Don’t Blame Tobacco – Blame Biology
-
Kevin Godbee - Jun 1, 2011
- 5 min read
By C. R. S. Lyles
Just the other day, I turned on my television and ran across a commercial promoting an anti-acne product called Epiduo. Throughout the entire length of the commercial, the mantra of "don’t blame yourself; blame biology" was repeated multiple times, and I couldn’t help but see a parallel between this very phrase and the reputedly-negative health aspects which have always been synonymous with smoking.
But how negative are they really?
We as a society have always taken the inherent risks of smoking at face-value, confident that the authority figures and so-called experts know what they are talking about when they tell us how smoking will lead to disease and death.
But, as with all authority figures in a post-Nixon America, taking their word at face value is the surest way of ensuring that you’re going to be lied to.
For example, let’s take a look at the country of Japan.
Out of the top fifteen countries in the entire world who smoke, Japan has the highest percentage with a whopping 59% of the country’s male population. The life expectancy rate is just under 77 years, and yet the lung cancer death rate (LCDR) for Japan is only 0.5% of the male population.
How is this possible?
In his 2003 book In Defense of Smokers [Free Download], author Lauren Colby spoke with the infamous Ernst L. Wynder (who you may remember as one half of the research team who effectively began this post-modern witch-hunt with the publication "Tobacco Smoking as a Possible Etiologic Factor in Bronchiogenic Carcinoma", and the implications of what he discovered when he questioned him about his 1991 article titled "Comparative Epidemiology of Cancer between the United States and Japan" are staggering to the entire world’s population of smokers.
"The bottom line, however, was the concession of Dr. Wynder that the data did not support smoking as a cause of lung cancer in Japan. According to the authors’ own figures, the lung cancer rate among Japanese males is less than one third the rate among U.S. white males, and as early as 1955, 81.4% of Japanese men were smokers (compared to 52.6% in the U.S.)."
Now, for you history buffs out there, the issue of smoking in America can pretty much be traced back to one pesky little Reader’s Digest article whose implications were studied by both Wynder and his colleague, Evarts Ambrose Graham.
And, unfortunately for all the anti-smoking activists out there, a concession such as Dr. Wynder’s that the effects of smoking do not always lead to developing lung cancer is pretty much akin to Charles Darwin renouncing evolution on his death bed.
Now, while we’re on the subject of the socially-accepted mythology regarding the effects of smoking on one’s health, let’s revisit the exact phrasing used in the equally infamous 1964 Surgeon General’s Report.
"Nicotine is rapidly changed in the body to relatively inactive substances with low toxicity. The chronic toxicity of small doses of nicotine is low in experimental animals. These two facts, when taken in conjunction with the low mortality ratios of pipe and cigar smokers, indicate that the chronic toxicity of nicotine in quantities absorbed from smoking and other methods of tobacco use is very low and probably does not represent an important health hazard."
To clarify for the kids in the back seats, smoking cigarettes will probably end up killing you in the end. I myself am a cigarette smoker, but have no illusions about what I put into my body or believe that cigarettes are healthy in any way whatsoever.
But pipe tobacco and cigars are different.
"Death rates of cigar smokers are about the same as those of non-smokers for men smoking less than five cigars daily…Death rates for current pipe smokers were little if at all higher than non-smokers, even with men smoking 10 or more pipefuls per day and with men who had smoked pipes for more than 30 years."
 |
 |
The point is this: smoking tobacco is not going to give you lung cancer 100% of the time.
In his book, Lauren Colby goes on to say that "We have a new disease, Chronic Onstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), the exact cause of which is unknown (indeed, the definition of the disease is vague; it seems to be a case of "this patient has something wrong with his lungs, but we don’t know exactly what"). Cigarette smoking is thought to play a role; yet [it is] clear that many cigarette smokers never develop this disease, and the authors do not know why. I submit that the reason is very simple: smoking does not cause emphysema."
