Illegal Home-Smoking?

[winnerx3]

Illegal Home-Smoking?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------dawson thread

"Belmont California has just made it illegal to smoke inside your own apartment. I agree with this since second-hand smoke kills 50,000 per year.
It's time smokers become responsible for the lives around them that they are affecting.

But others feel this law in Belmont is over the edge."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
now, to be partially on topic, I reread this and it makes more sense. You are saying you agree that people can't smoke in their own apartment (as opposed to home-to be correct), because that second hand smoke is killing others.

Now, how can that be if they are sitting in thier own place with all that nicotine staining and sticking to the walls, clothes, furniture etc. How would that be killing 50,000 people a year.

I know I did go over this...I stated before, no children, pets or elderly that don't smoke.

Now, a thread assumes people are going to give an opinion and on that topic and that is what I did. I disagree with you, thats all. Where is the positive in any of this ? I think that maybe more people may give up the habit, but to continue to "bash" the smokers will do no good at all. Just makes them nervous and they smoke more. lol

[Auntie Freda]

Originally Posted by louie the laig break

Just because you pompously sneer at us "Yanks" does not by a LONG shot mean you "have us for breakfast"..

Now don't get all precious about the Term "Yanks", mate.
To the entire English-speaking world, ALL citizens of the USA are "Yanks".
Nothing whatever to do with the old North/South YankEE/Reb stuff.

It's really just like 'Aussies' or 'Kiwis' or 'Canuks' or 'Poms' etc etc.
Indeed, it can be almost a term of endearment -
Remember the George Cohen wartime song
"The Yanks are Comin', the Yanks are Comin' ...... "
I recall he got some sort of Congressional medal for that song - and nobody seemed to object to the 'Yanks' bit.



As for my choice of 'breakfast',
it seems TO ME that few Americans who choose to debate the more serious issues here,
like American foreign policy or global warming or religion or whatever .....
can sustain a rational discussion for long - before they get all snooty and personal and condescending.
Just my experience, mate.
Call 'em as I see 'em.

[louie the laig break]

It's really just like 'Aussies' or 'Kiwis' or 'Canuks' or 'Poms' etc etc.
Indeed, it can be almost a term of endearment

Cut the crap fred..You put down and disparage Americans every chance you get with your aloof sneering better-than-thou attitude.

Do not come on here and act like anything you say about Americans is "endearing".

Then when we/I get insulted you call us "snooty, personal and condescending"?

For the most part we endure your vehemence and poison. After a while it does get a little sickening.

[penry99]

Originally Posted by Auntie Freda

Now don't get all precious about the Term "Yanks", mate.
To the entire English-speaking world, ALL citizens of the USA are "Yanks".
Nothing whatever to do with the old North/South YankEE/Reb stuff.

It's really just like 'Aussies' or 'Kiwis' or 'Canuks' or 'Poms' etc etc.
Indeed, it can be almost a term of endearment -
Remember the George Cohen wartime song
"The Yanks are Comin', the Yanks are Comin' ...... "
I recall he got some sort of Congressional medal for that song - and nobody seemed to object to the 'Yanks' bit.



As for my choice of 'breakfast',
it seems TO ME that few Americans who choose to debate the more serious issues here,
like American foreign policy or global warming or religion or whatever .....
can sustain a rational discussion for long - before they get all snooty and personal and condescending.
Just my experience, mate.
Call 'em as I see 'em.

Re the last bit about few Americans being able to sustain a rational discussion for long, etc., etc., I think it's ridiculous to generalize to that extent.

[Auntie Freda]

Oh my, poor Louie is having a bad day.

But you've pretty much proved my point.
" .... few Americans ..... can sustain a rational discussion for long - before they get all snooty and personal and condescending."


It seems that the comment which ORIGINALLY lit your fire was
" ... I have rightwing fundie-Christian Yanks for breakfast - and don't even burp."
I just did not realize that you fell into that "rightwing fundie-Christian Yank" category.

Now that I know, I'll TRY to be gentle with you, mate ..........

