Talk:Bioethics/Introduction

Bioethics and Tobacco

This article now properly directs attention to the "incestuous link" between the government, which needs the sin tax revenue, and the tobacco industry. More needs to be said about what is arguably the number one public health problem in the history of the planet ("None Dare Call It Genocide") and why an obvious remedy is "overlooked".

"It's the cigaret, stupid!"

The public has been led to misunderstand the smoking crisis. Not tobacco per se, or cannabis per se, is the cause of illnesses and deaths, but the long-established hot-burning-overdose smoking format known as the "CIGARETTE", which is now promoted in nearly 99% of all industry advertising and which governments tolerate and regulate as though it were somehow normal.

No net weight listed

Contrary to the practice with all foods, there is presently no indication of quantity required to be printed on each cigaret or on the packaging in which it is sold. Thus the public at large does not know or think much about the fact that a typical commercial filter cigaret contains 700 mg. net weight of tobacco (some brands, such as Pall Mall, boast of containing even more) and that, comparatively, with a properly designed miniature smoking utensil (6 mm. or 1/4 inch i.d. screened crater), which anyone can make, 25-mg. servings would be possible, or 28 of these from the tobacco found in one cigaret.

The cannabis connection

Miniature pipes fitting this non-overdose description are rarely found today because the same governments which receive billions in tobacco taxes also spend billions on law enforcement against cannabis, and any smoking equipment or procedure which does NOT flagrantly promote overdose, i.e. anything safer than cigarets, is suspected of being cannabis-related, thus illegal. (People say: "If I had one of those in my car and the cops inspected me, I'd lose my car!") Until 1996 Philip Morris contributed funds to the Partnership for a Drug-Free-America, a U.S.-based organization which promotes scare advertising campaigns against cannabis, well calculated to persuade voters to elect legislators who would pass "headshop laws" banning miniature smoking utensils as "cannabis utensils" or "drug paraphernalia".) Candidates fitting that requirement are more likely to get campaign money from tobacco companies (along with a visit from a young, attractive, ingratiating lobbyist).

The "War Against Drugs", really a war against cannabis, provides a pretext to suppress equipment which could, if used with tobacco instead of the profitable overdose cigaret format, soon terminally collapse the profit margin in the tobacco industry-- while also saving 5.4 million lives a year (see WHO, Feb. 2008), saving a pack-a-day victim $2000 a year, and providing smokers with true freedom to smoke as much OR LITTLE as they want (i.e. less than an overdose) almost anywhere they want (because of eliminating "side-stream smoke" and other cigaret nuisances and hazards which have led to smoking bans in many places).

The ultimate favoritism

The U.S. Government agency, N.I.D.A., provides medical marijuana to a select list of patients wrapped up in CIGARETS, instead of providing sifted herb and a 6-mm.-i.d.-screened-crater minitoke-utensil.

Legal remedies

Here are a few revisions in the law which could make most of the ethical discussions over tobacco use moot:

a. Permit cigarets to be sold, but require that the net weight of tobacco per cigaret (usually 700 mg.) be printed on the paper in type at least as large as that used for the adjoining brand name.

b. Require that on the package ("pack") appear a reminder of this weight-number along with the number of cigarets, e.g. "20 Class A Cigarettes, 700 mg. tobacco net weight per cigarette, total 14 grams per pack."

c. Require any shop with a tobacco sales license to offer for sale a viable miniature utensil with a 6-mm./1/4-inch inner diameter screened crater and long flexible drawtube, permitting 25-mg. servings, and to advertise same with visible illustrated signage equal in size to that advertising any tobacco brand.

d. Government: spend funding to provide interesting, decently paid replacement jobs for former tobacco workers, such as in forestry, wood product engineering, etc.

e. Eliminate anti-cannabis laws, on the premise that with universal conversion of all smoking to an anti-overdose utensil format, illnesses and psychoses attributed to cannabis will disappear along with those attributed to tobacco.

An American enigma

WHO 2003 estimate: 5.3 million deaths per year attributed to cigaret smoking worldwide. Most often published figure for USA: 440,000. The USA has 4.5% of world population and 8.5% of world cigaret deaths! (This is a public relations nightmare because it gives any foreign hatemonger license to say, "It is God's judgment against the Americans for having too damn much money!"

"We're" No. 1!

The USA has economic and military supremacy over all other countries, and has put its might behind the law enforcement crusade against cannabis and "cannabis utensils" worldwide.

The USA now has a No. 1 moral imperative facing it: take the lead in the promotion of smoking reduction equipment before the Wirtschaftswunder in China, India et al. (teenagers with enough money to buy more cigarets) doubles their cigaret-related deaths and brings the world figure to TEN MILLION PER YEAR (1 bil. per century).64.107.3.124 19:57, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

A recent review (The feasibility of smoking reduction: an update) does not even discuss the idea of using pipes as a way to control the amount of tobacco smoked or the negative consequences of nicotine addiction. I'd be interested to know if there are any available data that compare the relative health benefits of nicotine replacement therapy to pipe use. My guess is that pipe use by nicotine addicts results in enough damage to health that few health professionals can really bring themselves to recommend it.....they prefer to try to get people to quit smoking. --JWSchmidt 21:04, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Not just any "pipes"

Thank you for the comment and the reminder of Hughes et al., who studied smokers reducing the number of cigarets per day (CPD). The lead author, John Hughes, is featured on www.cancer.gov under headline, "Reduced Smoking May Lead to Unexpected Quitting" (Dec. 2006).

