc.

On another note, what are the advantages of cigarettes? I still don't understand what is good about them that causes peopel to want to smoke. I mean with alot of drugs they can make you feel really good, so you can see whay people would want them, but smoking doesn't seem to be nearly so effective at producing any amount of happiness, and yet in the end it can leave you jsut as dead.

 

[JD50]

Originally posted by: Craig234

Originally posted by: JD50
I agree with Harvey and Techs, this is all the big bad tobacco companies fault, the people that actually buy these cigarettes and support these companies are free from all personal responsibility. I mean really, why should you hold someone responsible that is dumb enough to smoke cigarettes and then complain that its making them sick, these companies must be coming to their house and forcing them to smoke.

A fine example of the ideology of the right missing the larger issue of the human disaster for no good reason.

JD50's policy, as usual, would leave the world a far worse place, while liberals, recognizing how nearly all smokers are suckered in as kids and kept with intentionally added addictive drugs, would see the tradeoff as being against cigarettes and their policy would make the world a much better place, while the cultish libertarian ideologues whine.

So, kids are suckered into smoking (which is illegal), so your solution would be to completely ban cigarettes for adults? That doesn't make any sense. I'm sorry that you guys cannot understand personal accountability. Both of my parents smoked, somehow they managed to quit. I tried cigarettes a few times as a teenager, somehow I managed to stop and not get "suckered in" by those ever so enticing joe camel ads.

I don't need the government taking care of me, I'm quite capable, you guys can keep your nanny stateism in CA.

 

[techs]

Many people here are ignoring my points that was the tobacco companies were lying that their product was not harmful when they knew it was. And my other point that consumers should have a right to know the nicotine content of cigarrettes, if they choose to buy them.
I should mention I am not against selling cigarrettes. I am for not lying to people by saying your research says they are safe. I also want a complete end to all tobacco advertising. And cigarettes should not be allowed to be displayed in stores. If you want to be them, fine. Just don't push them to people as safe and entice them with ads.

 

[crownjules]

Originally posted by: Craig234

Originally posted by: JD50
I agree with Harvey and Techs, this is all the big bad tobacco companies fault, the people that actually buy these cigarettes and support these companies are free from all personal responsibility. I mean really, why should you hold someone responsible that is dumb enough to smoke cigarettes and then complain that its making them sick, these companies must be coming to their house and forcing them to smoke.

A fine example of the ideology of the right missing the larger issue of the human disaster for no good reason.

JD50's policy, as usual, would leave the world a far worse place, while liberals, recognizing how nearly all smokers are suckered in as kids and kept with intentionally added addictive drugs, would see the tradeoff as being against cigarettes and their policy would make the world a much better place, while the cultish libertarian ideologues whine.

Except, the world wouldn't be a better place. The government already spends billions on the current War on Drugs and it doesn't do much. You'd be adding yet another popular drug to the black market and another way from crime organizations to raise funds. You'd imprison people for making a personal choice to inhale dirty air, overcrowding jails further and requiring more tax payer dollars to house.

At least when it's legal, there is SOME benefit to the population. If it's illegal, all that sin tax money evaporates. Our government already has enough problems balancing the budget, I'd rather not see them take away a good source of income to have it replaced with even more expenditures.

You would think people would learn what happened during the Prohibition and how it's NOT a good idea.

 

[JD50]

Originally posted by: techs
Many people here are ignoring my points that was the tobacco companies were lying that their product was not harmful when they knew it was. And my other point that consumers should have a right to know the nicotine content of cigarrettes, if they choose to buy them.
I should mention I am not against selling cigarrettes. I am for not lying to people by saying your research says they are safe. I also want a complete end to all tobacco advertising. And cigarettes should not be allowed to be displayed in stores. If you want to be them, fine. Just don't push them to people as safe and entice them with ads.

I actually do partially agree with you, they should not lie about the harmfulness of cigarettes and they should display the nicotine content. But really, who doesn't know that cigarettes are harmful. I'm not sure how people could think that inhaling smoke is harmless.

