this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2023
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Mildly Interesting

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Huh I mean I get what you're saying but can't we just take this potential win? I'm a cancer survivor and it just seems weird to complain about legislation that will reduce cancer. Menthol cigarettes just make it easier to get cancer than plain ones. That's how I see this. Just because minorities and lgbtq are more likely to use them doesn't mean it's racist.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Nah, this ban accomplishes absolutely nothing except producing more expensive alternatives that do the exact same thing.

I'm glad you survived your battle, but this ban would only serve to disproportionately affect the poor.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Ahh thanks for sharing. You're probably right then. And thanks :)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You're both very welcome and a class act. It's no small feat to kick cancer's ass. Lol

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Thanks so much! All thanks to my anonymous stem cell donor via BeTheMatch! Other treatments didn't work before that and this person saved my life.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

Menthol cigarettes just make it easier to get cancer than plain ones.

Were you a smoker, and did you ever smoke menthols? Menthols give a bit different feeling, but I wouldn't say it's that much "easier" to smoke.

The EU did the same thing to ban menthols a couple years ago, and yet I can still go to the store and buy cigarettes with menthol taste. These new fake-menthols surprisingly feel even smoother to smoke than classic menthols, but it's still not a big difference compared to unflavored cigarettes IMO.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

It's my body; I get to decide what goes in it. Poison or not. This isn't a win at all.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I just wish it was banned in public because I choose to not put poison in my body, yet I have to inhale everyone else's poison that they are ingesting near me. In public and in cars is where I wish it was banned. There's nothing worse than being stuck behind someone in traffic that is smoking and you have nowhere to go and nothing to do except inhale that shit.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I got bad news for you... cigarette smoke is the least of your worries when stuck in traffic. You're inhaling exhauste fumes from every car near you...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Oh man if only there were laws in place to attempt to help mitigate that risk... placing the responsibility on the car owners to ensure their cars meet emissions regulations to reduce the impact upon third parties.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I have to say, pot is getting like that too. While I support that it’s now decriminalized (where I live), now it’s becoming a nuisance. I shouldn’t have to breathe second hand smoke regardless of what you’re smoking

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Also my opinion, and the outcome of prohibition would suggest that society at large generally believes this as well.

...with an obvious exception for minorities...

Which was my point. Apparently the politics of it, and decades of anti tobacco propaganda (and I dont intend the normally negative connotation the word has, it just is what it is) have made this acceptable somehow... for an obviously racial/homophobic exception to just be openly declared and apparently acceptable... it's kinda weird to me.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 1 year ago

No you don't lmao the FDA is kind of the authority here. There's nothing on store shelves that you can choose or not choose to put in your body that wasn't already cleared by the FDA. You have an illusion of choice.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

How do menthols make it easier to get cancer than regular smokes? Genuinely asking btw

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Menthol makes it easier to start smoking, to continue being a smoker for longer than the person would have done otherwise, and to smoke more, because it makes smoking less irritating and tastes better. You are correct in that the menthol molecule itself is not a carcinogen.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Do you have a source for these claims? No one is smoking cigarettes for the taste, nor is "bad taste" a common reason for anyone to quit. Smoking is both a chemical addiction (nicotine and such) and a psychological habit (place and timing, having something in the mouth, forced breathing exercises, etc).

If we really wanted to hinder big tobacco, they'd start requiring producers to document all their ingredients, additives, and processing methods.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Exactly. It's all about money & control and it always has been. If they wanted to get people to stop smoking, they'd mandate that the tobacco companies remove all of the chemicals from cigarettes that make the nicotine a free base form to increase their addictive properties.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You mean vaping lmao? They be wanting to ban that even more lmao

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Nic Salts are the free base equivalent of cigarettes for the vaping world, but I agree that it's a lot less harmful. The government would endorse vaping if they truly wanted to end smoking, since it has an incredibly high success rate as a smoking cessation device, like orders of magnitude higher than any other form. All of the other cessation methods (which are owned by the tobacco companies BTW), have a max success rate of about 3.5%. Vaping has a success rate of almost 70%! So yeah, their opposition to vaping makes my point even more clear.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

No it doesn't. It's purely a preference. There are tons of smokers who can't stand menthols but love regular cigarettes. I even know someone who smokes menthols because he said it makes people less likely to bum cigarettes off of him.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

I even know someone who smokes menthols because he said it makes people less likely to bum cigarettes off of him.

That's why I switched to menthols back when I smoked. That, and I just liked them more. I didn't like the ultra menthol ones like Kools or Benson & Hedges, but Marlboro Milds were just about perfect, and the amount of "Oh...those are menthol? Nevermind" was the cherry on top.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Yeah this is what I meant!