#Tobacco Harm Reduction

[nsemkekanews]

Roadmap to a safer future through Tobacco harm reduction: Reflections on the lives saved report, Nigeria and Kenya

Roadmap to a safer future through Tobacco harm reduction: Reflections on the lives saved report, Nigeria and Kenya By Peter Bismark Ghana stands at a critical crossroads in its public health trajectory. As tobacco-related illnesses continue to claim lives and burden the nation’s healthcare system, there is a need to propose a workable solution, like some countries have, and adopt a more…

[vapingit]

Manipulation of the Truth

Last evening I recognized Manipulation of the Truth. While all in the wording, the Truth Manipulative ® is strong. Everything is not as truthful as it appears, and should make you skeptical at best to the information allowed to be filtered to the public by the end of this blog. It may surprise you, this isn’t just about vaping products. It’s about choice, and population level harm reduction.…

[hobo-rg]

I want to add that emphysema-type COPD and lung cancer are caused by chronic inhalation of any kind of smoke and probably also vape aerosols (studies on vaping and COPD were at the level of "very likely but not 100% sure" last I checked). Smoke in general is also bad for your circulatory system, but nicotine is really bad for it, so tobacco smoking is a much larger risk factor for heart disease than smoking anything else.

Tobacco smoking also tends to be worse for you in general just because nicotine is so very addictive. I've never met a pothead who smoked the equivalent of three packs a day for years on end.

For the most part, my approach to prescribing hormones is “sure,” but I will note that the one thing I lean HARD on patients about is smoking. If you’re transgender, and you’re on hormones, the number one thing we want to protect is your cardiovascular health. That’s frankly the number one thing I want to protect in all my patients, but anyone taking exogenous hormones is at higher baseline risk. And the best thing you can do for your heart is DON’T SMOKE. It’s a bitch to quit, and I didn’t even smoke much or long before I quit in my late teens, and I STILL didn’t enjoy quitting and had smoking dreams for years. It’s harder to quit than just about anything else up to and including crack and heroin, and that’s coming from a patient of mine who recently passed in her early 60s who’d done all of those things—for years and years—but eventually was able to quit everything except smoking. And that killed her. She developed severe COPD and eventually called to say her blood oxygen saturation was dipping into the 70s, which is incompatible with life. She was lucid enough to decline medical care, including refusing to call 911 or go to the ER. A week later, after both I and one of our outreach nurses had contacted her to ask her to please go to the ER, I got a notification that she’d been found dead. She had been so frustrated that she wasn’t a candidate for a lung transplant.

One of my oldest trans patients is in her late 50s. She’s had blood clots that went to the lungs. Repeatedly. Smoking raises that risk. Estrogen raises that risk. She’s a veteran with PTSD; of course she smoked.

These aren’t theoretical. These are humans I’ve cared for over years of their lives. I have been rooting for them—my beloved former addict, who spoke without shame about her years of homelessness and drug use in the city; my queer elders, who are slowly trading in their motorcycles for power scooters. I want everyone to live their fullest, best life.

Smoking doesn’t fit into that. Please don’t smoke. I don’t want you to die like that—not now and not later. I want you to have the future that you may not be able to see yet, but exists.

Since I moved home as an out queer, word got out, and there’s a whole apartment complex of lesbians in their 60s to their 80s who come see me—sitting next to their wives in the office, nagging about blood pressure meds, tattling about not having gotten the shingles shot they said they would. To be clear, when I was growing up in town, I knew no lesbians. Not one. I knew one gay kid in my class, which eventually turned into two. We were it. To see these women living decades with their wives and being able to squabble like any couple in my office over who was supposed to bring their home blood pressure cuff in for us to check it… it means the world to me.

[macgyvermedical]

FREE Health Education Opportunity!

Hello!

Interested in learning more about basic health topics? Need some new condition education? Want help improving your health literacy?

