Am I a smoker?

[craig]

Lots of studies of smoke (incompletely burnt organic matter). Doesn't make a huge difference if it is leaves, wood, BBQ, etc. Slipstream exposure is a quantity thing, and cigars produce a lot of smoke. Ventilation is a good thing. I used to think high-quality filtration was good enough (it gets cold here,eh?), but I just read a study a couple weeks ago that showed high-quality filtration of cigarette tobacco smoke had no (statistically significant) effect on childrens' asthma episodes, so ...

As for controversy, the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement exposed the documents showed that the controversy was generated by tobacco companies. Deliberate manipulation - and still floating around the Internet.

The chemicals in cigarettes have some effect, but not as much as would be intuitive in terms of slipstream smoke. Almost the entire tobacco industry doesn't use food-grade fertilizer, and tobacco needs a lot of fertilizer. Hence there is radon exposure, albeit at low levels - however ground radon exposure is also low-level, and it is scary to map ground radon levels vs. cancer incidence rates. (As an aside, make sure your basement is sealed if you live in a high radon area! We have maps here, I'm guessing USGS must have similar). Secondly, once/if the FDA gets control of tobacco, you'll see what's really in cigars. We may not be smoking Acids, but there are cigars that have tobacco that has been 'helped' (because the FDA-equivalents in other countries do get the ingredients, but it is considered proprietary and not publicly available).

As for your doctor, moderation in many things is healthy, even if more is detrimental!

[ashauler]

snip........ Almost the entire tobacco industry doesn't use food-grade fertilizer, and tobacco needs a lot of fertilizer. snip........

Um, well, tobacco is indeed a glutton, however, I'm not exactly sure what you would consider "a lot" of fertilizer.

To what "food grade" fertilizers do you refer? Fertilizers that are appropriate for use on tomatoes are applicable to tobacco since they are in the same family.

[Devil Doc]

I met an 87 yr. old woman over the weekend. She still chain smokes Benson & Hedges and has for 70 years, My sister-in-law died in her mid forties from lung cancer. She never, ever smoked anything. I suspect there's a lesson to be learned there.

Doc