The "Smoking" Diver

[Double_D]

Fabasard hit the nail on the head - it's the CO, not the CO2.

With fewer free binding sites on your RBCs for oxygen exchange, your blood's less efficient getting the O2 where it needs to go. Lots of intangibles and anecdotal discussion bouncing around in here alongside the actual SAC rates people are reporting. But here's a fact we can all agree on - breathing enough CO at depth can be (and has been) fatal. Breathing the amount of CO produced in a single cigarette at 1 ATA clearly is not fatal, but it doesn't help.

The more CO you ingest and the deeper you dive thereafter compounds the problem. Beyond that, people are going to do what they do. The human animal is remarkably resilient and adaptive.

Love the discussion about smokeless and buddy breathing - next we'll have 'rings' in the BC pockets!

 

[aznlmpulse]

I don't know why, but smokers' smell,

It's a personal choice...."choose your poison." right? some people don't sleep for 2 days straight and gamble their savings away...some people gorge on McDonalds and opt for that DIET coke to wash it all down and wonder why they still weigh 300+ lbs. Remember that over weight girl in that movie SuperSize me? "I can't afford to eat Subways everyday, and that's why I'm disgustingly obese~"

For all you health freakazoids out there, eating junk foods everyday messes up your body just as equally. That guy on supersize me was literally about to die at the end of his McDonald trial period.

and IMHO, fat people smell too.

oh...and I usually end up beating a large number of non-smokers in all my runs.

 

[ClayJar]

and IMHO, fat people smell too.

So does a nice parmigiano reggiano, but something tells me that's not quite relevant.

As for it being "choose your poison", I am perfectly content with letting people make their own choices. It doesn't bother me that the chain-smoking deckhand/divemaster could do deco on a Spare Air. Only when it directly affects me (by burning a hole through my drysuit, sending me into fits of coughing or seasickness, or giving me a physiologically-measurable headache-inclusive reaction), do I take umbrage.

I know a great many people who smoke. Their choice. I've also been the stickler who requires enforcement of our local no-smoking-within-X-feet-of-the-door law (but only because I really hate headaches and smoke inhalation).

 

[STOGEY]

NOPE !! Divemaster Abhors smoking in his vicinity, I am going to do some research on this as I now have 2 conflicting opinions from 2 experts !
Bye and thanks
MIke

I'm a cigar afficianardo that abhors non cigar afficianardos divers.

 

[BrianO]

I agree with Dandy don. There is no correlation between smoking and lower air conumption that I have ever seen. Most of the divers I know that smoke are using more air than those that don't.
It's usually a question lung volume - someone that is 6'5 has bigger lungs than someone 5'5. It takes more air to just fill them up every breath.
If a diver that smokes has the right technique, they'll do very well, but it isn't because they smoke.

 

[pupdiver]

I don't know why, but smokers' smell, whatever residue it may be, gives me an almost instantaneous headache, even in the best conditions. I'd hate to think of what a well-smoked regulator would do if I had to use it in an emergency... another reason to always carry my pony?

I understand being put off by smokers on a boat (I am sensitive to cigarette smoke too), but am I to understand that you avoid buddying with smokers to avoid the possibility of buddy-breathing a smokers regulator in an emergency?

 

[ClayJar]

I understand being put off by smokers on a boat (I am sensitive to cigarette smoke too), but am I to understand that you avoid buddying with smokers to avoid the possibility of buddy-breathing a smokers regulator in an emergency?

Actually, no. Almost all my diving is either solo (my "vice", some may say) or with my diving friends, and none of my diving friends smoke (although *many* of my diving acquaintances do), so it doesn't really come up.

If I were to be diving with a smoking buddy, I would not consider it relevant, anyway. I'm not going to breathe my tank empty, and in the event of a failure at depth, I'll just deploy my redundancy and thumb the dive.

Now, if I weren't carrying redundant scuba and I were to be buddied with a heavy smoker, that might be grounds for me to skip the dive for safety. Would it be over reacting? Yeah, probably, but I choose to over react for most things that involve my safety. (Note, by the way, that when I say that I very quickly get a headache, it is not a little pain in the brain. It's enough to make me *quite* irritable and distracted, two things which I do not consider conducive to my diving safety... or my buddy's for that matter.)

 

[George Ang Dy Pay]

It is all a matter of practice, when I got into diving, I consumed 3 packs a day, I would used up my air so fast that my dive buddies would still have like 100 bar left in their cylinder, but they have to end their dive with me,(plan and dive the profile of the weakest diver), how bad!
I quit smoking for 17 months, and practice more than you can imagine, after a while, I can see that the scenario was reversed,(as far as air consumption) was concerned, but the crazy thing was....
I picked up the bad habit again, but still, I consumed less than most of the diver I dove with.

 

[plot]

It's a personal choice...."choose your poison." right? some people don't sleep for 2 days straight and gamble their savings away...some people gorge on McDonalds and opt for that DIET coke to wash it all down and wonder why they still weigh 300+ lbs. Remember that over weight girl in that movie SuperSize me? "I can't afford to eat Subways everyday, and that's why I'm disgustingly obese~"

For all you health freakazoids out there, eating junk foods everyday messes up your body just as equally. That guy on supersize me was literally about to die at the end of his McDonald trial period.

and IMHO, fat people smell too.

oh...and I usually end up beating a large number of non-smokers in all my runs.

Yea, but that movie was a joke. I'm 5'10, around 145lbs and live off of fast food, vending machine food, little debbies and pepsi. That's been my diet for the past 4.5 years (since I moved away from home), don't even have silverware or dishes or anything...

And I'm still alive... and... according to my eye doctor I'm healthy . Haven't been to any other doctor in a very long time... they give you cancer you know.

 

[aznlmpulse]

Yea, but that movie was a joke. I'm 5'10, around 145lbs and live off of fast food, vending machine food, little debbies and pepsi. That's been my diet for the past 4.5 years (since I moved away from home), don't even have silverware or dishes or anything...

And I'm still alive... and... according to my eye doctor I'm healthy . Haven't been to any other doctor in a very long time... they give you cancer you know.

I agree...there are a lot of people that live off junk food, have normal cholesterol levels and are perfectly fine....and there are people that have been smoking for 70+ years, and only die due to natural causes... Don't get me wrong, I'm not a tabacco activist...I just believe in the freedom of choice, and not being persecuted for it, be it nasty looks from passer bys, or a ticket from a cop who see's you smoking <20 ft from a doorway in a public area. I'm considerate enough, and have enough self control to never smoke on boat dives, or in crowded areas because I know it does bother a lot of people. But it just boils my blood when total strangers walk by and make fake caughing noises, cringe or even be audacious enough to walk up to me and let me know that smoking will kill me. I don't walk up to random obese people and let them know that the third wopper, and king size fries will be the end of them, so why should smokers be targeted? I already know it can kill me, has toxins, and I'll probably get lung cancer...blah blah blah blah.....if I wanted your opinion, I would've asked for it......

my take on it is, you gotta die somehow......you might want to refrain from alcohol, meat, cigars, cigaretts, red M&M's, fried chicken or anything else that I might enjoy, live to be a miserable 100 years old and that's your choice. Let me live my way.