My name is Ross and I am a Registered Nurse with a Master of Public Health. By day I am a nursing instructor. By night, I am gaining experience providing health education to anyone who wants a better understanding of their health.

If you live in the USA, have a smart phone or computer, and have a little curiosity about your health or a condition that impacts it, I welcome your questions!

How does it work?

I can answer simple, general questions about health topics right in tumblr's messaging feature (@macgyvermedical). For more in-depth or personal questions, I will ask that you download either TigerConnect or OhMD. These are free, HIPAA-compliant applications that minimize the risk that your personal health information will be compromised.

You can ask for information about:

Alcohol, Tobacco, and Other Drugs

Birth Control

Environmental Health

First Aid

Harm Reduction

Human Pathogens

Hygiene

Mental Health

Nutrition

Specific Conditions (diabetes, hypertension, etc…)

...And So Much More!

Please note: I am offering health education only. I cannot give medical advice beyond advising that you seek professional medical care if you are ill or injured beyond your ability to care for yourself.

[argumate]

Critics argue that increased youth vaping could lead to a resurgence in smoking, yet the data contradicts this claim. Despite the higher levels of youth vaping in NZ, daily youth smoking has fallen to record lows – just 1.2 per cent in 2023. Rather than acting as a “gateway” to smoking, vaping appears to be diverting young people away from more harmful, combustible tobacco.

Australia’s restrictive approach has backfired in another way – by fuelling an out-of-control and increasingly violent black market. Today, more than 90 per cent of vaping products sold in Australia come from illicit sources with no safety standards and easy access for youth. New Zealand, with its well-regulated retail market, has no significant black market activity.

[so-i-did-this-thing]

If I remember correctly from the last election day, you smoke on occasion, correct?

I'm a heavy smoker, and my doctor has been very clear with me about the increased risk of COPD and other respiratory conditions while on any kind of hormones, especially since I'm already smoking while on hormonal birth control. I've been doing harm reduction by cutting down, but I can't see myself quitting completely any time soon.

I'm wondering if you or any of your followers have any tips or encouragement or whatever for cutting back/quitting so I can more safely start HRT in the future when I'm independent of my parents.

Heya, Anon. I'm going to put this one out to the crowd.

I smoke only a few times a year. My pipe tobacco isn't habit-forming for me (it's more about the ritual than the nicotine), so I haven't had to negotiate this type of addiction.

I would, though, suggest getting an accountability buddy as one idea.

And speaking from my other vices -- come up with alternate behaviors to those that you associate with smoking. So, if you like to sit outside and smoke, try a walk and not smoking. If you like to smoke as a 15 min break to get out of your chair, try a quick chore as a way to move your body, instead. You're going to need to work on breaking not just the cravings, but the little things that make it too easy to smoke. I hope you continue to work here! We both know it's a bad habit -- don't beat yourself up about it. But if you're more mindful about when and where you indulge, instead of just doing so out of boredom or out of habit, you can make great strides to cutting back. Followers absolutely welcome to add on, especially smokers & former smokers.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The impoverished imagination of neoliberal climate “solutions

This morning (Oct 31) at 10hPT, the Internet Archive is livestreaming my presentation on my recent book, The Internet Con.

There is only one planet in the known universe capable of sustaining human life, and it is rapidly becoming uninhabitable by humans. Clearly, this warrants bold action – but which bold action should we take?

After half a century of denial and disinformation, the business lobby has seemingly found climate religion and has joined the choir, but they have their own unique hymn: this crisis is so dire, they say, that we don't have the luxury of choosing between different ways of addressing the emergency. We have to do "all of the above" – every possible solution must be tried.