Further proof of the inherent laziness of our public officials is evident in the revelation that "Every year, the government releases figures on the number of ‘smoking-related deaths’ in the United States…Most people assume that there is some scientific basis to that figure. Not so! The government ‘scientists’ simply take a flat percentage of the number of people who die from a particular disease, and assume that to be the number whose death was caused by smoking. There are no autopsies, no studies on actual human beings."
This is what my tax dollars are going to? I work and fulfill my necessary little role in this grand society so some pretentious dweeb with a God complex can assume that the smoking-related deaths number somewhere around 500,000 a year?
The proof is in the pudding, they say, but nothing really says it better than Lauren Colby’s statement that "To this day, it remains unconfirmed and it remains true, that despite hundreds of experiments, nobody has been able to induce a single cancer in lab animals by exposing them to ordinary tobacco products or smoke."
Smoking is not a definite indication of an early death; in fact, the assumption that smoking tobacco can kill you has only been present since the 1950s. Before then and around the entire globe, tobacco was considered medicinal, calming, and even holy to some cultures. The negative health aspects that can derive from smoking are not guaranteed, but really are based more on one’s biology and quality of life rather than on tobacco.
Just look at the data: Cuba has a 49.3% prevalence of male smokers and a life expectancy of just under 75 years. Ironically, Cubans are predicted to outlive Americans by two or more years, yet are socially-identified with tobacco via their world-famous cigars. France, whose people are so stereotypically type-cast as chain-smokers, have a 40% prevalence of male smokers and a life expectancy rate of 74 years.
The United States has only a 28% prevalence of male smokers, but a life expectancy of just under 73 years.
Looks like the smokers of the world may be on to something, huh?
Carter R. Lyles is a student at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, FL and at the University of Florida in Gainesville. He is a journalism/psychology major, and in addition to his work at Pipes Magazine, he has contributed articles to The Alligator, Thursday Night Magazine, and The Fine Print. |
Written by Kevin Godbee
More Pipes and Tobaccos Articles
30 Responses
Recent Posts
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 636. Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with Barry Kane. Barry started smoking a pipe in 1961 when he was 14-years old. Back then it seemed like everybody smoked, and you could buy pipes and tobacco just about anywhere. Barry is a true old-school pipe smoker, sticking to just one blend. See if you can guess which one before listening. At the top of the show Brian will give his take on Scandinavian Tobacco Group’s purchase of Mac Baren and Sutliff Tobacco and their announcement that they will be shut down.
There’s a pipe in my collection that I cannot bring myself to smoke, though I’ve had it for more years than I care to recall. It’s old, or shall I say, well experienced; that experience, that oldness came to it long before it was in my possession. The pipe is an old Comoy’s Grand Slam from the 1940s. The shape (#93), a slightly canted, stack billiard (sometimes referred to as a Belgian) is right up my alley, and it’s a beautiful example of it. It came to me with some wear and tear; nothing unusual for an old pipe, but more the signs of one that has been well loved, smoked a lot, treated as a favorite tool, cherished, in a sense, by frequent use. It’s the pipe equivalent of a vintage car that’s been driven a lot, enjoyed fully and maintained adequately, rather than one kept in a spotless garage, dusted and detailed weekly, brought out only for leisurely Sunday drives, or to be ogled behind the ropes at the next Concours d’Elegance. When it arrived, those uncounted years ago, it wanted a little restoration. Nothing dramatic needed to be done to it, but the stem was oxidized, the finish a little dingy. The cake was even and fairly thin, and the airway was relatively clean, both signs that its previous owner cared for it, but the bowl’s surface was a little drab and dull. It took little effort to reveal its beauty, to show the lovely contrasted stain and interesting grain beneath the old wax. I often think I should do before and after photos of pipes that I work on, but those thoughts always come after the work’s been done. This one would have been a great illustration of how years of handling that can sometimes make a pipe more beautiful, can other times make it just look grungy. Once I’d cleaned up the externals, it was time to address the inside bits. I approach this a little bassackwards, I realize. It would be more sensible to take care of the inside before addressing the outside, but it’s how I roll. If an old pipe isn’t pretty to look at, it’s unlikely that I’ll care much about it, and cleaning is usually the hardest part, or