Humans get a set of milk teeth first, which drop out to make way for the adult teeth when the jaw is big enough to accommodate them, or some other biological reason I don't care about very much. The milk teeth don't look exactly the same as the adult ones. They aren't anywhere near as sharp and the canines aren't pointy. Check yours - you have four incisors in the middle and either side of them, a pointy one called a canine.
Smoking, it is alleged, makes your teeth drop out. As this picture (donated by Email from Wh00ps) implies.
Note the message - smoke contains horrible chemicals - and the picture, unrelated to those horrible chemicals but unless you know about dental caries, you're not likely to spot that.
It's true that smoke contains horrible chemicals, as the warning states. All smoke contains horrible chemicals. Not just tobacco smoke. Putting MDF on your bonfire will give you a hell of a lot more horrible chemicals than you'd get from smoking, including some particularly horrible ones that aren't in any tobacco smoke anywhere. So it's not lying as such. Smoke, no matter what you're burning, contains horrible chemicals.
Now to the teeth. What have they to do with horrible smoke chemicals, you may ask? I hope you're asking anyway, not just accepting. The implication is that smoking did it and that is what you are supposed to just accept.
The first problem I identified a long time ago was that the teeth were white. Apart from the black bits that give them their piano-keyboard look, they were white. Mine don't look like that and I've smoked for decades. There are a couple missing but that had nothing to do with smoking. They are not covered in jet-black corrosion, nor are they pearly white. They are off-white because of staining. Tobacco is the least of my worries there. I have a liking for espresso and that has staining qualities the average dye manufacturer can only envy. I have to clean my teeth more often than average.
The ones in the photo are white. Were white, because as Wh00ps pointed out, the new packs show them stained.
A cheap trick and one that isn't going to work anyway. The teeth in that photo show the results of frequent sugar consumption combined with rare teeth-cleaning. Nothing to do with smoking at all. Not just because they were not tobacco stained until some ASH crony photoshopped them.
They are milk teeth. What you have there is a pre-teen with a sugar addiction.
Even if the staining wasn't faked, they could not possibly have been smoking for more than about ten years and that assumes Mum was shoving fags and a lighter up there before they were born. Not legal now, the womb is an enclosed space and has 'No Smoking' signs fitted at gynaecological examination time. They try to keep it quiet, but they do it.
I don't know any smoker with teeth like that. But then, I don't hang around with pre-teen smokers who follow every cigarette with a bag of sweets.
There has only ever been one type of cigarette capable of doing that to a child's teeth, and they were banned a long time ago.
Oddly enough, they never had any warnings on them. Nowadays they would.
The same one.
UPDATE An anonymous dentist suggested in the comments that the image was 'meth mouth' so I looked it up.
There is a picture. A remarkably similar one.
So far then, we have:
The black lung was not caused by smoking but by coalmining.
The aged skin was caused not by smoking but by age. If those hands resulted from smoking, the nicotine staining would almost cover two fingers.
Now, the teeth are caused by gingivitis which can be linked to methamphetamine use. Not smoking.
Is there any truth in any of the propaganda? If there ever was, it has long since been buried by the lies. The only sensible course of action is to disbelieve every word an antismoker says.
They are probably even lying about the smell.
17 comments:
Bring back the sweets. Bring back the copper.
Well spotted DL, I too havew a full set of my own teeth which are neither black nor brown despite having smoked for forty years.
I must make a point of keeping the packet when I next buy one showing blackened milk teeth.
I've smoked for near on 30 years and although I have some staining (from tea drinking mostly) my teeth are in very good shape. I've also never seen any smoker with the kind of teeth portrayed in that photograph.
I haven't noticed that particular picture on any of the Drum packets I've bought for some time now. I wonder if the image has been withdrawn?
Somewhat off-topic, but I feel I have discerned a small glimmer of hope for smokers. I have found that the incidence of smoking in Eastenders a useful barometer for judging the mood of the Islington Mafia (and no, don't ask why I end up watching it, it's under sufferance). So last night we had the Token Smoker, Dot Cotton, conspicuously smoking during a conversation in which she had the moral high ground, rather than, in the last two years, the Mystery of the Non-Smoking Smoker, or only having a fag during moments of emotional turmoil. A watershed moment? Hell, I have to do something while the programme rolls by in front of my eyes....
