If you needed yet another reason to quit smoking, here it is.

  • Masterbaexunn
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    04 months ago

    Any smoker already knows they’re killing themselves. Now it turns out their “filters” are harming us. I can’t even use a plastic straw anymore for fuck’s sake. Why not get rid of the filter?

    • @Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      04 months ago

      Any smoker already knows they’re killing themselves

      Which is one of many reasons why the vast majority of smokers are trying to quit. I’ve never known anyone who’s become addicted to nicotine who DIDN’T eventually want to stop.

      Why not get rid of the filter?

      Because it would increase the harm to both smokers and victims of passive tobacco inhalation immensely, which would in turn increase the already outsized strain on healthcare systems around the world, leading to a spiral of compounded misery throughout society.

      It would be needlessly cruel while resulting in little to no benefit.

      A better solution would be to ban the hundreds of different additives in cigarettes that make them more toxic and addictive than the tobacco itself already is.

      That and roll back the bans of flavored e-juice while actively promoting the most effective smoking cessation method, adult vaping.

      Refillable ones only, of course. Disposable vapes are an environmental scourge and also generally much less effective than the good ones.

      • Masterbaexunn
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        04 months ago

        I doubt that filters provide any real harm reduction beyond trapping a little bit of tar, quick internet search will confirm. They seem to do more harm than good when you consider their environmental impact. From my pov, keeping them around is needlessly cruel and results in no benefit whatsoever

        • @Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          04 months ago

          any real harm reduction beyond trapping a little bit of tar

          Yeah, just reducing the amount of TAR in your lungs!

          Because that’s not at all harmful, nuh-uh! It’s not like emphysema or lung cancer ever harmed anyone! 🤦

          They seem to do more harm than good

          Objectively false to a ridiculous degree.

          From my pov, keeping them around is needlessly cruel and results in no benefit whatsoever

          Except for the aforementioned decrease in emphysema and lung cancer, sure 🙄

          • Masterbaexunn
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            04 months ago

            Bro don’t cherry pick when quoting me, wth. They absolutely harm the environment more than help. Again smokers know the risk when they started smoking. They don’t get to mitigate that risk by poisoning the environment with their trapped tar filters that they flick everywhere with out a care for themselves or nonsmokers or the environment.

            You’re wrong on this one

            • @Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              04 months ago

              They absolutely harm the environment more than help

              I highly doubt it, but go ahead and prove your claim.

              Again smokers know the risk when they started smoking.

              Far from all. That’s a very privileged assumption. Countries in the global south don’t generally get all the public health information we take for granted, and there’s significant correlation between countries with the most new smokers and countries with the least successful public health authorities.

              That goes for impoverished and otherwise dysfunctional parts of the global North too, btw, in case you don’t think you’d be killing a lot of West Virginians who don’t deserve it.

              They don’t get to mitigate that risk by poisoning the environment with their trapped tar filters that they flick everywhere with out a care for themselves or nonsmokers or the environment.

              Holy stereotype bigotry, Batman!

              Speaking as an ex-smoker who didn’t match the caricature you have in your head at all, I’m glad that you didn’t get to decide anything. Otherwise, I might not have survived long enough to quit.

              You’re wrong on this one

              That’s a negative. People don’t deserve to be victims of social murder just because they made the mistake of developing a bad habit and you have prejudices against everyone who shares that habit.

              • Masterbaexunn
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                04 months ago

                You want proof that littering is bad for the environment? Really, that’s the hill? Lmao.

                Yes I make privileged assumptions and stereotypes. As do the healthcare workers and lawmakers when writing policies. Big things like these have to be generalized. I’m sure you understand that tackling smoking, smoking related diseases and policies at the individual level is nearly impossible.

                Sorry uneducated smokers in the republic of whatever don’t immediately affect me as much as you think they should. But packaging around (the vast majority of) the world has at least some warming on it. And it’s WIDELY known that it’s a bad idea to smoke.

                Not sure why you’re so hard about keeping filters around, but smokers anywhere aren’t victims. They make the conscious decision to light up every single time and the actual victims are people who don’t share their dirty murderous habit.

                If you find yourself defending smoking in any way shape or form, you’re wrong. Plain and simple.

              • @labsin@sh.itjust.works
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                04 months ago

                I highly doubt it, but go ahead and prove your claim.

                I would turn that around cause you are claiming filters help prevent cancer. Producers should prove that, but they don’t. Filters don’t help.

                Speaking as an ex-smoker who didn’t match the caricature

                Good for you, but you are in the minority. I know no one that smokes that carry around a portable ashtray. If there is none in a couple of meters, they get thrown on the ground.