at least the most boring part of any restoration for me. Alcohol and pipe cleaners. Lots of pipe cleaners. That’s why I leave it for last. Sometimes, I’ll even give a pipe a test smoke before a deep cleaning, just for a point of reference. I gave it a sniff to get an idea of what I was up against, and it stopped me cold. There in that bowl was an aroma that I had not smelled in decades. My head was instantly filled with memories of being in the back room of a fabled Berkeley tobacconist’s shop where I stumbled upon a few jars of long discontinued blends. One of them, a blend called Forty and Eight, had the most engaging and unusual scent of any tobacco I’d stuck my schnoz into. It was sweet, but not in a candy store way. There were none of the usual vanilla, cherry, berry or anise notes of typical aromatics, nothing that could be compared to aftershave or deodorant soap, but something almost musky, a little earthy, something exotic. The shop’s owner couldn’t tell me what was in it, how, or where it had been produced. The old blend had been retired before he’d bought the place. The printed catalogue gave no clues, either, other than being overprinted with the word “DISCONTINUED” in bold, rubber-stamp type. (And, I don’t recall it as being “highly aromatic” as the description indicates.) There was still quite a bit in the jar. Being, at that point, an intrepid explorer of all kinds of tobaccos, whether I thought I’d like them or not, I had to give it a try. It was burly based, but also comprised a good measure of virginia leaf, and maybe some other varieties; I didn’t have enough experience at the time to really pick it apart. But, that aroma was unlike anything I’d experienced before or since. It was something now completely lost to time. Until it wasn’t. Memories are powerful things, and there is no sense more tightly bound to memory than our sense of smell. One whiff was all it took to carry me back in time, conjuring a vivid recollection of something long submerged in the inky depths of a subconscious mind. Look, I know as well as anyone that pipes are meant to be smoked, and that many feel it almost sacrilegious to have a pipe and not set it to its intended task. In this case, I simply can’t. I won’t. Ever. Rationally, I am fairly certain this pipe would probably be a great smoke. It was too well loved by its previous caretaker to be anything less than that. My choice not to smoke it is an emotional one, not something rational. Of the thousands of pipes that have passed through my hands over the years, this is the only one to create such a singular and vivid, almost Proustian recollection of temps perdu, of lost time. It revivified a long dormant memory that is mine, and mine alone, and that’s enough. I keep it in a drawer with other old English pipes. In some ways, it’s nothing special, just a nice old pipe. I don’t lavish it with any particular care that arguably befits the hidden treasure that it holds. It’s not in a special box, or displayed preciously in a glass cabinet. Every once in a while, I take it out, point my nose bowlwards, and every time, those memories return just as powerfully as they did the first time. I have no idea how long it’s been since its last owner smoked it, but in the years I’ve had it, there seems to have been very little degradation of the aroma, and that’s […]
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 635. Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with James Ravenwood. James is the boutique tobacco blender of Ravenwood Blends. His blending started out as a fun hobby, and he now has professionally packaged commercially available products with some great tin art. Part of his interest in pipe smoking goes back to fond memories of a retired Navy Veteran that lived on his street while he was growing up that would sit in his driveway smoking a pipe all day. Later, in 2011 he began smoking pipes and soon after started experimenting with mixing different tobaccos. His other hobby, that he has been doing for 30 years, is photography. He takes wonderful photos of outdoor spaces, and still life pictures of pipes and tobacco. You can see them on his Instagram @thebriarfellowship. At the top of the show we’ll have an Ask the Pipemaker segment with renowned pipe artisan Jeff Gracik.
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 634! Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with Warren Ertle. Warren is an extremely accomplished musician with a PhD in music. He started early as a percussionist in sixth grade. Later his grandmother got him a cheap Casio keyboard which he taught himself to play. He started playing in blues bands in high school, and has been a pianist with jazz big bands for years. Even though he was already a professional musician, he took his first real piano lesson when he enrolled in college with his studies in classical music. He is of course a pipe smoker. At the top of the show we will have an Ask the Tobacco Blender segment with Jeremy Reeves. Jeremy is the Head Blender at Cornell & Diehl, which is one of the most popular boutique pipe tobacco companies in the USA.
