Better detection;life extension;environmental degradation
There has been a significant decrease over time with lung cancer.
http://info.cancerresearchuk.org/prod_consump/groups/cr_common/@nre/@sta/documents/image/crukmig_1000img-12864.jpg
47% drop in male lung cancer since 1975.
On the other hand, with skin cancer it goes completely the opposite way.
http://info.cancerresearchuk.org/prod_consump/groups/cr_common/@nre/@sta/documents/image/crukmig_1000img-13013.jpg
Which I presume is because unlike smoking, people are exposing themselves much more to the causes [sun, primarily, I suppose] than they once did.
Two to three packs a day?! I'm a pretty heavy smoker but I know the couple times (parties, bars back in the good ol' days) I smoked two packs I felt horrible the next day. I don't even want to think what three would be like.
The ozone hole probably didn't help skin cancer rates. Or the increase in sunbed usage.
Bob is broadly right I believe, especially on better detection. People are diagnosed with skin cancer these days who would have totally slipped through the net 50 years ago. Usually they're completely cured, whereas then they'd probably have died of something else before the cancer got them, so same difference, except to the statisticians.
There is no such thing as good news.
3. My grandmother smoked seventy (70) a day for decades. When her doctor told her in that she should give up or she wouldn't be able to look after my grandfather, she stopped overnight. I smoked four or five a day for maybe five years- like you, if I smoked a pack I felt really ill- and had a hell of a job quitting- it took months. I think it must be genetic what people can take.
3: I think two packs a day was a pretty common amount for a long term smoker, back in the day. The fact that most people were able to smoke in their workplace while doing their job instead of having to take a special dedicated smoke break helped.
More lung cancer stats . Rates have been dropping for men. The long latency period means it takes a while for reductions in smoking to show up. And women started smoking later with the advent of feminism.
6: But, but . . . I just saved a lot on my car insurance!
with the advent of feminism
I just liked that so much I wanted to repeat it.
My understanding of the social history is that it's true.
Which is to say, it sort of works, but not the kind you can get in the US, and not for pale-ass northern types.
Oh, also, sunscreen is horrible for you.
I guess I knew lung cancer rates had dropped some -- it just seems insufficiently dramatic. Observationally, the change in smoking behavior (from everywhere, all the time to little clusters of people outside bars and office buildings) was huge.
9. What does the advent of feminism have to do with stats for 1991-2006? The decline of feminism, maybe.
Unless trends were massively different in the US and Britain, pretty much everybody, regardless of sex, smoked from the late 1920s, and a gradual decline set in from the mid-60s, as the lung cancer connection actually got across to a few people. I suspect that people who smoke now, apart from a few years as college age posers, are the effective minimum - the addictive personalities who'd spark up if they knew it was going to cause them to be eaten by a Tyrannosaurus.
re: 16
I still occasionally have a cigarette; although I've been 'given up' to all intents and purposes for several years and was never a heavy smoker. I suspect I do partly because I'm precisely not the addictive personality. I can smoke pretty heavily over New Year or on holiday, say, and then not smoke again for a couple of months or even longer. I'd find it much harder to stop drinking coffee.
My grandfather smoked 2 packs a day (and started smoking at the same time he started going down in the mines -- when he was 6). He died at like 80 of something neither cardio nor pulmonary. I figure that that is all the familial smoking-related good luck and I should stay far away.
17. Yeah, but people like you are statistical outliers. Most people either smoke or don't. In another age it was sold to women by advertisers as a weight control thing, and I wouldn't be shocked to learn that this underlies the relatively high number of young women who smoke even now, though I haven't got anything to back that with.
If I remember correctly (and these stats may well be out of date), "only" a quarter of smokers die from their habit, and of those many die from emphysema, heart disease etc. That may explain why the lung cancer drop off has not been so dramatic. There's also the issue with cancer in general which is that as we get better at curing/alleviating other forms of disease or injury, more people survive long enough to die from cancer.
re: 19
Yeah, although I know a few people like me who are now what might be called 'social' smokers [parties, birthdays, the odd one when out drinking, etc] but who were once regular smokers [as opposed to people who were always social smokers]. I found it quite hard to give up at one time when I smoked more [mid-20s], but the last four or five years I seem to be able to smoke or not smoke. I suspect because it probably takes a longer period, and heavier consumption to 'reactivate' the addiction than I have these days with the occasional boozy indulgence.