In his new book Dark PR, Grant Ennis explains that this "all of the above" strategy doesn't represent a change of heart by big business. Rather, it's part of the denial playbook that's been used to sell tobacco-cancer doubt and climate disinformation:

https://darajapress.com/publication/dark-pr-how-corporate-disinformation-harms-our-health-and-the-environment

The point of "all of the above" isn't muscular, immediate action – rather, it's a delaying tactic that creates space for "solutions" that won't work, but will generate profits. Think of how the tobacco industry used "all of the above" to sell "light" cigarettes, snuff, snus, and vaping – and delay tobacco bans, sin taxes, and business-euthanizing litigation. Today, the same playbook is used to sell EVs as an answer to the destructive legacy of the personal automobile – to the exclusion of mass transit, bikes, and 15-minute cities:

https://thewaroncars.org/2023/10/24/113-dark-pr-with-grant-ennis/

As the tobacco and car examples show, "all of the above" is never really all of the above. Pursuing "light" cigarettes to reduce cancer is incompatible with simply banning tobacco; giving everyone a personal EV is incompatible with remaking our cities for transit, cycling and walking.

When it comes to the climate emergency, "all of the above" means trying "market-based" solutions to the exclusion of directly regulating emissions, despite the poor performance of these "solutions."

The big one here is carbon offsets, which allows companies to make money by promising not to emit carbon that they would otherwise emit. The idea here is that creating a new asset class will unleash the incredible creativity of markets by harnessing the greed of elite sociopaths to the project of decarbonization, rather of the prudence of democratically accountable lawmakers.

Carbon offsets have not worked: they have been plagued by absolutely foreseeable problems that have not lessened, despite repeated attempts to mitigate them.

For starters, carbon offsets are a classic market for lemons. The cheapest way to make a carbon offset is to promise not to emit carbon you were never going to emit anyway, as when fake charities like the Nature Conservancy make millions by promising not to log forests that can't be logged because they are wildlife preserves:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/18/greshams-carbon-law/#papal-indulgences

Then there's the problem of monitoring carbon offsetting activity. Like, what happens when the forest you promise not to log burns down? If you're a carbon trader, the answer is "nothing." That burned-down forest can still be sold as if it were sequestering carbon, rather than venting it to the atmosphere in an out-of-control blaze:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/26/aggregate-demand/#murder-offsets

When you bought a plane ticket and ticked the "offset the carbon on my flight" box and paid an extra $10, I bet you thought that you were contributing to a market that incentivized a reduction in discretionary, socially useless carbon-intensive activity. But without those carbon offsets, SUVs would have all but disappeared from American roads. Carbon offsets for Tesla cars generated billions in carbon offsets for Elon Musk, and allowed SUVs to escape regulations that would otherwise have seen them pulled from the market:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/11/24/no-puedo-pagar-no-pagara/#Rat

What's more, Tesla figured out how to get double the offsets they were entitled to by pretending that they had a working battery-swap technology. This directly translated to even more SUVs on the road:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Tesla,_Inc.#Misuse_of_government_subsidies

Harnessing the profit motive to the planet's survivability might sound like a good idea, but it assumes that corporations can self-regulate their way to a better climate future. They cannot. Think of how Canada's logging industry was allowed to clearcut old-growth forests and replace them with "pines in lines" – evenly spaced, highly flammable, commercially useful tree-farms that now turn into raging forest fires every year:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/16/murder-offsets/#pulped-and-papered

The idea of "market-based" climate solutions is that certain harmful conduct should be disincentivized through taxes, rather than banned. This makes carbon offsets into a kind of modern Papal indulgence, which let you continue to sin, for a price. As the outstanding short video Murder Offsets so ably demonstrates, this is an inadequate, unserious and immoral response to the urgency of the issue:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/14/for-sale-green-indulgences/#killer-analogy

Offsets and other market-based climate measures aren't "all of the above" – they exclude other measures that have better track-records and lower costs, because those measures cut against the interests of the business lobby. Writing for the Law and Political Economy Project, Yale Law's Douglas Kysar gives some pointed examples:

https://lpeproject.org/blog/climate-change-and-the-neoliberal-imagination/

For example: carbon offsets rely on a notion called "contrafactual carbon," this being the imaginary carbon that might be omitted by a company if it wasn't participating in offsets. The number of credits a company gets is determined by the difference between its contrafactual emissions and its actual emissions.

