'Tobacco pandemic' fuelled by nicotine hike

13:22 18 January 2007
NewScientist.com news service
New Scientist staff and Reuters

Cigarette makers increased the amount of nicotine that smokers typically inhale by 11% between 1998 to 2005, perpetuating a "tobacco pandemic" that makes it harder for smokers to quit, according to a new study.

Manufactures have been intensifying the concentration of nicotine in their tobacco and modifying cigarette designs to increase the number of puffs per cigarette, the researchers claim. "The end result is a product that is potentially more addictive," they say.

The team at Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, US, analysed data submitted by major cigarette brands to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, which in August 2006 released its own study showing nicotine levels steadily rising.

The amount of nicotine that smokers typically consume per cigarette regardless of brand per year rose by an average of 1.6% between 1998 and 2005, according to the new analysis of the state's health records.

Massachusetts has required tobacco companies to submit annual reports on cigarette nicotine yields since 1997, longer than any other US state.
Cancer role

"Cigarettes are finely tuned drug delivery devices designed to perpetuate a tobacco pandemic," says Howard Koh, the school's associate dean for public health practice and former Massachusetts commissioner of public health.

Nicotine yields rose in cigarettes of each of the four major manufacturers and across all major cigarette market categories – from mentholated and non-mentholated to full-flavoured, light and ultralight, the researchers found.

Nicotine is the main addictive component of tobacco, but studies have demonstrated that the chemical also plays a direct role in cancer, by speeding up the growth of tumours.

Tobacco industry officials were not immediately available to comment. Phillip Morris, part of Altria Group Inc and the largest cigarette maker, has said nicotine levels fluctuate from year to year but there has been no steady increase.
Sales dropping

The most recent federal tobacco tax figures showed that the number of cigarettes sold in the US fell in 2005 to the lowest level in 55 years, dropping 4.2% from 2004, the largest one-year percentage decrease since 1999.

That continued an eight-year decline in cigarette smoking since the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement between US states and the tobacco industry that settled state lawsuits over the costs of treating smoking-related illnesses.

"Our findings call into serious question whether the tobacco industry has changed at all in its pursuit of addicting smokers since signing the Master Settlement Agreement," said Gregory Connolly, director of the Harvard School of Public Health's Tobacco Control Research Program.

He said tobacco companies had failed to warn consumers about rising levels of nicotine since the 1998 settlement, urging US states to step up scrutiny of the industry.

Banks, Or As I like To Call Them, Legal Loan Sharking Mafioso

Listen to my tale of woe, it's terribly sad but true....I had checked my balance two weeks ago to make sure I had some money in the bank. I did. So I went out and spent, as usual, doing my weekly shopping: groceries, pet supplies, laundry and the likes. Then the weekend hits. I go out, pay for food and drinks and then end up at a bar that takes cash only. OK. I step out to an ATM to get some cash and come to find out I have "Insufficient Funds". I was shocked to the point that I stared at that ATM screen wondering how it had learned to lie. Next morning I get online and as it turns out, when I had checked my balance previously, I sure enough did have money there. But as luck would have it, a check I wrote had cashed probably the minute I had logged off and it was just the amount I thought I had. OK. So why did the bank let me keep spending money, spiraling me into a negative balance? Why was I not alerted that I had gone under? Why was I still allowed to spend money that wasn't there? The loan shark gets his cut of money you "borrow". Somehow my bank has now extended a line of credit to me that I did not ask for!! Oh yes kids, the banks now say they are "covering" any spending you do so that you don't get a decline on the register of you seem to have insufficient funds. They have come up with the line that they are looking out for you. But lo, each time you run your pretty little card, they charge about $35 for an "Overdraft Fee", on EACH purchase you make. The loan shark effect. So in essence, that is a LEGAL fee they charge, like a loan shark, for you "borrowing" their fucking "kindness". This is legal!! It's only legal because it it a set amount, not something that they can change at a whim (for now). And you know why they know they can do this? Because they they have come up with the GENIUS plan to offer you free checking if you have direct deposit. You see kids, that's how they GET YOU. If you have direct deposit, they KNOW they will get that money back, plus their fees. So they let you spend and spend so that they may amass the overdraft fees into a large sum to take away from you when you get your salary deposited into your account. Brilliant. Just fucking brilliant how capitalism has turned into this ugly monster which manufactures greedy monster zombies and all but stamps out the poor. When is this going to end? How long are people going to put up with this? When does this kind of sneaky thievery cross the line? When are the rest of folks going to get angry enough to affect a change?

