My wife died 8 months after being diagnosed with lung cancer. She was a smoker her entire life. There is no doubt in my mind that cigarettes contributed to her death. But we all know this, right? After all, there have been warnings printed in tiny print on cigarette packs in the US since 1965 “Warning: Continual Cigarette Smoking May be Hazardous to Your Health.”
May be hazardouss to your health? Give me a fu**ing break.
I believe that what big tobacco has done in the US and globally is nothing less than a crime against humanity. I’m not going to detail everything they have done using lies, lobbying, marketing, “addiction promoting “scientific rebuttals” to addict multiple generations of smokers in order to line their own pockets with money. Plenty of others have written about this elsewhere.
Instead, I will talk about my own personal experience. I have never smoked. I hate the smell of cigarettes, the secondhand smoke I was forced to breath as a child and adult, the way it burned my eyes and made me cough.
Fortunately for me, I never wanted to smoke. I have smoked a total of a few puffs maybe three times when I was extremely drunk. I’m certain I puked afterward every time, although, to be fair, that was likely as much due to drinking too much Tequila as it was to puffing on someone else’s cigarette trying to look cool.
Today, there are more warnings about the dangers of smoking. In other countries, these warnings are even more graphic and gruesome. I don’t know if they are effective or not.
What I do know is that every time I speak with a doctor, a dentist, any healthcare facility person or any insurance agent, I am always asked “You don’t smoke do you?”
Why is that?
- It’s because dentists know that smoking affects your teeth and your body’s ability to handle anything from a cavity to an extraction to an implant.
- It’s because doctors and nurses know that smoking makes your lungs, heart, internal organs and immune systems work harder and less effectively.
- It’s because insurance companies know that smoking makes you a higher risk for illness, infirmity and death.
Not everyone who dies from lung cancer was a smoker. Nor does every smoker die from lung cancer.
The American Lung Cancer Association and the NIH have all kinds of statistics on this which you can dig into anytime you want.
And, as well as know, statistics can be “spun”.
Despite the grim statistics on the American Lung Association website, I recall when my wife had cancer that a common phrase uttered by her doctors and on reputable cancer websites was “Remember…you are not a statistic. Some people get cured, go into remission, lived much longer, etc.”
My wife died almost exactly 8 months from her date of diagnosis – which was exactly what the statistics predicted although not a single health care professional we dealt with was honest about this likelihood (other than our hospice team).
I try not to think about this much. It makes me sad and angry – for my wife, for myself and for the many others who have suffered due to big tobacco.
I hope that the people who have perpetrated this crime against humanity have had their share of suffering too.
I know that is not charitable, forgiving or gracious of me to say.
But it is honest.