Very very few of my friends smoke, though, even among those who are otherwise fairly hedonistic.
16
What does the advent of feminism have to do with stats for 1991-2006? ...
Lung cancer from smoking has a very long latency period.
Unless trends were massively different in the US and Britain, pretty much everybody, regardless of sex, smoked from the late 1920s, and a gradual decline set in from the mid-60s ...
Rates for women in the US apparently peaked around 1965. Rates for men peaked earlier and fell off faster (although they remain heigher than for women). See here .
Btw the amount of consumption matters also. If it is mostly light smokers who quit this might reduce the effect on cancer rates.
Agree with 7. I think I got my dad's nicotine gene. Although come to think of it, now that they're in their 60s with an empty nest, I think they're both smoking a cigarette or two a day.
Agree with 17 too. I've gone without cigarettes for more than a month just to make sure that I still could (I normally have two or three a day, but that's dying down and I may quit completely (or at least take another hiatus) soon), but if I go a weekend without coffee I get a headache.
My understanding of the social history is that it's true.
You've come a long way, elbee.
a few people like me who are now what might be called 'social' smokers [parties, birthdays, the odd one when out drinking, etc] but who were once regular smokers
I'm like you! After smoking roughly a pack a day for 23 years, I bought only one pack in 2009 and one pack so far in 2010. I bum the odd one socially here and there, but it has been relatively easy to keep from falling back into habitual use because the number of smokers in my social circle has fallen quite sharply and I barely get out any more.
My understanding of the social history is that it's true.
Certainly James is right that women started smoking later, and that this fact is reflected in cancer rates.
I just got a chuckle out of how James worked "feminism" in, when at least superficially, feminism had nothing to do with the topic at hand. (Take those last five words out of James's comment, and see if any of his overt meaning is lost.)
But okay, if you want to talk feminism, let's do it: Virginia Slims history is bullshit. Cigarette marketers didn't discover feminism, nor did smokers. Women were sold gender-identified cigarettes based, in significant part, on the fact that people who smoke more tend to be skinnier. (The name Virginia "Slims" was no accident.)
I can't bum a smoke or I'll be up to a pack a day within a week. Or more likely, a tin of Copenhagen*. I've been nicotine free since early this year and that is the longest period since I was 16 or so.
*Some people hear "Denmark" and think of happy blond people or Hamlet. I can still taste the tobacco.
No more masturbating to Laurent Fignon
Sort of appropriate to this thread - cancer death at age fifty.
I think two packs a day was a pretty common amount for a long term smoker, back in the day. The fact that most people were able to smoke in their workplace while doing their job instead of having to take a special dedicated smoke break helped.
Yes, I used to smoke around 2 packs a day. It didn't seem like an unusual amount. You could smoke in college lecture halls. You could smoke at your desk if you worked in an office. There are many people still living who smoked that way for twenty or thirty years--they still have some risk of getting lung cancer despite having quit smoking however long ago. (A 47% decline in male lung cancer deaths already seems pretty dramatic to me.)
I was smoking around 50 cigarettes a day, and quit 25 years ago. I haven't smoked any tobacco product since.
I could never be a social smoker. I still have dreams in which I smoke, and I wake up feeling horribly guilty.
Lung cancer from smoking has a very long latency period.
I'll say, nearly a century!
My brother smoked a pack or two or more a week for nearly twenty years, then just cold quit before the birth of his first child. That still impresses me. Myself, I'm terrified by not being able to breathe, or even by imagining that I can't breathe, so the idea of inhaling smoke has never been appealing.
I can't bum a smoke or I'll be up to a pack a day within a week.
That WOULD get pretty annoying to any smokers around you, bumming a pack a day.
Speaking of bumming smokes: Once I was out on the Classics balcony (at the UofC) smoking, and some guy (fucking philosophy grad student, all those boys were cretins) asked to bum a cigarette. I said sure thing and handed one over. He then took out his own mostly full pack of cigarettes, popped the cigarette I had just given him in, said thanks, and went on his way. (I was smoking Gauloises, so maybe that is why he wanted one, but still, tacky.)
but still, tacky
He was just trying to freak out the squares.
As you might expect, Sociological Images has good stuff on women and smoking here and here. The alleged birth of the smoking feminist is recorded here.
I'm a huge fan of inhaling smoke, but have never been able to pick up the knack of smoking cigarettes. And not for lack of trying! The best I can manage is the occasional clove cigarette, because I'm apparently 14.
