6 ms·

Isn't it incredible how much the smoking culture of America has shifted over time? If only the forces who put the anti-smoking effort into motion could come tog

by tjr225 8y ago

Isn't it incredible how much the smoking culture of America has shifted over time? If only the forces who put the anti-smoking effort into motion could come together and work towards making renewable energy, alternative commuting methods, or universal healthcare acceptable ideas in this country. I used to smoke a pack a day and I'm glad I don't anymore.

mertd 8y ago
I wonder how anti-smoking campaign would have played out today when a good chunk of population can't be convinced that vaccines are a good thing.
- TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
  I haven’t seen any numbers, but I would have thought tiny minority would be more accurate?
  - geomark 8y ago
    In some areas the percentage of unvaccinated is quite high. See this map of anti-vaxxers by county http://rpubs.com/markdg/AntivaxxerHotspots http://rpubs.com/markdg/AntivaxxerHotspots It uses the Personal Belief Exemption for school children as a proxy for the general population of anti-vaxxers. So arguably a bit inaccurate.
    - MarkusAllen 8y ago
      Nevada, California - more than 20% opt out. Fascinating. I would love to see hotspots of places where people have no religion - not even atheist... just none.
      - nigifabio 8y ago
        Here a map https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_irreligion https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_irrelig...
      - Scarblac 8y ago
        Why would you consider "atheist" a religion? They're just people without religion who get asked about gods.
    - TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
      Colour me highly in accurate! I sit not just corrected, but fairly shocked.
      - geomark 8y ago
        I was also a bit shocked when I saw how high the Personal Belief Exemption was in some counties. Above 5% unvaccinated pretty much destroys herd immunity. So most of northern California is a no-go zone for people who appreciate the value of herd immunity. What I have not seen, but would like to, is data for other states.
        TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
        I’m in Australia so: One in 10 Australian parents believe that vaccines can cause autism, and a another 30 per cent are unsure http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-08/children-without-vaccinations-being-refused-medical-care:-study/8334666 http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-08/children-without-va...
        telotortium 8y ago
        Fortunately, the highest-population counties in northern California are not too high - the number of schoolchildren in such counties is much lower that this map would indicate.
    - dragonwriter 8y ago
      So, overall, a tiny minority; sure, it's a somewhat less tiny minority in some counties (and a significant one in a few) but those are mostly very low population counties, too.
      - geomark 8y ago
        State-wide that's true. But herd immunity is a local issue. So if your kid is going to a school where more than 10% of the other kids are unvaccinated then they won't benefit from herd immunity, despite the fact that the number of those unvaccinated kids is a tiny minority of all California kids.
    - dragonwriter 8y ago
      > It uses the Personal Belief Exemption for school children as a proxy for the general population of anti-vaxxers. So arguably a bit inaccurate. Well, also there's been a lot of news events around the issue since 2015, which led to the elimination of the exemption, so its quite possible there have been signficant movements in attitudes in the last three years.
dfee 8y ago
Over the weekend a friend of mine pointed out that while nicotine use has dropped, cannabis use has heavily increased. As if, the rise on tobacco prices has driven folks to alternative drugs. I wonder (and if someone on HN knows how, please share) if you were to track use and abuse of pills, stimulants (including things like 5 hour energy), cannabis and other forms of what’s becoming not-so-recreational drug usage — what would we find?
- InclinedPlane 8y ago
  I'd like to see the statistics on that. Marijuana used to be illegal, so a lot of use was hidden. Also, 5 hour energy is just caffeine and I highly doubt that caffeine usage in the US has changed significantly (from ubiquitous) over the past few decades.
- nkozyra 8y ago
  Well at minimum we mostly know that alcohol and tobacco are on the higher level on the "harm" spectrum than other illegal drugs. My takeaway is American drug usage has been shaped by a lot of socio economic factors that do not have human or societal health ramifications. There needs to be a total, science-backed overhaul of drug policy for this reason.
  - dfee 8y ago
    > Well at minimum we mostly know that alcohol and tobacco are on the higher level on the "harm" spectrum than other illegal drugs. I don’t know who “we” is, but don’t count me in that group. https://unitedrecoveryproject.com/10-most-dangerous-drugs/ https://unitedrecoveryproject.com/10-most-dangerous-drugs/ And that’s by frequency. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/from-krokodil-to-purple-drank-the-worlds-10-most-deadly-street-drugs-a6719541.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/from-krokodi... That’s by potency. Sure. Don’t get me wrong. Nicotine is bad for you, so is Alcohol, but it doesn’t make you do this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miami_cannibal_attack https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miami_cannibal_attack
    - 8y ago
anewone 8y ago
Smoking is scary on an individual level, not to mention expensive. Those other causes you mentioned aren't interesting if you don't personally need them. It's harder to get someone to make a short term sacrifice for other people's long term gains.
- zavi 8y ago
  A better analogy would be a potential campaign to reduce obesity. If US could pull off a public fat shaming campaign as successful and the one around tobacco it would be a huge benefit to individual people's quality of life as well as economy as a whole.
  - JunkDNA 8y ago
    I would argue this is already underway. There is a concerted campaign against fast food and sugary drinks. There are all sorts of programs to encourage people to exercise. Big corporations have annual “health screenings” where they fat shame you if your BMI is a point over and you drink alcohol once a week. The problem is that obesity is a complex problem. Not everyone who is overweight is a lazy person who eats Doritos on the couch wile watching daytime tv and wondering why they’re so overweight. Smoking was easy: with extremely rare exception, smokers get lung cancer. Period. Smoking is one of the very few personal behaviors that basically guarantees you will get cancer. It also has the side benefit of annoying the living daylights out of people who don’t smoke which creates social pressure against it. It was pretty much a slam dunk.
    - wild_preference 8y ago
      By that rationale, obesity is easy since it causes straightforward issues. Notice how you didn’t discuss the reasons people smoke but you waved away obesity due to complexities in which people become obese.
    - orhmeh09 8y ago
      Can you expand on the near-certainty of cancer for smokers? I’ve seen figures more in the range of 10-15%. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/7895211/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/7895211/
flukus 8y ago
> If only the forces who put the anti-smoking effort into motion Looking at the consumption/events chart (https://ourworldindata.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Annual-adult-per-capita-cigarette-consumption-and-major-smoking-and-health-events-United-States-1900-1998-Hanson-Venturelli-and-Fleckenstein-2009.png https://ourworldindata.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Annual...) it doesn't look like any of those efforts was particularly causal. Some like nicotine medication being available seem to have even slowed the decline.

