Talk:Tobacco smoke

Ridiculously ambiguous "safety" section

Under the heading "Safety", it states "Tobacco smoke, besides being an irritant, is alleged to cause lung cancer, heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), emphysema, and other serious diseases in smokers (and, according to some, in non-smokers as well). The actual mechanisms by which smoking can cause so many diseases remain largely unknown." This is so incorrect as to be farcical. Tobacco smoke is not "alleged" to cause lung cancer, heart disease, etc., it has been well-documented in countless scientific studies to do just that, beginning in the 1930s at the Cancer Institute of ArgentinaThe Carcinogenic Effects of Tobacco. There's an exhaustive Wiki on the health effects of tobacco with no fewer than 225 sources cited. Even the tobacco industry's own scientists knew that it caused these diseases, as early as the 1950s (and suppressed this information for as long as possible), such as the 1953 RJ Reynolds memo that stated "Studies of clinical data tend to confirm the relationship between heavy and prolonged tobacco smoking and incidence of cancer of the lung." Nor is smoking merely "alleged" to cause serious diseases in non-smokers; again, there is a substantial body of scientific evidence that secondhand smoke causes the same diseases in "passive smokers", such as here http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/library/reports/secondhandsmoke/fullreport.pdf and here http://monographs.iarc.fr/ENG/Monographs/vol83/index.php. Furthermore, the mechanisms by which tobacco smoke causes these diseases is well-known; the "Mechanism" section of Health effects of tobacco goes into considerable detail as to precisely how tobacco smoke injures the body. In short: the "Safety" section of this article as it stands is so wildly divergent from reality, that I'm going to give it a serious pruning. If anyone wants to weigh-in first, they're welcome to. Bricology (talk) 08:06, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

Nicotine hypothesis

Isn't this section borderline fringe, by putting too much emphasis (WP:UNDUE) on arguments that minimize the addictive properties of nicotine? It's indeed understood not to be the only factor, others include the frequent habit (psychological addiction), neurotrained associations including olfactive, etc. It's verified that people can substitute it with another nicotine source more easily than just ceasing abruptly, for instance. Good studies have also demonstrated how neuroreceptors are affected by nicotine, etc. —PaleoNeonate – 01:23, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Considering the previous obervation by another editor, mine above and an early revision making these claims using an old 1970s source, this seems evidence of a WP:POVFORK... —PaleoNeonate – 01:31, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

It's also not very relevant to the topic of tobacco smoke per se as opposed to tobacco smoking. The section should simply be removed. Fences&Windows 15:02, 12 April 2021 (UTC)