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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsJust because I didn't know this about cigarettes.
No wonder people have such a hard time kicking the habit. I copied the graphic over but the article needs to be read as well.
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/06/23/3451935/big-tobacco-hooked-cigarettes/
Aristus
(66,075 posts)You all just thought it was just dried brown leaves in a paper tube, huh?
Shampoobra
(423 posts)Once I learned how devious the industry had been in getting me hooked, I was pissed off enough to quit cold turkey. My determination was fueled by the prospect of never giving them another cent.
tech3149
(4,452 posts)but I quit smoking manufactured tobacco products a decade ago. My last chest Xray was three years ago. The radiologist questioned if I really smoked as much as I claimed. Back when I was in my twenties another doctor posed the same question.
I'd advise anyone to avoid smoking for all the reasons I'm sure you would agree with. The problem with most processed tobacco products is that they have so many chemical additives to control how they burn. My hand rolled will not burn if I don't draw on them.
We all know it's stupid to smoke and I'd be the first to steer anyone away from starting. The problem is the industry has done everything possible to continue their profits for as long as possible.
For myself, I don't really care anymore. I lived my life and had a good ride. I got to share the best part of my life with one of the best people on the face of the earth. I got to see my parents get the most of their last days. There may be more I can do but it seems like too many don't want to listen.
arcane1
(38,613 posts)Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)raccoon
(31,088 posts)truebrit71
(20,805 posts)...'Lights' as well so I inhaled good and deep...
Dawson Leery
(19,348 posts)dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)That essentially they were deliberately making tobaco more addicitve.
I got so mad that I quit smoking. ( Anger is a good motivator for me).
Phillip Morris got into so much trouble it had to re-organize and take on a different name, officially becoming Altria, in 2003.
Much like Blackwater, the name change was cosmetic.
Skidmore
(37,364 posts)at that level back then. Happy you were able to kick the habit.
gratuitous
(82,849 posts)The tobacco companies, using every trick in the book (and a few they wrote themselves), made cigarettes more addictive through "trade secret" processes and treatments. Look at the climate change denial industry for how Big Tobacco's tactics translate across an issue (fake controversies, attacking researchers, generating bogus studies, "the issue hasn't been settled yet", and so forth).
Considering all the time, money, research and effort Big Tobacco has put into creating generation and generation of tobacco addicts, I am pretty forgiving toward smokers and applaud anyone who is working to overcome their addiction. If you fail to quit 10 times, try to quit 11 times.
Aristus
(66,075 posts)I often wonder how they started in the first place.
"In my day, we didn't know it was bad for you" seems to be avoiding the issue a little. After all, everyone alive today had radio growing up, right?
Didn't they ever hear on the radio a report of a catastrophic fire somewhere, and the reporter is on the scene trying to get the story?
"What killed them, chief? Was it the flames?"
"No, it was smoke inhalation."
How can people not have known it was bad for them?
gratuitous
(82,849 posts)And Big Tobacco has for years made sure that as boys and girls grew up, they were aware of smoking. They have done extensive research on teen-age rebellion, teen-age peer pressure, teen-age desire to stand out from the crowd, and teen-age desire to be in with the right crowd. Big Tobacco routinely denies that it markets to children, but there's no question that they do, just not overtly enough to be called on it.
People start smoking for any number of reasons, and Big Tobacco has the corner on them all, whether it's young people acting out or trying to fit in or appearing grown up or looking cool or creating your own identity or showing your parents that they aren't the boss of you. Juvenile brain development being what it is, Big Tobacco has rightly perceived that a combination of sales techniques is likely to get a certain percentage of people to try smoking long before they have the cognitive reasoning ability to think long-term or realize that they may be making a lifetime decision. Oddly enough, the military operates on many of the same principles.
Aristus
(66,075 posts)After all, back in the days when everyone was doing it, where was the sense of rebellion?