I have revised my posting, above, to emphasize that not just any "pipes" promote harm reduction but only ones with minimum (i.e. 1/4"/6mm.) crater-diameter. A typical tobacco pipe (3/4" i.d.) has enough space in it for a 2-gram overdose (but: "We don't inhale!"), and most head-shop "marijuana pipes" (aimed at youngsters who expect to inhale) are almost as wide.

Miniaturization benefits

The proposed small crater-diameter permits:

(a) 25-mg. servings;

(b) elimination of all side-stream smoke, which is known to be five times as rich in carbon monoxide;

(c) probably hundreds of degrees less hot burning temperature (compared with known temperature, 1500° F/860° C, in the tip of a cigaret; FURTHER TESTING is advised to determine the actual burning-temperature in a quarter-inch crater, which figure once published and widely compared to the 1500° F could possibly have a major impact on smoking usage worldwide).

(d) cigaret addicts, used to inhaling, can learn the advantageous slow, low-burning-temperature toke method, replacing the careless 1-second "puff" (or 2-4-second "drag") everyone was taught by advertising, movies and peer pressure.

(As soon as possible I will provide illustrations of several easy ways that anyone in their own neighborhood can manufacture a utensil as described above out of common materials such as a 1/4-inch socket wrench, brass hose-fitting, glass, wood, flexible pvc tube, Mesh-40 wire screen etc.)64.107.1.78 16:19, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

It seems like there are two issues. First, if people are going to smoke, should they find a way to smoke that causes the least harm? Second, what is the best way to get people to stop smoking? Is there any published study exploring if use of smaller pipes is relatively safer than use of larger pipes? Is there any published study exploring if use of smaller pipes leads to greater chances of quitting? If there are such studies, they should be cited. If studies have not been done, is the point of advocating the use of small pipes to encourage researchers to perform studies on users of small pipes or is the point to get people to experiment on themselves? --JWS 17:24, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

1. Yes-- freedom to smoke and least harmful method.

2. a. Some may quit after converting to utensil (Hughes et al.).

2. b. Some may never quit (if utensil solves health problems, need to quit is moot).

Lack of published studies

Examine the cannabis problem. Dr. Dean Edell (ABC radio host) rails against Fed. Gov. refusal to fund any cannabis studies. My theory: the Fed. Gov. protects its "sponsor", the tobacco companies (all that tax revenue) against cannabis legalization, bringing with it de facto legalization of the anti-overdose utensil, which they fear even more than the cannabis-- explaining why studies of an anti-overdose utensil are at least as hard to find as studies of cannabis.

Researchers should:

(a) verify the burning-temperature differences among smoking devices, especially comparing the 1/4-inch/6-mm. i.d. screened crater with larger-diameter craters 3/8", 1/2", 5/8" etc., the tip of a cigaret, "blunt", "joint" etc.

(b) measure temperature of "mainstream smoke" entering someone's trachea 7 inches from the tip of a cigaret, versus the temperature at same location after at least 24 inches of slow passage through a flexible extension tube.

Do it yourself?

If individual users experiment with a 25-mg. utensil, I am confident no one will suffer remotely near the damage that occurs today with every commercial 700-mg. sledgehammer overdose.66.99.1.55 20:49, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Smoke temperature and cannabis

Two more issues: first, what is the published information about the temperature issue? In a quick search the first thing I found was research by a tobacco company. And second, I'm not clear on the tobacco-to-cannabis connection: the claim is that there is a "blind spot" for researchers because they will not study delivery methods for tobacco smoke that are used for illegal street drugs? --JWS 22:03, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Temperature cover-up?

In the Reynolds-funded study you referred to, "tobacco smoke aerosol was generated under precisely controlled temperature conditions from 250 to 550 degrees C." How relevant can that be, since the indicated range differs so drastically from what I was informed to be the actual temperature in real-life cigarets (the 1500°F/860° C figure has been around since the 70's). Absence of any heat-measurements for an anti-overdose narrow-diameter utensil may be a sign of the disproportionate power of the tobacco interest.

Research "blind spot"

I would guess researchers fear they could get in trouble if they publish anything about "street drug paraphernalia" etc. Blacklisted from further funding? Lose accreditation, academic position? Suspicion of personal use? (Remember that U. S. Supreme Court nominee-- the first Ginsberg, 1987-- rejected because of exposed decades-earlier cannabis use?) Such utensils have long been at least a "grey" area and researchers found it safest to ignore opportunities to research them.64.107.1.125 00:13, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

lung cancer

"some forms of lung cancer (e.g. small cell cancer) are not related to smoking at all" <-- First, I don't know why this issue is relevant to the page. Second, it needs to be supported by references. It is easy to find many published sources that say, "It is known that smoking increases the risk for all histological subtypes of lung cancer." --JWSchmidt 05:22, 16 October 2007 (UTC)