by tjr225 8y ago

mertd 8y ago

I wonder how anti-smoking campaign would have played out today when a good chunk of population can't be convinced that vaccines are a good thing.

TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
I haven’t seen any numbers, but I would have thought tiny minority would be more accurate?
- geomark 8y ago
  In some areas the percentage of unvaccinated is quite high. See this map of anti-vaxxers by county http://rpubs.com/markdg/AntivaxxerHotspots http://rpubs.com/markdg/AntivaxxerHotspots It uses the Personal Belief Exemption for school children as a proxy for the general population of anti-vaxxers. So arguably a bit inaccurate.
  - MarkusAllen 8y ago
    Nevada, California - more than 20% opt out. Fascinating. I would love to see hotspots of places where people have no religion - not even atheist... just none.
    - nigifabio 8y ago
      Here a map https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_irreligion https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_irrelig...
    - Scarblac 8y ago
      Why would you consider "atheist" a religion? They're just people without religion who get asked about gods.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
    Colour me highly in accurate! I sit not just corrected, but fairly shocked.
    - geomark 8y ago
      I was also a bit shocked when I saw how high the Personal Belief Exemption was in some counties. Above 5% unvaccinated pretty much destroys herd immunity. So most of northern California is a no-go zone for people who appreciate the value of herd immunity. What I have not seen, but would like to, is data for other states.
      - TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
        I’m in Australia so: One in 10 Australian parents believe that vaccines can cause autism, and a another 30 per cent are unsure http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-08/children-without-vaccinations-being-refused-medical-care:-study/8334666 http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-08/children-without-va...
      - telotortium 8y ago
        Fortunately, the highest-population counties in northern California are not too high - the number of schoolchildren in such counties is much lower that this map would indicate.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    So, overall, a tiny minority; sure, it's a somewhat less tiny minority in some counties (and a significant one in a few) but those are mostly very low population counties, too.
    - geomark 8y ago
      State-wide that's true. But herd immunity is a local issue. So if your kid is going to a school where more than 10% of the other kids are unvaccinated then they won't benefit from herd immunity, despite the fact that the number of those unvaccinated kids is a tiny minority of all California kids.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > It uses the Personal Belief Exemption for school children as a proxy for the general population of anti-vaxxers. So arguably a bit inaccurate. Well, also there's been a lot of news events around the issue since 2015, which led to the elimination of the exemption, so its quite possible there have been signficant movements in attitudes in the last three years.

