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Originally posted by narcism its because when you are dying a slow death, you are leeching off the medical field, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, multiple surgeries, medicine and palliative care aint come cheap you know....

After working in both a cancer hospital as well as in general practice, I'd take the death of a smoker over that of an obese person any day. (Yes, I'm very biased against those with unhealthy lifestyles, especially the obese.) With smoking you have chronic conditions, but most of them at least allow the individual to be somewhat productive until they become terminal. At that point they tend to "go" fairly quickly. The overweight on the other hand tend to have life-long, disabling conditions that end up costing them and everyone else much more money than those who smoke.

I'm not trying to say smoking is OK, but I think smokers get vilified much more than others, even though other groups are a much bigger strain on the health care system. I have sympathy for neither group, but I find it much easier to see a smoker than an obese patient.

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Originally posted by Orpheus Is Dead i never really understood the whole anti-smoking movement... If I want to go smoke and fuck up my lungs thats my business..I don't understand those people who protest it. If they feel its bad then they shouldn't do it. But honestly why do they give a fuck if I do it? Why get rid of cigarettes, which I smoke, just because they feel its bad?

I'm with you, it's your body so you should really do to it as you please as long as it doesn't affect anyone else. I just don't want to pay for other people's healthcare because of their decisions

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Originally posted by Ygrene I once saw Swamper peel off 4 or 5 $100 bills from a fat roll and say this to Donald Trump: "Go clean yourself up; you look like a bum.". And then he threw the bills right in Trump's face/hair! Then Swamper and his entourage of 30, who were all wearing TA monogramed Rolexes, left the room and flew to Hawaii for a few hours because Del wanted fresh coconut. To his defense, Trump didn't even really look like a bum.

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Originally posted by NeoPhono After working in both a cancer hospital as well as in general practice, I'd take the death of a smoker over that of an obese person any day. (Yes, I'm very biased against those with unhealthy lifestyles, especially the obese.) With smoking you have chronic conditions, but most of them at least allow the individual to be somewhat productive until they become terminal. At that point they tend to "go" fairly quickly. The overweight on the other hand tend to have life-long, disabling conditions that end up costing them and everyone else much more money than those who smoke. I'm not trying to say smoking is OK, but I think smokers get vilified much more than others, even though other groups are a much bigger strain on the health care system. I have sympathy for neither group, but I find it much easier to see a smoker than an obese patient.

so you are telling me if i have the choice between a deep fried snickers bar or a pack of camel lights... go with camel lights?

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Originally posted by Halcyon+On+On OOKA-OOKA ME NACHOS ME PRESS KEYS ON COMPUTER GOOD

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Originally posted by nchs09 so you are telling me if i have the choice between a deep fried snickers bar or a pack of camel lights... go with camel lights?

If someone's putting a gun to your head and asking you to choose, then yes.

I can guarantee that if all you do is sit on your butt and eat fried chicken, you'll get fat, get diabetes along with all of the wonderful things it leads to, and your heart will eventually decide not to work. You could smoke a pack a day for the rest of your life and the only thing I can gurantee is that you'll find yourself short of breath, cough up some nasty stuff and get lung infections more often. You might get cancer, emphysema or god knows what else, but you might die a happy smoker. I've never seen a person die a "happy" life-long obese person.

You'll also be happy to know that whereas on average an obese patient costs over a thousand dollars a year more to care for than a "thin" person, the difference in health care dollars between a smoker and non-smoker is nowhere near that much.

I've always wondered: how many smokers die from their smoking?

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Originally posted by Sunsnail I've always wondered: how many smokers die from their smoking?

Studies vary quite a bit, mainly in what they do and do not say are tobacco-related deaths, but the best estimate is somewhere around 1 in 3 smokers die of smoking-related illnesses. So, 33% (or more) of chronic smokers will die because of it.

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Originally posted by NeoPhono If someone's putting a gun to your head and asking you to choose, then yes. I can guarantee that if all you do is sit on your butt and eat fried chicken, you'll get fat, get diabetes along with all of the wonderful things it leads to, and your heart will eventually decide not to work. You could smoke a pack a day for the rest of your life and the only thing I can gurantee is that you'll find yourself short of breath, cough up some nasty stuff and get lung infections more often. You might get cancer, emphysema or god knows what else, but you might die a happy smoker. I've never seen a person die a "happy" life-long obese person. You'll also be happy to know that whereas on average an obese patient costs over a thousand dollars a year more to care for than a "thin" person, the difference in health care dollars between a smoker and non-smoker is nowhere near that much.

for all that medical "knowledge" i would expect someone to use the word healthy instead of ""thin"" in parenthesis

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Originally posted by Halcyon+On+On OOKA-OOKA ME NACHOS ME PRESS KEYS ON COMPUTER GOOD

I wish you would know the difference between parenthesis and quotations

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Originally posted by nchs09 for all that medical "knowledge" i would expect someone to use the word healthy instead of ""thin"" in parenthesis

There's a difference between "healthy" and "thin," and that's why I wrote it and didn't choose to write "healthy." I'm going for opposites here and as "non-smoker" is the opposite of "smoker," "thin" is the opposite of "obese," not "healthy." There are many non-smokers who are not healthy, just as there are many thin people are not healthy. However, "thin" unhealthy people still on average cost far less to take care of than the obese. Their illnesses also tend to be much more treatable and transient.

you got alot of problems when talking thin, you could be talking about anorexic poeple etc, which are just a big of a burden on society as fat poeple/



anyhow i bought a pack of camels at 4 am yesterday............ never tasted so good :P

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Originally posted by Halcyon+On+On OOKA-OOKA ME NACHOS ME PRESS KEYS ON COMPUTER GOOD

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Originally posted by nchs09 you got alot of problems when talking thin, you could be talking about anorexic poeple etc, which are just a big of a burden on society as fat poeple/ anyhow i bought a pack of camels at 4 am yesterday............ never tasted so good :P

False on the anorexic people being just as big of a burden as the overweight (from an overall standpoint), but I do know where you're coming from. That's why "thin" was in quotation marks, because I was not trying to equate thin with healthy, just thin as in not overweight. I could have put "non-overweight," but I thought the "thin" in quotation marks worked just as well, and sounded a bit less stuffy. I'm in no way saying that all thin people or non-overweight people are healthy, simply that the cost of care for the obese far exceeds the cost of care for the non-obese, and that difference is more than between smokers and non-smokers.

Heck, as far as smoking goes, if you're young and plan on quitting sometime in the reasonable future, it'll probably have no long-term effects on your health. Your doctor will never fully approve, but they know full well a young smoker who quits will probably never suffer any life-long problems because of it. The same could be said about the young obese population, but there is a dangerous rise in type II diabetes in the young, and even if they lose the weight, they'll be diabetics the rest of their lives.