But the "contrafactual" here comes from a business-as-usual world, one where the only limit on carbon emissions comes from corporate executives' voluntary actions – and not from regulation, direct action, or other limits on corporate conduct.

Kysar asks us to imagine a contrafactual that depends on "carbon upsets," rather than offsets – one where the limits on carbon come from "lawsuits, referenda, protests, boycotts, civil disobedience":

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cif-green/2010/aug/29/carbon-upsets-offsets-cap-and-trade

If we're really committed to "all of the above" as baseline for calculating offsets, why not imagine a carbon world grounded in foreseeable, evidence-based reality, like the situation in Louisiana, where a planned petrochemical plant was canceled after a lawsuit over its 13.6m tons of annual carbon emissions?

https://earthjustice.org/press/2022/louisiana-court-vacates-air-permits-for-formosas-massive-petrochemical-complex-in-cancer-alley

Rather than a tradeable market in carbon offsets, we could harness the market to reward upsets. If your group wins a lawsuit that prevents 13.6m tons of carbon emissions every year, it will get 13.6 million credits for every year that plant would have run. That would certainly drive the commercial imaginations of many otherwise disinterested parties to find carbon-reduction measures. If we're going to revive dubious medieval practices like indulgences, why not champerty, too?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Champerty_and_maintenance

That is, if every path to a survivable planet must run through Goldman-Sachs, why not turn their devious minds to figuring out ways to make billions in tradeable credits by suing the pants off oil companies?

There are any number of measures that rise to the flimsy standards of evidence in support of offsets. Like, we're giving away $85/ton in free public money for carbon capture technologies, despite the lack of any credible path to these making a serious dent in the climate situation:

https://www.spglobal.com/commodityinsights/en/market-insights/latest-news/energy-transition/072523-ira-turbocharged-carbon-capture-tax-credit-but-challenges-persist-experts

If we're willing to fund untested longshots like carbon capture, why not measures that have far better track-records? For example, there's a pretty solid correlation between the presence of women in legislatures and on corporate boards and overall reductions in carbon. I'm the last person to suggest that the problems of capitalism can be replaced by replacing half of the old white men who run the world with women, PoCs and queers – but if we're willing to hand billions to ferkakte scheme like carbon capture, why not subsidize companies that pack their boards with women, or provide campaign subsidies to women running for office? It's quite a longshot (putting Liz Truss or Marjorie Taylor-Greene on your board or in your legislature is no way to save the planet), but it's got a better evidentiary basis than carbon capture.

There's also good evidence that correlates inequality with carbon emissions, though the causal relationship is unclear. Maybe inequality lets the wealthy control policy outcomes and tilt them towards permitting high-emission/high-profit activities. Maybe inequality reduces the social cohesion needed to make decarbonization work. Maybe inequality makes it harder for green tech to find customers. Maybe inequality leads to rich people chasing status-enhancing goods (think: private jet rides) that are extremely carbon-intensive.

Whatever the reason, there's a pretty good case that radical wealth redistribution would speed up decarbonization – any "all of the above" strategy should certainly consider this one.

Kysar's written a paper on this, entitled "Ways Not to Think About Climate Change":

https://political-theory.org/resources/Documents/Kysar.Ways%20Not%20to%20Think%20About%20Climate%20Change.pdf

It's been accepted for the upcoming American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy conference on climate change:

https://political-theory.org/13257256

It's quite a bracing read! The next time someone tells you we should hand Elon Musk billions to in exchange for making it possible to legally manufacture vast fleets of SUVs because we need to try "all of the above," send them a copy of this paper.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/31/carbon-upsets/#big-tradeoff

[chronicallycouchbound]

hi I had a question about your cannabis post

i don’t know much about cannabis so sorry if I misunderstand smth

but I don’t understand what “safe” drug use implies,, how can drugs be safe? what’s safe drug use??

i probably have a very narrow view on this topic, so id like to know more

on a different note id like to thank you for your content, I feel that ive learned a lot from this account :)) thanks!!!

