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Sociology B‑class High‑importance

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A fact from Smoking appeared on Misplaced Pages's Main Page in the Did you know column on 19 July 2007. A record of the entry may be seen at Misplaced Pages:Recent additions/2007/July.

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To-do list for Smoking: edit · history · watch · refresh · Updated 2015-02-26 There are no active tasks for this page

Horribly Biased article

This article is horribly biased twords antitobacco (as many smoking related articles on wiki seem to be). I'm adding a neutrliy disputed tag to this. I'll add specifics in a bit.

Wow.

Just a few days ago I suggested someone make this article at the Village Pump. Now I come back and this article is AMAZING. Props to Peter Isotalo and Quadell. Jolb 15:34, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

New Article!

I can't believe it took until there were nearly 2 million articles before someone started this one.--Richy 19:55, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, we have articles on all the forms of smoking, so there wasn't such a great need to have a central article. But I think it should allow the common themes to be drawn together and make the daughter articles a little less bulky. Richard001 01:27, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Neutrality

Quoted from the article: Smoking, primarily of tobacco, is an activity that is enjoyed by up to 1/3 of the adult population. The word 'enjoyed" here is questionable. I mention that as an example of bias in this article. While the article is informative and interesting, it fails to fairly represent the whealth of anti-smoking POVs, activism, and legislation in our society today. --Xoxoxoxoxo 20:18, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

I have to agree. Calling it a "recreational activity" is a bit of a stretch. No one leaves their job for a few minutes every few hours for recreation. 208.203.4.140 23:54, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

I changed the word "enjoyed" above. I think "recreation" is about as neutral as we can expect. Some people gamble compulsively, but gambling is a recreational activity. Some people masturbate compulsively, but masturbation is a recreational activity. And I do take a couple minutes out of every few hours on my job for recreation. (Wait, that sounded bad, didn't it.) – Quadell 00:32, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Wow. I think that I'll hop on over to the child porn page and change it to describe that as a "recreational activity", too. People smoke some things for ritual or spiritual purposes and some due to addiction. Neither of those could be described as "the use of time in a manner designed for therapeutic refreshment of one's body or mind", the Misplaced Pages definition of recreation. This is profoundly disturbed. Ninquerinquar 00:29, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Comparing smoking to child porn is about as offensive a comparison as you could make. – Quadell 00:32, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Ditto. TeamZissou 00:58, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Try working on an ENT ward for twenty years and seeing people have their faces cut off and replaced with a hunk of skin from their thigh because they smoked. When you've seen someone with no eyes, nose or mouth left because of an addiction, you take it kind seriously. Ninquerinquar 01:06, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Like it or not—and I don't—"recreational drug" is an established phrase. Deltabeignet 01:28, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

How about automobile accidents, or skateboarding, or eating butter? When you see the swollen liver covered in white scar tissue from the body of a medical cadaver who spent a life eating butter, or the bloody kidneys of a person who had a long-term attraction to rhubarb pie--by god!--you, too, will harbor the greatest disgust for the natural consequences affecting mortal, biological organisms! Albert Einstein once said, "I believe that pipe smoking contributes to a somewhat calm and objective judgement in all human affairs." (1950). Some studies on pipe smoking have shown that moderate pipe smoking can actually increase longevity, and many psychologists I've talked to agree that nicotine is great for the brain (most delivery methods of nicotine, however, leave much to be desired). Smoking tobacco over time increases the body's ability to carry oxygen (and can increase the size of the carotid arteries) when the smoker is not smoking. Like anything, smoking tobacco is something best done in moderation. Notice, too, that this article isn't only about the New Evil tobacco--it also contains a lot of information on other smokables. There is a seperate article on addiction, if you feel the need to vent. In the meantime, have you heard that they put mercury in some of your immunizations??? EEEEK! TeamZissou 01:31, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Badgering aside, are there any other neutrality issues anyone wants to present? Compared to a lot of articles, this article seems well-cited and functions as a necessary entry article to a plethora of various topics, similar to what the article dance does to the various forms of dance and associated topics.TeamZissou 02:52, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Please try to keep in mind that merely not being decidedly anti-smoking isn't the same as not being neutral. And as for "hiding" and "downplaying", this article doesn't mince words about the hazards of smoking:

Inhaling smoke into the lungs, no matter the substance, has adverse effects on one's health.

Tobacco-related diseases are some of the biggest killers in the world today and are the biggest cause of premature death in industrial countries.

