Hilarious that he says that about Gary Taubes (whoever he may be), then follows with "data" (anecdotes) from his favorite misrepresentor, Dr. McDougall, who NEVER met a statistic he didn't misrepresent, fudge, exaggerate, or make up out of whole cloth. He's the guy that claimed the WHO said eating meat in moderation is as bad for you as heavy cigarette smoking, among dozens of other claims based on pure zealous vegan hyperbole.

Can't argue that. I've been in California so long that the idea of smoking inside a business didn't even occur to me. The 'in private homes with children and apartments or townhouses' part I find draconian and unenforceable...and we have them here.
On a side note, I also find it distasteful that cigars get lumped in with cigarettes. As far as I know, there have been few if any studies on second hand cigar smoke, which has none of the toxic additives most cigarettes have so produce a different smoke. I'm not saying it's good for you, just that it hasn't been proven to be the same kind of toxicity....yet they are now taxed the same here, doubling the price overnight. (If you can't tell, I'm bitter, I can't afford them now)

True, cars have far more utility (except to tobacco farmers) but are also far more damaging in many ways. It's not meant to be a logical argument, it's more about getting people to see that they also pollute the air (a normal complaint I hear about smokers) in a directly more deadly and indirectly disastrous way, and I hope they will consider that before angrily deriding someone for a cigarette. It's a disguised 'people in glass houses' argument.

Sadly, yes, smoking is an easy target today....alcohol could be tomorrow, or marijuana again (just became legal here)....I don't like our governments going after the easy targets heavy handedly just because they can. It's too easy to portray something or someone as an easy target and go after it solely because a small persuasive group finds it distasteful.

To play devils advocate, there are a few positive sides to smoking...smoking tastes good (to smokers), it acts as a stimulant/depressant and appetite suppressor, it supports an industry of farmers and for cigars, hand rollers, and it helps thin out the herd. ;-)

The cigarette smoking is almost comedic now, for some reason.

Congratulations! Your comment on Yall Got A Cigarette? has just received enough votes from the community to earn you 1 Power Point. Thank you for your quality contribution to VideoSift.

Yall Got A Cigarette? has been added as a related post - related requested by Fantomas.

*related=https://videosift.com/video/Yall-Got-A-Cigarette

I think it's the same person:

*related="https://videosift.com/video/Yall-Got-A-Cigarette"

(In which case this is also scripted, but still great)

They should have less risk. They don't have carcinogenic chemicals added to make them stay lit or preserve them, and they aren't inhaled (by those who know how to smoke them).
That doesn't mean they're safe, as you mentioned. I think oral and throat cancers, while still a risk, are more likely with cigarettes because of the extra chemicals.
You are right, there's very little data about cigar risks. It would be silly to pretend they don't have risks, though.

I would note that I've seen people publicly harass cigarette smokers, then come tell me how good my cigar smells. I've also never had someone complain about my cigar smoke, but heard it often back when I smoked cigarettes.

I had never heard it claimed that cigars pose less/different cancer risks than cigarettes.

Google search provides mixed (as you might expect) results.

Cancer.gov, the Mayo Clinic, and WebMD all seem to suggest that cigar smokers in general tend to have lower rates of lung cancer than cigarette smokers (because they generally don't inhale, which I didn't know), but higher than non-smokers. And they have comparable or possibly higher rates of other cancers (oral, esophageal ... pancreatic) as compared to cigarette smokers.

Several results suggest that there is less data about cigars, results aren't statistically significant, etc. etc. and that they believe that cigars are much safer than cigarettes, if not entirely safe. But frankly, the pages I see (in a cursory search that I don't really have a personal stake in) promoting that view don't seem as ... trustworthy to me as the Mayo Clinic, or Healthcare Triage videos like this one (that list references right in the video).


No holier-than-thou attitude intended. ...Although I can say that I'm personally very glad I never acquired a taste for tobacco products of any kind. And a very low interest in alcohol consumption -- I go months on up to a year+ between drinks of booze without ever missing it. I sometimes avoid social situations because of smoke, which I suppose is a downside. But on the other hand, I'm enough of an introvert that avoiding social situations is probably something I'd be doing anyway... So at the very least I have more money to waste on other things since I'm not a smoker or much of a drinker.

Awesome to have real concrete information presented in a way that seems very distinct from what you'd get from sources on the far ends of the spectrum, like High Times or the DEA.

I'm quite surprised that smoking pot seems to carry an increased risk of bronchitis, like tobacco, but apparently NOT lung cancer (unlike tobacco). Are the carcinogens in tobacco cigarettes all from additional ingredients? Could people be growing their own tobacco and rolling their own cigarettes and avoiding one of the biggest health consequences? If so, shouldn't there be a market for tobacco cigarettes without any added ingredients?


I have never smoked pot OR tobacco. A lot of my reasons for avoiding either come down to a hatred of and pretty real sensitivity to / negative reactions to exposure to smoke. Some of my bias against that transfers into bias against pot in general, since smoking it is the default method.

At the same time, it seems ridiculous to me that pot is double-secret schedule 1 illegal while alcohol and tobacco are both perfectly legal. Especially when it seems apparent (although I don't really know what I'm talking about since I've never used it myself) that the intoxicating effects of pot are comparable to but generally LESS dangerous than alcohol, and the negative health consequences of pot are FAR LESS than either alcohol OR tobacco.

Getting real facts and knowledge out there like this video is doing has to have a positive effect on that very questionable policy.

coffee and cigarettes are my last vice,and i ain't fucking giving them up!

how is that people feel perfectly at ease to just walk up to me,a total stranger,and offer health advice?