 

[JD50]

Originally posted by: crownjules

Originally posted by: Craig234

Originally posted by: JD50
I agree with Harvey and Techs, this is all the big bad tobacco companies fault, the people that actually buy these cigarettes and support these companies are free from all personal responsibility. I mean really, why should you hold someone responsible that is dumb enough to smoke cigarettes and then complain that its making them sick, these companies must be coming to their house and forcing them to smoke.

A fine example of the ideology of the right missing the larger issue of the human disaster for no good reason.

JD50's policy, as usual, would leave the world a far worse place, while liberals, recognizing how nearly all smokers are suckered in as kids and kept with intentionally added addictive drugs, would see the tradeoff as being against cigarettes and their policy would make the world a much better place, while the cultish libertarian ideologues whine.

Except, the world wouldn't be a better place. The government already spends billions on the current War on Drugs and it doesn't do much. You'd be adding yet another popular drug to the black market and another way from crime organizations to raise funds. You'd imprison people for making a personal choice to inhale dirty air, overcrowding jails further and requiring more tax payer dollars to house.

At least when it's legal, there is SOME benefit to the population. If it's illegal, all that sin tax money evaporates. Our government already has enough problems balancing the budget, I'd rather not see them take away a good source of income to have it replaced with even more expenditures.

You would think people would learn what happened during the Prohibition and how it's NOT a good idea.

But at least people like Craig and Harvey would feel good about banning cigarettes, damn the consequences.

 

[CycloWizard]

Bottom line: there isn't much illegal about adding something to a product. The problem is that smoking is still legal. As long as it is legal, the tobacco companies should be able to put whatever they want in it. After all, it's not like you can die twice from smoking, and it's already going to kill you once.

 

[Genx87]

Well we have the typical deny personal responsibility and what about the children arguments tossed by the authortarian left in this thread.

 

[Legend]

I'm no fan of smoking, but why do you get so worked up about this?

Why aren't you ranting about how the US government endorsed a diet full of flour and other processed grains in the 1980s, when "low fat" was synonymous with healthy...dietary advice that is strongly supporting obesity, cancer and heart disease? Why aren't you angry about the FDA's endorsement of soy as a health food, despite internal opposition from FDA scientists due to the fact that soy is estrogenic, encourages hypothyroid, and breaks down muscle tissue? Why aren't you angry that the US government is using your tax dollars to make high fructose corn syrup less (edit) expensive than sugar, when HFCS is much worse sweetener healthwise (excessive fructose goes directly to the liver to become triglycerides...sugar does not)?

I have friends that are smokers. They know it's bad for them, and they are trying to quit. Most smokers know that smoking is bad for them. However, most people do not know the dangers of the dietary advice coming from what seems to be reliable sources: the government. That is a much larger crime.

 

[K1052]

I find it amusing (sad and depressing as well) to no end how people manage to rationalize their complete refusal to accept the consequences of their decisions.

 

[Steeplerot]

I am not surprised, cigs and alcohol are a scourge on our society while pot and mushrooms and stuff are illegal.

I am a smoker but I quit buying taylor mades about 8 years ago, just bypass the big tobacco corps and buy small company's rollies, cheaper, less additives and chicks always ask you to roll it for them when they bum one off you, a good time to give a quick rolling lesson to break the ice.

Death merchants these folks are, shame we cant get rid of both cigs and alcohol and liqudate their assets for treatment and abuse victims.

 

[BoomerD]

I can't think of any other product so readily available, that has as many documented health risks associated with it's use.
Anyone remember back in the 60's (yeh, I have a few fuzzy spots about those years too 😉 ) when saccharine was determined to be a carcinogen? Replaced by much better tasting cyclamates, but within a couple of years, that was determined to be an even worse carcinogen, and we got saccharine back, until Nutra-Sweet (aspartame) came out in the 80's (I think), yet saccharine is still availabe, because apparently, research has shown that it was the impurities in saccharine that caused bladder cancer, not the actual sweetener...:roll:

The US Congress is so deeply in the pockets of the tobacco growers and tobacco companies, that even it were proved that tobacco caused all your babies to be born naked and hairless, it would never be taken off the market.