Smoking


Smoking

Best of the Web: Top US academics discover fresh tobacco leaves can fight cancer

Tobacco leaves
Tobacco plants
Researchers at the University of Louisiana at Monroe have discovered anticancer compounds in the most unlikely of places - tobacco leaves.

Khalid El Sayed, an associate professor of medicinal chemistry at the ULM College of Pharmacy, and ULM colleagues Paul Sylvester and Girish Shah received a patent for their discovery of anti-cancer compounds in fresh tobacco leaves earlier this week from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

"The leaf and flower of the tobacco plant contain high amounts of the key flavor ingredient called cembranoids, which shows promise as an anti-cancer agent," El Sayed said. "It was very exciting to discover the anti-cancer activities."

But this doesn't mean people will reap the same benefits by using commercial tobacco, he warned, adding that much of the anti-cancer compound is lost in the processing of commercial tobacco.

"This compound is not commonly found in commercial tobacco because commercial tobacco is largely degraded into smaller compounds for about a year to give it flavor during the processing and fermentation," he said.

The cembranoids are found in the waxy substance on fresh tobacco leaves and show potential for controlling metastic breast and prostate cancers. The plant produces them as a chemical defense to protect itself against insects and harmful microbial infections, El Sayed said.

Comment: Apart from cembranoids, tobacco also contains nicotine and solanesol, which have proved as medicinal in many conditions that cause death and suffering. Just have a look at the following studies:

Tobacco used as medicine
Using tobacco plants to fight cancer
Tobacco plant-made therapeutic thwarts West Nile virus
Health Benefits of Smoking Tobacco
Tobacco-derived compound prevents memory loss in Alzheimer's disease mice
Does Smoking Help Protect the Joints?
Nicotine helps Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Patients
Study supports new theory for nicotine's protective effect against neurodegenerative disorders
Longtime Smokers Less Likely to Develop Parkinson's Disease
Study: Quitting smoking increases risk of developing type 2 diabetes
Smoking Helps Protect Against Lung Cancer
Smoking does NOT cause lung cancer, in fact it just might protect you from nuclear fallout

And note that here at SOTT, we agree with the above article's advice. When we say, "Let's All Light Up!", we mean natural, organically grown tobacco, not commercial cigarettes.


Smoking

No smoking signs raise craving

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Smokers who see a "no smoking" sign are driven to crave a cigarette, research suggests.

A study presented at the British Psychological Society in Glasgow found that when smokers were shown scenes where no smoking signs were visible they were subconsciously drawn to having a cigarette because the idea of smoking had been put in their head. Researchers said was ironic.

The researchers recruited a group of smokers who were shown 25 pictures of everyday scenes on the street and in cafés and bars. In around seven of the images, no smoking signs were included in their usual locations.

Smoking

Anti-smoking Propaganda Spreads Across World

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© AFPIf current trends continue, by 2030 tobacco will kill more than 8 million people worldwide each year.
The tobacco industry's multimillion-dollar campaign against the federal government's plain-packaging measures comes amid evidence of a growing distaste worldwide for smoking.

A World Health Organisation report issued yesterday on the ''global tobacco epidemic'' finds that more than half the world's population, or 3.8 billion people, live in countries with at least some form of anti-smoking measure such as health warnings on cigarette packs, cigarette taxes or anti-tobacco media campaigns.

There are 425 million people in 19 countries - about 6 per cent of the world's population - where bans on tobacco marketing are in place, the report says. Nearly all of those people are on low or middle incomes.

Comment: The dangers of smoking have been overstated in the media and the benefits all but ignored. For more information read:
Let's All Light Up!
Study finds smoking wards off Parkinson's disease
Nicotine helps Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Patients
Nicotine Lessens Symptoms Of Depression In Nonsmokers
Scientists Identify Brain Regions Where Nicotine Improves Attention, Other Cognitive Skills
Can Smoking be GOOD for SOME People?


Smoking

Best of the Web: Does Smoking Help Protect the Joints?

Curious as it may sound, a new study of nearly 11,000 older men in Australia has found that the longer the men smoked, the less likely they were to undergo surgery to replace hips and knees damaged by arthritis or other conditions.

Lit cigarette
© Getty ImagesResearchers are quick to cover their butts by pointing out that smoking is "bad for you."
Smoking will increase your risk of cancer, emphysema, heart disease, stroke, and dying young, but if you manage to dodge all those bullets, it may actually reduce your need for joint-replacement surgery later in life.


Comment: Ah yes, they must start with the requisite propaganda mustn't they? If they didn't, they would be accused of working for tobacco companies because they printed the results of scientific studies that showed anything positive about smoking. This is the way of anti-tobacco activists. If you say anything that counters their message of "Smoking kills and there is nothing positive about it" you are attacked.

But we digress. If you subscribe to the Dot Connector now, you'll get to read a very revealing upcoming article on what is really known about smoking and what is only propaganda.


Curious as it may sound, a new study of nearly 11,000 older men in Australia has found that the longer the men smoked, the less likely they were to undergo surgery to replace hips and knees damaged by arthritis or other conditions.

