[Throne Invader]

Originally Posted by Woodchips

Wow there's a lot of... crap being stated on both sides of the argument on this forum. How does driving have anything to do with smoking?

Anyway...

As a health-professional who deals with end-stage emphysema, chronic bronchitis and lung carcinoma patients, let me tell you how unattractive, painful and debilitating that death is, and how deeply my patients regret their habit when they come to the end of that long and painful road.

A common argument I hear among my smoking patients is: "Well, you have to die from something." Very true, that. But slowly suffocating to death, or suffering a fatal haemoptysis (dying through coughing up blood and bleeding out) is not a nice way to go for either the patient, or their loved ones.

Not only do these patients suffer severe shortness-of-breath just sitting down, they exhaust themselves trying to get their next breath, suffer crippling anxiety and fear for months before their deaths, suffer multiple hospital admissions and suffer the indignity of not having the ability to walk themselves to the toilet in time.

If you want an idea of what it is like to be one of these patients, try closing your mouth around a straw and breathing through that. Wait to see how long it takes before your lungs start burning from the lack of oxygen. That's what it is like to be an emphysema sufferer.

From a medical standpoint smoking causes or increases the risk of:
- Small-cell lung carcinoma (Very rarely found outside smoking populations-- and the most aggresive form of lung cancer)
- Emphysema
- Chronic Bronchitis
- Blood clots
- Poor healing rates
- Atherosclerosis (Hardening of the artery walls -- increasing the risk of heart attack and stroke)
- Stroke
- Mouth and face cancers
- Throat cancers
- Oesophogeal cancers
- Tongue cancers
- Predisposes to gangrene.
- Vascular claudication (Restricted blood flow to the feet/hands)
- Osteoporosis
- Decreased fertility and impaired sexual function. Impotence and erectile dysfunction in men.

This is all based on first-hand smokers, but recent evidence suggests second-hand smokers are at an even higher risk of developing these complications, so I would suggest to any smoker that they if they are happy taking these risks for their health, to try to consider the future health of your partners, children or friends before you light up near them.

Regardless of my opinions on the habit, outlawing smoking will never work, as has been previously stated. If people want to smoke, even after knowing the risks -- so be it -- it's their health and their choice. I don't understand it; but I understand they have the right to make that choice. I would hope that if they do make that choice, that they also understand that those who choose not to smoke should not be subjected to breathing in a by-product that is just as dangerous to them as to the smoker.

Smokers would not be very happy with someone standing and blowing asbestos into their faces, so I don't see how some can't see how non-smokers would be bothered having cigarette smoke blown in theirs.

I've ranted enough.

There you have it. You guys got it first hand from a professional. Now you could probably explain the damages it does financially and probably some minds are gonna change.