The FDA's taken care of that for you anyway, hasn't it?
A girl with black lipstick and pink eyeshadow.
36: You and me both. I mean I've never tried that hard but it just doesn't seem to do anything for me. So once every five years I smoke one as a half-hearted lunge at transgression but you can't even get the hand gestures quite right at twice a decade. (It's all about the hand gestures. I had a friend in college who basically turned into Bette Davis with a cigarette in hand. I'd swear he walked differently when he smoked.)
38: clove cigarettes? Yes. The apparently identical clove cigars, no.
Or more likely, a tin of Copenhagen*. I've been nicotine free since early this year and that is the longest period since I was 16 or so.
That reminds me of my great idea for a product aimed specifically at dippers who want to quit: I'll call it "Skoal Patch".
42: Huh. Apparently all they had to do was switch the wrapper from paper to tobacco leaf and presto, cigar. Wily!
44: Could they wrap it in a tortilla and get away with selling a flammable clove burrito?
The problem is that most Skoal dippers have actual soul patches, so they would have to put the Skoal Patch somewhere else on the body.
I was amazed to see a head shop in Lancaster, PA since the ones in Pittsburgh all got shut down by Bush campaign operative / US Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan. The word "Tobacco" is on the walls of the shop in about 50 places and there is a list of ten rules for customers including "Anyone who refers to merchandise by slang terminology will be asked to leave!!!!"
a few people like me who are now what might be called 'social' smokers [parties, birthdays, the odd one when out drinking, etc] but who were once regular smokers
I'm another! I "officially" quit on new year's 2007 (after smoking for about 10 years. Since I was 15.) and have never gone back to smoking regularly since. I had a lot of friends who would quit and then, once they had one, it would all be over. But I have been able to limit my smoking to a few a month at most. Occasionally I'll buy a pack during something particularly decadent (i.e. my honeymoon) or a crisis, smoke about half of it, give it away, and not smoke again for a month. It's nice.
Like apo said, I think the culprit is 1) inability to smoke in bars 2) fewer friends who smoke. Makes it a lot easier.
46: A good friend of mine used to work in a head shop here in Austin and they too had to make sure to stress that all the merchandise was only for use with tobacco. Customers divulging other intended uses were asked to leave (some of them were probably undercover cops; they got raided periodically but no charges were ever filed). Oh, and the sex toys were only for use between married heterosexuals too, but then this was pre- Lawrence.
My strategy of only smoking during times when extreme relaxation is required has led to very low levels of addiction. It's good to have the concept of "smoking" associated with "locked out of apartment", "cops showed up and we ran away", "car crashed", "friend's heart got broken by some violent guy" etc. rather than with good times.
50: "Oh crap, I locked myself out AGAIN! That's the 17th time today! What are the odds?? Sure glad I didn't forget my cigarettes in there though . . ."
49: I am pretty sure I witnessed this practice at O/at W/illie's. (I am never sure what you're supposed to googleproof.)
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Why should the GOP get all the loons?
The poor woman hosting this Providence, RI "Coffee With The Candidates" show looks like she was caught by surprise. And here's the candidate proposing to his girlfriend in the middle of a debate. Which went better than the previous debate, where he ended up in handcuffs.
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At the Now and Then shop in New Hope, PA, there used to signs posted explaining that all products were solely for the purposes of snuff and tobacco use. (I think that place is a bookstore, these days.)
Sure, all the stores have those signs, but this one has a sort of desperate siege atmosphere. The ten rules for customers each have a couple exclamation points.
At the one I know here, numerous signs remind customers that a certain device is called a "water pipe" and caution that the b-word will get you kicked out immediately.
On smoking: I always thought the standard for a heavy smoker in the olden days was 3 packs a day. That's what my grandmother and grandfather smoked, as well as several other relatives of their generation. With my grandparents, I'm sure being career army, with the access to federally subsidized cigarettes that implied, must have had something to do with it.
Most of the people I know now who smoke are probably really going at it if they have half a pack a day. I do have one friend who smokes like a chimney, but he's also an alcoholic and generally completely incapable of getting through life without some kind of self-confidence crutch.
Another friend quit smoking last year, by the simple expedient of making himself a fake cigarette out of a piece of dowel painted to look like a cigarette, so that he could still go and hang out with the smokers and do something with his hands.
As for myself, it's a habit I was never able to pick up. I used to bum smokes at bars, but then it just started making me completely nauseated every time, so now it's unusual if I have as much as one cigar per year.