There is another similar photo on fag packets. The caption reads "Smoking causes ageing of the skin". Obviously desinged to frighten women who are obsessed with anti ageing creams.
Trouble is, the pictue shows the hand of a very old woman. Her ageing of the sking has been caused by, well, ageing.
I dont watch soaps,I prefer the
Third Reich Channel 12 where you
often see loads of SS soldiers having a smoke having stuffed a few thousand commie schmucks.
Anyway whats all the tosh about white teeth,whats the point of
being a white toothed non smoker if you are still a complete arsehole
Anti schmucker
Anyone still buying fags with
UK Duty Paid printed on the packet
deserves a freaky pic.
Giving tax to someone who then uses our money to kick our teeth in, beyond me ,that one.
Flanders Tourist Board
Because tobacco was used to clean teeth, they have simply reversed its traditional properties.
In the Southern States
"The purported health benefit of snuff had been as a dentifrice, imparting to the teeth “that peculiar brilliancy for which the ladies of Southern Europe are so justly celebrated.”
“It is claimed that it whitens and preserves the teeth and sweetens the mouth, and produces a beneficial effect on the lungs, all of which is true or not, just as you choose to believe.”
http://www.uttyler.edu/vbetts/snuff.htm
Medicinal uses of tobacco in history
"Tobacco, probably mixed with lime or chalk, appears to have been used in these Native American populations as a toothpaste to whiten the teeth, as observed by Nino and Guerra in 1500 and by Vespucci at about the same time in Venezuela.
This practice continues today in India, where powdered tobacco, or masheri, is rubbed on the teeth for this purpose and tobacco toothpaste is marketed commercially"
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1079499/
So naturally, to stop people using tobacco for that purpose, they told people that tobacco makes your teeth fall out.
"The doleful effects of nicotine on the teeth were revealed by Rev. George Trask in a mid-nineteenth-century tract."
illustration"
http://tobaccodocuments.org/ti/TIFL0069563-9578.html?zoom=750&images_per_page=1&ocr_position=above_foramatted&start_page=14
Rose
The aging effect seems to have been suggested by Godber.
“First, I think we must ask ourselves whether our society is one in which the major influences exercised on public opinion are such as would convey the impression that smoking is a dirty, anti-social practice, spoiling the enjoyment of youth and accelerating the onset of the deterioration of age.”
http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/nub2aa00/pdf
Since then of course the anti-aging effects of solanesol have been used in medicine.
Powerful Health Agent
"Solanesol, extracted from tobacco leaves, is used in synthesis of high-value bio-chemicals such as vitamin-K analogues and Co-enzyme Q10 Co Q10 . Solanesol, the starting material used in the synthesis of Co Q 10"
and Vitamin K analogues, is also a potentiating agent in these medicines.
Studies indicate that by introducing solanesol radical into the structure of some medicines, the effects increase noticeably. With solanesol as its primary material, Co-enzyme Q 10 is useful in the treatment of heart diseases, cancers and ulcers.
http://www.novoagri.com/prod_solanesol.html
And face creams
Anti-Wrinkle Protection: Coenzyme Q10
"Coenzyme Q10 was discovered in 1957. This vitamin-like substance, present in every cell of the body, is vitally important for cell functioning: it plays a major role in energy production and is a powerful antioxidant."
http://www.pioneerthinking.com/nk_q10.html
But is also used to test for tobacco smoke.
"Many plants of the Solanaceae family, which includes the genus Nicotiana, of which the tobacco plant is a member, contain solanesol; particularly those that contain trace amounts of nicotine.
These include the tomato, eggplant, potato, and pepper.
The potential interference due to these sources is negligible, cooking being the only likely potential source of interference.