(feel free to ignore this)

It’s important to first recognize that more things are drugs than we normally consider: alcohol, tobacco, nicotine, caffeine, cannabis, are all drugs just as much as opiates, benzos, etc. Any medication is a drug.

Any drugs have the ability to be used properly and safely as well as the potential to be used negatively or harmfully. Drugs are morally neutral. Even addiction is morally neutral.

Alcohol can be used to cut loose with friends on the weekend, but it can also be used to cause poisoning. Tobacco can be used to calm down after an argument, but it can also cause cancer. Opiates can be used to manage severe pain, and can also cause overdose.

People have always used drugs historically, and in order to survive, people often need them. Using substances can also not just be medically or recreational, there are spiritual and cultural reasons as well. Some people need substances to manage their emotional or mental needs (especially without supports otherwise).

Any drug can be safe. It’s all in how it’s used, as well as within context.

Safe use looks different for everyone, but personally, I try to encourage methods that are harm reduction focused.

Harm reduction can look like:

• Safe supply of substances to ensure that people are getting unlaced stuff.

• Education so people know how to avoid accidental consequences of their use.

• Access to unused syringes or works to prevent blood borne infections.

• Having a designated driver or trip sitter.

• Sitting with someone while they use in case they have negative effects.

• Access to naloxone/Narcan to reverse opioid overdoses.

• Starting with a lower dose and going slow with use to ensure you’re getting the intended effects.

And harm reduction is so much more than just about substances, it’s things like seatbelts in cars and condoms and STI testing. It’s the lesser of two evils and a primary focus of harm reduction is that it keeps people alive above all else.

Some people like to say “harm reduction keeps people alive long enough to get sober” but I personally feel like sobriety isn’t always the solution for everyone, nor is it accessible to everyone.

But yeah, safe use exists, and most drugs ARE used safely every day. That’s what a pharmacist’s whole job is for.

•

I appreciate this ask, I’m always happy to talk about harm reduction. I co-founded a local harm reduction organization and have done a lot of advocacy around this— everything from reversing ODs, speaking on panels, testifying for bills with the ACLU, training communities on how to administer Naloxone, distributing safe use supplies, etc. I have a lot of personal experience with addiction and feel very passionately about this. I was tired of my friends dying and I just want to make the world a safer place.

[lensdeer]

I wish vaping's* health effects were better understood :<

flow-of-consciousness rambling below the cut. (TL;DR I'm annoyed at the moral panic and have personally seen it be good* for people quitting nicotine, but non-smokers probably shouldn't pick it up, which annoyingly includes me)

So far signs point to it* being significantly less harmful than smoking in the areas where smoking does the most damage, and there's both anecdotal and proper evidence of it* being a highly effective tool to quit nicotine and eventually smoking/vaping at all. It's* likely a net positive/good alternative for smokers with an established nicotine habit who don't feel comfortable quitting cold turkey or have failed to quit using other tools.

Bbbbbbut I'm not a smoker! I don't even remotely enjoy nicotine! I'm just autistic and the specific act of blowing clouds of smoke/vapor is a fucking UNPARALLELED stim for me, and all the "use your mouth for something else" alternatives don't do it for me (I mean I do like hard candy but it's for different reasons y'know?)

I was forced to learn a lot about vaping in 2018 bc of my ex (and I've loosely kept track of developments since then bc I find the hobbyist/diy side interesting), so I know harm reduction and how all the ingredients and components work and how to properly store/handle this shit safely etc etc etc. I'm like 90% sure casual light usage of well maintained hobbyist hardware with unflavored actually nicotine-free liquids and proper harm reduction practices would be fine enough for my non-smoker ass*, so I should know enough to make an informed decision that won't bite me in the ass later, right?