Another friend quit smoking last year, by the simple expedient of making himself a fake cigarette out of a piece of dowel painted to look like a cigarette, so that he could still go and hang out with the smokers and do something with his hands.
If he really needs something to do with his hands, masturbating would look less odd than smoking a dowel.
I have never understood the appeal of smoking, despite trying it on a handful of occasions. Hydromorphone taken with marijuana? Sure. Cigarettes? Not so much.
If he really needs something to do with his hands, masturbating would look less odd than smoking a dowel.
This advice didn't work out so well for Pee-Wee Herman.
I'm not one of those people who used to smoke because they were addicted to nicotine but thought cigarettes were basically disgusting. Smoking, for me, is definitely pleasurable. Both big and clever. If it wasn't for the fact that it can kill you and otherwise mess you up, and stale cigarette smoke smells bad, I'd still smoke.
57.3: I suspect this is the main attraction of smoking a pipe. The process involves so much fiddling, cleaning, filling, refilling etc that you can get most of the "doing something with your hands" aspect without ever having to light up.
Added advantage of not-smoking a pipe - you can do it at your desk, in the cinema, on the bus, while pregnant or nursing etc, in perfect freedom.
A college friend of mine got kicked out of a store for requesting "whippets"; the next guy who went in asked for and received "cartridges for a whipped cream dispenser".
(fucking philosophy grad student, all those boys were cretins)
Nothing's changed.
I am pretty sure I witnessed this practice at O/at W/illie's.
My friend worked at P/anet K, but I'm sure the venerable O/at W/illie's had to put up with the same stupid laws.
This advice didn't work out so well for Pee-Wee Herman.
"Had we gone to trial, we had ready an expert from the Masters and Johnson Institute who was going to testify that in 30 years of research on masturbation the institute had never found one person who masturbated with his or her nondominant hand. I'm right-handed, and the police report said I was jerking off with my left hand. That would have been the end of the case right there, proof it couldn't have been me," Reubens said in an interview with Playboy.
I don't claim to know more about human sexuality than the M&J Institute but I, umm, I, uhh. Hmm. Let's just say it's not nearly the open-and-shut case he claims.
67: SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!1!!!!
67: I'm guessing that whatever arguments his lawyer used to keep Pee Wee from going to trial were much more convincing than that one.
Although this could be your big chance to finally get into the Guiness Book, apo. And/or earn some extra money as a research subject.
As near as I can tell, the main job of a criminal defense attorney consists of keeping his clients from convicting themselves before the prosecutor can convict them.
It is hard to type with your nondominant hand, but I bet this wasn't an issue for most of that researcher's 30 years on the job.
It is hard to type with your nondominant hand
Even harder to work a mouse (not a euphemism).
72: You're right. M&J is a big outfit, so he probably had a typist.
63, 65: whip-its. The Xerox of the sector.
Of course, it would be the Johnson Institute, wouldn't it?
73: AGAIN with the mouse orgasms???
Mouseturbation is completely normal, M/tch.
77: On unfogged, mice don't have much middle ground between orgasmic bliss and mortal terror.
The Xerox of the sector.
And the crux of the biscuit (if you want some).
In states that ban the sale (and possession?) of drug paraphernalia, how far does this typically extend? Presumably there is a medical exemption for syringes - how is that policed? Can you buy rizlas? Rolling machines?
78: Apo is so good the male mice lose all interest in the females. Humane mouse-population control!
73: How hard is it to work a horseshoe with your non-dominant hand?
in 30 years of research on masturbation the institute had never found one person who masturbated with his or her nondominant hand
They didn't need to, before the internet.
Can you buy rizlas? Rolling machines?
Law varies by state, but generally if it can plausibly be used for tobacco, it's legal to sell. However, you generally can't advertise or refer to the fact that it can also be used for non-legal drugs.
76
Of course, it would be the Johnson Institute, wouldn't it?
The Masters & Johnson Institute, please.
#79. Is there a middle ground between orgasmic bliss and mortal terror?
87: What a smart and interesting question.
HOW DARE YOU ASK THAT, WORM!!!!
Apo is so good the male mice lose all interest in the females
See earlier reference to similar effects of toxo. I will think of him as the Toxopostropher from now on.
http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge307.html
Is there a middle ground between orgasmic bliss and mortal terror?
Opening your pay slip?
I prefer "toxoplasmostropher" myself.