Soon now, supposedly, our neighborhoods will shift from grinning pumpkins, skeletons in various assortments, and zombies dashing about to pretty reindeer, angels, and flashing lights illuminating homes with sparkling stars and laughing, scurrying Santas. But, lest we forget, there is the turkey season, fancy pie aromas wafting from kitchens, and a national pardon of a big Tom Turkey. Remember, now, that only one of these holiday personalities is a pipe smoker. And that is the hefty, bearded fellow in a bright red suit sitting in a sleigh with a herd of deer hitched up and ready to streak across the globe, bringing tidings of joy and many presents. Ok, the scene is set for the next couple of months, right? So, before we get too far off the beaten path, let’s just take a deep breath of fresh autumn air, shall we? Ahh. That’s better, isn’t it? What’s got the Pundit in a snit is not all the Halloween spooks who came a-jostling for candy. Or the wild turkeys gobbling in the backwoods or all the fuss and feathers over the big one—Christmas. No, it is that we might need to take note of all the little things that mean so much to us. Like a good sunrise (seriously, Pundit has not gone all Pollyanna.) Mayhaps we need to appreciate more of what we have than what we have not. Or something like that. Like, a good pipe in the morning with coffee as the dawn brings us coolish weather now that we have flipped the calendar to autumn. But it also brings beautiful leaves that have become a spectacle of technicolor in the wind. It is the little things. The rereading of an enjoyable book and finding something you did not see or learn in the first go-round. Or a stunning phrase you commit to memory with the re-read, while smoking that favorite pipe. And you notice a superior puff that just seems to be different. It’s in the air and the seasons of meaningful little things. It’s aromatic! Or perhaps it is that sense of satisfaction knowing and appreciating you made it to another day. With the world in a kind of rinse-and-repeat history, reminiscent of a Shakespearean play, it is perhaps a good moment to remember some of Pipedom’s philosophers whose cogent thoughts brought light to clear a path in the mists of confusion and confounding opinions. Ok. No gloom and doom. Just some down-home thoughts. Think of times in the past when history was running off the rails. It took our pipe-smoking thinkers (the mind workers of the world) to speak of better pathways to more light. Think for a moment, with a pipe in hand, these wizards of the world and word: Albert Einstein, J. R.R. Tolkien, Mark Twain, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Edwin Hubble, Bertrand Russell, C. S. Lewis, and Jean-Paul Sartre. All learned and enlightened. They offered wisdom instead of storms of meaningless roads to nowhere. All while smoking their pipes! Maybe especially with the help of their pipes in the art of thinking and philosophy. Recall the words of Mr. E=MC2 when he said, “I believe that pipe smoking contributes to a somewhat calm and objective judgment in all human affairs.” Amen and amen! Dealing with world-rattling events takes a calm and objective view of things, to the Pundit’s way of summing it up. You just don’t go messing around with quantum physics without a calm and objective approach, methinks. Or as the extraordinary physicist Robert Oppenheimer said after he and a team in the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos Labs developed a way to split atoms into bombs during World War II. “I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds,” said Oppenheimer referring to the development of the first nuclear bombs dropped on Japan. It must be pointed out that Oppenheimer was more of a cigarette smoker than a pipe smoker. Nonetheless, pipes were part of his personality. Now, if you have read some of the great authors of the past and present, their pipes were always nearby. Reading Sir Arthur Conan Doyle can be a three-pipe problem at times. S. Lewis and Jean-Paul Sartre require time with your pipes to reflect on the existential problems and solutions these authors provide in learned novels and other narratives. Or take Edwin Hubble and Bertrand Russell, philosophers of another world. Pipes are required for reading. The quantum lode of ideas Pundit is attempting to sort out is that our pipes are relaxing and stimulate our thoughts and creativity. Especially in these last months of the year. Many times Pundit has had that light bulb flick on while smoking my beloved pipes. And friends in Pipedom, it ain’t easy to turn on the lights in Pundit’s rock pit head. Now it’s time for a quote from a Pipe Smoker of the Past. Shelby Foote was born Nov. 17, 1916, in Greenville, Miss., and died June 27, 2005, in Memphis, Tenn. A fact is not a truth until you love it—Shelby Foote. A parting thought: It is said that famed Southern author William Faulkner carried a packed pipe in a coat pocket wherever he went. That’s one effective way to deal with workday conflicts and confusion. A calm and objective judgment in our everyday human affairs, as the quantum man said.