I swear to god and everything good left on this earth the conspiracy is real.

This Is How I Feel Today

Painkillers

I got my painkillers...and I am not happy. I feel somehow in the painkillers department, I have gotten totally shafted. I don't know what it is but I have an unusually high tolerance to painkillers - Novocaine, Codeine, Vicadin, Motrin, etc. with a specific tolerance to Novocaine. When I go to the dentist, he has to pump me full of the stuff - to the point where he is looking at me like I'm crazy, like this is unheard of that I have to get like 7 or 8 shots to numb me out. Even when I have gotten stitches the two times I have, both doctors were like, "Whoa!!" when I kept asking for more painkillers, more painkillers. And the really sad thing is that when I do get the sufficient dosage I need, it is not even enjoyable for me!! What are these stories I hear of people being addicted to the painkillers and take them recreationally? I HATE the way I feel on these painkillers and I don't even know why they call them painkillers because when I take them, I'm groggy and still in pain. Still in pain!! So what's the freakin' point? My codeine today has me feeling kind of like I'm floating in water and has killed my appetite. Actually, almost any drug I take kills my appetite. And then people are asking me how I can possibly function at work on codeine. How? THEY DON'T DO ANYTHING FOR ME. I want to be all loopy and dreamy and nod in and out like they do in the movies or on TV. I want THAT. Why can't I have that? This freaking codeine hasn't even tackled the sensitivity I'm feeling in my teeth. God!! What the hell? I'm getting gypped big time.......

Life Is Good...................................Sometimes

I have no complaints today. I don't know why. I have been doing very little work at work and have been cracking jokes with my co-workers all week. Good thing the management team has been in this meeting all week so they haven't heard my laughs resonate through the office. However, my desk is right in FRONT of the conference room. So they can see me throw my head back and open my mouth. May be it has something to do with my theory that if the boss is away, you feel more comfortable at work. I got a lot done early in the week, but have since just meandered and killed time until today, Friday before the three day weekend. And people are having drinks after work today. Which is awesome - I get to better know my co-workers so I can actually WALK around the office and BS with people next week!! Is there some kind of office etiquette that frowns upon that? Is it wrong to joke around with co-workers and get them to laugh during the workday? Do they do that in Europe? Actually I don't picture the Danes laughing and joking in the office, yet I have an ex that told me they'd go to lunch and get WASTED and then get back to the office to turn off their computers and go home. I think I need to move to Denmark. I know Brits do that too, except they stay in the office. I have no idea if the French kid around, but I suspect some Italians do and the Spaniards probably do too. Germans? Hell no. But they are very nice people as tourists!! That's probably when they feel they can cut loose. I heard on the news this morning a story about people's attire at work, as expressed by management. They said that people who want to move up should dress for the position that they want, not the one they're in. Oh-kay. I don't know what it means in my office because I work with tech geeks (I'm not saying geek to be mean at all) and we all wear jeans and stuff. The two owners of the company wear slacks and button down shirts. Even management is very office casual. A suit around here is like an eyesore. Perhaps that's why I feel I can joke around. When I worked in offices where you had to wear a suit, I didn't feel like I even HAD a personality. I was a drone, in a suit, just like everyone else. I would kill myself if I had to work all the time in a place like that. Oh, and this weekend is going to be awesome because I got a prescription for pain killers (unfortunately I am deep in the middle of major dental work). Happy days...

Drug Companies, Or As I Like To Call Them, Legal Drug Overlords

Shaman. What ever happened to him? How has this wonderful person been discredited to the point that we are willing to give our money, trust and personal health decisions to a faceless company that doesn't give a rats ass about whether we get well or not? But they are not discredited? How do we accept the fact that in order to try to soothe, prevent or cure one condition we must risk getting a whole host of side effects? And then we are given more drugs to help the side effects, which in turn is just making some fat bastard rich and the sick sicker. Whose original idea was it to privatize drug therapies? How did we turn away from the shaman? Far as I know, I don't think anyone had as hard a time with taking drugs to get well in the past as we do today. And I think the problem is that we are putting artificially manufactured products into our bodies.