75: Someone should tell Creamright to take another look at their logo.
93: Just don't look in a movie theater if the cops are there.
93: "Creamright" is a pretty bad name to begin with, even before you drop the C.
"I'm not looking for Mr. Creamright, I'm looking for Mr. Creamrightnow."
According to Masters & Johnson, Creamleft is impossible.
According to Masters & Johnson, Creamleft is impossible.
Oops. That's never happened to me before.
I heard that Kobe has like 30 goddamn left hands.
Last winter the building admin woman told me she was quitting smoking, and I was like, "I had no idea you smoked. I've never seen you smoke before." (She eats lunch at her desk, so I've seen her at all times of the workday.)
She said that she didn't smoke at work. So I asked her how much she smoked per day, total, and she said about a pack a day.
That blew me away that you could get a pack a day in, yet not smoke between 8 am and 5 pm.
Pack a pack in, if you will.
Opening your pay slip?
Nope. That's mortal terror.
My grandfather smoked 2 packs a day (and started smoking at the same time he started going down in the mines -- when he was 6).
May I assume that 6 s/b 16? Otherwise, that's pretty damn hardcore on both counts.
93, 95, 96: going by the e-mails he sends out, Doug Creamright is who you're looking for. And who are we to say that the man doesn't like a well-turned reamer?
105: Nope. 6. I think the kiddie job was pulling the coal up like ponies. I have his little horseshoe bottomed clog things he wore. (Oh, my grandfather was born in the 1880s.)
his little horseshoe bottomed clog things he wore.
Pattens?
I think the kiddie job was pulling the coal up like ponies.
The hard part was getting the bridle on the coal.
#107. I see. He must've smoked cigarettes to give his lungs a break from the coal dust.
108: No, they're regular clogs, not worn over things, but with horseshoe bottoms. I can't find a picture, but Wigan was famous for them. Apparently grown men would recreationally kick the shit out of each other with them.
Apparently grown men would recreationally kick the shit out of each other with them.
That's not a very fair description of Morris Dancing, oud.
No, they aren't dancy.* I will take a picture at some point.
*Although, aha, I see that if you google wigan+clogs you get someone talking about Morris dancing. But that guy is talking about clogs he had made in Wigan in 1980.
114: Yeah, I was just being silly. I think full-contact Morris Dancing would certainly be an improvement, though.
Do the bottoms of the clogs look something like in the last picture on this page?
115: Yes! But these are attached to shoes. Wacky. Apparently the whole town (well, all the poor folk) wore them, not just the miners. Good for trudging through mud and shit one imagines.
116: Still look less stupid than Crocs.
That site says the grooves were to allow one to slide down the rails in the mine.
There's a whole discussion of the clogs d'antan here, including fighting in them, plus a picture of a really swank pair way down towards the bottom.
Just because a horseshoe has a groove don't make it in the groove.
Several people also mention they were good for ice skating.
No mention of their mouse-killing abilities though.
Good for cutting the crusts off of one's sandwich.
Several people also mention they were good for ice skating.
In cold weather I imagine they'd have left you no choice.
118: Yeah, or they would just turn sideways with them and slide.
Not that you'd have a choice in hot weather, either.
So really, wear these shoes and your ice skating decision-making fears will be banished forever!
So, was the road to Wigan Pier icy or not?
119: Yes, the pic is exactly right!
I love the comment below the picture:
how do you put pictures on here / plain english please not paste etc
Please explain how to insert a picture to someone who finds "paste" too jargony.
I bet that person double-clicks on links too.
So, was the road to Wigan Pier icy or not?
Wigan is rainy, being on the west coast and having no uplands between it and the Irish Sea. Therefore in winter, Wigan gets snow, which leads to black ice. If you wear iron soled shoes on black ice...
If you wear iron soled shoes on black ice...
then bob's your uncle?
Anyway: racist.
134: And that's how heebie broke her nose.
131: God, that's so annoying. Admittedly I have no idea why.
136 is fascinating. This passage explains the "horseshoe" part:
The Lancashire clog was an adaptation of the sabot worn by the French and Dutch peasantry and was introduced into Lancashire when the Flemish weavers settled in the Bolton area "wearing wode shoon all of a peece". The Lancashire weavers and country-folk, at this time, either went barefoot or wore shoes of untanned leather, similar to the moccasins worn by Red Indians. The superiority of the footwear of the new comers, which kept their feet dry in rain or snow, was something to be copied. But the rough and stony roads of Lancashire cut into the sabots and irons were nailed on to the soles. Leather 'uppers' replaced the wood shoe but the Lancashire clog kept its wooden sole with its specially shaped clog irons.