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 633. Our featured guest tonight is Jon David Cole. JD is the Owner/Tobacconist at The Country Squire in Jackson, MS, and the accompanying online store. We’ll have JD and Brian talking about what’s new at the store and in the business in general. At the top of the show, Brian will discuss tobacco growing, what happens to the leaf, and provide updated information on where tobacco is being gown today. Tobacco production originated in the United States and we were once the #1 producer. It’s quite different now.
Excellent article, Carter!
Great Article!!
Why aren’t articles such as this reported by the media? Politics and money?
Wonderful piece! Thank you.
Wonderful piece! It’s amazing what happens when those anti-smoking figures are confronted.
very nice.
Why doesn’t the media report it? because the antis pay a lot of dollars for commercials against. we’d have to spend just as much to advertise for it.
I’d be extremely interested in any reports from the last 10 years. Whilst this is an excellent article, the Surgeon General’s 1964 report is perhaps a little out-dated. Going to pass this round the sceptics though!
The UK’s own anti-smoking advertisments now tend to go with the phrasing “smoking-related” – As in, dead smokers who happened to die of things that are commonly associated with smoking.
Great article! Everything seems to be so true, it seems nearly impossible to argue against it! But, I am dumbstruck; every time you try and say something of the sort to an anti your only met with arrogant smirks and smug chuckles and shaking heads. I cannot find a reason not to agree with you Carter, and that is not only because I love smoking a pipe, but because you make perfect sense, this can only mean that the antis are (for the most part) arrogant idiots!
Well written, Carter, and well researched.
As a scientist myself, I can explain why there exists such an abundance of anti smoking scientific studies; MONEY.
Truth is, it costs a lot of green to get a diploma in a scientific field from a decent college. Once graduated, the budding scientific mind quickly discovers that there is no ready market for his specialty except for what little grant money that can be found. Grant money, though available, cannot be considered a guaranteed source of income unless the researcher provides the “expected” result. Don’t get the expected result, don’t expect a nother grant.
Without going through the whole “figures don’t lie but liars do figure” routine, let’s just say that any batch of numbers can be coerced into any result through creative massage. Look into any anti- research and you will find a variety of skews that have affected the outcome: contrived populations, lack of background research, lack of continuity of data. It is aparent that the money for research is pointing in the “anti-” direction and the researcher who wants to keep his family fed will be looking in that direction also.
Once again, carter, thank you for your open mind.
One of the most revealing pieces of well documented information from Mr. Colby’s book, cited in this article: due to the anti-smoking campaign, smoking has declined yet the lung cancer death rate has increased. Is there a link? I don’t think so.
.
Over all I think Mr. Simmons comment above is the most cogent I’ve heard during this entire discussion. It reminds me of the fiasco caused by “scientists” fudging the data on global warming. BTW, Al Gore has been keeping a pretty low profile lately; maybe he can get a job crusading against smoking (if he isn’t doing so already!) 🙂
Nice job, Carter. This is the first I’ve heard anything from the Surgeon General’s report and non-hard scientific data available. I agree with the comment made by Capnbellamy about a definite interest in seeing any scientific studies done within the last ten to twenty years.
My wife is very sensitive to the present information about “second-hand smoke”, but does not insist I do no pipe smoking in the house.
To find any more current info from the Surgeon General’s office might be quite a challenge, especially without research methodology knowledege. Perhaps I shall do a little scratching.
@ capnbellamy & tatanka re: more recent reports vs. older reports.
I trust the older reports more than the more recent information from the surgeon general’s office.
