Is smoking good for you?

What they work to do and the language they employ to get that work accepted and done are two very different things hawk.

Interesting article. Especially this bit.

I laugh at anyone who says it wont happen to me despite multiple warnings, ad campaigns and plain common sense and then when it does, who's fault is it ? Do you see selfish stupidity as a comparable trait to fighting for your country ?

Health.com) -- There's a species of smoker among us that is common, yet poorly understood.

Their habitat consists of parties, barbecues, and the sidewalks outside bars and restaurants.

They prefer to scrounge for their cigarettes, and if they do buy a pack, they're apt to nurse it for a week or more. You may hear them say, "I'm not a smoker," or "only on weekends."

These are "social smokers" -- and there are more of them than you might think.

Smoking is often characterized as an all-or-nothing activity -- on doctor's office questionnaires it's usually a yes-or-no question, for instance -- but by some estimates, anywhere from one-fifth to one-third of adults who smoke don't light up every day.

While some of these so-called nondaily smokers smoke regularly but sparingly, up to 30 percent likely fall into the social-smoker category.



Hard numbers are difficult to come by, in part because the definition of a social smoker is so vague. A 2007 study of social smoking among college students -- one of very few that have been published on the subject -- found the term was used "loosely and inconsistently," even among researchers.

The truth only matters if its profitable

Your an idiot

2-year-old boy smokes 40 cigarettes a day
BEIJING, May 30 -- Taking a deep drag on his cigarette while resting on the steering wheel of his truck, he looks like a parody of a middle-aged lorry driver.

But the image covers up a much more disturbing truth: At just the tender age of two, Ardi Rizal's health has been so ruined by his 40-a-day habit that he now struggles to move by himself.

The four-stone Indonesia toddler is certainly far too unfit to run around with other children - and his condition is set to rapidly deteriorate.

His mother, Diana, 26, wept: "He's totally addicted. If he doesn't get cigarettes, he gets angry and screams and batters his head against the wall. He tells me he feels dizzy and sick."

But, despite local officials' offer to buy the Rizal family a new car if the boy quits, his parents feel unable to stop him because he throws massive tantrums if they don't indulge him.

Ardi will smoke only one brand and his habit costs his parents 3.78 British pounds (about 5.50 U.S. dollars) a day in Musi Banyuasin, in Indonesia's South Sumatra province.

But in spite of this, his fishmonger father Mohammed, 30, said: "He looks pretty healthy to me. I don't see the problem."

Ardi's youth is the extreme of a disturbing trend. Data from the Central Statistics Agency showed 25 per cent of Indonesian children aged three to 15 have tried cigarettes, with 3.2 per cent of those active smokers.

The percentage of five to nine year olds lighting up increased from 0.4 per cent in 2001 to 2.8 per cent in 2004, the agency reported.

what if this boy lives to 100?

on a matter that 1/4 of the world is made to feel guilty about