I have a strange little knitting book about Icelandic knitted shoe inserts that cushioned the bottoms of moccasin-like shoes. I confess that the reason I bought the book was because of this cat picture in it.
132: Interestingly, it appears that your usage of "black ice" is more common (at least per Wikipedia) than the specific meaning we have here, to wit: the ice that forms from automobile exhaust on bitterly cold days where there is no precipitation to otherwise freeze. Of course, we know more about slippery conditions here than anywhere else, so our usage is ultimately the correct one.
we know more about slippery conditions here than anywhere else
Now wait, I thought "black ice" meant "ice that has frozen without any snow falling on it, so that is clear and thus invisible". And I further argue that Massachusetts, being both cold and soggy and miserable, has at least as much expertise in this matter as Atosennim.
142 is correct. That's the way the term in used in upstate NY and VT, and I never heard of the MN usage before I read 140.
142. I submit that it can mean this, but it can also mean ice formed from snow that has melted during the day and refrozen overnight, so that it is clear and invisible. Also, that in urban conditions this is the more common phenomenon, although obviously not the only one, unless your sewers are really, really fucked.
144: both that definition and Natilo's seem like subsets of the definition I gave.
I'm with 144. Any ice that's clear and invisible, no matter which mechanism led to it forming. 140 is crazy talk.
The Invisible Ice was Ralph Ellison's planned next novel, but he never ended up writing it.
And I have never once heard the narrow 140 version in Atosennim.
I kind of like Natilo's definition, just because I like picturing people determining whether the cause of the skid was really black ice.
"There was a totally invisible patch of ice back there!"
"Yes, but was it black ice?"
"I don't know. Lars, you go back and lick the road, and tell us if it tastes like exhaust."
"The road always tastes like exhaust, even if there's no ice on it."
"Lars, you're not helping. Just go lick the road."
"Guyth? Guyth!"
"Great, Lars is stuck to the asphalt again."
151: You left out the part about the triple dog dare.
So, the thing with real black ice is that it is more treacherous that freeze-thaw-re-freeze ice, because the salt doesn't cut it as much, and it's less obvious that it is there, because you only see it on the highway, so your drive along surface streets might have been relatively ice-free, but then you get to the highway, and the black ice makes you wipe out. (We don't usually have big problems with re-frozen ice, because we plow all the streets, so there's only certain times where there's significant accumulations of ice on the driving area -- as opposed to the curb area -- of the roads.)
151: That only happens like, once or twice a year since MnDOT instituted stricter qualification exams.
150: It's the definition Paul Douglas always gives.
Presumably there is a medical exemption for syringes - how is that policed?
At least as of about five years ago, syringes were still sufficiently tightly policed in Philadelphia that needle-exchange programs often got a fair amount of requests from diabetics.
It took me until well into adulthood to understand what "drug paraphernalia" actually meant, but now when I hear it I think very, very small Ziploc bags, little glass vases with a fake flower in them, etc. As far as I can tell it's not exactly policed here so much as arbitrarily enforced. That is, if they raid your store, they write you up for selling that kind of stuff. But you can't get a list of what's kosher and what's not.
little glass vases with a fake flower in them
I feel dreadfully naive. What illicit acts of mind-alteration does one perform with the above?
157: A little point of sale item in sleazy bodegas that are meant to be repurposed as crack pipes.
They look like little glass straws, if I'm thinking of the right thing.
Huh. I guess I'd never wondered where crack pipes come from.
That, plus the crack pipe fairy who hides them under your pillow.
I never started smoking cigarettes (or drinking coffee), but I did, in junior high and high school, used to smoke a lot of pot. And now, having taken a multi-decade hiatus, I'm considering trying some again. But I don't know how I'd go about doing that.
Oops, I guess before commenting I should have read the thread past the mid 50s.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should describe the inventory of a convenience store, not a government agency.
We had an Ask The Mineshaft question ages ago from someone who wanted to take up pot smoking in middle age. IIRC, the advice the fearless commentariat came up with was to ask plausible friends who their dealer was, or to start going to NORML meetings until someone hooks you up.
But I can't vouch for the advice firsthand.
Eh, that's all too much problem, but thanks.
