Smoking and diving

[dmaziuk]

I smoked for 38 years,
...
I quit when I was 50
...
Turns out I am allergic to cigarette smoke.

I used to smoke a cig when I had an allergy attack: it'd make me cough but also clear my chest and let me breathe easier much faster than anti-histamins available at the time.

Here's another good one: a classmate of mine tried to quit, landed in a hospital with hypertension and anxiety attack and pulse of 180 or some such. Few years later he tried again, same story. So after the 2nd time his doctor told him to quit trying. (That's over in .il, I suspect over here the doctors are legally not allowed to say anything like that.)

 

[Seaweed Doc]

Second hand smoke is a legitimate health concern, and to be blunt some folks who never smoked died because somebody they lived or worked with smoked. Given that, it seems at least reasonable to me to ask smokers to keep their exhaust to the downwind side of the boat. On the other hand, if the smoke is not wafting my (or my children's) way, light 'em up!

 

[Seaweed Doc]

Well the APA did give it a separate disorder. I believe because you cannot (as far as we know) develop a physical dependency to marijuana the eat you can to caffeine, nicotine and alcohol.

Minor thing: You can develop an addiction to marijuana, or the THC it contains. You can also become habituated, requiring a higher dose to get the same effect. I don't have the citation to scientific literature handy, but I had students reading papers last year on the health benefits and negative impacts of marijuana use. I can find a few key references if you like.

 

[Sbiriguda]

I used to smoke a cig when I had an allergy attack: it'd make me cough but also clear my chest and let me breathe easier much faster than anti-histamins available at the time.
Here's another good one: a classmate of mine tried to quit, landed in a hospital with hypertension and anxiety attack and pulse of 180 or some such. Few years later he tried again, same story. So after the 2nd time his doctor told him to quit trying. (That's over in .il, I suspect over here the doctors are legally not allowed to say anything like that.)

I will give you another one, this one is my own. In my college years I used to smoke, even one packet per day when I was stressed about exams. When I played basketball I could almost not breath and could jump more or less half than what I used to before starting. My hands skin started becoming thin, easy to get bruised. I had some brown spots on the skin like the ones people normally have when they are 70 years old, and I was about 20 back then. When I woke up early in the morning the first thing I had to do was to smoke a cigarette.
Then I decided to stop, helped by the fact that my girlfriend at the time was a non smoker and could not even suffer the smell of tobacco
Not to say anything about other severe health consequences I did not experience
I don't like to blame anybody, not a problem for me if someone is a smoker and in scuba I think it doesn't affect performance that much. Still I think it is a misleading message to encourage people to smoke because "after all a friend of mine smoke all life long and he didn't get ill"

 

[kelemvor]

I will give you another one, this one is my own. In my college years I used to smoke, even one packet per day when I was stressed about exams. When I played basketball I could almost not breath and could jump more or less half than what I used to before starting. My hands skin started becoming thin, easy to get bruised. I had some brown spots on the skin like the ones people normally have when they are 70 years old, and I was about 20 back then. When I woke up early in the morning the first thing I had to do was to smoke a cigarette.
Then I decided to stop, helped by the fact that my girlfriend at the time was a non smoker and could not even suffer the smell of tobacco
Not to say anything about other severe health consequences I did not experience
I don't like to blame anybody, not a problem for me if someone is a smoker and in scuba I think it doesn't affect performance that much. Still I think it is a misleading message to encourage people to smoke because "after all a friend of mine smoke all life long and he didn't get ill"

I don't think I saw anyone in this thread encouraging others to smoke...

 

[boulderjohn]

are a consequence of an addiction, not of a free and rational choice.

In The Tipping Point, one of the examples Gladwell uses to support his overall thesis is smoking. Putting it simply, a fad or trend has a reason for starting, and with smoking, it is essentially because the cool kids in school smoke, and everyone wants to be cool. (Almost all smokers start during their later childhood.) Then there has to be a reason for that trend to continue--no one buys pet rocks anymore, because the fad did not have a "stickiness" quality. With smoking, just about everyone (in America at least) tries to stop smoking at least once as an adult, and most succeed. But many don't. Why not?