Smoking

Anti-Smoking Propaganda Alert! WHO: Nearly Half World Smokers To Die Of Tobacco-Related Disease

anti-smoking
© unknown
Of the world's more than 1 billion tobacco smokers, more than 80% live in low- and middle-income countries and up to half will eventually die of a tobacco- related disease, the World Health Organization said Thursday.

Comment: An upcoming issue of the Dot Connector Magazine will be dealing with this subject in detail. Subscribe now; you don't want to miss it. Until your issue arrives, please take some time to educate yourself on the dirty tricks, manipulations and outright lies used by the anti-tobacco lobbyists. You might find this site a good place to start: http://www.kidon.com/smoke/index.html


Smoking

Given Poison with One Hand, and Being Taken Everything Else with the Other: Varenicline for Smoking Cessation Linked to Increased Risk of Serious Harmful Cardiac Events

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© Unknown
The use of varenicline to stop smoking is associated with a 72% increased risk of a serious adverse cardiovascular event, states an article in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) (pre-embargo link only).

Heart disease is a common cause of serious illness and death in smokers and is often a reason for people to stop smoking. Varenicline is one of the most commonly used drugs to help people quit smoking worldwide. When varenicline was launched in 2006, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) safety reviewers reported that existing data indicated it could raise the risk of adverse cardiac events. The FDA recently updated the label for Chantix based on a small increased risk of cardiovascular events among smokers with heart disease.


Comment: Did you catch that? "Heart disease is a common cause of serious illness and death in smokers". Sayz who?!

C-reactive protein (CRP), a well-established marker of low-grade inflammation is used to determine the risk for cardiovascular events. And guess what? Nicotine is a major anti-inflammatory agent, while varenicline increases the risk of adverse cardiac events. So perhaps the sentence should be changed into: "Heart disease is a common cause of serious illness and death in ex-smokers on varenicline?"


A team of researchers from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland; the University of East Anglia, Norwich, United Kingdom; and Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, sought to investigate the serious cardiac effects of varenicline in tobacco users (smokers or smokeless tobacco users) compared with placebos in clinical trials. They looked at 14 trials that included 8216 patients (4908 people on varenicline and 3308 taking placebos). All trials except one excluded people with a history of heart disease.

Comment: Sorry, Doc, but what is truly heartbreaking is witnessing how in the world where human beings are being stripped off the last shreds of their dignity, privacy and individuality, those who are actually responsible for such soul-killing crimes are also busy with lying in a cruel and cynical way that they are suddenly concerned about our welfare.


Smoking

E-Cigs More Harmful Than Tobacco?

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An 'e-cigarette': better stick to the real thing.
Yes. According to EU Health Commissioner John Dalli, they are.
"We are revising our tobacco legislation to make sure that we expand their scope - not just to tobacco - because there are other products which are more harmful, and also on packaging, advertising and access to cigarettes in shops, which can all help people to give up," Dalli told EurActiv.

He explained: "Electronic cigarettes are an example. They are outside the scope of existing legislation, but if you go up on certain aeroplanes they are marketed all the time. This is the sort of expansion of legislation I am are (sic) talking about"
While we've always known that the anti-tobacco debate is rooted in fantasyland, it's only recently that those leading the campaign have begun to make patently absurd statements like this based on no evidence whatsoever.

To say e-cigs - which are proven to be 90% safer than cigarettes - are more harmful than smoking tobacco is not only astonishingly transparent bullshit, but also reckless in the extreme if it leads to a ban on the devices.

Smoking

EU launches 3-year anti-smoking campaign

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© Unknown
(and in case you think that is grotesque, try this)

The three-year anti-smoking campaign involves an interactive programme called iCoach, an application designed to encourage smokers to keep on trying to stop smoking. EU officers will be encouraged to lead by example and register with iCoach before it is let loose on the public. It has been published in all the European languages (you can see why the campaign is expected to cost 16 million euros).

As well as putting pressure on officers to sign up to this hideously expensive campaign in order to set an example to lesser mortals who don't work for it, EU Health Commissioner John Dalli also looks forward to extending legislation restricting the use of smokeless tobacco products. So not only will they resort to bullying EU employees, they will also seek to ban e-cigarettes and similar products and push for further restrictions on the marketing and selling of tobacco.

Comment: Indeed, it seems the fascists know by now that convincing the remaining smokers to quit is all but impossible. But what if the goal is to reinforce the anti-smokers' beliefs and to thereby generate more fervent hate and thereby ostracise smokers even more?


Smoking

Best of the Web: Dr. Gori on the passive smoking fraud

Dr. Gio Gori, former deputy director of the US National Cancer Institute's Division of Cancer Cause and Prevention and chairman of the Tobacco Working Group, explains why the alleged dangers of Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS) are entirely fictional.

Talk recorded at the international conference "Thinking is forbidden", held in Brussels 27/28 January 2009 (originally: "Smoking Bans and Lies", organized by The International Coalition against Prohibition).

Part 1


Smoking

Best of the Web: Passive Smoking: An Institutional Problem

Forces International are glad to re-introduce to our readers the multimedia version of the most concise and scientifically accurate documentary on the international fraud on passive smoking. In only thirteen minutes you can learn how to educate others, while gaining for yourself a full perspective on the depth of this fraud - and of the corruption of the institutions that promote it.