Anti smokers - are you prepared to give up your cars?

Question

It is only due to another question regarding smoking that I ask this. The simple fact is more people are affected by pollution from cars than are affected by second smoke. Why do more people whine about passive smoking while they drive around in their polluting machines, increasing lung disease, destroying the environment and knocking people down and killing them and themselves.

No we have heard the whingers say that smoking costs the NHS millions... maybe. But they never look at the money that smokers bring into the NHS. Cigarette tax makes up a huge portion of the cost of cigarettes and pays a large amout of NHS costs.

I don't like breathing car exhaust fumes every day and the rise in Asthma has been linked to the replacement of lead in petrol with the lung irritant Benzine. We need to put a more sever tax on cars to cover the damage they do to our health and the treatment needed by those who suffer from lung problem caused by car.
People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones

For those using the utility claim, a horse and cart can transport you from A to B and doesn't cause the pollution that a car causes. Using a car is as much a personal choice as smoking. Smoking tobacco does have uses. Tobacco is a stimulant, it also improves memory performance by binding to nicotinic recptors in the brain and it aids digestion.

To special E... there has been a direct link shown between Benzine and Asthma rise. That is your second hand exhausting. I smoke and accept the risks that go with it. You drive and don't care what damage you do to others or the environment.

For Jeff K here are some little road stats to shut you up.

http://www.driveandstayalive.com/articles%20and%20topics/road%20safety%20initiatives/rsi-world-health-day-2004.htm

Road traffic injuries are a deadly scourge, taking the lives of 1.2 million men, women and children around the world each year. That equates to around 3,300 people killed in road crashes every single day -- more than two a minute.

Hundreds of thousands more are injured on our roads, some of whom become permanently disabled.

The vast majority of these casualties occur in developing countries, among pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists and users of public transport, many of whom would never be able to afford a private motor vehicle.

But the problem isn't confined to developing countries; both the USA and the European Union, alone, each witness over 40,000 road deaths a year.

Sparr x.... just because it is functional and important doesn't make it right!!! The splitting of the atom was important and funtional and look where that got us... lets all use Nukes!!!!

The UK collects 10.5 billion a year in tobacco taxes and the cost of treating smoking related illness is 1.7 billion. Seems like mismanagement of resources to me.

Just read what sunshine said. Now correct me if I am wrong. Tobacco is a plant. It is a renewable resource unlike oil. If tobacco manufactures want to add chemicals to cigarettes then so be it. I would rather they didn't. But then the majority of these chemicals are either there already or are released as a result of the burn process and reaction that occur during the burn process.

Also I am not using this to justify smoking in any way. I am pointing out the hypocracy of many people who complain about passive smoking but don't think twice about driving their cars. I am not saying smoking is healthy and that people should do it. I merely pointing out the double standards of anti smoking nazis. When they say it damages your health, I say "why the f**k do you care, I don't know you and I don't need your false sympathy". My grandmother died of lung cancer and my sister watched it happened. I know the suffering disease brings.

808fl makes a reasonable point. The cost of a car is huge. The difference is though that the costs of a car are primarily weighted towards improving all things associated with cars but there is no health tax on a car! No motorist pays a tax to cover the treatment of illnesses associated with pollution! Smokers do pay a tax which as has already been pointed out more than outweighs the cost of their treatment.

Answer 1

Tobacco taxation raises revenue of £9.5bn compared with the £1.7bn needed to treat smoking-related illness. There you go, so next time an anti smoker needs hospital treatment you may find that it is that smoker you so dislike that is actually paying for that life saving operation you need! (When you are hit by a car for example!!)
Here's an interesting read for you!!!! Evidence???
http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/briefings/road_air_pollution_health.pdf#search='evidence%20of%20car%20pollution%20causing%20illness'

Answer 2

If we had a good cheap or free transport system and I could get to the places I wanted or needed to be then I would be prepared to give up my car. One very small point, I do not take my car into the office, pub, restaurant, cinema or any building where people can breathe in my car fumes which cannot escape into the atmosphere. As far as I can see, smokers are being asked to smoke outside or in a desigated room away from non smokers. There is a big difference.

