Well, I guess it can lead to lung cancer, but I'm not 100% sure about it. However, most people that have lung cancer were heavy smokers. So, there seems to be some connection. But you can be a smoker all your life and never get cancer. It's not like, you smoke, it's a sure thing that you'll get cancer. Like my uncle, for example. He's been smoking since he was a teenager. He's now in his late 50s and he has never been diagnosed with lung cancer. And he is one heavy smoker too. He can't live 1 minute without a cigarette. So, I guess it all depends on the individual.
And one thing I find sooo weird is that, according to the news, everything today causes cancer. They say that things such as teflon and charcoal barbecuing all cause cancer. Well, I cook almost everyday with a teflon pan and I barbecue every summer. Does that mean I have cancer?! It's rediculous!
The key issue is
causality. It has not been proven that smoking
causes cancer, and examples such as those you and Moron4392 offer help to demonstrate that. I imagine a lot of people could offer similar examples. My great-uncle was a chain smoker all of his life (I like to joke that he only needed one match a day), but he died of old age at 83, with no sign of cancer. My mother on the other hand, never smoked a day in her life, and didn't allow smoking around her, but she died of lung cancer at 72.
In considering what I refer to as the propaganda in the media, you have to pay attention to what they are actually claiming and whether it actually makes sense. Even when they may be stating a "truth", they often exaggerate it or give it an unwarranted emphasis to heighten a sense of alarm in their audience.
For example -- and I want to emphasize that I any just pulling numbers out of thin air right now to make a point -- they may claim that smokers are 100 times more likely to develop cancer than non-smokers, but they never tell you want the chances actually are of non-smokers getting cancer. But if the chance of the ordinary non-smoker is only .1% (one in 1000), then an "average" smoker's chance would be 10% (one in 10). That's significantly higher, obviously, but notice that also means that 90% of the time the smoker does
not develop cancer. Hardly a proof of causality, yet the claims of the prohibitions imply that if you smoke you are almost certainly going to get cancer.
Prohibitionists spout statistics all the time, because that is all they've got and statistics can be easily manipulated. You also have to consider the source of the alleged data, and what motivations they may have. A traditional question to always keep in mind is
Quo bono? Who benefits? The government bureaucracies benefit from gaining additional control over people's lives. Agencies whose only purpose is to promote the prohibitionists' agenda benefit from government "grants" -- money stolen from the "taxpayers", thus forcing us to pay for the propaganda they spew over us.
Again, my point
isn't that smoking is healthy, but rather that the risks have been grossly overstated and in the choice of a lot of people, the perceived benefits outweigh the risks. I am 52 and have been smoking since I was 17; I average a pack a day, and maybe even a little less at times. So far I show no signs of developing cancer, but that doesn't mean that I won't eventually, especially considering that my mother developed it without smoking. It is a risk that I choose to take, however (something is going to get me
eventually.)
My original point, which I expressed so badly, was that Moe died of lung cancer at
78, a perfectly respectable age. That doesn't sound as though smoking all of his life necessarily
shortened it, and if he enjoyed smoking what was the real harm?