167: Spoken like a true pothead! Minus the pot part.
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Taking bets on how long before one of our drone planes patrolling the Mexican border kills someone. I'd say it's even odds whether they kill a drug smuggler ostensibly at the request of the Mexican government, or kill a people smuggler ostensibly to protect his charges.
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169 is a plot point in my light spy drama sample TV pilot. I would prefer to remain prescient rather than just informed.
Paraphernalia is the worst ticket there is, because who the hell wants to go to the trouble to book evidence for a Class C misdemeanor?
Easier to just break the damn thing as an informal slap on the wrist. Except that we can't because that would be destruction of evidence. Most of the regulars learn to volunteer to break their own crack pipe to avoid the ticket. Win win!
My favorite crackhead lately is Lar/r/y J/on/es, whose hilarious mugshot can be found here.
Larry likes to sell fake crack to stupid white people from the suburbs, which amuses me to no end.
54 was so dear to my young heart. Oudemia, did you grow up thereabouts too?
I have fond memories of an idiot from my high school being sold a block of wood wrapped in tinfoil by some dude who told him it was hash.
172: I grew up about an hour east -- near Asbury Park. But I was enamored enough of it that it was the first place I drove when I got my driver's license. I haven't been to New Hope in ages. Is it still hippieish? Or has Banana Republic etc. taken over?
165: These days it would probably be much easier to find somebody with glaucoma or something.
164 is an amusing t-shirt when worn by dreadlocked bohemian revelers. Somehow it becomes less amusing when worn by some guy in a gimme hat getting out of a pick-up truck festooned with NRA stickers.
176: In addition to general liberal vs. conservative cultural stuff, there's also the question of exactly what they object to. I wouldn't support complete deregulation of alcohol, tobacco or firearms, and I'd say someone who does is more than a bit wrongheaded, but someone most in favor of deregulating the last of those is more intimidating standing right in front of you on the street than someone most in favor of deregulating the other two.
177. ATF claims heritage back to the Whiskey Rebellion. The Framers knew these items needed to be regulated, or to be more specific, taxed.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should describe the inventory of a convenience store, not a government agency
It nearly describes the offerings in a small shop window I saw in a little outpost near this place. On four shelves: guns, ammo, hash, opium. No alcohol, but a guy I met said he had some; he also said he could take me into Afghanistan for $20, and kill someone for me for $200.
Vitamin D deficiency causes way more cancer than sunlight causes. THo getting burns isn't a good idea. also, lower multiple sclerosis rates.
i avoid sunlight more because of the photoaging (best ratio of UVB:UVA at nooon). but mostly because i hate the heat and light.
i love the ritual of smoking, but dno't like nicotine (though i use lozenges when i study because they work better than adderall).
my frirend put his hand in a cast once. lots of discussion about sinister masterbation.
THo getting burns isn't a good idea. also, lower multiple sclerosis rates.
Are you arguing that low MS rates are good or that sunlight can lower MS rates?
Because one seems completely non-controversial and the other is new to me.
180: What in the name of heaven were you doing there?
One of my neighbors has a new bumper sticker along the lines of "Don't Tread on My Gun Rights." I keep wishing I were on close enough terms with him to say how much I hope that he is super-duper-ultra-amazingly careful in his storage and safety, given that he's got five young children, plus neighborhood kids in and out.
Even the alternative health practitioners I know are blown away by the Vitamin D research coming out these days. It genuinely does seem to be a significant factor in preventing some serious diseases. So I wouldn't be at all surprised to hear it's a factor in autoimmune disease like MS (although IME those diseases are still so poorly understood that it's probably along the lines of early scurvy discoveries -- we don't know why it works, we just know it does).
/brought to you by the person who had the lowest Vitamin D results her doctor had ever seen
How close to somebody do you actually have to be to lecture him about his safety around his children? I mean, I could see doing it in a professional capacity with somebody you were only casually acquainted with, but the idea that I would say that to, like, my neighbor... is he shooting holes in the walls, or something? Do the children have stripes smeared in blood on their faces and feral, alien looks about them? Is there a situation where he would take that advice well?
There's no way I can imagine having the conversation with him in particular, but that's not because I conceive of it as a lecture. I can definitely think about other neighbors where our relationship is such that it would be completely natural to work it into the conversation -- just on the grounds of "Hey, my young nieces and nephews are over all the time, and I'm pretty conscious of their safety -- how do you handle it with your guns?"
