Two yahoo groups

Today, let me introduce a couple of anti-smoking groups. The first one is NicotineBusters

(http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/NicotineBusters/), which is an on-line group of challengers trying to stop smoking and break free from the addiction. According to the description, NicotineBusters offers many helpful files and links so that participants share information and encouragement to achieve their goal of staying non-smokers. Although this group focuses on proper ways to stop smoking, I'm sure I will get sufficient information. For example, I can learn how addictive smoking is by reading stories written by former smokers. Besides, NicotineBusters has 1437 members, which are not too few or too many compared with other groups, and it was established 12 years ago, so I feel this group is reliable and trustworthy. Even though NicotineBusters requires membership to check messages, I expect no spams in this group because it is moderated to keep a high quality of help. For these reasons, I believe NicotineBusters develops a good relationship with users.

The second one is quitsmoking(http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/quitsmoking/), whose purpose is literally to help smokers quit smoking. In this group, participants discuss issues concerning cigarettes, mainly nicotine addiction, and methods of giving them up. Quitsmoking also provides us with a large-scale Website containing over 150 pages. Therefore, I think this group will be a good source of information. In fact, quitsmoking is composed of 3474 members, so the email volume is fairly high with hundreds of messages a day. However, as far as I've checked, there were no spams in this group although it is not moderated. Since it was created 13 years ago, quitsmoking has been the place where those who try to give up smoking encourage one another. Now, I'll explain some recent conversation in this group, which is about a lucky guy who gave up smoking.

The master of the thread gave up smoking two years ago and asked his physician for

prescription for a lung CT scan due to his smoking history. It came back “abnormal”, that is, if

he had continued smoking he would probably be dead now. By posting his experience, he made

us realize how dangerous smoking is considering latent damage. In fact, there were several

comments answering, “you are a lucky guy” or “I became afraid of smoking” and so on.

Yuki Taniguchi

Word cloud 2

Here’s another word cloud I just created. When I created I was surprised to see that the fonts are hard to read and the background color was pitch black. I can tell that it is about something bad and maybe inappropriate. It has words like young, age, smoking, and tobacco as large texts. I can also tell that this is about age of smoking and the underage smoking.

              Mitsu Nakata

Word cloud

Here’s a little word cloud. As you can see, it has Smoking, cancer and consumption as big words. I can tell that this site is about the consumption rate of smoking has risks of cancer. It also has words like quit and prevention, therefore it also talks about how quitting smoking help people in the end.

Mitsu Nakata

Who invented cigarettes

There are couple of possibilities, but it is said that beggars in Spain was the one who invented cigarettes. It was 1614 in Seville Spain who collected scraps of cigars and rolled tobacco up in papers. There were people who used pipes to smoke but the cigarettes that we see today were actually created by the beggars in Spain. The reason why the pipe cigarettes were turned into paper based was that the consumption rate was starting to go high and the cost of tobacco leaves and the cigarette was starting to go high.  It was 1880 that the machine to roll the cigarettes was patented. In England, smoking used with pipes was popular, but as the time goes on and the world became global, the paper based cigarettes became popular.

posted by Mitsu

Answers to the fifteen questions

Today, I would like to give you answers to the fifteen questions which I asked in the previous

post and talk about the danger of smoking in detail. I hope every one of you understands smoking

does us more harm than good especially when it comes to smoking by teenagers. First of all, did

you know there are about 200 toxic substances contained in tobacco smoke, which includes

nicotine, tar and carbon monoxide? (see the questions no.1 and 2) As you might know, these chemicals are very harmful to the human body. For example, a number of smokers are suffering
from lung cancer. (see the questions no.5, 7, 8) However, smokers are not the only ones who pay
the price for smoking ― as mentioned before passive smoking has a strong effect. (see the
questions no.3 and 14) Therefore, smokers must keep in mind smoking harms their health as well
as the health of people around them.

According to Japanese history, tobacco was originally introduced from Portugal in the Edo
era. (see the questions no.4 and 6) Since then, Japan has been overlooking the danger of smoking,
although there are millions of people dying from smoking because they are much addicted to it.
(see the questions no.9, 10 and 11) In fact, in Japan, there are no shocking images printed on a
case of cigarettes and warning sentences are very small, which is a violation of the law in other advanced nations. Besides, Japanese teenagers have almost no trouble in getting cigarettes because there are a couple of vending machines in streets. The reason why Japanese government is too easy with smoking is probably that it can earn a lot of money by imposing tobacco tax. (see the question no.13) I think this is a serious problem because in Japan there are some smokers who smoke in public as if they were regarding it as something cool or fashionable. Stop for a moment and consider disadvantages inherent in smoking ― what if tobacco being lit hurts an eye of children or how much money cigarettes cost. (see the questions no.12 and 15) I believe this is a good way to start give up smoking.

Written by Yuki Taniguchi

my questions

1.What substances are harmful in cigarette Cyanide

Benzene
Formaldehyde
Methanol (wood alcohol)
Acetylene (the fuel used in welding torches)
Ammonia

2.What is short term effects of smoking
Creates poor lung function

3.What is long term effect of smoking
Damages arteries

4.Can quitting the cigarettes help a lifelong smoker
Yes, it is never too late to stop smoking

5.How fast do people get addicted to cigarettes
Immediately

6.How do people try to quit smoking
Nicotine replacement therapies

7.What medicines help stop smoking
Bupropion

8.About how many people in United states succeeded in quitting smoking
Over 50 million

9.What is the danger of second hand smoke
Cancer

10.Why do people smoke
To relieve stress

11.Who invented cigarettes
Beggars in Spain around 1614

12.Who gets addicted to smoking
Anybody

13.Are menthol cigarettes safer than others
It is worse

14.When do people in Japan are allowed to smoke
20

15.When do people in America are allowed to smoke
21