It has a logical structure with section dedicated to the health effects on both a physiological and social level, even if these are pretty small so far. In contrast, tobacco smoking hasn't been smeared with an NPOV tag despite having a very obvious anti-smoking POV and insignificant coverage on anything related to smoking culture.

Peter 07:56, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Well done! In just two days this article has come a long way toward better reflecting the complexities of the controversial topic. Some contributors were even able to engage in discussion without resorting to name-calling.--Xoxoxoxoxo 09:05, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

redundancy

isn't most of this redundant with the tobacco smoking article? Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 22:38, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, if you read the article, it concerns the practice of smoking, including cannabis, opium, and several other natural, naturally-derived and synthetic materials. The tobacco smoking article concerns tobacco smoking alone, and contains a significantly larger amount of information on just tobacco and its medical and social effects. TeamZissou 01:41, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

health

The health issue of this article seems fairly well hidden and downplayed, and overall this seems like one big tobacco glorification advert imo!

I agree. For starters, the variety of health effects of smoking, particularly tobacco smoking, should be summarized in the introduction; given how many people are killed each year by those same health effects, not doing so is bordering on deliberate whitewashing. And the "smoking in culture" section is woefully incomplete without describing the tobacco industry's successful campaign of introducing positive imagery of smoking into movies, literature, magazines, etc. over the last few decades. We should be careful with the imagery in the article itself as well, and include a couple of examples of recent anti-smoking campaign imagery. Regrettably, the article on tobacco smoking suffers from similar POV problems.--Eloquence* 01:40, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

How about looking up some research, being a Wikipedian, and entering some referenced information? That's the point of the project, right? I agree. It is lacking, like most articles on Misplaced Pages. And that is why it's open to editting. I spent a couple hours today finding references for various statements in the article regarding different cultures and the history of smoking. Do the same with smoking and the media, keeping in mind that the article is about smoking in all its forms, not just tobacco smoking, which has its own article.TeamZissou 01:46, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I really don't think Eloquence needs a lecture on what being a Wikipedian is all about. :-) – Quadell 02:10, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Ha! Faux pas. Oh, snap! TeamZissou 02:17, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Is Health effects of tobacco smoking POV? -- Jreferee 05:34, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Smoke, the immensely useful primary source for this article, has plenty of material on anti-smoking campaigns, including photos of anti-smoking demonstrations and ad campaigns, but none of them are free images. If anyone can find good pictures that properly illustrate the anti-smoking movement, please include them in the article. As for mentioning specifics of the health effects of tobacco in the lead, I think this ill-advised, as no other topic has received more than very brief coverage. The article has talked of "well-proven health hazards" from the second day of its existence, which is hardly to be characterized as pro-smoking.

The reason that I don't think the article should be dominated by details about various cancers and cardiovascular diseases is because smoking is far more than just long-term chemical reactions in the human body. It has immense social significance and a very rich cultural history that is so much more interesting (and relevant) to describe than dull and lifeless descriptions of how it can hurt you. The negative aspects will get their due coverage, but I can assure you that we're not going to allow this article to become a bloody soapbox for moralistic anti-smoking propaganda. Most people are perfectly aware that smoking is dangerous. The anti-smoking movement has already succeeded in this department. We don't need to overdo it, but rather to show some respect for history and people's personal choices. The article doesn't glorify smoking, but describes how a substantial proportion of humanity practices, enjoys or even praises smoking. That's NPOV for you, so deal with it.

Peter 18:30, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Far too many historical mistakes in the article. For a start, there are no mentions in any texts in the Americas that describe smoking around 4000BCE. No records of it exist at that time. Second, there's a mention of an Indian Veda dating to 2000BCE describing smoking. None of the Vedas date to that time. The earliest Vedic texts that we can translate and read date to circa 550BCE. There are many more mistakes that add up to a glorification of this stinky unhealthy practice. ParlerVousWiki 10:00, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

The proof of American smoking being several thousands years in practice is based on archaelogical findings of tobacco cultivation and is as far as I know supported by multiple sources. Not everything needs to be proved with written records. The reference to smoking in the Veda is indeed incorrect. The dating of how long medicinal fumigation and smoking has been performed is not off the mark, but I misread the source and thought it said that it was mentioned in Vedic texts from 2000 BC, not just attested in general. I'll correct this as soon as the article is unprotected.