Buuuuut obviously emotionally there's the whole tobacco-planted moral panic + rationally there's the "smoking itself used to be publicized as good for you and you're not immune to propaganda so you should err on the side of caution" part of the issue, right? Like, I've had 6 years to get into this stuff since I first tried it, and I haven't, and I won't, bc I know that even though it's* likely fine there aren't enough long-term studies to be fully sure! And I know that even when those studies do come out they'll say as a non-smoker I'm obviously better off not picking it up!

...And yet I yearn for the cloud stimmies :c the accursed sensorial white whale will forever keep eluding my grasp :c

*: (Using safely produced liquids** on clean and well maintained high-quality hardware with safely and carefully handled batteries. """Pods""" and the landfill-ready disposable shit that's become popular lately should not exist.)

**: I'm not as well informed on THC liquids so I can't speak for those, but last I heard they were still Kind Of Messy bc of temp requirements or something?

***: Yes, none of it should be advertised or sold to children; hell, nothing at all should be advertised for anyone anywhere ever anyways, but I digress.

[todaynewspakistan0]

🌱 Tobacco Harm Reduction: Pakistan’s New Hope to Stop Smoking!

Pakistan faces a smoking crisis with millions affected and rising healthcare costs. Traditional anti-smoking methods, like high taxes, only push smokers towards unregulated products, increasing health risks.

But there’s a better way—Tobacco Harm Reduction (THR). By embracing safer alternatives like vapes and nicotine pouches, Pakistan can make strides toward a healthier future.

Let’s spread the word and support THR as a vital part of Pakistan’s health strategy! 🛡️

#TobaccoHarmReduction #StopSmoking #Pakistan #PublicHealth #Vaping #NicotinePouches #QuitSmoking #HealthyChoices #Awareness

[nsemkekanews]

A smokeless future for Ghana: Why World Vape Day 2025 Marks a turning point in tobacco harm reduction

A smokeless future for Ghana: Why World Vape Day 2025 Marks a turning point in tobacco harm reduction By Dr. John TENGEY This year’s World Vape Day marks a significant milestone, two decades since the emergence of vaping technology as a transformative tool in global tobacco harm reduction efforts. Modern vaping devices were first developed in China in 2003 as a safer alternative to traditional…

[rjzimmerman]

E.P.A. Again Seeks Limits on a Harmful Pesticide. (New York Times)

Excerpt from this story from the New York Times:

Almost 25 years after federal regulators curbed household use of a pesticide linked to learning disorders in children, and three years after a total ban on its use on food crops, the chemical is again being applied to everything from bananas to turnips in most states.

The saga of this pesticide, which has the unwieldy name chlorpyrifos, is a stark reminder of why so many Americans are alarmed about industrial farming and the food supply. The concern helped propel Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential candidacy and subsequent selection to head the Department of Health and Human Services.

The issue is also a vivid illustration of the obstacles that regulators will face if they try to make good on campaign promises to remove harmful chemicals from the food supply, as Mr. Kennedy often has.

The latest twist arrived on Monday, when the Environmental Protection Agency proposed outlawing the use of chlorpyrifos on farmed foods — except on 11 crops, including fruits children tend to eat in large quantities, such as apples, oranges, peaches and cherries.

In an interview, Dr. Michal Freedhoff, assistant administrator of the office of chemical safety and pollution prevention at the E.P.A., said the proposed rule would provide the greatest benefit to children’s health while still abiding by a federal-court decision last year that overturned the agency’s original ban.

The proposal will lower the amount of the pesticide applied to fields and orchards annually by 3.9 million pounds, from the 5.3 million pounds used each year from 2014 to 2018, according to a preliminary E.P.A. analysis.

“This will result in a 70 percent reduction from the historic total amounts of chlorpyrifos used on food before this all started,” Dr. Freedhoff said.