[Auntie Freda]

Originally Posted by penry99

Re the last bit about few Americans being able to sustain a rational discussion for long, etc., etc., I think it's ridiculous to generalize to that extent.

Good heavens, we have another one.

AGAIN proving my point.
What I SAID was -

" it seems TO ME that FEW Americans .........
JUST my experience .............
Call 'em as I SEE'em ..........."

That is hardly generalization "Penry99".
I am very clearly merely voicing my own personal experience.
Of COURSE I acknowledge there are millions of smart Yanks.
Few seem to engage in these forums - probably better things to do.

[penry99]

You call it voicing your personal experience - I call it being a pain in the butt. The way you express your attitude to Americans in general can't be regarded as constructive debate. Reading the frequent reiterations of your hide-bound prejudice became tiresome a long time ago. You say you tell it like you see it. It just so happens that you're seeing it through the eyes of an ass-hole!

[Auntie Freda]

THANK you for that Deep and Meaningful contribution, Penry.

[Joyous]

For those who may be interested.


Smoking Marijuana Does Not Cause Lung Cancer

By Fred Gardner, O'Shaughnessy's . Posted August 28, 2009.


New research sbe something in pot that actually undermines cancer, instead of causing it. -- and the media are doing their best to ignore it.

Editor's Note: There is a groundswell of attention in the news to marijuana's role in causing and preventing various types of cancers. Last week, AlterNet published an article from the Marijuana Policy Project about a new study finding that pot smokers have a lower risk of head and neck cancers than people who don’t smoke pot. Earlier this year, the corporate media pounced on a study suggesting that men who had been using marijuana at least once per week and who had started smoking pot prior to age 18 had an elevated risk of testicular cancer known as nonseminoma, which makes up fewer than half of one percent of all cancer cases among men.

Head, neck and testicular cancers are of course quite serious ailments to deal with, but what about cancer of the most obvious organ at risk with pot smoking, the lungs? Where's the science on that? The article below by Fred Gardner, editor of the medical marijuana research quarterly journal O'Shaughnessy's, shares the results of a major medical study the media completely ignored, and his conclusions are quite blunt on the matter: Smoking pot doesn't cause lung cancer. In fact, the study found that cigarette smokers who also smoked marijuana were at a lower risk of contracting lung cancer than tobacco-only smokers.

***

Smoking Marijuana Does Not Cause Lung Cancer

by Fred Gardner

One in three Americans will be afflicted with cancer, we are told by the government (as if it’s our immutable fate and somehow acceptable). Cancer is the second-leading cause of death in the U.S. and lung cancer the leading killer among cancers.

You’d think it would have been very big news in June 2005 when UCLA medical school professor Donald Tashkin reported that components of marijuana smoke -- although they damage cells in respiratory tissue -- somehow prevent them from becoming malignant. In other words, something in marijuana exerts an anti-cancer effect!

Tashkin has special credibility. He was the lead investigator on studies dating back to the 1970s that identified the components in marijuana smoke that are toxic. It was Tashkin et al. who published photomicrographs showing that marijuana smoke damages cells lining the upper airways. It was the Tashkin lab’s finding that benzpyrene -- a component of tobacco smoke that plays a role in most lung cancers -- is especially prevalent in marijuana smoke. It was Tashkin’s data showing that marijuana smokers are more likely than non-smokers to cough, wheeze, and produce sputum.

Tashkin reviewed his findings in April 2008, at a conference organized by “Patients Out of Time,” a reform group devoted to educating doctors and the public (as opposed to lobbying politicians). Some 30 MDs and nurses got continuing medical education credits for attending the event, which was held at Asilomar, on the Monterey Peninsula.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse, which supported Tashkin’s marijuana-related research over the decades, readily gave him a grant in 2002 to conduct a large, population-based, case-controlled study that would prove definitively that heavy, long-term marijuana use increases the risk of lung and upper-airways cancers.

