Talk:Smoking

Media section should include Tobacco industry's use of films to promote smoking to adolescents

" ... [A] study of 3,000 adolescents found that those who were most often exposed to smoking in movies were nearly three times as likely as others to try smoking. In a striking finding, the study concluded that in more than half the times that a child in the study tried a cigarette, the decision was linked to having seen smoking in a movie."

Harry Potter and the Pint of Liquid Courage Well By TARA PARKER-POPE NYT -- Published: July 27, 2009 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/28/health/28well.html

the "study" link is PMID 12892958

Dalton, Sargent, et al.,

Effect of viewing smoking in movies on adolescent smoking initiation: a cohort study. Lancet. 2003 Jul 26;362(9380):281-5. The PubMed summary concludes:

"Our results provide strong evidence that viewing smoking in movies promotes smoking initiation among adolescents."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12892958?ordinalpos=26&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.167.95.186 (talk) 01:57, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

This is a general article on smoking, and this is a very specific issue related to recent trends in anti-tobacco campaigning. It's probably more relevant to tobacco advertising or health effects of tobacco.

Peter ^Isotalo 21:39, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Editors not working for the tobacco industry are needed for this article.

Watching this article as it evolves makes clear that there are paid writers assigned to persistently rewrite the lead and restructure the organization of the body to subtly and unsubtly favor the initiation of smoking. It needs editors who will just as persistently return it to focus.

As it stands, it is a continuation of the efforts by which the tobacco companies

"'have marketed and sold their lethal product with zeal, with deception, with a single-minded focus on their financial success and without regard for the human tragedy or social costs,' Judge Gladys Kessler, of the Federal District Court in Washington, wrote in a 1,653-page opinion after a nine-month trial."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/20/business/20smoke.html?ref=health

This Wikipedia article on "smoking" is likely to be consulted by youths who have been driven by product placement and other marketing to consider experimenting with tobacco. It should be completely rewritten to start with and focus on the health effects (and the fact that tobacco is not free, but is addictive and marketed for a hefty profit) which form the most salient information for someone consulting an encyclopedia about "smoking."

Ask yourself: what information would it be most lamentable to omit or marginalize in an article about smoking?

Here, health risks and product cost information has been minimized and marginalized, and thus effectively concealed from a quick reading by the preteen and young teen who is the target of tobacco marketing. As an especially blatant example, "Health effects" is marginalized as a subpoint under "Social effects."

Maintaining freedom FROM tobacco addiction is profitable self-interest. But again and again, the article portrays it as only purposeless social conformity.

The article as it stands needs a complete rewrite. The current lead and overall organization is ad copy for initiation of smoking. Once rewritten, it needs the protection of vigilent editors. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ocdcntx (talk • contribs) 16:12, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I meet the qualification of "not working for the tobacco industry," and I just added the following to the article:

"According to a study of more than 20,000 Israeli military recruits that was published in 2010, smokers have a lower I.Q. than non-smokers. Those who never smoked had an average I.Q. of 101, while those who smoked more than one pack per day had an average I.Q. of 90."

Grundle2600 (talk) 02:15, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm...

Among the other glaring problems that I don't have time to list, there is a problem with this sentence:

"The inhaled substances trigger chemical reactions in nerve endings in the brain due to being similar to naturally occurring substances such as endorphins and dopamines, which are associated with sensations of pleasure."

First of all they say "dopamines". There is no plural, there is only one dopamine. I think the word they are searching for is catecholamine. Additionally, nicotine, for example, is not really that close structurally to endorphins or dopamine, and it acts on nicotinic receptors, not dopaminergic receptors.

Problems, problems.Grouphug (talk) 20:28, 26 March 2010 (UTC)