The new permitted crops will include alfalfa, asparagus, soybeans, strawberries, wheat, sugar beets and cotton. The pesticide would also be allowed on Christmas tree farms and golf courses, and on tobacco and crops grown for seed, as well as for public mosquito control and in enclosed ant and roach bait.

The public has 60 days to comment on the rule.

Chlorpyrifos manufacturers have indicated they will not challenge the proposed limits and will not pursue broader food crop use, Dr. Freedhoff said. Gharda Chemicals, the manufacturer based in Mumbai, India, that sued over the original ban, did not respond to repeated requests for comment. Mr. Kennedy also did not respond to requests for comment.

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

Brazil’s Congress Hikes Taxes on Sugary Drinks, Alcohol and Tobacco While Boosting Healthy Foods

Brazil’s National Congress approved a selective tax on tobacco, soft drinks, and alcohol this week as part of wide-ranging fiscal reform that also saw a reduction in taxes on healthy foods.

The trio of unhealthy consumables is now located in the same tax category as harmful goods and products including coal, vehicles and betting.

The specific tax rates for tobacco, alcohol, and soft drinks will be determined in 2025, but they will need to be high enough to deter consumers from buying these products to have an impact on health. 

The Congressional vote is a victory for advocacy groups as the Brazilian Senate had removed sugary drinks from the selective tax a week earlier, causing a public outcry.

Continue reading.

[sixwingedknight]

listen i'm not going to vape indoors unless i get express permission and all that but the idea that it's confirmed to cause cancer is misleading info based on disposables and shit and a slightly elevated cancer risk from the use of nicotine (it itself is not a complete carcinogen) it's a harm reduction practice, it's not meant to be perfect, but the idea that it's Killing You:tm: is... situational, at best. like... certain flavorings are cancerous, yes, and disposables are a very unregulated market, but the idea that vaping is The Hell is really fucking weird considering how the alternative for a LOT of people is tobacco. i use nicotine to help manage my psychosis because i know for a fact typical and atypical antipsychotics make me suicidal. nicotine is not a disaster for you, the issue is that cigarettes are fucking evil and have a ton of chemicals inside them that *greatly enhance* nicotine's addictiveness. iunno. shit doesn't kill you. just don't be a dick. also cite your fucking sources when you talk about shit medical shit

[dream2bu]

I’m going to summarize my thoughts on a government shutdown.

Shutdown bad!!! Working together without a political agenda and bias to make make sure government doesn’t get shutdown, good!!!

For anyone that wants to read more, please feel free.

FOUR REASONS WHY A GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN IS HARMFUL

Government shutdowns occur when policymakers fail to enact legislation to fund the federal government by the end of the fiscal year on September 30. Each year, Congress must pass, and the president must sign, legislation to provide funding for most government agencies. That legislation comes in the form of 12 appropriation bills, one for each appropriations committee. Lawmakers may also choose to pass a temporary funding bill, known as a continuing resolution, to provide funding for a limited time. If lawmakers fail to pass some or all of the appropriations bills on time, and a continuing resolution is not in place, the government would experience a partial or full “shutdown.”

There are many reasons government shutdowns are harmful, and here are a few.

1. Government shutdowns are costly.

It may be counterintuitive, but government shutdowns are expensive. A government shutdown pauses programs and government operations, only for them to eventually start up again, and that has costs. For example, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) estimated that the lost productivity of government workers during the shutdown in 2013, which lasted 16 days, cost the government $2 billion.

More recently, a report issued in September 2019 by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations found that the “last three government shutdowns cost taxpayers nearly $4 billion — at least $3.7 billion in back pay to furloughed federal workers, and at least $338 million in other costs associated with the shutdowns, including extra administrative work, lost revenue, and late fees on interest payments.” That assessment is an underestimate because it excluded substantial costs associated with several government agencies (including the Department of Defense), which were unable to provide complete estimates to the Subcommittee.