What Tashkin and his colleagues found, however, disproved their hypothesis. (Tashkin is to marijuana as a cause of lung cancer what Hans Blix was to Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction -- an honest investigator who set out to find something, concluded that it wasn’t there, and reported his results.)

Tashkin’s team interviewed 1,212 cancer patients from the Los Angeles County Cancer Surveillance program, matched for age, gender, and neighborhood with 1,040 cancer-free controls. Marijuana use was measured in “joint years” (number of years smoked times number of joints per day).

It turned out that increased marijuana use did not result in higher rates of lung and pharyngeal cancer, whereas tobacco smokers were at greater risk the more they smoked. Tobacco smokers who also smoked marijuana were at slightly lower risk of getting lung cancer than tobacco-only smokers.

These findings were not deemed worthy of publication in “NIDA Notes.” Tashkin reported them at the 2005 meeting of the International Cannabinoid Research Society. They were published in the October 2006 issue of Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers & Prevention.

Without a press release from NIDA calling attention to its significance, the assignment editors of America had no idea that “Marijuana Use and the Risk of Lung and Upper Aerodigestive Tract Cancers: Results of a Population-Based Case-Control Study” by Mia Hashibe1, Hal Morgenstern, Yan Cui, Donald P. Tashkin, Zuo-Feng Zhang, Wendy Cozen, Thomas M. Mack and Sander Greenland was a blockbuster story.

I suggested to Eric Bailey of the L.A. Times that he write up Tashkin’s findings -- UCLA provided the local angle if the anti-cancer effect wasn’t enough. Bailey said his editors wouldn’t be interested for some time because he had just filed a marijuana-related piece. The Tashkin scoop is still there for the taking!

Tashkin Defends His Findings

Investigators from New Zealand recently got widespread media attention for a study contradicting Tashkin’s results. “Heavy cannabis users may be at greater risk of chronic lung disease –including cancer– compared to tobacco smokers,” is how BBC News summed up the New Zealanders’ findings.

The very small size of the study –79 smokers took part, 21 of whom smoked cannabis only– was not held against the authors. In fact, the small New Zealand study was given much more coverage by the corporate press than the large UCLA study that preceded it.

The New Zealand study was portrayed as the latest word on this important subject. As if scientific inquiry were some kind of tennis match and the truth just gets truthier with every volley.

Tashkin criticized the New Zealanders’ methodology in his talk at Asilomar: “There’s some cognitive dissonance associated with the interpretation of their findings. I think this has to do with the belief model among the investigators and –I wish they were here to defend themselves– the integrity of the investigators… They actually published another paper in which they mimicked the design that we used for looking at lung function.”

Tashkin spoke from the stage of an airy redwood chapel designed by Julia Morgan. He is pink-cheeked, 70ish, wears wire-rimmed spectacles. “For tobacco they found what you’d expect: a higher risk for lung cancer and a clear dose-response relationship. A 24-fold increase in the people who smoked the most… What about marijuana? If they smoked a small or moderate amount there was no increased risk, in fact slightly less than one. But if they were in the upper third of the group, then their risk was six-fold… A rather surprising finding, and one has to be cautious about interpreting the results because of the very small number of cases -- fourteen— and controls -- four.”

Tashkin said the New Zealanders employed “statistical sleight of hand.” He deemed it “completely implausible that smokers of only 365 joints of marijuana have a risk for developing lung cancer similar to that of smokers of 7,000 tobacco cigarettes… Their small sample size led to vastly inflated estimates… They had said ‘it’s ideal to do the study in New Zealand because we have a much higher prevalence of marijuana smoking.’ But 88 percent of their controls had never smoked marijuana, whereas 36% of our controls (in Los Angeles) had never smoked marijuana. Why did so few of the controls smoke marijuana? Something fishy about that!”

Strong words for a UCLA School of Medicine professor!

As to the highly promising implication of his own study –that something in marijuana stops damaged cells from becoming malignant— Tashkin noted that an anti-proliferative effect of THC has been observed in cell-culture systems and animal models of brain, breast, prostate, and lung cancer. THC has been shown to promote apoptosis (damaged cells die instead of reproducing) and to counter angiogenesis (the process by which blood vessels are formed —a requirement of tumor growth). Other antioxidants in cannabis may also be involved in countering malignancy, said Tashkin.