Answer 3

I do smoke,but do not drive a car.To those going on about the cost to the NHS of smoking:
HOW MANY OF YOU DRINK ALCOHOL?????
Alcohol has recently been designated by the WHO (World Health Organisation)as a major global determinant of ill health. Alcohol related problems represent about 9% of the disease burden in Europe. There is a worrying increase in alcohol related deaths, especially owing to liver disease where Scotland is far worse than the UK average. There is rising public and Government alarm at increased alcohol consumption (especially in young people), binge drinking and public disorder and violence. The societal cost of alcohol abuse is colossal, exceeding £20 billion annually in the UK, to say nothing of the ‘cost’ of family and social disruption, criminality and ill health.
Just a little food for thought!!!???????? Why not "have a go" at the drinkers as well!!!?

Answer 4

How can you even make this comparison? As to supreme court has pointed out "Smoking is a Choice"... A choice with no economic value.

Vehicles drive our economy, by transporting raw materials to manufacturing centers, then goods to stores, then people to the stores to buy those goods.

This is a very simplified example I know, but other than making to stink like an ashtray and destroying your health, how does smoking benefit anyone accept the tobacco companies that are killing you slowly and increasing the nicotine levels in cigarettes to make it harder to quit?

As for the other "Points" you try and make Transportation by "Horse and Cart" is not feasable in this day and age, not fresh veggies and meats in the Supermarkets. Can you raise enough food on the balcony of your apartment or in your back yard to make up the difference? You would have to go back to farmers markets in each town with locally grown foods. Cities would become too much of a burden on the outlaying towns to support and would have to be abandon.

All this for smoking? Cars need to stay and smoking needs to go.

Answer 5

well said, im a smoker and have never thought about it this way.i am a considerate smoker and dont smoke around non-smokers, but then i also drive about 30 miles to work each day and never thought about it in this light either but i belive i do my bit for the environment by picking up work colleagues on the way and getting the bus on days im not working. some of you are saying that smoking causes bad health for many who do it, persanly i think it depends more on the person. if you are meant to have cancer you will, smoking just dosnt help. my great grandad lived till he was 101 and had smoked at least 30 everyday since he could remember. on the other hand my mates aunty smoked for 4 1/2 years before getting diagnosed with lung cancer.

Answer 6

You have a point - overall pollution and smoking are two parts of a bigger puzzle. I would happily give up my car if the government stopped spending billions on stupid wars and weaponry and put it into researching cleaner fuels and a public transport system that was capable of getting me from A to B without having to change at Glasgow, Crewe, Nottingham and Penznce first, while breaking down on the way, not being able to operate on a day with a y in it and charging me the best part of a hundred quid for the privelage.

Smoking, on the other hand, is pretty much down to the individual - you just don't do it, end of story.

Answer 7

all the people are saying about the cost stats of cigarettes
juust to put in perspective
(1)road tax
(2) insurance
(3)mot
(4) petrol
(5) parking
now compare the amount of tax the moterist pays as compared to cigarettes
I still say if a person enjoys a smoke why stop him

Answer 8

So you justify it by saying that you smoke but understand the risks. That's justifying? Then fine, all of us drive but understand the risks.

No, that DOESN'T work. I drive and yes, it destroys the environment. And no, that doesn't justify ANYTHING.

If ANYTHING the number of chemicals and substances in your cigarette use up more of our planet by sheer NUMBER of things used in your cigarette than you think. (http://www.quitsmokingsupport.com/ingredients.htm)

If you claim that you just knowing the dangers of smoking is all you're going to say... then you need to rethink things. Cigarettes are not in endless supply and some of those items we could use in other places. Maybe that money you spend everyday on packs of cigarettes you could spend on trying to find how to make a good solar powered car. But no instead you just complain.

Stop whining and do something about it!

{Edit}

I do need to commend you on a good point, by the way. You've gotten a good debate going.

And your reply to my answer was well-thought out. Thanks.

If you're using this soley as an argument for the anti-smokers then go for it. I honestly think that if u smoke today what one person says won't help... just make someone mad. So goodluck with the answers.

Answer 9

You very glibly tell us that you smoke and accept the risks that go with it.

I watched my mother die - horribly slowly - from emphysema. Her lungs were so damaged by smoking that they could no longer take in the air she needed. Imagine not being able to breathe, it must be like drowning. Watching her struggle for air was horrible, a horrendous nightmare for her and for me.

It's so easy to say that you accept the risks - millions of people say the same thing. But living it - as you surely will some day - will be a living hell of pain for you and for your loved ones. Don't do it!

Please, PLEASE, think again.

Answer 10

I suppose that this makes cigarettes a healthy thing? If you have asthma, the last thing you need in your lungs is cigarette smoke. Alternate fuels will eventually replace the fossil fuels we now use, but what will replace tobacco? I tolerate smokers outdoors, but I won't allow one in my house.