Did you know cigarettes are radioactive?

[spanky Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close spanky]

The fact is (research it) that there is no conclusive proof that second hand smoke is any genuine risk whatsoever. Sure there's some minor correlation about, but correlation is NOT causation. Basic science. It's also utterly futile to argue about some tiny percentage of a one in a million cancer risk from some odd particle.. like "ha haa got you! proof!". Jeez. Even the most established risks are still minority risks, not guarantees. It's significantly more likely I'll die in a car crash, or a plane crash, or some other non-smoking related cancer, or.. frankly .. poisoned by fallout from nuclear testing. Seriously, there have been tens of thousands of nuclear tests worldwide. Then you look at the volume of waste pumped into the air from factories and motor vehicles as well.. Really.. cigarettes are the least of my worries.

So I'm just gonna live my life, because as I say, we all die. I hear what you're saying SuperDude. It sucks when you have to go to a funeral of a family member full stop, but people die. And any of us can sit here like Captain Hindsight trying to apportion blame. It doesn't bring anyone back. It's life. We all die. Do I really want to live my life in fear for the sake of an extra few years living my life in fear? No I don't. You're a long time dead, and this is it. Life. That's it. No heaven, no hell. This. Just this. So I'm gonna live it thanks.

I know that cigarettes smell, and that many people find them unpleasant. I can respect that, and I wouldn't dream of forcing it in people's faces. Since the new laws came in in Europe about no smoking inside in public places, I actually prefer it, I think its a good thing. But. People want to go further, and the law has no business telling me what I choose to put in my body. It's still my body and my choice. And that's the way it should stay.

rant over

[Lazy 8 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Lazy 8]

Yes they are, but not with radiation.

Dem, you seem to be quite authoritative on this subject. What is your background that gives you the expertise to say the UCLA research is bogus?

[NP97 Retired ModeratorPEGym Hero Find all posts View Profile Close NP97]

All you smokers are disrespecting yourselves.

Tis my right to do so.
And I like everything spanky said. Second hand smoke is filtered through a filter and my lungs.
One thing that bugs me is the government forcing it upon businesses to ban it. Shouldn't be up to them. Should be up to the owners of the business. I wanna smoke in the bar, dammit!

[DemOne Banned Find all posts View Profile Close DemOne]

Dem, you seem to be quite authoritative on this subject. What is your background that gives you the expertise to say the UCLA research is bogus?

[Edit: Decided to remove why. I'll message you why, I just feel weird about having it out in public.]

UCLA's research isn't bogus, however it's misguided and worded in a way to skew the opinion of anyone who isn't familiar in the field of radiation or nuclear physics. Tobacco does contain tiny amounts of P210, but it's of no risk to humans in the quantities found in cigarettes. For there to be an effect from the radiation of P210 in a human from smoking, one would literally have to spend every moment of their life inhaling the smoke, and nothing but the smoke, for literally months. However, the person would die from Oxygen starvation long before they could even get to within 1% of the required amount inhaled.

P210 has a relatively short half life (138 days or so), which is unfortunate in my opinion from a scientific stand point, but it also means that P210 has a very short window to build up levels in the body.

Assuming that some information on Wikipedia is correct, the chance of death due to prolonged exposure to P210 is only 5–10% per Sv (acute effects are of no real bother looking at, 'cause as I said, one would die from Oxygen starvation first). Meanwhile the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements has found that on average, smokers only are exposed to 0.16 Sv worth of P210 annually. So, the average smoker annually only has what, a 0.3-0.6% chance of dying from P210 exposure? That's a pretty small percentage, and the percentage of the effect that P210 would have to cause cancer is even lower. The NCRP is showing only a 1% chance of P210 affecting a smoker over the course of 50 years of smoking at the average rate. Source.

Lets for a second just assume that the 0.13sV annual amount of radiation from P210 is an acute, all at once thing. A normal person only has:
0.13% chance of nausea, vomiting and/or weakness.
0.065% chance of headache, fever, purpoura, hemorrhage, and/or infections.
0.02167% chance of diarrhea and/or leukopenia.
0.01625% chance of death.

Flying from LA to NY gives you a larger dose of radiation than even chain smoking a pack an hour.


...so, I guess you could say I'm well versed on the subject.

[Ivor Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Ivor]

Did you know that our bodies are also radioactive? How about smoke detectors? Clay pottery, credit cards, nearly any electronic device you have, flying in a plane, driving in a car...