Not to mention the fact that buying cigarettes props up a billion dollar industry, which is a pretty bourgeois thing to do.
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)That pretty much got my mother's generation hooked.
1940's radio, and magazine ads, and later tv commercials, all extolled how good, how relaxing, cigs were.
They even had doctor figures smoking while pushing the cigs.
Movie stars pitched cigs, and there was a LOT of smoking in the movies of the day.
No, no one added it up. Lung disease and the link to smoking was covered up by millions of tobacco dollars, just as sane discussions of the dangers of radiation is shouted down and covered up, even on this site.
DustyJoe
(849 posts)Army C-Rations in the 60's had free cigs also.
Aristus
(66,075 posts)It looks bad, tastes bad, smells bad.
What's the attraction?
LadyHawkAZ
(6,199 posts)that "bad smell" smells delicious. That's how I got started.
Aristus
(66,075 posts)I wonder what depression has to do with it?
I empathize with my patients who smoke. I know from reading the science how difficult it is to quit smoking. But I've never smoked habitually, so I don't know personally how difficult it is.
Occasionally, for my patients who smoke and have depression, I'll prescribe some wellbutrin to see if it helps.
LadyHawkAZ
(6,199 posts)As soon as I got put on thyroid meds, I lost most of my interest in cigarettes.
as a kid, I freakin' LOVED the smell of the smoke. As a teen and adult I loved the taste. Now, not so much.
rustydog
(9,186 posts)The Flintstones advertised Winstons I believe. Kind of like coal and oil industries hiring "scientists" to debunk Global Warming, The tobacco industry hired their own "doctors" and "scientists" who said the cancer connection was bunk, a lie by Government...
Money, powerful persuader when you make hundreds of millions on people dying. How do you replace the dying consumer? Target smokers at a younger age! Let Fred Flintstone tell you what brand he smokes!
Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)came out 50 years ago, in January 1964. I first learned about it 5 years later, in my Children's Encyclopedia of American History, and it made a big impression on me. I also coughed and felt generally uncomfortable when I was around smokers, so that was enough to convince me not to start. And then there was this anti-smoking commercial:
truebrit71
(20,805 posts)....smartest thing I ever did...
Nevernose
(13,081 posts)I don't feel any better yet. Mostly I feel like incredibly anxious. I'll get there!
truebrit71
(20,805 posts)Keep going!
Behind the Aegis
(53,823 posts)The cravings, at least mine, lasted for almost three weeks. I get them from time to time, but not anything like before and not as long. Also, you may stop coughing for about a week, then start up again and it may last for months. That is the cilia growing back and clearing out the lungs. If it lasts too long or you are really hacking up some bad stuff after a few weeks, go to the doctor. It will turn to dry couching, not hacking, after 3 weeks or so. You may also suffer flu-like symptoms...it is part of the process too. Your sense of smell will start returning, if it hasn't already, but by the second week, it will be in high gear!
Good luck!! You can do it! I did after 29 years and almost 2.5 packs a day!
arcane1
(38,613 posts)truebrit71
(20,805 posts)It just gets better and better...food tastes better, your clothes don't reek, and you have a little extra change in your pocket too!
arcane1
(38,613 posts)It adds up!!
I quit around valentine's day 2009. Trying to get one of my best friends to put them down.
NealK
(1,788 posts)It's far worse than I thought.
LadyHawkAZ
(6,199 posts)the "fire safe" carpet glue in the paper.
if you gotta smoke, roll your own.
Gidney N Cloyd
(19,780 posts)Auggie
(31,058 posts)LynneSin
(95,337 posts)Tobacco has been in existance for the ages. But it wasn't until Big Tobacco came along and found a way to mass produce cigarettes and start adding all the extra chemicals like in your picture. And when tobacco became mass produced that's when there was a rise in smoking related health issues.
