Comments on: Statistical Smoking Guns

By: Uncle Kvetch

Uncle Kvetch — Wed, 13 Jul 2005 13:30:58 +0000

thanks to the military’s lifetime single-provider health insurance

Agh! SOCIALISM!!

By: Ray Davis

Ray Davis — Tue, 12 Jul 2005 23:56:45 +0000

To echo Joel, my parents are living unusually healthy (and I expect lengthened) lives thanks to the military’s lifetime single-provider health insurance. (They stopped smoking before many of their non-military relatives and neighbors.)

By: Villaveces

Villaveces — Tue, 12 Jul 2005 18:07:17 +0000

I’m surprised there are no arguments posted for SECOND hand military smoke. The assertion that the military-industrial-smoking complex is killing even MORE people than previously thought once again is not sustained by any of the above posts. I think one factor, just to name one, that should be taken into account, is the huge impact of post-traumatic stress disorder, which is quite common among veterans, not even to mention the legion of other mental diseases that occur more commonly among military veterans than among the population at large. Get over it people, smoking is simply not as big a deal as it’s portrayed. Oh yeah, and malaria continues to kill more in Africa than AIDS and probably will continue to do so for a long time. Read the stats, not the fads.

By: bad Jim

bad Jim — Tue, 12 Jul 2005 07:14:27 +0000

My father was a veteran of WWII, though he never saw combat, and after he died at 62 of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, my brothers, to the point of shouting, insisted that the fact that he smoked like a fish and drank like a chimney was responsible for his demise, notwithstanding that his deplorable habits aren’t considered risk factors for this disease.

Some people do get hit by a bus, after all.

By: bi

bi — Tue, 12 Jul 2005 04:05:59 +0000

tvd: “Why are you criticizing our troops?”

By: j.pickens

j.pickens — Tue, 12 Jul 2005 02:59:22 +0000

The more important point is to WIN THE WAR so the troops can come home and smoke themselves to death, or whatever peaceful pursuit they so richly desire.

The success of the US military, with the exception of two of the three UN wars, is exemplary, this smoking stuff notwithstanding.

By: save_the_rustbelt

save_the_rustbelt — Tue, 12 Jul 2005 02:44:32 +0000

I asked my 88 year-old father-in-law about this.

His reply – “I didn’t see your mother-in-law for three years and people were shooting at us – smoking seemed like a good idea at the time.”

By: Tom T.

Tom T. — Tue, 12 Jul 2005 01:00:57 +0000

I may be wrong, but I’m not sure that cigarette prices on base are subsidized as such, rather than simply being cheaper because they are not subject to state tax. This is true of all PX and commissary sales, but perhaps more pronounced as to cigarettes since the state taxes thereon are often much higher than for food or other consumer sales.

Also, it’s not clear from the article that the tobacco companies ever actually donated cigarettes to the Government; the authors only write (somewhat ambiguously) that “one could therefore view military-induced smoking as the result of tobacco companies ‘donating’ cigarettes to the military.”

This is just pedantry on my part, however, and none of this is meant to detract from the central findings of the article.

By: eudoxis

eudoxis — Mon, 11 Jul 2005 23:32:18 +0000

The link between smoking and lung cancer is sustained even after smoking cessation while the link between smoking and heart disease is reduced after cessation. Some ten years after smoking cessation, smoking is no longer a risk factor for heart disease.

Still, the VA has long made an issue of smoking and claims up to a third of its costs are from smoking effects.

By: nick

nick — Mon, 11 Jul 2005 22:40:16 +0000

I believe there was a story not so long back about how many US troops have taken up smoking since being deployed to Iraq: partly to deal with tension; partly to deal with boredom; partly to build rapport with Iraqis, by offering them PX Marlboros instead of local coffin-nails.

If the PXes stopped selling ciggies, then you’d be hearing of the North Carolina tobacco companies shipping over planeloads of the buggers. (And remember, NC has a pretty high number of military bases within its borders.)

By: tvd

tvd — Mon, 11 Jul 2005 19:59:25 +0000

Yeah, but back in the WWII and Korean War days, there was not a cough in a carload.

Cigarettes didn’t become harmful to your health until the 1960s.

By: abb1

abb1 — Mon, 11 Jul 2005 19:15:31 +0000

If you want to live a long, healthy and happy life, why would you want to join military in the first place? It’s not healthy from any angle, wartime or piece.

By: Jake

Jake — Mon, 11 Jul 2005 18:24:28 +0000

I haven’t been able to satisfy myself yet as to the reality or hyperbole of health effects of exposure to depleted uranium, but if it is indeed real, I wouldn’t be surprised if that higher mortality evidences itself for the veterans of more recent wars.

By: joe o

joe o — Mon, 11 Jul 2005 18:15:39 +0000

When my dad was in the army they used to have “smoke breaks”. If you didn’t smoke you had to keep working.

By: DVRS

DVRS — Mon, 11 Jul 2005 17:39:15 +0000

Isn’t it a bit hasty to decide that it’s “very bad policy” for the military to make smoking cheaper for its soldiers without even trying to factor in the rather large amount of pleasure, relief, and contentment that people get from smoking cigarettes?