Hell, there is not a spot on earth that does not have radiation. Cigarettes, just like bananas, will kill you from other means long before you even get anywhere close to a relatively safe level of radiation poisoning that's barely enough to show up in lab work.

From Wikipedia:

Smoking an average of 1.5 packs per day gives a radiation dose of 60-160 mSv/year,compared with living near a nuclear power station (0.0001 mSv/year) or the 3.0 mSv/year average dose for Americans.

Up to 50 times the average radiation dose, inhaled straight into your bronchioles? That doesn't sound all that great, to be honest.

Yes, radiation is everywhere, obviously. But Po-210 is an alpha-emitter. Alpha emitters are the least harmful kind of radioactive source if they're outside your body, since alpha particles are absorbed by a few cm of air or the dead cells of one's epidermis - but if they get inside you, they're by far the most dangerous. And what better way to get something inside you than by deliberately inhaling it? And the half-life is neither here nor there for a regular smoker, because they're constantly topping up the levels of the stuff in their bodies.

I think the radiation hazard of cigarette smoke is pretty well established now as a major contributor towards the overall cancer risk.

[DemOne Banned Find all posts View Profile Close DemOne]

From Wikipedia:

Up to 50 times the average radiation dose, inhaled straight into your bronchioles? That doesn't sound all that great, to be honest.

Yes, radiation is everywhere, obviously. But Po-210 is an alpha-emitter. Alpha emitters are the least harmful kind of radioactive source if they're outside your body, since alpha particles are absorbed by a few cm of air or the dead cells of one's epidermis - but if they get inside you, they're by far the most dangerous. And what better way to get something inside you than by deliberately inhaling it? And the half-life is neither here nor there for a regular smoker, because they're constantly topping up the levels of the stuff in their bodies.

I think the radiation hazard of cigarette smoke is pretty well established now as a major contributor towards the overall cancer risk.

Read my previous post, and maybe even click the link in it.

[michiganboy Member Find all posts View Profile Close michiganboy]

death? im just worried about wrinkles........

[spanky Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close spanky]

Tis my right to do so.
And I like everything spanky said. Second hand smoke is filtered through a filter and my lungs.
One thing that bugs me is the government forcing it upon businesses to ban it. Shouldn't be up to them. Should be up to the owners of the business. I wanna smoke in the bar, dammit!

I like the Spanish approach. There, the law by default is no smoking indoors in public places. But business owners are free to allow smoking if they refuse admission to minors instead. They might have to apply for a licence, I'm not sure. Either way it seems ike the perfect compromise to me. Actually I don't know if it's all of Spain, I only saw it in Barcelona, but I assume it is.

[DemOne Banned Find all posts View Profile Close DemOne]

I like the Spanish approach. There, the law by default is no smoking indoors in public places. But business owners are free to allow smoking if they refuse admission to minors instead. They might have to apply for a licence, I'm not sure. Either way it seems ike the perfect compromise to me. Actually I don't know if it's all of Spain, I only saw it in Barcelona, but I assume it is.

The state I live in has something similar. Smoking indoors in public areas and businesses is illegal, but if you're a bar/restaurant that makes The majority of it's income from alcohol or tobacco sales, smoking indoors is allowed; the types of places you normally wouldn't allow kids in anyway.

[Ivor Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Ivor]

Smoking is illegal now in all workplaces in the UK, including shisha bars where the whole point of the establishment is to go there to smoke. It's fucking ridiculous. I'm not even a 'proper' smoker (I'll have one if I'm a bit drunk and someone offers me one) but this kind of thing pisses me off so much. Governments should stop trying to save people from themselves, it just leads to adults being treated like children.

[spanky Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close spanky]

Smoking is illegal now in all workplaces in the UK, including shisha bars where the whole point of the establishment is to go there to smoke. It's fucking ridiculous. I'm not even a 'proper' smoker (I'll have one if I'm a bit drunk and someone offers me one) but this kind of thing pisses me off so much. Governments should stop trying to save people from themselves, it just leads to adults being treated like children.

+1

Its also illegal here to smoke in your own house if you work from home or if you employ a cleaner, or a nanny, or a babysitter.. not that it's easy to enforce, it's just illegal. Also illegal in a company car, and I think, one you own but you use to drive to work and claim miles on.