How dangerous is smoking a little bit?
If you like a little tobacco now and then, try a cigar or a pipe (and smoke them correctly, not pulling the smoke down into your lungs.) If you are like me, this will help you make the leap from smoking every day to smoking once in a while in celebration or to facilitate sulking. It helps psychologically because I always feel I have the option to go smoke and that compulsive feeling of “needing a smoke” becomes a non-compulsive “wanting a smoke.
There’s a big problem here with the fact that for a long time, physicians and others trying to encourage people to butt out had a kind of essentialist verve – NO amount of smoking can ever be acceptible. It is clear though that this was a political and strategic decision, not a medical one – they didn’t want to water down the message, because smokers are among the greatest rationalizers in the world. Now, however, research is changing because they have found that although smoking rates have decreased a great deal, there are people who, not due to weak will or any other factor, simply cannot quit. Again, as great rationalizers this is a difficult message, because every smoker will immediately think him/herself part of this cohort, potentially blunting the effects of past anti-smoking messages. But if you’re in a social situation (and not in a consultation) speaking with a doctor about this – as I have done many times, most of them will very freely admit that if you have 1 or 2 cigarette
Well smoking less is less risky than smoking more. And someone will probably find a study with a nice regression formula you can use to calculate the risk based no how much you smoke. I would say that you smoke more than “a little bit” if you smoke daily. When you get that regression formula, calculate your risk, and then don’t forget to add all the associated risks, not just the risk directly caused by inhaling toxic chemicals at the rates you do. For example smoking 5 cigarettes a day increases the probability that you’ll at some point be smoking more. So figure if smoking a pack a day reduces your average life span by 5 years. Then figure that smoking 5 cigs a day increases your risk of eventually smoking a pack a day by 3 percent (i assume the increased risk isn’t high since it sounds like you’ve been at that level for some time). Then in addition to the effects of the smoking you actually do, there’s a 3 percent chance you’ll decrease your lifespan by 5 years (so expected value of
I’m willing to bet with that “few” you’ll die only 1 year early. Also consider that lung cancer – though you’re in no way guaranteed to get it, you’re at a much higher risk even just smoking a pack a week – is not a pleasant way to die. You may quantitatively only lose a year off your life, but if you wind up spending your last 5 years in and out of chemo, your life will also have been much worse qualitatively.
Also, remember, it’s not like Smoking takes a specific amount of time off your life. You’re simply increasing the probability of a horrendous, painful, early demise. That when averaged out over several thousand people will result in one year less of life. Some will live to ripe old age, and some will die of Lung cancer. You can also get a raft of nasty diseases, although you will lower your risk for alzheimer’s, but you can do that with Caffeine.
