Smoking and Lung Cancer
Posted by Moonage on 07 Mar 2006 | Tagged as: Opinions
Dana Reeve died today at the age of 44 from lung cancer.
An avowed non-smoker, she still died from lung cancer. I am currently a
smoker. In the future, I may or may not be. I have debated endlessly
with people on other boards about the pro’s and con’s of the war on tobacco.
IMO, the war on tobacco initiated by Hillary Clinton in the early 90’s and used
by the various states was nothing but a money grab of epic proportions.
The real victims of it all IMO are the Dana Reeve’s. If the same amount of
attention and all that money had gone to curing lung cancer instead of
subsidizing state governments, then, just maybe, a cure for lung cancer might
have been found by now. And, think about this, if we cure cancer, what
does it matter if someone chooses to smoke? The big difference would be
that all those like Dana Reeve, who were convinced that smoking causes cancer,
were misled IMO that if you don’t smoke, you won’t get cancer. Nothing is
farther from the truth. Smoking does not CAUSE cancer, it only aggravates
conditions for those that might have it anyway. Lung cancer has been
around a LONG time. A lot longer than when man figured inhaling tobacco
made you feel kinda good. When man totally quits inhaling tobacco, cancer
will still be there. I hate cancer. I want it cured. I resent
the distraction and drain on resources that the war on tobacco has been.
Let’s quit fooling ourselves and address the real problem, shall we?
The reason I don’t think our society is ready to do that is you can’t blame
someone over cancer. It’s not someone else’s fault. There is no
logic to getting cancer. Our society in my lifetime has more and more
adopted a "it’s someone else’s fault" philosophy. Because of that attitude
totally exemplified by the Clintons, it’s easy to sell blaming cancer on tobacco
and smokers in general. It’s a much harder sell telling people cancer is
random and can strike anyone. But, that’s the reality of it. Blaming
smoking for lung cancer is the easy sell. The much harder sell is
convincing people that no matter how hard you try, no matter how healthy you
might attempt to be, no matter how close to your particular god you are, you
might just die a slow agonizing death no different than the lazy substance
abusing slob you so detest. But, that’s the fact.
Let’s cure cancer and stop fooling ourselves. Shall we?
- Technorati lung cancer, smoking
3 Comments »
on 08 Mar 2006 at 7:44 am 1.StormWarning
said …
Why Hillary Clinton?
I thought that the war on cancer and on smoking began with President Nixon in the early 70’s when then Surgeon General Jesse Steinfeld pressed his anti-tobacco activism and his 1971 proposal to curb smoking in public places because of concerns that nonsmokers were being harmed by secondhand smoke.
Yes, during the 90’s is when the tobacco settlement issue was on the surface…spurred on by the whistleblowing testimony by Victor DeNoble (I played Little Baseball with him).
on 08 Mar 2006 at 8:48 am 2.Moonage
said …
The warnings in the 70’s were just that, a warning. The advent of using public money and aggressive litigation began in the early 90’s with the Clinton administration. Bill smoked his cigars and basically just ignored the whole thing. The health policy issues were strictly Hilary’s concern. The whistleblowing was a direct result of the investigations, not vice versa. The state investigations were encouraged by the feds, not because an individual came out and blew the whistle. The bottom line is people have known, due to the warnings and such, that smoking was probably dangerous since the 70’s. People were quitting smoking. However, even with the semi-effective efforts of the feds to curb smoking, a LOT of money exchanged hands due to this litigation. And, very, very, very little of it went to solve the problem that the states claimed was their problem, to wit, medical expenses incurred by smokers, particularly cancer. I’ve done research into this topic earlier, I’ll look for it again later. California for example, spent NOTHING on cancer research from this litigation. Smoking rates did drop substantially during the 90’s, but the full financial impact of all the litigation is being felt now financially across the country, and smoking rates for kids have leveled off and in some cases increasing. So, basically nothing from the litigation itself has resulted. IF all that money had gone to cancer research, and we’re talking BILLIONS of dollars, then maybe those cancers would have been figured out and the ramifications of smoking would be moot. In essence, Hillary’s goal was to shoot the messenger and ignore the message. The message is we need to cure cancer. Period. Burning smokers on a cross solves nothing.
on 09 Mar 2006 at 6:34 pm 3.spaceman said …
I am just as outraged as you Moon about the states use of the tobacco money. Its just a damn shame that the money was used for everything else but tobacco related illnesses or prevention. I ask, where was the media on this? Where was the public outrage that should have been directed at our elected officials? I don’t know. I contacted a local reporter about this issue a couple years ago and all I got was lip service but nothing showed up in the newspaper, nothing, nada, zip. I concluded that it was just politics as usual, power corrupts, screw the little guy. Those in power wanted to keep it quiet and did, at least thats what happened in my state.
I’m speaking from self preservation but its past time to conquer cancer.