Now, I had been taking a medicine for a while to help with my general mood (not anti-depressants) and stamina. I won't even get into how it's not covered by my health insurance for another few years (arrrghh!!) and how expensive it is. So I really can't afford it right now, being that I have other things I need to take care of in the meantime. But I had started taking a B-100 complex vitamin and realised that it seemed to have the same affect as the medication I was taking and could not afford. HA!! Never in a million years would the Overlords suggest that before you try a harsh drug therapy to take some vitamins. Vitamins?!?! Oh god no, you can get those anywhere!! I always try to be fair, so in all fairness, the expensive drug DID help me....but it's freakin' expensive. That's the point. And I don't think I've ever heard of someone having side effects from vitamins.

I don't feel that peoples best interests are at the heart of big business. The Overlords are even screwing doctors!! There is even the paradox of the "War on Drugs". Give me a break!! Why can't someone chill out and smoke a joint legally, but the Overlords can give you a pill for "restless legs"?!?! I swear to god the person who came up with that gem is laughing about how stupid people are to buy a drug for restless legs. Ohhh, you make it sound like a syndrome and then they can sell you a pill for it. Legally. What about anxiety? Marijuana will clear that right up (for the most part). Hyperactivity? Marijuana. Loss of appetite? Marijuana. Sleeplessness. Marijuana. I could list some things that I think other illegal drugs would help, but I don't want to seem like I'm promoting illegal drug use. Except Marijuana. But at one time cocaine and heroine were legal. And I just don't believe the bullshit that they are highly addictive and are harmful. So are sleeping pills, but they are legal. What's the difference you ask? Cocaine and heroine are easily accessible, some big business fat bastard can't hoard it for himself and get richer and richer. That's what drives the drug market - what can be grown or made in your backyard versus what can't and the one's that can't can be taxed and sold at whatever price some fat bastard chooses. Think about it kids. Think about it.

Happy Happy, Joy Joy

Oh how wonderful it must be to be a scientist nowadays. Not like the days of yore when Galileo was around and revolutionary ideas got you killed. Oh no. Nowadays being a scientist is cushy, civil and reverent. Yes, you can come up with any postulate or theory your little heart can dream of and so long as it is something that is based mostly in theory, then you can pretty much push your standpoint for your own agenda. That is how I view the scientists of today. Especially geologists (with respect to dating the earth), physicists and theoretical mathematicians. I read an article in a published science journal about a physicist who thinks he has figured out through complex mathematics that while particles in quantum mechanics seem to behave unpredictably, if we could track the underlying states, we can predict the behaviour of particles. In essence this article was stating that in being able to predict the behaviour of quantum particles shows that we have no free will. Now, I don't know how a physicist can make a leap from particle behavior to a persons choice between wearing the red or blue sweater today, but if all the math and lab time keeps him busy, then hey, stay busy but keep your theory out of the realm of my decisions.

Here's my theory: Scientists, and man in general, for some inane reason likes to view the world and the universe in neat, predictable boxes which can be accessed anytime one questions the world around them. I guess they fail to see that the universe is chaotic, as WELL as following some BASIC laws, but the chaos is what ultimately makes things happen. No one can reliably predict anything - not the weather, not the football game, what someone will say, etc. It bothers me they spend time and money trying to find ways to force this agenda of categorizing the universe down our throats. Funny how we all are taught in school that there is always an exception to every rule, but these brilliant men and women fail to apply that rule to physics.

I also do not believe in the big bang theory. It just doesn't sit right with me. They say that the universe started out as a little point and was all gaseous and super compressed and then heated up and exploded and thus became the universe. Really? So when the universe was a little point, an had room to explode, that means there was already space around that compressed point in order for the gaseous ball to explode. That would constitute as the universe already, wouldn't it? It may not have looked like the place it is now, but there was still enough space for this hot gaseous ball to expand. And there had to be something there in the beginning to have created the gasses to be the ball. That means there was something already there to create the gasses. You see, I don't think that scientists can conceive of something that does NOT have a beginning or end. I believe the universe IS. That's it. It IS. It has always been. It always will be. I think scientists need to understand the fact that perhaps on some level, we will never fully understand the universe because humans don't really have the capacity to do so. Or at least they have to stop viewing the universe with their own ideas and start looking at it as a newborn child would, learning as you go along and accepting things as they are, not the way you want them to be.