As for other "glorifying mistakes", please let us know if you're willing to actually specify any of them. I'm sure you're upset that the current opinions about smoking are actually a fairly modern phenomenon, but that doesn't amount to any praise of smoking, just a statement of facts. That the article doesn't say that what is now has always been and will always be doesn't mean that history needs to be rewritten nor that we need to guard our readers from it. Most anti-smoking arguments can stand on their own without the need for moralistic historical revisionism.

Peter 17:40, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

I'll still have to contest anyone who says there was smoking in ancient (Iron or Bronze age) Asia or Europe without a textual reference with concrete dating. The only mentions in Vedic or classic Hindu texts of hallucinogens or intoxicants were taken in liquid form as Soma or Bhang. Smoking from hookahs or shishas is not as ancient as one would be led to believe. Not only is there no mention of them in ancient Persian or Indian records, the practice also doesn't exist in cultures they traded with. ParlerVousWiki 16:49, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

The smoking described in Smoke appears to be mostly in the form of regular pipes, not water pipes. I haven't tried to get to the bottom of how old hookahs/shishas actually are.

I won't speculate about how early Old World smoking really is, but it would seem odd if the pre-historic Americans would be unique in early on realizing that inhaling the smoke was an effective way of getting intoxicated. If anything, think fo the Oracle of Delphi breathing gas (or whatever) to produce mystical prophecies.

Peter 20:27, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

The recent mini-series Rome (2nd series), generally rather well-researched on stuff like this, had much cannabis smoking from bong-type pipes (elite women only ones shown). On pics, if we are not to have the sense of smell, an Adrian Brouwer smoking-den scene would be better than the rather bland van Ostade. There is also a nice print of some court ladies from Versailles, late Louis XIV, having pipes behind the carriage-shed. Johnbod 22:54, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

You seriously can't use a TV mini-series on Rome as a basis for evidence of ancient smoking. I can't find a single reference, textual or pictorial, for smoking in Asia or Europe prior to the 11th century. It wasn't until the 12th century CE that we see the hookah become a popular past time. All forms of hemp, opium or cannabis before that was crushed and added to food and drink. Even when the hookah did appear it was used primarily as an after-dinner breath freshener (using water and fruit zest) as it still is today, not specifically to burn plant leaves in. One must keep in mind that if something was seen as religious, then it was sacrilegious to alter its form. For that reason, in India they never burned cannabis or transformed milk (another "holy" item) into cheese or curd (until the Portugese showed them). They were taken "as is" in their pure divine form. ParlerVousWiki 08:05, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

ParlerVousWiki, if you want to question the validity of the source provided (Smoke, not Rome) you might want to actually examine it yourself, or provide your own sources for that matter.

Peter 13:27, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't see a citation above (If you mean the print from Louis XIV's reign you're a little too far forward on my timeline) and how can I provide a source for something that didn't happen (smoking in ancient Asia and Europe)? ParlerVousWiki 07:52, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Try reading the footnotes in the article.

Peter 15:47, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Very poor citations in the footnote (a link that basically sent me back to the middle of the article). I fixed the passage on South Asia until better citation comes along but doubt it will remain that way for long as people tend to believe in fiddle faddle. All encyclopedias feature the same erroneous belief that the Vedas (and most Hindu texts) date back hundreds, even thousands, of years older than they really are. Hindus themselves tend to believe the Mahabharata, for example, was written well over 10,000 years ago until one reminds them that writing doesn't date that far back. The Aryan Invasion and belief in an Aryan race is another bit of unhistorical and unscientific nonsense that exists in every encyclopedia. ParlerVousWiki 09:23, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Please don't remove information that is referenced without citing your own sources. You should cite something that confirms your claims instead.

Peter 10:07, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

For starters there aren't any legible texts that date to 2000BCE in South Asia. All Indus Valley inscriptions are too short in length (one or two lines) to qualify as literature of any sort. Second, there are references to Vedas in some artifacts dating before the Common Era but no text artifacts from the period remain in existence. There are no textual or pictorial references to smoking with pipes older than a 12-13th century. None at all (the traditional vedic form of smoke inhalation is to wave smoke towards one's face, breath deeply and then place hands together in prayer. Sadhus still perform it this way though they prefer the even more traditional drinking of bhang and soma rasa). Any claim to the contrary is historical revisionism and politically correctness towards modern religionists. This is not unusual though and common in nearly all encyclopedic entries. To correct that would take an entirely alternative form of encyclopedia. The citation used in this article is very lacking in historical evidence. ParlerVousWiki 14:28, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