dfee 8y ago

Over the weekend a friend of mine pointed out that while nicotine use has dropped, cannabis use has heavily increased. As if, the rise on tobacco prices has driven folks to alternative drugs. I wonder (and if someone on HN knows how, please share) if you were to track use and abuse of pills, stimulants (including things like 5 hour energy), cannabis and other forms of what’s becoming not-so-recreational drug usage — what would we find?

InclinedPlane 8y ago
I'd like to see the statistics on that. Marijuana used to be illegal, so a lot of use was hidden. Also, 5 hour energy is just caffeine and I highly doubt that caffeine usage in the US has changed significantly (from ubiquitous) over the past few decades.
nkozyra 8y ago
Well at minimum we mostly know that alcohol and tobacco are on the higher level on the "harm" spectrum than other illegal drugs. My takeaway is American drug usage has been shaped by a lot of socio economic factors that do not have human or societal health ramifications. There needs to be a total, science-backed overhaul of drug policy for this reason.
- dfee 8y ago
  > Well at minimum we mostly know that alcohol and tobacco are on the higher level on the "harm" spectrum than other illegal drugs. I don’t know who “we” is, but don’t count me in that group. https://unitedrecoveryproject.com/10-most-dangerous-drugs/ https://unitedrecoveryproject.com/10-most-dangerous-drugs/ And that’s by frequency. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/from-krokodil-to-purple-drank-the-worlds-10-most-deadly-street-drugs-a6719541.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/from-krokodi... That’s by potency. Sure. Don’t get me wrong. Nicotine is bad for you, so is Alcohol, but it doesn’t make you do this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miami_cannibal_attack https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miami_cannibal_attack
  - 8y ago

anewone 8y ago

Smoking is scary on an individual level, not to mention expensive. Those other causes you mentioned aren't interesting if you don't personally need them. It's harder to get someone to make a short term sacrifice for other people's long term gains.

zavi 8y ago
A better analogy would be a potential campaign to reduce obesity. If US could pull off a public fat shaming campaign as successful and the one around tobacco it would be a huge benefit to individual people's quality of life as well as economy as a whole.
- JunkDNA 8y ago
  I would argue this is already underway. There is a concerted campaign against fast food and sugary drinks. There are all sorts of programs to encourage people to exercise. Big corporations have annual “health screenings” where they fat shame you if your BMI is a point over and you drink alcohol once a week. The problem is that obesity is a complex problem. Not everyone who is overweight is a lazy person who eats Doritos on the couch wile watching daytime tv and wondering why they’re so overweight. Smoking was easy: with extremely rare exception, smokers get lung cancer. Period. Smoking is one of the very few personal behaviors that basically guarantees you will get cancer. It also has the side benefit of annoying the living daylights out of people who don’t smoke which creates social pressure against it. It was pretty much a slam dunk.
  - wild_preference 8y ago
    By that rationale, obesity is easy since it causes straightforward issues. Notice how you didn’t discuss the reasons people smoke but you waved away obesity due to complexities in which people become obese.
  - orhmeh09 8y ago
    Can you expand on the near-certainty of cancer for smokers? I’ve seen figures more in the range of 10-15%. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/7895211/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/7895211/

flukus 8y ago

> If only the forces who put the anti-smoking effort into motion Looking at the consumption/events chart (https://ourworldindata.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Annual-adult-per-capita-cigarette-consumption-and-major-smoking-and-health-events-United-States-1900-1998-Hanson-Venturelli-and-Fleckenstein-2009.png https://ourworldindata.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Annual...) it doesn't look like any of those efforts was particularly causal. Some like nicotine medication being available seem to have even slowed the decline.