COPD

Much of Tashkin’s talk was devoted to Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, another condition prevalent among tobacco smokers. Chronic bronchitis and emphysema are two forms of COPD, which is the fourth-leading cause of death in the United States. Air pollution and tobacco smoke are known culprits. Inhaled pathogens cause an inflammatory response, resulting in diminished lung function. COPD patients have increasing difficulty clearing the airways as they get older.

Tashkin and colleagues at UCLA conducted a major study in which they measured lung function of various cohorts over eight years and found that tobacco-only smokers had an accelerated rate of decline, but marijuana smokers –even if they smoked tobacco as well– experienced the same rate of decline as non-smokers.

“The more tobacco smoked, the greater the rate of decline,” said Tashkin. “In contrast, no matter how much marijuana was smoked, the rate of decline was similar to normal.”

Tashkin concluded that his and other studies “do not support the concept that regular smoking of marijuana leads to COPD.”

Breathe easier, everybody.

[HappyGoLucky]

Smoking will soon be so taboo you wont even be able to smoke in your own apartment!! Oh wait.....
Well, as a non smoker I think that is good however I feel for the non smokers. Kind of a crazy law but it is for the betterment of everyone.

[Mugsy628]

A lot of us choose the means of our own death, some without realizing it, and some with full realization. I understand cigarette smoke is not good for non-smokers, and I try to be considerate, but really- going after smokers is so petty considering the people we SHOULD be going after. I have known a few smokers who had heart attacks while driving a car, granted, and probably there are a few who caused wrecks when they were trying to light a cigarette, but those people can't drive anyway if they did that. However, let's look at numbers. How many people who smoke cigarettes (only) get out in their cars and are out of control of their minds and bodies? How many people a year are killed in cars by cigarette addicts ( who are not drunk or on drugs)? We are the only minority it's still legal to kick off public transportation (to hell with sitting in the back), kick out of public buildings, refuse jobs because we smoke, etc. Maybe the EEO needs a new cause....

[*sophia*]

Originally Posted by Mugsy628

...but really- going after smokers is so petty considering the people we SHOULD be going after...

I understand and sympathize with what you're saying Mugsy but there are very strict laws against drugs and alcohol as well...moreso even. Alcohol is banned from almost every area where there is not a license to sell. Public drunkeness is punishable by law. There are severe penalties to face for drunk driving. There are rehab places and organizations like MADD and AA.

So I would say we're "going after" them too.

[jodevizes]

It is a bizarre and I would have thought a difficult law to enforce. Will they have police on cherry pickers peeking in through second and third floor windows to see if someone is having a crafty smoke ?

I remember when I was in Hollywood at a restaurant which was located at a traffic light on, I think, Santa Monica Boulevard. I was seated outside by the wall I lit a cigarette and the waitress said that smoking was not allowed. I pointed to the huge truck that was pulling away in a big pall of smoke and said, well please tell him.

I think you can take this anti smoking thing too far. Oh I don't smoke now but I still miss those Pall Malls.

[Sunnydaze]

Originally Posted by Joyous

It isn't that I support smoking. It's the tip of the iceberg effect. Today it's your pet peeve, or complaint and tomorrow it's something I hold dear that becomes illegal.

Barbara Boxer is trying to push through a treaty to take away parental rights and allow the government the final say in all things concerning children. Didn't Hitler have a similar idea? How far are we willing to trust Govt?

Parents in Florida have not had complete say so over their own children for many many years. Of course there are some parents who shouldnt even be partents but these laws also apply to the parents who are doing a fine job with their children. (If the child complains at school he/she isnt being treated fairly, there is an investigation. Several times the child's complaint was because "he/she didnt have designer shoes or was forbidden to play video games" or some such nonsense. The parents were still investigated.)
As far as not being able to smoke in one's own home, I agree with others, tomorrow something you enjoy and see no harm in could be banned also. Just my two cents worth.
sunny

[Joyous]

This one is very controversial.

