Whispers

Thank you everyone... Cyber Monday in a few, Happy Shopping

Congrats gonfishn. When i saw your date a while back i knew it didnt look right as when i got on qsmb in 2015 you were quit and leading me. Congrats on 4 years and marcus, i hope he is well. You're gonfishn and im off to aruba in the am... Happy Thanksgiving Greg

#Nope Off to Aruba for some warm weather! Happy Thanksgiving and i'll NOPE from there each day...

Congratulations!

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/09/health/fda-menthol-cigarettes-ban.html F.D.A. Plans to Seek a Ban on Menthol Cigarettes Image As part of its campaign against flavored e-cigarettes and nicotine addiction, the Food and Drug Administration plans to seek a ban on sales of menthol cigarettes. It’s a measure long sought by health advocates, who said the products were marketed heavily to African-Americans.CreditCreditJeff Chiu/Associated Press By Sheila Kaplan Nov. 9, 2018 In a landmark move bound to further shake the tobacco industry, the Food and Drug Administration plans to propose a ban on menthol cigarettes next week as part of its aggressive campaign against flavored e-cigarettes and some tobacco products, agency officials said. The proposal would have to go through the F.D.A. regulatory maze, and it could be several years before such a restriction took effect, especially if the major tobacco companies contest the agency’s authority to do so. None of the major tobacco companies would comment on the possibility of barring menthol cigarettes at this early stage. But such a move has been long-awaited by public health advocates, who have been especially concerned about the high percentage of African-Americans who become addicted to menthol cigarettes. Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the agency’s commissioner, would not comment publicly on the proposal on Friday. But in a recent interview, he said the F.D.A. was revisiting the issue, one that had been weighed in previous administrations. “It was a mistake for the agency to back away on menthol,” he said earlier this fall. Canada has already imposed a ban on menthol cigarettes, and the European Union’s ban is set to go into effect in 2020. Earlier this year, San Francisco passed a prohibition against the sales of menthol cigarettes and flavored e-cigarettes. The menthol proposal is just one of several initiatives the F.D.A. plans to announce sometime next week, including a ban on sales of most flavored e-cigarettes, except menthol and mint, at retail stores and gas stations across the country. The products, which include such flavors as chicken-and-waffles and mango, would be mainly relegated to sales online, at sites where the agency hopes to impose strict age verification to ensure that minors could not buy them. As e-cigarettes became a booming business and extremely popular among teenagers and young people, health officials, parents and others became alarmed at the soaring use of nicotine-addicting products that were considered alternatives to traditional smoking for adults. The F.D.A. began targeting the major manufacturers of e-cigarettes, focusing in particular on Juul Labs, the maker of a popular, flashy product that has become nearly ubiquitous in schools and on the streets. Just a day after agency officials began issuing details of next week’s plan to ban some sales, Juul Labs indicated on Friday that it had decided to pull several of its wildly popular flavored e-cigarette pods off store shelves, according to several people briefed by the company. Editors’ Picks What I Learned from Watching My iPad’s Slow Death The Bright Future and Grim Death of a Privileged Hollywood Daughter China’s Women-Only Subway Cars, Where Men Rush In The vaping giant will continue to sell its liquid nicotine pods in mint, menthol and tobacco flavors in brick-and-mortar stores, but will restrict other flavors that could be appealing to younger people to online sales. Juul Labs launched the device, which resembles a flash drive, in 2015, and now has about 77 percent of the United States e-cigarette market. Last month, a competitor, Altria, said it would discontinue most of its flavored e-cigarettes and support federal legislation to raise the age of purchase to 21 for any tobacco and vaping product. Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, had been an advocate of such restrictions. “While more must be achieved to fully regulate e-cigs like actual cigarettes, Juul’s effort is a good step in snuffing out kid-friendly flavors that have fueled the spiking nicotine addiction amongst America’s youth and can make a difference,” Mr. Schumer said in an email. Lisa David, president and chief executive of Public Health Solutions, a New York-based nonprofit group specializing in health issues for low-income and immigrant families, said she opposed keeping mint and menthol flavors easily available in stores, especially given the gateway effect for young people who start vaping and then move to traditional cigarettes. “Menthol makes it seem less harsh, and also makes the body absorb more nicotine,” she said. “That means it’s easier to start smoking and harder to quit.” Ms. David also wondered if Juul's restriction might be too late, because of the many similar devices, called “Juul-alikes,” already on the market. Sign up for Science Times We’ll bring you stories that capture the wonders of the human body, nature and the cosmos. “Juul clearly was a contributor to the really significant uptake of young people using e-cigarettes,” Ms. David said. “At this point there are a bunch of other versions of the ‘Juul-alikes.’ They have similar shapes and flavors and are appealing to the same audience.” The battle against menthol cigarettes has continued for decades. According to the N.A.A.C.P.’s Youth Against Menthol campaign, about 85 percent of African-American smokers aged 12 and up smoke menthol cigarettes, compared with 29 percent of white smokers, which the organization calls a result of decades of culturally tailored tobacco company promotion. The most popular menthol brand in the United States is Newport, which is the second-largest-selling cigarette brand in the industry, according to the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. Imperial Brands has two strong sellers, Kool and Salem. Altria’s best-selling cigarette, Marlboro, is also available in menthol, as is R.J.R.’s Camel. A spokesman for R. J. Reynolds declined to comment. Altria and Imperial Brands could not be immediately reached. In a joint statement on Friday, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Lung Association and several other public health groups said that action on menthol cigarettes was long overdue. “There is overwhelming scientific evidence that menthol cigarettes have had a profound adverse effect on public health in the United States, resulting in more death and disease,” the organizations said. Although federal health officials released new reports this week that indicated traditional smoking had reached a record low since 1965, smoking-related deaths still number about 480,000 in the United States every year.