Back in the 50’s & 60’s, even though tobacco was already being vilified, it was nowhere as bad as it is now, which slants the more recent info much harder against tobacco.
Read this from just 6-months ago, and then tell me if you still want to trust anything recent from the Surgeon General.
http://greenhellblog.com/2010/12/12/surgeon-general-jumps-the-shark/
I think I was told that the information you see above in the two notices about how pipe smokers were shown to be better off than non-smokers was actually removed from the report later on because the antis didn’t want it there.
I think the source of that information is in the book, “For Your Own Good” by Reason Magazine’s Jacob Sullum.
Well said.
Maybe: “what this world (really does) needs is a good 10 cent cigar.”
Quote “capnbellamy said:
I’d be extremely interested in any reports from the last 10 years. Whilst this is an excellent article, the Surgeon General’s 1964 report is perhaps a little out-dated. Going to pass this round the sceptics though!
The UK’s own anti-smoking advertisments now tend to go with the phrasing “smoking-related” – As in, dead smokers who happened to die of things that are commonly associated with smoking.”
I think, if anything that report is understated! There are probably more additives added to cigarettes than there were back then. Therefore possibly more deaths related to cigarettes versus pipe smoking related deaths.
As to the UK maybe they are saying the deaths are related to ashtrays?
Great article, even better subject.
Hey Zuni, is that “as in being hit over the head with an ashtray?” 🙂
Re: Nicotine benefits.
http://dengulenegl.dk/English/Nicotine.html
Great article, Carter. For updated “reports”, look to the source of all the current anti legislation: the WHO’s Tobacco-Free Initiative http://bit.ly/mBy724 . It’s a much catchier slogan than a “war on tobacco”, which has become passe what with the current global conflicts bringing everybody down. Even a casual reading will highlight the fact that most of the statistics cited are little more than agenda-based assumptions.
Very thought provoking article!
Great article. Its like i’ve always said. where are the statstics of smokers who dont die from “smoking related illness”
I grew up in a home where my parents and extended family smoked cigars, pipes and cigarettes constantly. If second hand smoke were as bad for one’s health as the Surgeon General’s office implies, we should all have been dead long ago. That’s me, and my other six siblings! Let’s tell the truth: society in general has become more and more intolerant. Look at the most recent outdoor smoking ban in NYC. Outdoor smoking has never been shown as any threat to health, but antismokers are so angry and vehement that any whiffl of tobacco is viewed as a personal assault.
Maybe a way out of this mess is to outlaw tobacco, as an experiment. Then the government would lose billions in tax revenue and we could form speakeasies for smokers. Problem is, the current generation of pleasure-hating idiots didn’t live through the Prohibition Era, which gave us Organized Crime, so they haven’t learned any lessons about why prohibitionism ultimately doesn’t work. Human beings like to smoke, drink, gamble, and some even like to do drugs. This has been true since humans existed. Why can’t we accept this?
Great article, Carter. I always thought that this anti-tobacco campaign is a kind of witch hunt, just to give people something to blame.
Great article, thanks!!!
A further comment:
Excellent article. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if, when the whole truth is known about death from any type of cancer, that obesity is the main cause. Interestingly, one of the major differences between Americans and the Japanese is, we’re fatter than them. That may account for a longer life expectancy in a country with more smokers overall than the USA.
I like the compare and contrast between the thoughtfulness and factual nature of this article and the new packaging campaign waged by the anti’s. When you can’t sway with a message based in reality, always throw disturbing images at it.
Great article!
Are you also aware the CDC requires doctors to list SMOKING as the cause of death if the decedent has ever smoked and dies from a disease the CDC associates with smoking. This is the best way ever to get statistics to say what you want them to say. Control the raw data.
Great article..thanks!
Those silly facts, always messing up everybody’s preconceived notion of evil.
I would like to note that the story about Darwin recanting is a false story that was spread by one Lady Hope, while Darwin’s daughter, who was with Darwin throughout all of his last days, says Ms. Hope never even visited Darwin.
Man i loving it and it is good to get the other side of the story!