If You Try to Tell Me There's No Global Warming...

...then I'm likely to believe that you are a retard. Or an oil lobbyist. Actually they're the same thing. So why in hell, here in New York City, do we have a 73 degree day? 73 degrees in January is just mind-blowing to me, especially since I can remember huge blizzards we've had in the past. I'm going to be dating myself here, but I remember the blizzard of 1980 in which the snow drifts were above my head (I was a kid). I remember one year trying to help my father dig the car out of the snow and literally almost feeling my bones freeze beneath the skin on my feet. I remember Halloween being kind of hard to do because it used to be so cold. Thanksgiving? Fugeddabouit. Christmas used to ACTUALLY be white. If you had told me years ago that I'd be missing the snow in the future, I would have beaned you with a snowball. And speaking of snowballs, I must say that the one thing about snow in New York City is that it wouldn't stay snow for very long. The snow that wasn't dirtied by the many car and bus tires was morphed into ice, thus "snowball" fights here was a fight for your life. You had to be like Neo in the Matrix dodging bullets. I've seen kids with their heads busted open by bricks of ice. Oh, and one year a friend of mine and I were sledding in Fort Greene Park in Brooklyn and the thing about that park is that the land is above street level, especially with all the snow we used to get. So when he was flying down this hill, speeding toward the street, he like did this movie car stunt thing in which he launched into the air and hung there for what seems like an hour and then came down in the middle of the street and stopped. Needless to say all the adults on the hill lost their minds and ran for him to get him out of the way of any oncoming cars. But it was fun!! The kids were cracking up. I miss those days. And even though it sucked back then freezing your toukus off, it was still cool to have something to show for the winter season (besides a speed knot on the head from a "snowball").

My Wonderful Boyfriend, the Sequel

For those of you who read my previous post entitled "Remember Kids", I just have to tell you that my boyfriend did it again.

I'm not kidding.

Back From The Other Side of....

Well kiddies, after a long but well deserved hiatus, I am back. And still blissfully pissed about a myriad of things. I don't even know where to begin!! I was having a conversation last night about teachers. In my job now, I have to speak to a lot of teachers all over the country on the phone and let me tell you, I know why we are behind every other damn country on the planet in education. J.H.C. these people are totally unorganized, belligerent, mildly retarded (I wish I could post some of the emails) and downright ridiculous. Why do I have to explain to the same woman 10 TIMES in 10 different phone calls how to make a purchase order from our company?! I swear to you it was so bad that I went through various stages of psychosis. First I was pleasant about it, then I was wondering what the fuck was wrong with her, then I got angry having to repeat myself over and over again, then I just went into this numb sort of state, then I just laughed about it. Then I got pissed again. And again. I hate to say it, but the American Indian schools I have to call....holy God. I don't think the women that answer the phone know what time it is, what year they're in and what planet they're on. It's pretty sad actually. Then there's Rhode Island. Because of those fuckers, I can now see why people go postal.

The thing that gets me in all of this is that these are the people teaching our children!! How does an unorganized generally hateful person teach young kids? How does one who can't figure out how to transfer a call mold minds? Someone that can't put together a coherent thought in an email is teaching little Johnny to read?!?! Now, don't get me wrong, at about the Superintendent level or speech or reading specialists, you see a lot of Dr. So-and-So's and when your speak to them they seem to have it together. But it's the Principals that really scare me. They scare me just as much as the students that sat next to me in college and read at a third grade reading level. I guess those people went on to be teachers, and one made it all the way up to President of the United States of America.

Now, being the way that I am, I'd like to question a few of these people and just ask them what the hell happened when they were supposed to be qualified to graduate from college. The Rhode Island folks just need a closed fist "slap" - perhaps it would knock some sense into them. Some I'd just like to tear into them and let them know that they are in fact stupid, plain and simple. But alas, I'd get fired in a heartbeat if I did that. And that's exactly why dumbasses get into the positions they are in - no one tells them they're freakin' idiots!!!