"you know those will kill ya,you should quit"

thanks captain obvious.

so i always offer them options,people LOVE options.

cigarettes or heroin i ask them.

which always stops them in their tracks and totally bewilders them,and gives me the silent giggles.

which of course they suggest neither,but i tell them i kicked my heroin addiction,my coke addiction,my painkiller addiction,my sex addiction,my porn addiction,i have plenty of experience with addictions.

"so why not lose the cigarette addiction?"

because i don't want to i reply,as i sip my coffee and take a drag of my cigarette.

and they got nothing,and they know it.

smokers realize that smoking is bad for them.that it will facilitate future health issues and most likely result in an early death.

so when you walk up to a stranger smoking and preach the dangers of smoking.you are not revealing some secret truth that they are not already fully aware of,your intentions may be good and your heart coming from the right place,but it is extremely condescending and patronizing.

and the dangers of second hand smoke have been proven to be totally over-blown.it is just rude of a smoker to be forcing anyone to be in the same air space while they enjoy their addiction.

i do not smoke in someone elses car,or in their home.i don't blow smoke in peoples faces.i go out to smoke on the patio.i try to be respectful.

and when you look at the statistics,fewer and fewer young people are picking up the habit of smoking.for all the tobacco companies whining and crying,it appears education is the very simply answer to address a very nasty habit,and even worse addiction.

so to all you well-inentioned do-gooders out there.please do not waste your time or energy pointing out the obvious to people like me.who will be turning 50 in a few months.save that energy for the young people.

coffee and cigarettes are my last addictions.think i will keep them.

hmmmm....coffee sounds good right about now.

I realized one day that cigarettes were interfering with how many bong hits I could take....I quit in that moment and never had another.

This passive aggressive coercion is quite distasteful to me. I hate people who do this, pretend the smoke is bothering them when in reality it's the fact that someone is smoking that bothers them....not the smoke. What's hilarious is to see those kinds of people try to publicly shame a cigarette smoker with their fake coughing and death stares, then I'll spark a cigar and they'll not say a word or even tell me it smells great.
I used to ask people who complain about cigarettes (usually a fake health complaint) if they drive...then I would offer to sit in a closet smoking if they sit in their car with a hose from the tailpipe going in the window and see who cracks first. No one ever took me up on the challenge.

A report that places chicken nuggets, turkey slices and bacon in the same category as cigarettes and asbestos is NOT equivalent to saying that quitting meat is the disease and mortality equivalent of quitting smoking.

That is patently absurd, and demonstrates what happens when someone tries to apply the scientific conclusion of a study to ...everything else. Scientific studies have a particular scope. They should state clearly within the study the limits of what the information can tell us.

1. How much of those meat products must you eat vs. how many cigarettes do you have to smoke? If i quit having one slice of bacon a week, I will not be healthier than if i quit smoking 10 a day.
2. The meat products you refer to make up only a small fraction of the meat based produce that is available. You might as well say "krokodil is bad for you, so stop taking your insulin."

I expect you to admit that the bit from the comment quote (put in bold) is wrong.

OK, so cured meats cured with nitrates are now classified carcinogenic, but non cured meats, and meats cured without nitrates, salt, or smoke only "may" be slightly carcinogenic...or may not. So still, not all deli turkey, not all chicken nuggets (I make them at home from whole chicken with no preservatives) or bacon (I had some uncured bacon a few years back...it sucked, but it does exist)....so not ALL processed meats are in that category, and certainly not all nuggets, sliced turkey, or bacon...so exaggeration, even if you wish to say it's only exaggeration by omission of detail.

Because he strongly implies it's because they are meats, says "The World Health Organization recently published a report that puts chicken nuggets, deli turkey slices, bacon and other processed meats in the same category as cigarettes and asbestos: known carcinogens" without explanation, and extrapolates to imply that all meats are as carcinogenic as habitually smoking processed tobacco cigarettes.

In terms of disease, overall danger to a person's health, and morality, it's completely inaccurate, and grossly misleading. A processed plant diet (the norm) can be FAR worse for you and the environment than a sustainably raised, non processed meat based diet (which is not the norm). It's not cut and dry, details matter.
"The International Agency for Cancer Research (IARC) used clearly defined guidelines to identify hazards (qualitative evaluation), i.e. whether an agent can cause cancer, but IARC does not assess level or the magnitude of risk.
Even though smoking is in the same category as processed meat (Group 1 carcinogen), the magnitude or level of risk associated with smoking is considerably higher (e.g., for lung cancer about 20 fold or 2000% increased risk) from those associated with processed meat – an analysis of data from 10 studies, cited in the IARC report showed an 18 percent increased risk in colorectal cancer per 50g processed meat increase per day. To put this in perspective, according to the Global Disease Burden Project 2012, over 34,000 cancer deaths per year worldwide are attributable to high processed meat intake vs. 1 million deaths per year attributable to tobacco smoke."
source- https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/2015/11/03/report-says-eating-processed-meat-is-carcinogenic-understanding-the-findings/
So, smoking =2000% greater risk, eating meat daily-18% greater risk....so not honestly equivalent by any stretch.

I would agree that switching from a processed meat based diet to a non processed plant based (not even necessarily pure vegetarian) diet, in general, might be equivalent to quitting smoking (but smoking how much, and smoking what, depends on MANY variable factors, and it appears it's generally equivalent to smoking <2 cigarettes per week, while breathing air in most cities is equivalent to smoking a pack a day).