People who don't smoke are healthier then people who do.

You can get the facts from any bog standard health site on the net, so I won't regurgitate them here.

In addition, a smoking ban will benifit non-smokers such as me who would no longer be forced to breath in secondhand smoke, making the personal environment healthier for us all.

It would also make people who do smoke think about kicking the habit, and they will probably smoke less if the are no longer allowed to smoke where they please.

The fact is that smoking roll-your-own cigarettes - using unadulterated tobacco - might actually be GOOD for your health.

Consider the following:
1. There's an enormous amount of radioactive fallout in the atmosphere at the moment due to above-ground atomic weapons testing from the 1940's, 50's and later, not to mention the apalling catastrophe at Chernobyl (plus depleted uranium usage in the Balkan wars, and points further east). This fallout has spread all over the world by now, and decays slowly over thousands of years, so the chances of inhaling carcinogenic dust is actually pretty high.

The overall magnitude of lung cancer risk to humans from atmospheric radioactive fallout cannot be overstated. Before Russia, Britain and America outlawed atmospheric testing on August 5, 1963, more than 4,200 kilograms of plutonium had been discharged into the atmosphere. Because we know that less than one microgram [millionth of a single gram] of inhaled plutonium causes terminal lung cancer in a human, we therefore know that your friendly government has lofted 4,200,000,000 [4.2 Billion] lethal doses into the atmosphere, with particle radioactive half-life a minimum of 50,000 years.

One way of countering this threat is through smoking. Professor Schrauzer, President of the International Association of Bio-inorganic Chemists, testified before a U.S. congressional committee in 1982 that it had long been well known to scientists that certain constituents of tobacco smoke act as anti-carcinogens [anti-cancer agents] in test animals. He continued that when known carcinogens [cancer causing substances] are applied to the animals, the application of constituents of cigarette smoke counter them.

Professor Sterling of the Simon Fraser University in Canada is perhaps closest to the truth, where he uses research papers to reason that smoking promotes the formation of a thin mucous layer in the lungs, "which forms a protective layer stopping any cancer-carrying particles from entering the lung tissue." This is probably as close as we can get to the truth at present, and it does make perfect scientific sense. Deadly radioactive particles inhaled by a smoker would initially be trapped by the mucous layer, and then be ejected from the body before they could enter the tissue. Please see the following site:

 http://www.joevialls.co.uk/transpositions/smoking.html

2. Nicotine is one of the few things that can actually increase your red blood cell count, which is why doctors ask you if you're a smoker before they do a blood test - i.e. if they find a high haemoglobin count, then they'll know there's a reasonable cause for it, and that it's not due to a pathological condition. The body MAY actually over-compensate and increase the amount of oxygen flowing around your body. One well-known indication of this is that, when smoking, you are able to think a good deal more clearly and concentrate more closely.

3. Jeremy Narby Ph.D., an anthropologist who studied at Stanford University, and author of 'The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge', has studied shamanic use of tobacco. He points out that "A molecule of nicotine shares structural similarities with the neurotransmitter acetylcholine and fits like a skeleton key into its receptor on certain neurons...

"In the human brain there are tens of billions of neurons, and they are of several sorts. Each neuron is equipped with approximately a thousand synapses, which are junction sites connecting the cells to each other. Each synapse has ten million or so receptors. The number of neurons is frequently estimated at ten billion; [some researchers put the number at a 100 billion to a trillion.] There are approximately 50 known neurotransmitters, and a given cell can have different receptors for several of these. The nicotine and acetylcholine molecules have different shapes, but the receptor cannot tell them apart because they have the same size and the distribution of their electrical charges is similar...

"The more you give nicotine to your neurons, the more the DNA they contain activates the construction of nicotinic receptors, within certain limits." Nicotine is used by Amazonian peoples as an hallucinogen and a remedy, and there does seem to be a commonly-understood link here in the West between creativity and tobacco use. I was struck by seeing David Hockney chain-smoking on a report on Newsnight recently, and it struck me - just how many writers and artists do I know of who DON'T smoke?

4. It's also well-known that smoking speeds up the body's metabolism, thus combating obesity - a real killer in all sorts of ways.

A somewhat freaky, though apparently well-informed site (make of it what you will) that deals with this whole issue is the following (scroll towards the bottom of the page):

 http://www.cassiopaea.org/cass/diet.htm

One last point: During the 1950s an awful lot of children in the UK were screened for TB by giving them exceptionally high doses of X-rays - far in excess of the amount used to check for broken bones. This radiation was shot through the lungs, and the damage caused in terms of later lung cancer seems never to have been adequately assessed. Blaming lung cancer purely on smoking is a handy way, i believe, for the government to dodge their responsibilities.

Peace

OtterShrew

Nice to see the motives of the anti-smoking lobby actually being questioned for once. As if smokers don't have enough problems with the unnecessary chemicals they inhale and their status as social pariahs, anyone who questions the motivations of the anti-smoking lobby is dismissed outright as "in bed with big tobacco". Smoking is stupid and dangerous, but it's my choice. I'm ashamed to admit it but I'm with Bill Hicks on this one - the main reason I don't want to give up is purely to spite intolerant and whiny non-smokers.

