Comment by krapp
The science has been done, and the results are publicly available. You're free to avail yourself of it at your leisure.
The science has been done, and the results are publicly available. You're free to avail yourself of it at your leisure.
Welcome to my favorite PubMed rabbit hole.
TL:DR; The way that most tobacco is produced causes it to contain Polonium-210. Can we at least agree that putting Polonium-210 into the human body is not great?
Have we done a RCT on polonium ingestion? All I'm asking for is a consistent epistemological threshold. Justifying belief based on what amounts to a scientific "vibe" isn't rational knowledge independent of its veracity.
I am not sure that you are arguing in good faith.
Click the first link from 1964, look up the dosage in rems. Then look up the lethality of that amount of radiation, noting that the effects of radiation are largely cumulative.
If you want to find something actually interesting in all of this, read this piece about this industry reaction.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18633078/
Or, generally try to learn where the Polonium appears to come from in the process. That is super interesting and also covered in those google results.
I'll bite. The science, as far as I understand it, clearly demonstrates the addictive properties of nicotine and the negative health effects of smoking.
The alternative theory I've heard is that there are secondary benefits to moderate consumption of cigarettes (moderate in this case being three to five per day) due to appetite suppression and creation of a 3rd place accessible during working hours. Some would also suggest that, at least in institutional environments (hospitals, universities, corporate campuses and manufacturing facilities), the food court/cafeteria and the accompanying array of fast food have replaced the cigarette break.
In this view, we haven't really solved any problems. We've just shifted the damage into a form that society finds to be more palatable. What if we could bring back the cigarette break and in the process boost people's community engagement, mental health and significantly reduce the obesity epidemic all in one hrrrm...