How Much Time You Save by Not Smoking Cigarettes

Great infographic from my friends at Quitter's Circle.

Here's what they have to say about smoking and time:

 "It takes 6 minutes, on average, to smoke a cigarette. While this number may not seem like very much—I mean, hey, what’s 6 minutes of your day—smoke breaks can add up to days, weeks and months of your life. About 20% of smokers smoke one pack of cigarettes per day, and 7% smoke more than a pack a day."

Enjoy the Infographic and let me know your thoughts...

Hawaii to raise legal smoking age to 21

With the growing popularity of e-cigarettes, Hawaii has decided to raise the legal age of smoking to 21.  Hawaii will become the first state in the country to do this.  There are real fears in the community and the nation that the growing popularity of e-cigarettes is encouraging teenagers to develop a taste for tobacco whereby the e-Cigarette becomes somewhat of a gateway drug.  The governor of Hawaii, David Ige, recently signed a bill that will raise the smoking age to 21.

Governor Ige said. “Raising the minimum age as part of our comprehensive tobacco control efforts will help reduce tobacco use among our youth and increase the likelihood that our keiki [children] will grow up tobacco-free.” 

When this law goes into effect, first offence is $10 and then up to $50 for subsequent offences. (total effing joke, but I'll touch on this in a minute)

Hawaii has found that 86 percent of their smokers got started when they were kids and so limiting access may help reduce that number.  

Many states have gone up to 19 years old as the legal age, but Hawaii is the first to go to 21.  

This new push got started after researchers at the University of Hawaii reported that 30 per cent of 14- to 16-year-olds had experimented with e-cigarettes.  The concern is that this would then encourage them to consider smoking conventional cigarettes. 

Opponents to the law have the following logic summed up by Democratic Representative Angus McKelvey, "I can't stand cigarette smoking. It’s disgusting, but to tell somebody you can go and fight for your country and get killed but you can't have a cigarette, that’s the thing. You can enter a contract. You're an emancipated adult in the eyes of the constitution, but you can't have a cigarette anymore."

And now for my 2 cents on this well intentioned law...  It's all stupid.  10 bucks is the fine for a first offence?  That's less than a pack of cigarettes in NYC!  And the average cost of a pack of cigarettes in Hawaii is...  wait for it...  $9.55.  So I get busted once it costs me a pack.  Twice, a carton and guess what?  I'm still smoking!  That's right.  I started smoking full time when I was 17.  My friends bought me cigarettes.  It was the easiest thing to get.  If you really want to have an impact, first offence needs to be volunteering in a cancer treatment center and education on the real effects of smoking.  When I was a teenager I felt immortal and also felt cancer just didn't apply to me.  You think a $10 fine is going to dissuade someone from smoking?  Cmon...  maaaaaaan!  Wake up.  

Also, allow me to comment on McKelvey's missed mark.  I'd be curious to see if Angus supports lowering the legal age of drinking to 18...  

BOTTOM LINE:  Free society, free market, free economy.  Raising the legal age to 21 one may have an impact.  Then again, it may also do about jack squat.  A committed smoker, is going to find a way.  Period.  A committed smoker had made a decision.  You want to help these kids make an educated decision and become fully aware of the effects of smoking...  At any age!

Cigarette smoking STILL kills 345,962 Americans each year

Cigarette smoking is STILL responsible for at least 345,962 cancer deaths in the U.S. each year, according to a new study reported on in The Portland Press.

How are people dying? About 45 percent of those deaths are the result of cancers of the lung, bronchus and trachea. Researchers in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine reported on the study findings. Another 15 percent of the deaths are due to colorectal cancer, 11 percent are due to pancreatic cancers and 6 percent are due to liver cancers.

Scientists have determined that there are 12 types of cancer that can be caused by smoking. When these 12 cancers are pooled together, nearly half of all these cancer related deaths – 48.5 percent – can be blamed on cigarette smoking.

Lung cancer, obviously, has the strongest link to smoking. The researchers estimate that 83 percent of lung cancer deaths in men and 76 percent of lung cancer deaths in women are the result of smoking. 

Smoking has also played a huge role in cancers of the larynx. Fully 93 percent of larynx cancer deaths in women, along with 72 percent of larynx cancer deaths in men, are due to cigarette use.

The next tier includes esophageal cancer (with 51 percent of deaths tied to smoking), mouth and throat cancers (47 percent of deaths due to smoking) and bladder cancer (45 percent of deaths linked to smoking).  Yes, bladder cancer!

In another group are liver cancers, uterine and cervical cancers and stomach cancers, with 24 percent, 22 percent and 20 percent of deaths attributable to smoking, respectively.

Rounding out the list are kidney cancer (with 17 percent of deaths due to smoking), myeloid leukemia (15 percent of deaths traced to smoking), pancreatic cancer (12 percent of deaths linked to smoking) and colorectal cancer (10 percent of deaths tied to smoking).

To come up with these figures, the researchers – from the American Cancer Society, the National Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center – combined data from the 2011 National Health Interview Survey, the Cancer Prevention Study II and five studies that are known as the Pooled Contemporary Cohort.

The people that were included in the analysis were all at least 35 years old, and they were more educated and less racially diverse than Americans as a whole.

This new analysis does not include other forms of tobacco use, such as cigars and pipes.  Nor did the study account for exposure to second-hand smoke, which is believed to be responsible for about 5 percent of lung cancer deaths.

But even with these limitations, the take-home message is pretty clear.  The researchers were quoted as saying, “Continued progress in reducing cancer mortality, as well as deaths from many other serious diseases, will require more comprehensive tobacco control.”

I think the research is clearer than that however and that is this.  With this awareness, anyone who continues to smoke is committing what I like to call "passive-aggressive suicide."  In this day and age, making the conscious decision to smoke and allow a continued addiction to nicotine is no different than playing Russian Roulette and for you Hunger Games fans out there, these odds will NEVER be in your favor.

If you're on the hook and you got this monkey on your back, there is a way out.  Take a look at a book called How To Stop Smoking Without Killing Anyone.  This book will empower you and give you complete control over nicotine and cigarettes.