Dear MAGA: 20190614 Open Topic

The political attack on cigarettes (which fund lotsa govt via taxes) has stifled research into the diseases associated with smoking. Your friend likely went to his grave thinking that his smoking CAUSED his lung cancer. You seem to have that belief as well. Yet it is not true, at least in the causative sense.
The numbers (for which I don’t have a link) show that less than 10% of lifetime smokers (20+ years; pack/day) develop lung cancer. No matter how bad smoking is (which it is) for people, it does not cause lung cancer.
Truth is that lung cancer has a genetic component which might be the cause. Current theory is that if you have the genetic predisposition to lung cancer, then smoking can trigger/aggravate it. As genetic research advances, we are learning that much more than we thought is actually controlled or seriously influenced by our genes.
Full disclosure – I am a lifetime smoker (now 71yo; smoker since 15yo) and I have emphysema (which they now call COPD). I spent many years (20+) working in the auto repair industry. I cannot count the times I’ve gotten inundated with noxious fumes and asbestos dust, and God knows what else. To blame everything on smoking is political. Even asbestos defendants (big companies w/ deep pockets) in mesothelioma lawsuits admit that smoking is not related to the cancer.
My sympathies and condolences for your loss. My opinion is to reject the massive propaganda campaign. Follow the money.

On special occasions I enjoy a good, quality cigar, despite the high taxes both federal and local that have been placed upon them. Cigarette smoke makes me nauseous. I smoked cigarettes when I was young, but gave them up at 22 years of age. Later, I found an attraction to cigars. It’s funny and probably relevant that my father was a cigarette smoker who quite cold turkey in his mid 80’s and died at 95 of a brain hemorrhage. My grandfather (his father) smoked cigars frequently. I remember as a little kid asking Dad why Grandpa had to relight his cigar at times whereas Dad’s cigarettes only had to be lit once. 🙂
And a reminder that George Burns smoked cigars both on and off stage. You never saw him without a lit cigar. And he died at 99+ years of age.
So when someone warns me of the dangers of cigar smoking, I just tell them, “George Burns, George Burns, George Burns”. 🙂

Another anecdote from the past….
About 15 years ago, I was driving back from a contract job in Yakima, Washington on Oregon’s I-84, a wide open highway. I was in an area with a 55mph speed limit and I had been doing well over 100 mph in a red Ford Taurus.I had slowed a little bit when I saw a mild curve coming up, but still was doing 90+ when I blew past a highway patrol car hidden back in a brushy area just off the highway.
He wrote me a speeding ticket with a fine of $420. I decided to contest it in court, so I appeared on my court date and the cop didn’t show! So, the ticket was dismissed by the judge as though it never happened. Yay!
At that point I pulled a cigar out of my jacket pocket and announced to those around me as I got up to leave that I was going outside to light up a Victory Cigar. Got some laughs. I don’t think the judge heard me since he was way up in the front and I had been seated in the very back of the courtroom.
🙂