Hrayr Karagueuzian on radioactive particles in cigarettes
UCLA
Handwaving Freakoutery has a post up about cigarettes, nicotine and the evil CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), a branch of the evil Federal government. It's great stuff, but he left out my favorite theory about lung cancer:
It's the radioactive lead in the fertilizer that is used on tobacco plants in the field. Some dude did a study many moons ago and found that lung cancer lungs were full of radioactive lead.
Google found a bunch of links that apparently confirm my theory.
The post had a couple of terms that I had to look up:
- Monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs) are a class of drugs that inhibit the activity of one or both monoamine oxidase enzymes: monoamine oxidase A (MAO-A) and monoamine oxidase B (MAO-B). They are best known as effective antidepressants, especially for treatment-resistant depression and atypical depression.[1] They are also used to treat panic disorder, social anxiety disorder, Parkinson's disease, and several other disorders.
- Nootropics, also known as “smart drugs” are a diverse group of medicinal substances whose action improves human thinking, learning, and memory, especially in cases where these functions are impaired.
That’s an interesting link with lots of good information about vaping and nicotine.
ReplyDeleteHowever the rant about the CDC killing people is bullshit.
The American public has a one sentence, two tops, attention span.
How do you tell them it’s not the nicotine it’s how you get it.
Tobacco burning = worst, Vaping = better, avoiding it = best.
They didn’t say nicotine wasn’t bad... c’mon, it ain’t good.
As for your theory, not all phosphorus is radioactive, only Phosphorus-32 is radioactive with a half-life of 14 days. I have no idea if the used -32 on tobacco but considering how long it takes to transport the fertilizer, grow the tobacco, dry the crop, ship to the smoke factory, make butts and ship to Joe Smoker it adds up to a lot of half-lives?
Anyway, good link, good read, thank you.
Phosphorus? Where did that come from?
ReplyDeleteThe first link at "Google found..."
ReplyDelete"Because tobacco is grown in soils fertilized by Phosphorous (radioactive) enriched materials, polonium-210 and lead-210 (radioactive) are resident in the tobacco leaves."
Had to go check the numbers.
ReplyDeleteUranium's natural decay from Lead-214 (half life of 27 minutes), to lead-210 (half life of 22.3 years), to Lead-206 (stable). So if they are using higher number lead, yes that could be unhealthy. So it's best to avoid tobacco, which makes the crap about nicotine moot.