« Supposed Marijuana And Schizophrenia Link “Overstated”
‘Gold Standard’ Studies Show That Inhaled Marijuana Is Medically Safe And Effective
February 17th, 2010 By: Paul Armentano, NORML Deputy Director
Share this Article


The results of a series of randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trials assessing the efficacy of inhaled marijuana consistently show that cannabis holds therapeutic value comparable to conventional medications, according to the findings of a 24-page report issued earlier today to the California state legislature by the California Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research (CMCR).

Four of the five placebo-controlled trials demonstrated that marijuana significantly alleviated neuropathy, a difficult to treat type of pain resulting from nerve damage.

“There is good evidence now that cannabinoids (the active compounds in the marijuana plant) may be either an adjunct or a first-line treatment for … neuropathy,” said Dr. Igor Grant, Director of the CMCR, at a news conference at the state Capitol. He added that the efficacy of smoked marijuana was “very consistent,” and that its pain-relieving effects were “comparable to the better existing treatments” presently available by prescription.

A fifth study showed that smoked cannabis reduced the spasticity associated with multiple sclerosis. A separate study conducted by the CMCR established that the vaporization of cannabis – a process that heats the substance to a temperature where active cannabinoid vapors form, but below the point of combustion – is a “safe and effective” delivery mode for patients who desire the rapid onset of action associated with inhalation while avoiding the respiratory risks of smoking.

Two additional clinical trials remain ongoing.

The CMCR program was founded in 2000 following an $8.7 million appropriation from the California state legislature. The studies are some of the first placebo-controlled clinical trials to assess the safety and efficacy of inhaled cannabis as a medicine to take place in over two decades.

Placebo-controlled clinical crossover trials are considered to be the ‘gold standard’ method for assessing the efficacy of drugs under the US FDA-approval process.

“These scientists created an unparalleled program of systematic research, focused on science-based answers rather than political or social beliefs,” said former California Senator John Vasconcellos, who sponsored the legislation in 1999 to launch the CMCR. Vasconcellos called the studies’ design “state of art,” and suggested that the CMCR’s findings “ought to settle the issue” of whether or not medical marijuana is a safe and effective medical treatment for patients.

“This (report) confirms all of the anecdotal evidence – how lives have been saved and pain has been eased,” said California Democrat Senator Mark Leno at the press conference. “Now we have the science to prove it.”

Full text of the CMCR’s report to the California legislature is available at online at: http://www.cmcr.ucsd.edu/CMCR_REPORT_FEB17.pdf.

[joyce1957]

I believe most smokers would say they wished they hadn't smoked that first cigarette right about now in this day and age. But, quitting is not easy - it's an addiction and empathy should come into play just as persons with other addictions. Also, a lot of people would like help quitting, but unfortunately many insurances do not cover it and the persons who want to find it expensive. I know, I know, you're saying it's more expensive to buy the cigarettes, but in that moment you find that you can afford 6-7 dollars, but not the $50 and upward cost of over-the-counter "stop smoking" aids. I know not everyone will agree with me, but it's just my opinion of the situation.

[Joyous]

Hi Joyce! I agree. Most people probably would prefer to not smoke. I am sure there are a few die hards who really enjoy their cigarettes and figure its nobody's business. I have known people who lived to be in their 90s and smoked for most of their lives, but there is no doubt, cigarettes cannot be beneficial.
I had my last cigarette about 27 or 28 years ago and I hate to be around smokers now. All the people I know who smoke are polite in not smoking near me. We do not allow smoking in the house. Still, in the great outdoors or in one's own house, it really isn't my business.
I am happy to say that in my state, marijuana, is allowed for medicinal purposes. Among my friends and relatives, I have had experience with both drinkers and marijuana smokers and I find the Marijuana smokers to be more docile, happy, non-combative than those who consume alcohol.
I am not being argumentative, just stating my humble opinion.