2. Government shutdowns are bad for the economy.

Government shutdowns can harm economic growth and certainty. A 2013 Macroeconomic Advisors paper found that government shutdowns can impose costs on the economy such as increasing the unemployment rate, lowering the growth in gross domestic product (GDP), and raising the cost of borrowing. The Bureau of Economic Analysis estimated that the government shutdown in October 2013 reduced fourth-quarter GDP that year by 0.3 percentage points. An S&P Global analysis found that a government shutdown in 2017 could have reduced real fourth-quarter GDP growth by $6.5 billion per week. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the partial government shutdown that lasted from December 22, 2018 until January 25, 2019 reduced real GDP by $11 billion over the fourth quarter of 2018 and the first quarter of 2019 (although they assumed that much of that reduction would have been made up later in the year).

Additionally, a shutdown can cause disruptions in sectors of the economy. For instance, a Partnership for Public Service report noted that the last government shutdown (which lasted from December 2018 to January 2019) halted two major Small Business Administration loan programs. Those programs typically dispense nearly $200 million a day to small and midsize U.S. businesses; lack of access to such loans hindered business plans and caused economic hardship for thousands of entrepreneurs and their employees. Shutdowns also impact regulatory offices like the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau within the Department of the Treasury. An example— without the necessary certifications and approvals to operate, production for craft breweries throughout the country stalled, thereby reducing revenue for over 7,300 producers who provide more than 135,000 jobs.

3. Government shutdowns interrupt federal programs and services.

While programs such as Social Security and Medicare would remain largely unaffected by a government shutdown, other programs and services could be interrupted by the temporary furlough of “nonessential” government staff. In 2013, OMB showed that the shutdown that year disrupted scientific research, services for veterans and seniors, and health and safety inspections by the Food and Drug Administration, the Federal Aviation Administration, and the National Transportation Safety Board, among other programs.

4. Government shutdowns may harm the federal workforce.

Shutdowns contribute to economic insecurity among federal workers. During the last shutdown, about 800,000 federal employees were either furloughed or went without pay. This included workers at national parks and museums, corrections officers at federal prisons, and officials from the Transportation Security Administration. The gap in pay creates an adverse situation for federal workers as about 20 percent of Americans are unable to pay their monthly bills in full and about 40 percent are unable to pay an emergency expense of $400 or more with cash, according to the Federal Reserve.

Also, shutdowns may harm recruitment and retention of quality staff. Experts interviewed by the Government Accountability Office noted that prolonged shutdowns may alter the perception of federal jobs and reduce the attractiveness of such jobs for younger workers. Such perceptions are already apparent in the federal government where, currently, just 7 percent of all permanent, full-time federal employees are under the age of 30; that age group makes up 20 percent of the broader labor market.

Conclusion

Engaging in fiscal brinksmanship is not an effective way of addressing our nation’s fiscal challenges. It delays the tough decisions and has real costs for the budget, the economy, and everyday Americans. Instead of governing by crisis, lawmakers should work together to create a long-term plan that addresses the growing mismatch between spending and revenue and puts us on a sustainable fiscal path.

[tussive]

The tobacco thing is also funny with different forms of tobacco. When snus first hit the US market, I was pretty interested in it (still am really, but I've never gotten around to actually trying to import Swedish snus yet because I just put things off for decades like that) and it was super funny because, and keep in mind this is all decades old memories and information so new information may have come about, but essentially the tobacco usage rate in Sweden matched other countries, but their tobacco related cancer rate was significantly lower. The only major difference was rather than smoking or using dip or cigars, they had a large percentage of people who opted for snus. But you could not dare suggest that snus may be a safer form of tobacco to use, because that would suggest any tobacco product was "safe" and that's a no no.

Though it does seem like that may have died down some since then, I did just find this review of the health risks associated with snus compared with smoking, which both supports what I remember and also maybe indicates that people are loosening up a bit.