I truly believe if we still lived in an era where tobacco was used from plant to pipe we probably wouldn't see as many issues. And I see potential of the same thing happening as Marijuana becomes legal. Big Tobacco would love to be able to mass produce Marijuana cigarettes but they will take a natural product that is already smokable as-is and change it a way to ensure addiction to the product and increased use (hence more sales). And yes I know Marijuana isn't addictive but that doesn't mean it couldn't be made addictive thru the powers of modern chemstry.
Aristus
(66,075 posts)Tobacco, despite its macho reputation, is a pretty fragile plant. It's labor intensive to cultivate, susceptible to all kinds of pests and variations in weather and soil quality. It pretty much requires an industry behind it.
Marijuana is a weed. Pretty hardy, too. It tends to grow best in warm climates, but it can weather (literally) a lot of harsh conditions, and is pretty easy to cultivate. It's much more easy to grow in the back yard than tobacco.
I would be wary and suspicious of any marijuana product grown and processed by a major corporation.
OnlinePoker
(5,702 posts)Nothing like sucking radioactive materials directly into your lungs to get the cancers working.
http://www.epa.gov/radiation/sources/tobacco.html
Revanchist
(1,375 posts)And they make their own blends so I don't have to worry about that dubious Chinese stuff. Switching from analog to electronic was one of the best decisions I ever made.
NJCher
(35,422 posts)went into the food biz.
Their addictive elements of choice are sugar and fat. They went into the food business because they thought their days as cigarette mfrs were numbered, buying such companies as Kraft and General Foods.
They have loaded up processed foods with so much sugar and fat that they maxed out. They literally noted in their sales charts that every time they added more sugar or fat, the more product people bought.
Look what they did to the American public in the process.
The whole story is described in Salt, Sugar, Fat, one of the best books of this type I've ever read (author is Moss).
Cher
arcane1
(38,613 posts)Same thing- making people addicted to harmful products.
spanone
(135,627 posts)CBGLuthier
(12,723 posts)and they don't even have to tell them. So all the vapers think they are doing something healthy while sucking in more chemicals than came in the deluxe Mr. Science Junior Chemistry Set.
Revanchist
(1,375 posts)that isn't associated with big tobacco. Most Vape suppliers are small business and rely on producing a good product to ensure their success.
LittleGirl
(8,261 posts)hardest thing I did was get off those damn things.
smoker 33+ yrs.
heaven05
(18,124 posts)after 45 years of the cancersticks. Thanks. Hope they realize just how many chemicals and additives are shortening an already short lifespan.
EEO
(1,620 posts)Helen Borg
(3,963 posts)Skidmore
(37,364 posts)muriel_volestrangler
(101,146 posts)If the motion is passed at the British Medical Association's annual representatives' meeting on Tuesday, the doctors union will lobby the government to implement the policy in the same way it successfully pushed for a ban on lighting up in public places and on smoking in cars carrying children, after votes in 2002 and 2011.
Tim Crocker-Buque, a specialist registrar in public health medicine, who proposed the motion, said the idea was that "the 21st-century generation don't need to suffer the hundreds of millions of deaths that the 20th-century generation did".
"Cigarette smoking is specifically a choice made by children that results in addiction in adulthood, that is extremely difficult to give up," he said. "80% of people who smoke start as teenagers. It's very rare for people to make an informed decision in adulthood. The idea of this proposal is to prevent those children who are not smoking from taking up smoking."
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jun/23/doctors-vote-cigarette-sale-ban-children-born-2000
Skidmore
(37,364 posts)My hat's off to you. My father was a chain smoker and I am the only one of eight children who grew up not to be a smoker. That does not mean that I didn't breath in enough second hand smoke over the years. My daughter attempted smoking when she was in her teens and nearly died when it triggered a severe asthma attack. A horrible and scary consequence but it kept her from becoming addicted. I have a lot of admiration for you because I know that it was a hard decision and the follow-through was even more difficult. Continued wishes that you are able to sustain your smoke-free life.