Smoking

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Thu Feb 28 12:50:19 PST 2002


Miles Jackson wrote:
>
>
>
> Second hand smoke is a fairly well documented public health issue.
> Do we really need this tortured psychoanalytic explanation for why
> people don't want to breathe a cancerous substance?
>

I've been ignoring this thread on all lists, so I don't know the whole context of this, but I agree sneers at anti-smoking campaign are despicable. (Critiques that point out the ineffectiveness of most such campaigning are a differeent matter.) I smoked for 40 years, and had I not stopped 12 years ago I would be dead from emphysema by now. My physician warned me that it had started but that I had not lost significant lung capacity _yet_ at that time. Fortunately, I was one of those smokers who are able, with reasonable ease, to stop. But it is apparent that at least some, perhaps many, of those addicted really cannot. It's not very funny. I don't know whether second-hand smoke can affect emphysema.

Carrol



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