It is also true that I'm more interested in effectively preventing violence than I am in being liked. I wouldn't start a conversation that I thought was going to get someone's back up, but that would be because I don't think it would be effective, not because I want my neighbors to think I'm sweet.
184: Just wandering about. DAK was a surreal experience in itself because it's just bristling with weapons, so maybe it's good that they have all that hash and opium around, to take the edge off. The absence of alcohol is definitely a good thing.
No, I don't think firearms should be sold at a convenience store, now that you mention it.
I mean, who says, "oh shit, the party is running low on beer, and we can use some chips. And, oh wait, a handgun."
Dammit, I need more milk for the pancakes. And a Glock.
"We've known for a long time that people in parts of the world that get less sunlight (and therefore have less vitamin D) are more likely than others to get multiple sclerosis. The majority of people with MS have some degree of vitamin D deficiency. People who live in northern regions commonly have a vitamin D deficiency for 4 to 6 months of the year."
Kill two birds, er, mice with one stone:
"At high doses cholecalciferol [vitamin D] is poisonous. Rodents are somewhat more susceptible to high doses than other species, and cholecalciferol has been used in poison bait for the control of these pests."
Where's The Good News?
I'm going to grow a hundred years old!
I'm betting they actually wanted this ad to show her with a cigarette between her fingers.
Glad to hear that stuff about vitamin D. A GP (at my uni health center) said I should take it besides my multivitamin, and I obeyed, but didn't really follow up on why.
the MS connection might have something to do with VitD, but it also could be because there is an independent immune suprressive effect of the sunlight on skin via change in neuron-immune interaction, and MS is an autoimmune disorder susceptible to this.
ANyway, there is a strong N-S gradation of MS incidence; the farther north, the more common. the sunlight-MS link is pretty strong, but there are various paths that connect them and its not clear which is doing the causation.
174: Haven't been strolled the town in a while, though I find myself in Lambertville once a year for family. I think it's sylvan bobo more than hippie; as you said, the head shop is a bookstore.
My stage debut was as a street urchin in Annie at the Bucks County Playhouse.
49: I was in Austin for the first time last December, and our hotel was across the street from PG&E, so I had to check it out. The pipes, rock shirts, pr0n and such were the usual, but as I was browsing, the radio station playing over the speakers caught my attention. First came an ad for a new kind of silver treatment, one that the government was supressing because you would never need to have vaccinations again, among other things. No mention of whether it would help you get a job as an extra in the next Avatar film.
Then they got back to the progam, and the first thing I heard was "And as Ron Paul pointed out . . .," at which point I decided to leave.
As for smoking and cancer, my wife's* maternal grandmother smoked 3-4 packs of unfiltered Camels (not a euphemism) for most of her life, and it wasn't until she was moved in with her daughter (my MiL) and kept leaving lit cigs all over the house that she was cut off. She died of old age. All of her sons who smoked died of a specific variety of cancer caused by smoking. Whatever kept her going was obviously a recessive gene.
*Paula was adopted, and never smoked
Taking bets on how long before one of our drone planes patrolling the Mexican border kills someone.
I'll take "A very long time" given that they're unarmed.
I was in Austin for the first time last December, and our hotel was across the street from PG&E, so I had to check it out. The pipes, rock shirts, pr0n and such were the usual
You've changed, Dr Paisley.
202: Ah, really? That's good. I guess I misunderstood the caption on the AFP story (the photo says "A US Predator unmanned drone armed with a missile," and I thought that meant the ones in Mexico were/are armed).
205: yes, the one flying out of Corpus Christi TX is a MQ-9 Guardian: basically a Reaper (originally called a "Predator B", and still wrongly described as a "Predator") with a maritime search radar added. It's got hardpoints, so could carry ordnance like Hellfires or GBU, but doesn't - it would be dead weight and cut down on its endurance.
205: I had pretty much the same train of thought -- first I thought "I'm sure they're not armed", and then I looked at the caption to that picture and thought it was saying they were.
The pic's just a generic shot of a Predator from the library. It's not actually of the right sort of aircraft: the tailfins go down instead of up. The border patrol is using an MQ-9, which is bigger and has a tail that goes diagonally up.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MQ-9
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MQ-1_Predator
I was in Austin for the first time last December, and our hotel was across the street from PG&E
1) And you didn't call a meet-up? Atsamattayou?
2) By "PG&E" do you mean the Gas Pipe Emporium?
