It's No Laughing Matter

A chicken and an egg are lying in bed. The chicken is leaning against the headboard smoking a cigarette, wing tucked behind his back. The egg, looking a bit pissed off, grabs the sheet, rolls over and says, "Well, I guess we finally answered THAT question."

The whole image of a person smoking after an intimate moment seems to makes smoking cool, or at least tension relieving.  Not that the chickens in this scenario really feels tension.  But as society's experience has proven, smoking is nothing less than a health hazard, and a recent ten year study out of Toronto, Ontario has gleaned some interesting data.

Toronto is just one of many cities that implemented a non-smoking bylaw years before the Provincial Governments began passing smoking legislation that banned smoking in public places, and workplaces.  Of course much to the chagrin of restaurant and bar operators Alberta followed suit even going as far as prohibiting smoking within 5 metres of building entrances, plus removed the sale of cigarettes from pharmacies and instigated a curtain requirement hiding cigarettes from public view in convenience stores.

Suffice to say that for the past ten years smoking has been prohibited in one form or other in 90 countries worldwide.  Notable exceptions include Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, and many other countries in Central and Western Africa, where people smoke wherever they want.  This includes the strict kingdom of Saudi Arabia where their government has been silent on smoking bans.

However, this study out of Toronto has shown that smoking bans have lead to drops in hospital admissions due to cardiovascular and respiratory conditions.  The  drop was significant, and amounted to 39% fewer hospital admissions.
In the same period, statistics have shown that smoking has also decreased, with the exception of some witless teens where smoking in the age group from 15 to 19 years old have shown an increase.  Oddly the biggest increase in this age-group are among immigrants who light-up in an effort to make new friends to truly become a Canadian teenager.

The authors of this study stated that their findings were, “consistent with the evidence that exposure to second-hand smoke is detrimental to health and legitimizes legislative efforts to further reduce exposure.”

Reducing smoking further is something that many jurisdictions  have been exploring which can include such actions as prohibiting smoking in personal vehicles where children are present and legislating smoking in personal residences under the same circumstances.

This all seems extreme, and I am the first to cheer any law that protects the health of citizens where bad habits from some impose risks to the populous.  I personally have never smoked so when these bans started to come about I was the last person to feel bad seeing grown people puffing on a cigarette standing outside their workplace in -40C temperatures.

Yes, it appears that the drop in hospital admissions is a result of non-smokers getting less recycled second-hand chemical and tar infested air into their lungs.   Why it would take a ten year study to try to prove an obvious point boggles the mind since we have plenty of statistics to drive the point home.

The facts are clear, where here in Canada smoking has been proven to be responsible for one in five deaths.  Which is close to five times the number of deaths caused by car accidents, suicides, drug abuse, murder and AIDS combined.  The chance of dying from smoking for long-time smokers is one person for every two.

In Canada over 45,000 people die from illnesses directly linked to tobacco smoking, which sadly includes an average of 100 infants yearly.  Among those deaths it has been shown that over 800 non-smokers in Canada die as a result of fatal illnesses caused by second hand smoke.

Just to drive the point further, it has been proven that death by stroke is five times higher in woman who smoke.  That is if cervical cancer has not set in, a risk that doubles as a result of smoking.

In Canada heart disease kills four in ten woman.  But for woman who smoke, this statistic triples the risk of dying from heart disease.

In light of the statistics that show woman at risk the numbers show that more men die every year from smoking than do woman.

Sobering statistics, but these facts have been drilled into people in our country since the 70's, from stark messages on the side of cigarette cartons, television advertising, magazine advertisement to ultimately visiting a loved one falling into renal shutdown at the Cross Cancer Clinic in Edmonton as a result of lung or esophagus cancer.

This image has been with me for more than ten years now, when I witnessed my mother-in-law dying as a result of cancer scourging through her body.  She smoked all of her adult life and many of her children are smokers.  I saw my wife, who I have been with since 1980, deal with her mother passing slowly over a three weeks period  before her eyes.

The grief of losing your parents to old-age is one thing.  But when you see a woman die before you from cancer who did not heed to the messages from the medical community, the grief is almost unbearable.

Not a week goes by that my wife's mother is not brought up in discussion.  And for my wife, it has left a hole that not even a loving husband can fill.  So the real message here is that smoking is no laughing matter.