To me, the most interesting study he looked at to find the answer involved children of smokers. It was long established that adult children of smoking parents are more likely to be smokers than the general population, and the assumption always was that it was the influence of growing up in a smoking household that caused this. However, an important study contradicts this. It showed that adopted children of smokers were no more likely to smoke as adults than the general population. Only the biological children of smokers were more likely to continue smoking as adults than the general population.

This strongly suggests a biological component. Nearly everyone starts smoking as a child. Most people are able to quit as an adult. The people who can't quit apparently have a biological quality that makes it more difficult for them to overcome that addiction.

 

[Sbiriguda]

I don't think I saw anyone in this thread encouraging others to smoke...

Well, when you say for example "I had an allergy and I used to smoke a cigarette to cough and clear up my throat" for me this is already a wrong message. The idea is that "nothing happens". Unfortunately is not like that. It is better not to do that, not even to try it. And please note that I was a smoker myself...I know the way it starts, and I know how difficult it is to quit...

 

[Sbiriguda]

This strongly suggests a biological component. Nearly everyone starts smoking as a child. Most people are able to quit as an adult. The people who can't quit apparently have a biological quality that makes it more difficult for them to overcome that addiction.

In the 1950's in Europe and in the US smoking was completely normal. The percentage of the population that used to smoke was much higher than now, it was about 50% of the adult population, even more among men considering that on the contrary among women smoking was relatively less common than now. Nowadays, there is still a relevant difference accross countries. Mostly it is just a matter of culture, even though genetics and other factors might play a role. The obsessive anti-smokers propaganda might be upsetting but it proved to be effective...

CDC - Trends in Current Cigarette Smoking - Smoking & Tobacco Use
Prevalence of tobacco consumption - Wikipedia

 

[Joris Vd]

Doubt it affects performance in scuba that much. I did quit smoking for scuba though.
Turns out the smoking caused my sinus issues, so it was just not worth it for me anymore.

Getting a sinus squeeze every fifth dive or so just was too much for me to justify not fixing the issue.
If it wouldn't have caused any sinus problems I probably would still be smoking tbh.

I honestly do understand that smokers annoy non smokers though. It's just a very intrusive, annoying smell and sensation when you don't smoke.

 

[kelemvor]

It is better not to do that, not even to try it. And please note that I was a smoker myself...I know the way it starts, and I know how difficult it is to quit...

I don't disagree that it's better not to start. I too smoked.. for around 10 years I think.

I think most 40 somethings probably know one or more people that seem to defy the commonly held beliefs about smoking. For example, my grandfather smoked 2 packs a day until he died at 93 years old. He also had a severe drinking problem. He probably smoked for close to 80 years. He didn't have any lung cancer or emphysema or any smoking related illness that we knew of when he died. They don't autopsy 93 year old men who die in their sleep I don't think, so I guess you never know if he had an undiagnosed problem brewing.

When I see someone expressing concern about passing secondary smoke contact, it makes me chuckle. People getting illnesses from secondary smoke are children who are born into houses where the parents smoke indoors and they're exposed to the smoke repeatedly for years or decades. I bet you get more bad stuff into your lungs from a boat exhaust than from one guy lighting up on the back of a boat after a dive.

It must be different for those young enough to not know someone who "defied the odds" like my grandfather. My kids will grow up only "knowing" what is spread in anti-smoking commercials and other propaganda. I don't want my kids to smoke, but it's easy to call BS on many of the claims you see on anti smoking ads. My kids don't know that. So what happens if they figure out something these ads say is untrue? What could happen is that they suspect everything they've ever been told about smoking to be untrue and that could lead to them trying it.

Why do I mention all that? I see the extreme aversion to passing momentary contact with second hand smoke as a symptom to the FUD problem I'm talking about.

While I don't bang on the "honesty is the best policy" for every situation, I think this is a situation where honest really is the best policy.