You know, everybody...I checked a lot of statements in this article a while ago, and I provided a variety of references for many of those statements only to have about half of them removed by Quadell because they looked a might cluttersome. Perhaps we wouldn't be having this discussion if those refs were left alone.TeamZissou 08:08, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Speaking of refs, I just added a REFS! section at the bottom. Please use it. Thanks. TeamZissou 08:37, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

ParlerVousWiki, I don't know that much about Hindu religous practices or the finer details of the history of smoking in India, but I can only say that I'd be very surprised if an anthology with so much information about smoking was wrong on such a basic fact. Either way, we can't really do anything other than trust the information that is actually supported by what otherwise appears to be a serious and reliable source. It would still be so much easier if we could be provided with references to other works related to the topic that might have a different opinion on the matter.

Zissou, adding references to a section of text that is already sourced in its entirety is as far as I can tell mere reference padding. It might look better, but it could just as easily confuse the reader as to what citations covers which fact. As far as I can tell, this practice usually leads to editors demanding more and more refs without ever bothering to check the original citation, and what we will eventually wind up with might very well be something like this. Less is sometimes more than enough.

Peter 09:04, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I would hope that an article concerning anthropological, biological, and historical subject matter could be easily referenced with recognized scientific journals and texts and still avoid appearing like a pop culture article with tabloid citations concerning the world's most famous porn star. I ref'd the statement on the veda, and it was removed. Now not only do we have to put up with the ParlerVousWiki's personal crusade, you have to read me bitch about having my ref's removed. I had some other things elsewhere, but as the ref was removed, now I can't find the statements--I assume someone removed them because they were unreferenced. Go figure.TeamZissou 09:47, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Most edited DYK?

This article is probably one of the most heavily edited DYKs of all time! 69 edits after it was linked on Main Page, as I type this. Most others don't even get 10 edits. Resurgent insurgent 06:23, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes... it's indeed rather unusual that such a controversial article would've appeared in the DYK at all. Cheers.--K.C. Tang 06:55, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm actually a little surprised we didn't have an article here until a week ago (that is, I'm surprised it even qualified for DYK). Nifboy 12:32, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

The edit count for medieval cuisine was actually slightly higher when it appeared as a DYK in September 2006, and that was without being particularly controversial. I think both DYK and Misplaced Pages in general attract far more readers (and goodwill) with topics that aren't as absurdly obscure as rebracketing or Aspergum, even if these articles might not be all that bad per se. That it took a whopping 6 years to figure out that it might be a good idea to have a general article on smoking rather than a bunch of POV-forks says so much more about the flaws of Misplaced Pages than it does about the topic.

Peter 19:04, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Referencing and BCE

It's nice to see people add more sources, but it's just puzzling that this is done in conflicting formats and by near-duplication of citations to the same sources (but in a different format).

And could we please try to avoid the BC/BCE-conflict in this article? The article has been established with the the BC-format, and let's just keep it that way as it still is the most common date format.

Peter 14:57, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't see how this article was "established" in the BC format. Most of us aren't Catholic, and many are not Christian, so why should we describe past points in history according to the supposed life and death of a religious figure? Since no one wants to go and change the entire year-numbering scheme, let us at least move out of the dark ages and simply declare this the "current era." I'm happy to once again change the BC's back to BCE's, which would work better with the CE's marking current era dates. Also, the ref's I re-added are accurate--the other book called Smoke, Introduction. by Sander L. Gilman and Zhou Xun doesn't exist to the best of my knowledge. That is simply a poor reference job.TeamZissou 16:37, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

BC is a two-letter term that happens to have a certain history related to Christianity. There are plenty of equally gratuitous arguments against using BCE as well, and this is not the place to settle the issue. More importantly, though, far more readers know what BC means and very few object to its use. That includes staunch atheists raised in Protestant and Russian-Orthodox countries, i.e. myself. This is about as irrelevant a dispute as bickering over whether one should use US or Commonwealth spelling, and those conflicts are usually settled by using the standard that the person who got the article going decided on.

As for references, notes are supposed to be shorthand specifications of sources, and in the case of Smoke, it's very useful to our readers to point out that it's an anthology and to reference the authors of the individual chapters, not just the editors or the simply the title of the book. The full details of the print works need only be mentioned once, in a separate section, which makes it a lot easier to read all those footnotes.

