Death Installments – Cigarettes & Your Rotting Body

Well I thought about posting another public service announcement after hearing my brother hack up half his lung. Apparently leaving a grieving wife and grown kids is something he’s not thinking about. He’s not thinking because copious amounts of alcohol have probably destroyed the brain cells that control ‘reason’. This public service post is about smoking.

In the United States today the Tobacco lobby has made sure that the Surgeon General’s Warning on a pack of cigarettes is so small it is nearly unreadable. “Though America started the trend of labelling cigarette packages with health warnings, today the country has one of the smallest, least prominent warnings placed on their packages.

Warnings are usually in small typeface placed along one of the sides of the cigarette packs with colors and fonts that closely resemble the rest of the package, so the warnings essentially are integrated and don't stand out with the rest of the cigarette package” (from: Dumas, Bethany K. “An Analysis of the Adequacy of Federally Mandated Cigarette Package Warnings.” Ch. 11 of Language in the Judicial Process, ed. J. N. Levi and A. G. Walker. NY: Plenum Press Corp., 1990, 309–352. Reprinted Tennessee Law
Review 59.2 (1992), 261–304.)

(The following is from Wikipedia)
In the United Kingdom cigarettes must be labeled with one or more of the following warnings: Smoking kills
Smoking seriously harms you and others around you
Additionally, one of the following additional warnings must be displayed, covering at least 40% of the surface of the pack:

Smokers die younger
Smoking clogs the arteries and causes heart attacks and strokes
Smoking causes fatal lung cancer
Smoking when pregnant harms your baby
Protect children: don't make them breathe your smoke
Your doctor or your pharmacist can help you stop smoking
Smoking is highly addictive, don't start
Stopping smoking reduces the risk of fatal heart and lung diseases
Smoking can cause a slow and painful death
Get help to stop smoking: telephone/postal address/internet address/consult your doctor/pharmacist
Smoking may reduce the blood flow and cause impotence
Smoking causes ageing of the skin
Smoking can damage the sperm and decreases fertility
Smoke contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.

"The first written warnings on packets in Britain appeared in 2003, and shocking warning pictures are set to appear on British packets in 2008 alongside the written messages, revealed Alan Johnson, Secretary of Health in August 2007." (From Wikipedia)

But if that isn’t enough to get you to put down a cigarette at least know what ‘second hand smoke’ will do to your friends, family, coworkers and aquaintances. The following is from “The Health Consequences of Involuntary Exposure to Tobacco Smoke: A Report of the Surgeon General, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 6 Major Conclusions of the Surgeon General Report.”

1. Many millions of Americans, both children and adults, are still exposed to secondhand smoke in their homes and workplaces despite substantial progress in tobacco control.
Supporting Evidence
o Levels of a chemical called cotinine, a biomarker of secondhand smoke exposure, fell by 70 percent from 1988-91 to 2001-02. In national surveys, however, 43 percent of U.S. nonsmokers still have detectable levels of cotinine.
o Almost 60 percent of U.S. children aged 3-11 years—or almost 22 million children—are exposed to secondhand smoke.
o Approximately 30 percent of indoor workers in the United States are not covered by smoke-free workplace policies.
2. Secondhand smoke exposure causes disease and premature death in children and adults who do not smoke.
Supporting Evidence
o Secondhand smoke contains hundreds of chemicals known to be toxic or carcinogenic (cancer-causing), including formaldehyde, benzene, vinyl chloride, arsenic, ammonia, and hydrogen cyanide.
o Secondhand smoke has been designated as a known human carcinogen (cancer-causing agent) by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, National Toxicology Program and the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health has concluded that secondhand smoke is an occupational carcinogen.
3. Children exposed to secondhand smoke are at an increased risk for sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), acute respiratory infections, ear problems, and more severe asthma. Smoking by parents causes respiratory symptoms and slows lung growth in their children.
Supporting Evidence
o Children who are exposed to secondhand smoke are inhaling many of the same cancer-causing substances and poisons as smokers. Because their bodies are developing, infants and young children are especially vulnerable to the poisons in secondhand smoke.
o Both babies whose mothers smoke while pregnant and babies who are exposed to secondhand smoke after birth are more likely to die from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) than babies who are not exposed to cigarette smoke.
o Babies whose mothers smoke while pregnant or who are exposed to secondhand smoke after birth have weaker lungs than unexposed babies, which increases the risk for many health problems.
o Among infants and children, secondhand smoke cause bronchitis and pneumonia, and increases the risk of ear infections.
o Secondhand smoke exposure can cause children who already have asthma to experience more frequent and severe attacks.
4. Exposure of adults to secondhand smoke has immediate adverse effects on the cardiovascular system and causes coronary heart disease and lung cancer.
Supporting Evidence
o Concentrations of many cancer-causing and toxic chemicals are higher in secondhand smoke than in the smoke inhaled by smokers.
o Breathing secondhand smoke for even a short time can have immediate adverse effects on the cardiovascular system and interferes with the normal functioning of the heart, blood, and vascular systems in ways that increase the risk of a heart attack.
o Nonsmokers who are exposed to secondhand smoke at home or at work increase their risk of developing heart disease by 25 - 30 percent.
o Nonsmokers who are exposed to secondhand smoke at home or at work increase their risk of developing lung cancer by 20 - 30 percent.
5. The scientific evidence indicates that there is no risk-free level of exposure to secondhand smoke.
Supporting Evidence
o Short exposures to secondhand smoke can cause blood platelets to become stickier, damage the lining of blood vessels, decrease coronary flow velocity reserves, and reduce heart rate variability, potentially increasing the risk of a heart attack.
o Secondhand smoke contains many chemicals that can quickly irritate and damage the lining of the airways. Even brief exposure can result in upper airway changes in healthy persons and can lead to more frequent and more asthma attacks in children who already have asthma.
6. Eliminating smoking in indoor spaces fully protects nonsmokers from exposure to secondhand smoke. Separating smokers from nonsmokers, cleaning the air, and ventilating buildings cannot eliminate exposures of nonsmokers to secondhand smoke.
Supporting Evidence
o Conventional air cleaning systems can remove large particles, but not the smaller particles or the gases found in secondhand smoke.
o Routine operation of a heating, ventilating, and air conditioning system can distribute secondhand smoke throughout a building.
o The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), the preeminent U.S. body on ventilation issues, has concluded that ventilation technology cannot be relied on to control health risks from secondhand smoke exposure.

It’s bad enough your killing yourself when you smoke but worse when you kill someone else. Its even unthinkable if its someone you love. Manslaughter by chemical self indulgence. You assure the slow, insidious, internal torture of the human body of you the smoker and a ‘loved one’. As a life insurance policy and payments protect your family in the event of your death, a cigarette is payment for the diseases that will kill you and them.

Light up! Today you live….tomorrow we will grieve. A two pack a day habit at $5.00 a pack is $300.00 dollars every thirty days or $3,650.00 per year. A hefty death installment and Liggett & Myers, Phillip Morris, and R.J. Reynolds (their heirs and assigns) will make a profit off of your miserable existence.

The mortician will make money from you carelessly killing off friends and family every time you make a death installment, a pack of cigarettes. If you killed your family or friends outright you would go to jail for MURDER or MANSLAUGHTER. This way you can do it legally, while it is still legal.

RJ