Tobacco Industry

I think we need to make a distinction here between rights and privileges. Just because something is legal doesn't mean we have a right to it, from a legal perspective. If the government decided to outlaw it, we'd not longer have that 'right,' and that's not what rights are.

 

Rights and laws are the same thing from governments perspective.

 

Well rights are rights, they are bestowed upon people by existing, i.e. the bill of rights, free speech, free press, free assembly, the need of warrants, ect, that are codified into law.

Laws are an endless amount of things from rights to the size your back porch can be.

 

Okay, I'll go off topic like everybody else. There are three proven ways you can hurt yourself with marijuana. One is by having a large quantity fall on your head. Another is by burning yourself with the ashes. Another is by being fined or jailed by cops acting on behalf of some idiotic legislators. You can get high on grass but not on tobacco. You get addicted to tobacco but not to my knowledge to marijuana. A chronic user of either might get bronchitis.

 

Yeah man, for sure. But the public doesn't know that and the government won't tell them.

If tabbaco is criminalized, say goodbye to any hopes of weed because weed is considered worse than tabacco. Why the fuck don't the above the influence people talk about tabacco instead of trying to guilt trip you into not smoking cause it dissapoints your fucking dog?

 

Right, there are absolutely no negative effects to be had from smoking weed. Tobacco is the devil, but weed is totally innocent. Give me a break. If we're talking about the health effects of inhaling hot smoke, weed smoke is much stronger than tobacco smoke. If we're talking about the toxins involved, commercial tobacco is pretty bad; so is a lot of weed. Tobacco is addictive; marijuana isn't. That's not really the point though, because there's not a lot of harm in being addicted to something unless the thing is actually harmful in itself. Long-time users of either will feel an effect on their health, obviously. Weed has long-term mental effects as well, which is something to think about.

That said, I smoke both pot and cigarettes, and have no major problem with either.

 

It's not really a question of tobacco vs marijuana in being safe, or even the gigantic tobacco lobby. Tobacco is legal for the same reason alcohol is and why alcohol prohibition failed so miserably compared to other prohibitions. Culture. People love tobacco, too many people smoke it, it's too entrenched in society all around the world to give up

 

If marijuana cultivation were legalized, the American South would have a cash crop that would make tobacco look like -- what? Eighty year olds having sex? George Bush having a bright idea?

 

Uh. . . cigarettes don't have tar "in" them, they produce it when you burn them. Weed also produces tar when you smoke it. So does pretty much any plant when you burn it.

tobacco is a THOUSAND times worse for you than weed? This is a popular belief among pot smokers. There's not really any proof for it however. I will agree that, based on experience, weed does "feel" less damaging than tobacco. That in no way proves that it actually is less damaging however.

It does seem like American tobacco is much worse than tobacco outside of the US. The Japanese smoke like crazy and lung cancer is more or less unheard of over there. I'm about to venture off into hearsay territory here, so if anyone knows more about this than I do feel free to confirm or correct what I'm saying.

Awhile ago a good friend of mine had an interest in laser pointers - particularly the kind that are powerful enough to burn things. One of the things he found out was that using a certain kind of gem as a lens would greatly increase the power of a laser - I really wish I could remember the name of it. Anyway, my friend's high school class ring happened to have this sort of gem in it, so he removed it then tried to research how to use it to make a powerful laser pointer. By accident he stumbled on information about how this material is used in tobacco production in the US - and only in the US, or at least not in very many countries outside of it. Apparently a lot of knowlegeble people believe that using the material in tobacco production gives it radioactive properties which make the tobacco much mroe likely to give a person cancer.

Keep in mind, though, that doing something regularly that does damage to tissue (especially soft, vulnerable tissue like that in your lungs and throat) and forces it to constantly rebuild itself is going to increase your risk of cancer, radioactive or not. So smoking anything (weed included) raises your risk.

 

Another popular rumor is that weed actually fights cancer rather than causing it. Again, the truth has been twisted. Marijuana does contain anti-carcinogenic compounds, and that is why this rumor has flourished. Marijuana also contains plenty of carcinogenic compounds as well. As far as i know no studies have been done that prove that marijuana actually does anything to prevent or treat cancer, even that that might conceivably be caused by the marijuana. If such a study exists and i have overlooked it, PLEASE show it to me. I like to smoke quite a bit of marijuana myself, and such a thing would be great news to me.

 

What tobacco is used has nothing to do with health. It's to do with diet, Americans eat horribly, tea and especially green tea has been shown in numerous studies to help block various cancers to a large degree, and tea is a very large part of Chinese/Japanese culture.

And studies have shown that marijuana smoking in fact doesn't increase your risk of cancer, and may in fact help decrease it by THC killing mutated cells before they become cancerous.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=large-study-finds-no-link

 

You're going to deliberately coat the inside of your lungs with tar, and then expect green tea to come to the rescue? Good luck.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8453628.stm

Among smokers, those who did not drink green tea at all were more than 12 times as likely to develop lung cancer than those who drank at least a cup a day.

And that's just from last week, green tea in study upon study has been shown to help reduce cancer rates. There's a reason why despite smoking being popular all around the world cancer rates among east asians(who have the highest rate of smoking) are substantially lower then anywhere else.

 

The same article says,

Yinka Ebo, of Cancer Research UK, said the findings should not be used as an excuse to keep smoking.
"Smoking tobacco fills your lungs with around 80 cancer-causing chemicals. Drinking green tea is not going to compensate for that.
"Unfortunately, it's not possible to make up for the harm caused by smoking by doing other things right like eating a healthy, balanced diet.
"The best thing a smoker can do to reduce their risk of lung cancer, and more than a dozen other cancer types, is to quit."
​

 

Cancer blows and smokers obviously don't have a problem with cancer or they wouldn't be a smoker.

 

No doubt, in fact this was kind of the point I was trying to make. You basically almost can't get lung cancer without smoking. And someone was making the point that people in east Asia have much lower rates and attributing it to healthier tobacco, but no tobacco is tobacco, their cancer rates are due to their diet.

Obviously men who eat red meat or drink then have no regards for their prostates since red meat and alcohol have been shown to increase prostate cancer risk, and prostate cancer is the most common form of cancer for men, all men are subject to it. It's as common as breast cancer is in women, and the biggest killer of men in terms of cancer.

Difference is most people who drink aren't alcoholics and no one is addicted to red meat. Most people who smoke are horribly addicted.

 

NOT TRUE. Matter of fact, I quit smoking tobacco on new years eve after smoking for about five years. Strangely enough, I've had next to no withdrawal outside of maybe some slight irritability. I quit smoking weed maybe a week after that and I'm in the throes of the worst part of the withdrawal right now. Nothing I can't handle, and certainly nothing compared to, say, alcohol or opiate withdrawal, but its definitely there. The main effects are difficulty sleeping, mania (actually kind of enjoyable but ends up causing me to do dumb things), temper tantrums and a weird burning itchy feeling on my skin, mostly around the ears and jawline. Ialso feel mildly to moderately sick to my stomach sometimes and get more indigestion than usual. I know these are caused by my ceasing marijuana smoking because I've quit like this a few times in the past few years. The effects are always the same.

 

What... Anyone who complains about "weed withdrawl" is a pussy. I've been through that same thing more than once. It's not that bad, and the faggots who actuly go through rehab for it... I don't even know what to say to that.

There's pchychological addiction... That's a little different, but still.

 

Psychologically, yes, it can be addictive. Physically, no. It's just not.

 

You can get psychologically addicted to just about anything.