Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Smoke em if you got em

I am at loss when I read the recent life expectancy chart for Europe. What I saw is countries with a high number of smokers (Switzerland and Germany) had the same life expenctancy as countries with a low number of smokers (Sweden and Greece.) What is even more interesting is the US has a worse life expectancy than all of the above and has better smoking statistics than most of Europe. Then take Japan. Japanese life expectancy is 80 years which is three years more than Sweden. Japan smokes (32%) more than Sweden (16%) too...and more than Germany and more than Switzerland. So what separates Japan from Europe? Fat. Ironically for Michael Moore, as he fights big tobacco, his body has a less chance of seeing 60 than a smokers. Smoking sucks because if you do get lung cancer it is a miserable way to die and addiction is also miserable. But I would still rather see a 15 year old smoking than an overweight 15 year old pounding his second bag of Funyons.

4 comments:

BVM said...

Yeah, I'd agree with you. Seems its more about diet than it is about smoking.

Smokers and the companies that produce products which you can smoke take way too much flack in this country. I don't promote smoking in general, but I can hang with smokers and sometimes I smoke pipe tobacco, cigars, and an occassional cigarette.

Another irony. I'm sure that among the Michael Moore fans of the world who are righteously protesting Phillip Morris, there exists a majority in that same group who want to legalize pot smoking.

Maximum Colossus said...

I guess I'm screwed. I like to roll my cigarettes in butter before I light up.

Unknown said...

It is a sham. BIG TOBACCO! They are an easy target, especially with this whole "second hand smoke kills" growing in popularity.

p.s. I think pot smoking should be legal. And if it ever does become legal, I think Sony or Nintendo should team up with Pot Corporations. Think about it, "Buy the new Play Station and get a bag of weed." The two pratically go hand in hand already.

Unknown said...

Also, African Americans, males in particular, have a much shorter life expectancy than White Americans. I think it is a difference of about 8 years. That is going to scew the poll. Japan is a totally Homogenous society. Not very diverse when it comes to ethnicity. Sure, low fat diet is going to help...I am just saying there are many different variables.