Whilst I am sympathetic to non-smokers who want to socialise in a smoke free environment, they ought to lobby their local businesses to choose - either allow smoking or don't. Making smoking illegal in all public places is just needlessly spiteful and intolerant and won't win the anti-smoking lobby any friends in the long term.

After 30 years of picking on smokers, I'm glad to see that fat people and drinkers are now the targets of the health police. About time too, as I'm skinny and avoid the "angry-juice" whenever possible.

Who would you rather sit next to in a bar? A man chain smoking or a man who's just downed eight pints of lager? I know which I prefer.

Tobacco contains nicotine. Nicotine is highly addictive (more so than heroin), and in many situations, many find it nigh on impossible to give up, paricularly if they are in deprived backgrounds where it's one of the few "pleasures" they have. In a way the government can be regarded as a drug dealer profiteering off the addiction of millions (the govt makes millions on the tax on tobacco in this country!). Therefore you don't really need to worry about smoking bans beacuse in spite of the govt paying lip service to banning smoking in public places, they know better than to undermine one of it's greatest sources on income!

Yeah, shout about "freedom of choice" if you want, but in many cases there are many smokers that want to stop, but cannot because the addiction is so great. Some choice. Also to those that smoke and wish to do so, kindly respect people's decision to not smoke, and note that to many non-smokers, the smell is abhorrent, and dangers of secondhand smoke aside, it isn't very nice to have be upwind of someone's smoke (also potentially dangerous if you have asthma), at least they can take meaurse to keep it from going in the directions of non-smokers.

If we consider the vast numbers of people who use to smoke, and the science that says smoking causes lung cancer, we should logically be seeing an epidemic of lung cancer victims within our families and communities. How many people do you know that have died or are dying of lung cancer? I don't know of anyone! Ask you friends and family if they know of anyone, you may be surprised by the answer, I was when I asked, especially considering the number of people in my family and community who smoke.

If there is a direct relationship between smoking and premature death, why would the wise 'elders' of so many different types of tribal communities smoke? Wouldn't they have evolved to recognize what is and what isn't harmful by noticing how those who smoke die young.

In fact wouldn't it be completely evident to us all? My grandfather smoked heavily (up to 2oz of tinned tabbaco a day) for 80 years and eventually died of old age...

What does instinct tell you is worst; smoking 20 cigs a day; or standing at a bus stop inhaling traffic fumes during rush hour?

Having said that, now that harmful pollutants have been added to cigarettes, the claim that smoking is bad for you will obviously become true, therefore making it appear on the surface that those masses who previously died from the effects of pollution actually died of a smoking related illness because the effects will be the same ---- which in turn means those responsible for pollution will get away with corporate manslaughter, because they will have convinced the masses it is smoking that causes so many deaths, as oppose the pollution!

90% of all fatal cancers are caused by smoking.
Smoking also leads to an increased risk of heart disease.

There is also a very nasty disease called emphysema, which can also be caused by smoking. I have seen someone die of it, and to say that it is extremely unplesant is an understatment.

But just another murder victims at the hands of the UK govt and Big Tobacco.

Quick comments on some of the comments:

* Those who have picked up the mainstream, corporatized language about "smoking" have been persuaded to essentially blame smokers, the ones doing the smoking, for the many negative health effects. This "smoking" word is virtually designed to do that...to take all our eyes off of the manufacturing processes and all the industries (and gov't officials) involved.

* One person said "smoking" (of WHAT??) is "stupid and dangerous". Inhaling burned pesticide residues, dioxin, radiation from tobacco fertilizers and numerous other non-tobacco toxins and carcinogens is certainly dangerous...but what can be "stupid" about it if a smoker doesn't KNOW? There's ignorance afoot...but that's the fault of public officials who, right down the line, are in bed with parts of Big Cig. If it's not the obvious cig makers then it's pesticides, chlorine, pharms (pesticides and additives suppliers), sugar, agricultural ingredients, advertisers, and importantly, ALL their insurers and investors. Remember that top insurers ARE investors as well.

Native Americans used tobacco for about 10,000 years...for appetite suppression (like other indigenously-used plants around the globe), stress relief, digestive relief, alertness and for religious and economic purposes. "Stupid and dangerous"?
What's stupid and dangerous is IGNORING the cartel of industries involved in making typical (VERY non-organic) cigs because this lets the bastards remain above the fray, it lets them keep their "good reputations", and it lets them continue to poison us, our children, everyone on earth, wildlife and the whole ecosystem.

The war on tobacco is a war on natural plants...right alongside the GE "food" invasions and the prohibitions of hemp and pot....right there with the corporate theft of natural seeds and genes.
It's also an attack on individual freedoms and rights...and a grave threat of a NEW Prohibition to help fill the prisons and excuse police invasions of a much broader area than before.

It's NOT about "smoking". It's, more than anything, about a HUGE evasion of corporate liability and accountability by complicit gov't officials. It's about protecting Big Chlorine (oil, plastics, pharms, pesticides, etc) from the indictments related to dioxins.

Oh...and it's also about patronizing those Religious Fundamentalists who frown on using natural plants for health OR pleasure. That the cause has hooked in some ordinarily leftish or progressive health activists is just sad...if not tragic. They COULD be using this case as "Exhibit A" against health damaging chemical industries and the like but....no.