#NOPE

https://consumer.healthday.com/cancer-information-5/smoking-cessation-news-628/the-sooner-you-quit-smoking-the-better-739252.html "These findings underscore the benefits of quitting smoking within five years, which is a 38 percent lower risk of a heart attack, stroke or other forms of cardiovascular disease," said study author Meredith Duncan, from Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville. "The bottom line is if you smoke, now is a very good time to quit," Duncan said in an American Heart Association news release. Her team also found that it takes more than 15 years from the time you quit until your cardiovascular disease risk returns to the level of those who never smoked -- so the sooner you quit, the better. Cigarette smoking in America is declining and leaving a growing population of former smokers. Earlier studies have hinted that the risk for heart disease lessens within a few years after quitting, but these studies haven't looked closely at smoking history, including changes in smoking habits. In this study, Duncan and her colleagues analyzed data on the lifetime smoking histories of nearly 8,700 people who took part in the Framingham Heart Study. At the beginning of the study, none of the participants suffered from cardiovascular disease. Over 27 years, researchers compared the risk for heart disease among people who never smoked with those who quit. They found that more than 70 percent of heart disease occurred in current or former smokers who smoked at least 20 pack-years -- smoking one pack a day for 20 years. But smokers who quit within the last five years cut their risk for cardiovascular disease by 38 percent, compared with people who continued to smoke. Moreover, it took 16 years after quitting for the risk of cardiovascular disease to return to the level of never smokers, the researchers found. The findings are to be presented Sunday at the American Heart Association's annual meeting, in Chicago. Such research is considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-6360637/It-takes-smokers-hearts-15-years-recover-quitting.html

Spearmint Lifesavers were mine with water, driving had to have blowpop or a tootsie pop

Just be stronger than the craving, its a mental game now. Ciggs are Toxic, just look at this pic if you get the urge for one