An interference of this type would bias results high, overestimating the contribution of ETS to RSP."
http://www.coresta.org/Recommended_Methods/CRM_52.pdf
Rose
I was in the opticians this morning and it had a warning sign saying "smoking causes blindness"
I thought that was caused by masturbation!
http://patnurseblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/jobsworth-stalks-smoker.html
OT but is there anything we can do to help this lady ... and should we? My gut reaction says yes with lack of an idea of what else to do to show support to beleagured smokers.
I'm a dentist and occasionally see cases like the one in the photo. This photo is a classic presentation of methamphetamine abuse. Google "meth mouth" and you can find more photos similar to that one. It's not smoking.
Anon dentist - thanks for the tip. I've added an update.
So that's another faked photo laid to rest. So far, none of those warnings have proven to have any substance at all.
Rose - in my greenhouse, currently, are tomatoes, peppers and aubergines as well as the chillies. Too late to start the tobacco this year but it does seem odd that I'm attracted to those particular plants. Maybe I should save the leaves.
I used to grow potatoes, back when I had a decent sized garden.
Interesting that the anti-ageing compounds, along with treatments for heart disease and cancer, come from the one plant blamed for all those things. If tobacco was banned then where would they get their raw materials?
I've always liked the nightshades, most of them are graft compatible too, according to the literature.
I wouldn't bother with the other leaves, the principle alkaloids in the other nightshades don't seem turn into anything useful when burned.
Nicotinic Acid
"In other words, we analyzed the saliva, which would have otherwise been swallowed.
No nicotinic Acid occurred in the smoker's saliva before smoking.
We feel that we have made this report sufficiently long to cover the discoveries, which we regard as quite remarkable."
http://tobaccodocuments.org/product_design/04365489-5491.html
Tobacco won't banned for the drugs companies, they have big plans.
Tobacco as Medicine, Indian Research Institute Wins Patent
"Folk medicine has always found some therapeutic value in tobacco. Now the Central Tobacco Research Institute (CTRI) based in Guntur in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh has bagged the patent rights for for ‘solansole’ (a medicine extracted from tobacco for use in the manufacture of cancer and cardiac drugs)."
http://www.medindia.net/news/Tobacco-as-Medicine-Indian-Research-Institute-Wins-Patent-30130-1.htm
Tobacco Promising "Factory" for Biopharmaceuticals
"The economics of producing biopharmaceuticals from transgenic plants such as tobacco is still a roadblock to producing large quantities of urgently needed medicines, especially for people in underdeveloped nations"
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/08/040812052930.htm
Health-bringing tobacco
http://www.research.bayer.com/edition_18/Plant_made_Pharmaceuticals.aspx
Tobacco is very easy to grow, treat it as an outdoor tomato, which it practically is anyway.
A couple of years ago I thought it was time I studied this fabled plant face to face.
I'm experimenting with chillies myself this year, I've never grown them before.
So far, so good.
Rose
This “tooth” photo story is a perfect example of how anti-smokers lie by implication and get away with it. I also checked “meth mouth” as per the good dentist’s suggestion and had a look at the fairly gruesome gallery there. It was interesting to read that metamphetamine can be smoked as well as snorted – something I wasn’t aware of. So smoking can do that to teeth – but smoking meth, not tobacco. Classic anti-smoker tactics, as usual, of telling only enough of the truth to give the reader half of it. Is there any way of finding out the source of these photos?
But I have one little question. If the photo used on the tobacco packs is indeed that of a meth user rather than a tobacco smoker, as seems likely, how likely is it, then, that the mouth in question would belong to a child of milk-teeth age? I know that youngsters are always keen to experiment with anything which is forbidden, but even so, excessive meth use before the age of 10 seems a bit extreme ……
The teeth are adult teeth (the second set you get) belonging to a young person (16-30 maybe), hence their white colour. The front milk teeth are lost at the age of 6-7 an I don't think you'll find many meth users in that age band. There is a condition called baby bottle syndrome that can cause such damage on milk teeth, but the teeth on the photo are definitely adult.
The whiteness may also be the result of the type of lenses/flash used for the photo or if the teeth were dried before taking the photo (dessicated enamel looks whiter).
The decay in the photo is almost certainly due to meth abuse or some medical problem causing low salivary flow.
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