Peter 18:05, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I still disagree on the use of BC, as opposed to BCE. I feel it simply panders to archaic notions, has an easy replacement, and takes very little time to amend. As to the references, I'm used to the CBE, Journal of Wildlife Management, and (to a less-used extent) MLA. Misplaced Pages is supposed to use the Harvard style, but the page describing that isn't as clear as it should be, so I tried the best I could. Also, I placed references verifying those statements with fact tags, some from your source and some from others. TeamZissou 02:43, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Harvard referencing hasn't been ordained in policy and guidelines as the one standard to be used by everyone because most editors prefer footnotes. It's not that much different from the academic world, where standards vary between different countries and disciplines.

Peter 06:08, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

As Misplaced Pages isn't a Christian org, BCE should replace BC. ParlerVousWiki 10:01, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Please don't be obtuse. The vast majority of authors and historians who use the term "BC" are not devout Christians. And before we get into even sillier hairsplitting, it is the birth of Christ (even if it was miscalculated by a few years) that is the basis of this chronology.

Peter 10:57, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Smell image

Please better begin discussing the "Smell" image here. I'm also getting dizzy looking at the disappearing/appearing act of the image. Thanks. Dragonbite 04:24, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Blnguyen, thank you... Dragonbite 04:59, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I thought I had included mention of the fact that smoking in 17th century art was used as a representation of the sense of smell (which was also often illustrated at that time by depicting defecation). I guess I forgot it, but I did add it after Freakofnurture posten on my talkpage. It is also a very good illustration of how smoking was initially depicted as being very rustic and crude. The painting wasn't picked at random either, since it was scanned from Smoke.

As for Mayan art, there's already one pic included at the start of the history section, and while I would like to include pics of smoking on pottery, I can't, because photos of 3D objects are unfree images and I don't know where to find Mayan pottery depicting smoking that I can take pictures of myself.

I think the page protection should be removed now. It only serves to make it harder to explain the use of the picture.

Peter 08:31, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

REFS!

I'm creating this section on the talk page to list references that editors may access to better this article. I usually work on mammal pages and biology-related stuff and have been busy lately, so I don't have time to go through all of this right now.

Historic and Pre-Historic Native Smoking Pipe Bibliography
Marijuana - The First Twelve Thousand Years
Opium Smoking and Paraphernalia

Add more if you find any. TeamZissou 08:36, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Cannabis info revert, 25 August 2007

Peter Isotalo reverted an edit because "cannabis is common, but not that common." I'd like to point out that according to the UN's estimate, 141 million people around the world currently use marijuana. This represents about 2.5 percent of the world population. 83 million Americans admit to having tried it. (Source: United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention, Global Illicit Drug Trends 1999 (New York, NY: UNODCCP, 1999), p. 91. ; Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Summary of Findings from the 2001 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse (Rockville, MD: Department of Health and Human Services, 2002), Table H.1) I think the original information was useful, as cannabis is the world's second most commonly smoked substance; and, I think the revert should be reverted to the original contribution regarding cannabis. Comments? TeamZissou 00:29, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

If there is no dissent regarding replacement of the cannabis info, then I'll re-insert it in three days. TeamZissou 03:24, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Cannabis is used much less frequently, is less public and has had less influence on culture and society than tobacco. I'm just under the impression that its popularity trails so far behind tobacco that it isn't prudent to mention it in the lead.

Peter 04:01, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

It was included under the phrase "most commonly," and compared to, say, opium or DMT, cannabis is a lot closer to tobacco than to these drugs in terms of number of users and social acceptance.TeamZissou 15:59, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

So, any objections to re-adding cannabis to the sentence by the end of today?TeamZissou 16:33, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Cancer, please

Smoking, in any form, is one main reason for cancer development in our world.

Smoke, of most substances, and all organic raw materials, is highly carcenogenic for humans.

Only ONE mention of the word "cancer" is visible in the main article. I think this is a tight work, for evil and untruth. Please beware.

The article is about smoking, not cancer, and it isn'nt even the most common form of death caused by smoking. But you might want to consider trying to add information you feel is missing.

Peter 06:05, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

research... second hand?

No link to an article or reference of second hand smoke? Oh well....

"Secondhand smoke increases teen test failure" Correlation does not equal causation... --Emesee 06:20, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

The cost on the health care system

Would someone please find out how much public health-care money is wasted to care for the health of smokers? Maybe in the millions, or billions of dollars range?--Louiechefei28848888 03:08, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

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