#NOPE

This is great news! https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/08/cdc-says-smoking-rates-fall-to-record-low-in-us.html CDC says smoking rates fall to record low in US An estimated 14 percent of adults, or 34.3 million people, smoked cigarettes in 2017, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 1965, 42.4 percent of adults smoked cigarettes, according to the CDC. E-cigarette use declined slightly between 2016 and 2017. Angelica LaVito | @angelicalavito Published 2 Hours Ago CNBC.com Pascal Le Segretain | Getty Images Cigarette smoking has fallen to its lowest point in recorded history, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. An estimated 14 percent of adults in the U.S., or 34.3 million people, smoked cigarettes in 2017, down from 15.5 percent in 2016, according to the CDC. This historic low represents a 67 percent decline from 1965, when the National Health Interview Survey started tracking the figure and 42.4 percent of adults smoked cigarettes. The new data highlight how successful public health efforts have been over the past few decades. But it also shows that while concentrating on cigarettes has largely paid off, about 47 million people are still using some type of tobacco product. "The declines we saw in 2017 for adult smoking are certainly unprecedented," said Brian King, a deputy director in the CDC's office on smoking and health, while cautioning against considering the data an overall public health win. Initiatives like raising the price of tobacco, educating consumers on the dangers of smoking and efforts to help people quit are the primary drivers behind the decline, said King. Fewer young people are starting to smoke, older smokers are dying and others are quitting, he said. When adding other categories, including e-cigarettes and smokeless tobacco, 16.2 percent of adults, or 47 million people, used tobacco products of some kind in 2017, according to the CDC. Cigars, cigarillos or filtered little cigars were the second-most used product behind cigarettes, with 3.8 percent of adults, or 9.3 million people, saying they used them. Nearly 4 percent of adults use two or more tobacco products, with cigarettes and e-cigarettes representing the most common combination. It's unclear whether people are initially using both as part of the process to switch from cigarettes to e-cigarettes, but officials warn that people must fully switch in order to cut smoking risks. Juul, the most popular e-cigarette on the market, was created to help smokers switch from cigarettes. While some adults are using the Juul devices to do just that, anecdotal evidence suggests many teens are also using the devices. Preliminary federal data show a 77 percent surge in high school students using e-cigarettes, figures that have prompted the Food and Drug Administration to label this an "epidemic." The agency ordered five manufacturers — Juul, British American Tobacco's Vuse, Altria's MarkTen, Imperial Brands' Blu E-cigs and Japan Tobacco's Logic — to submit plans within 60 days on reducing teen use. The five companies represent about 97 percent of the e-cigarette market, according to the FDA. Among adults, 2.8 percent used e-cigarettes last year, according to the CDC, down slightly from 3.2 percent in 2016. King cautions that this survey may not have captured how many adults are using Juul because the trend picked up in the later half of 2017 and the survey was conducted on a monthly basis. He also worries that young adults are using these products more than older demographics even though they're less likely to smoke conventional cigarettes. For adults ages 18 to 24, 5.2 percent used e-cigarettes and 10.4 percent smoked cigarettes last year, according to the CDC. "If e-cigarette use was responsible [for declines in cigarette use], you would expect to see a perfect correlation, but that's not what we're seeing," he said. "If anything, e-cigarettes have complicated the tobacco product landscape."

Hi SCS, you're doing great. Hell week and heck week in the rear.. This is a good timeline video for you to watch

Diplomatic response, impressed Babs Greg

#NOPE

I'd be 9 years quit on feb 10 if i didn't blow a long quit, its addiction. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/addiction I still pop around, from here to other groups. Its a demon we all have. Understand that's what it is.. I don't know if you know who Mike piano is but he'd call himself an alcoholic that was sober X years (a long time)... He was short and sweet but always on point

#NOPE

I hear you but no need to explain, people can joke and you dont have to like their joke... Your input about addiction on this site is 100% ? You're not alone there... "Always see what your about to do ... You don’t have to speak about it but make sure you see it then do it" I do this 80% of the time when i should do it 100%

Happens, you got a few on this site that im not sure what theyre doing here. Trolling no friends i dunno but its an addiction site and people are trying to bring others down instead of helping with the addiction and or to better people lives. So taking a joke the wrong way can easily happen. Hope that shoulder gets better quick as that hr and a half a day makes us all feel great

Fight it off, move a muscle change a thought ...

#NOPE

Congrats Octain

Im here! I hope notsmokinjo asked your permission doreen! Shes trying to steal your thunder