Tobacco and Tobacco Products

NO! smoking cigarettes isn't good for you. it destroys your lungs and give you lung disease. it makes your nails and teeth go yellow and horrible.

I would recommend not to smoke!

The above answer seems very childish and it frankly reads as a knee-jerk, brain-washed reactive answer to a serious question. Here is some sane advice from a physician who once smoked and loved it, but quit several years ago after I found it became progressively harder to run my daily two miles in the morning:

For the most part, smoking is not good for your health. There are a few medical conditions which are postponed or alleviated by smoking (alzheimers disease, certain stomach dissorders, etc.. Even stress, a very serious silent killer, has been reported to be alleviated by smoking) and by the ingestion of nicotine. Yet the negative effects are greater than the few "good" things smoking can do for you. Even smoking a few cigarettes a week can cause ill effects. Smoking MAY destroy your lungs and it MAY give you emphysema, etc. You may also die from lung cancer, but not all smokers do. In fact, studies are showing that one in three people who are diagnosed as having lung cancer claim to have never smoked cigarettes. Yes, it also MAY make your nails an teeth "go yellow and horrible."

Smoking in general is quite bad for your overall health and if you don't smoke now...don't start. Many bad things will begin to happen if you start smoking. Among them are that you will lose lung capacity, not feel your best, and statistically you wil likely die 5-10 years before your time.

However...I find it appalling that the anti smoking lobby has demonized a whole set of people just because they partake in something that gives them pleasure and is far less life-threatening as alcohol or other drugs of which up to 25% of the population are addicted. Why don't you ever hear, "It seems the woman had one too many cigarettes before getting behind the wheel of her car and killing the innocent pedestrian" on the evening news? Smoking does not affect anyone but the user. Second hand smoke may smell bad, but the largest study of it's kind concluded that second hand smoke does not produce harmful effects in those who are casually subjected to it for short periods of time.

Now please don't take this the wrong way, because smoking will not make you better looking. However, many "beautiful" people who do not have "yellow teeth" or "yellow nails" smoke cigarettes: Keanu Reeves, Brad Pitt, Sarah Jessica Parker, Elizabeth Hurley (stopped while pregnant), Kate Bosworth, Gwen Stefani, Gisele Bundchen, Sarah Michelle Geller, Scarlette Johannson, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Cameron Diaz, Whoopie Goldberg (ok...that's pushing the "beautiful" a bit far), Catherine Zeta Jones, LIsa Kudrow, Denise Richards, Darell Hannah, Natalie Portman, Charolette Church (yes, the singer), Penelope Cruz, Allisa Milano, Nicole Kidman...the list goes on and on. These people have smoked for years, some for decades, and continue to be photographed smoking in public and it really doesn't seem to affect them all too much in terms of "beauty." But the anti-smoking fascists, I mean lobbyists, want you to believe that smoking will make you ugly, when, ironically, the ugliest people I've ever encountered were adamant anti-smoking lobbyists.

The bottom line: Don't smoke. If you smoke, please consider quitting as it will most likely lead to health benefits. If you do smoke and enjoy it, go ahead and enjoy yourself; when you feel like it is negatively affecting your health, consider stopping. If you are someone who thinks smoking is the worst thing imaginable and you do your best to make those who DO smoke feel bad about themselves...get a life, stop making other people feel bad about themselves and begin to work on your own faults. It's a lot easier to take the splinter out of someone else's eye after you take the log out of your own.

Cigarette smoking is responsible for an estimated 443,000 deaths annually nationwide. The Centers for Disease Control reports the number of tobacco related deaths in the US is greater than all HIV/AIDS, illegal drug

use, alcohol use, motor vehicle injuries, suicides and murders combined.[i] So what is stopping these deadly and addictive products from becoming illegal?

To put the number of tobacco related deaths in perspective, the CDC credits the notorious H1N1virus with a mere 3,900 deaths since the flu first appeared in the spring [ii] - a fraction of the number of deaths caused by cigarette smoking. Yet even as the government spent billions preparing for pandemic outbreaks such as H1N1, the domestic tobacco industry spent $75 billion between 2000 and 2005 on advertising and promotion.[iii] Despite killing almost half a million customers annually, the tobacco industry is so profitable that it can spend more than a billion dollars a month attracting new business.

While cigarette manufactures sicken the public, the stratospheric rise in healthcare costs is forcing states to cut crucial programs. There is a national panic over how to fund medical care for the oncoming tsunami of aging baby boomers. We can scarcely manage treating our already ailing public, let alone millions more who will need serious medical care because of years of cigarette smoking.

It seems like common sense that we make cigarettes illegal, but banning tobacco products is both politically and economically unfeasible for a number of reasons.

Tobacco is so deeply entrenched in our culture that efforts to restrict its use are viewed by much of the smoking public as assaults on personal freedom. Many argue that smoking cigarettes is a choice, despite the medical reality that cigarettes are more addictive than many illegal hard line drugs. Choice or not, once you start smoking, it is hard to stop.

Tobacco is a multi-billion dollar industry that employs tens of thousands of people at a time when unemployment is at 10%. Tobacco companies pay millions in taxes on revenue they earn, and they are top contributors to

political campaign funds. Making cigarettes illegal would be a political impossibility, since on the surface it would appear that the action would both raise unemployment and reduce tobacco tax revenues.

Even if cigarettes were illegal, we must look to our country's most famous attempt at banning a popular substance - the prohibition of alcohol - to imagine what effects a smoking ban might have. A thriving black market in cigarettes would rejuvenate organized crime rings that have been weakened in recent decades. Money that could be collected as tax on cigarette sales will instead line the pockets of criminals. In addition, our overcrowded and underfunded legal system can't possibly expand to absorb a new genera of illegal substance. We can't bear the cost of trying and jailing marijuana users, let alone cigarette smokers and smugglers.

Simply stated, the US can't afford to make cigarettes illegal. We can't afford to lose the tobacco industry, or to enforce a ban. So while our nation works to restructure its healthcare system, big tobacco will keep marketing to future patients. As for rising health care costs? The consumer will pay for it, that is if he has any money left after buying those cartons of cigarettes.

No! Its not safer at all.

REAL Answer

Yes it is safer. Has anyone ever died from second hand spit? On a survey my firm has been doing for 27 years... After smoking for 10 years 8% got a form of cancer or lung disease. After chewing for 10 years 0.25% accumulate cancer and 1% got a gum disease.

After 25 years 24% of smokers got cancer or a lung disease, and 1% of chewers got cancer, while 6% got a gum disease.

Know the facts.

• abdominal aortic aneurysm
• acute myeloid leukemia
• cataracts
• cervical cancer
• kidney cancer
• pancreatic cancer
• periodontitis
• pneumonia
• stomach cancer
• emphysema
• arteriosclerosis
• lung cancer

Just to name a few. Do an Internet search and it'll tell you everything you need to know.

North Carolina is also home to about 3,000 tobacco farms.

According to NC Dept of Agriculture:

"Tobacco has historically been the major cash crop in North Carolina and remains one of the state's most predominant farm commodities. North Carolina produces almost three-quarters of the flue-cured tobacco grown in the United States. In 1939, the State harvested the record high number of acres of 851,000 acres.

Tobacco remains one of North Carolina's most profitable crops and a substantial contributor to the value of farm production"

(Source: www.ncagr.gov/stats/general/commodities.htm)

In addition:

Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee are also great producers of Tobacco.

Countries

China is the largest producer and consumer of tobacco in the world producing about 39% of the World's supply. (followed by Brazil, India and then the US- The US produces %6 of the world's supply of tobacco)