(edit - I may add the product probably wouldn't be so harmful if people kept their consumption to under five cigarettes a day.)
> In the 1980s, tobacco giants Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds acquired the major food companies Kraft, General Foods and Nabisco, allowing tobacco firms to dominate America’s food supply and reap billions in sales from popular brands such as Oreo cookies, Kraft Macaroni & Cheese and Lunchables.
> The new research, published in the journal Addiction, focuses on the rise of “hyper-palatable” foods, which contain potent combinations of fat, sodium, sugar and other additives that can drive people to crave and overeat them. The Addiction study found that in the decades when the tobacco giants owned the world’s leading food companies, the foods that they sold were far more likely to be hyper-palatable than similar foods not owned by tobacco companies.
it is difficult to argue that they were simply unfortunate to happen to produce one class of unhealthy products when the same companies proceeded to then move on to an entirely different product class, and somehow also engineer products to also be maximally addictive and, as it turns out, unhealthy.
To contrast what voluntary can mean, children consuming unmetered fluoride doses via the water supply is not really voluntary.
They do very well on the convenience front, which is significant, but seem like the some of the last things you would want if you could have anything magically placed in front of you.
Other things we are evidently addicted to, despite objectively superior and far cheaper local equivalents: Pop-Tarts, Swiss Miss hot cocoa, Hershey’s syrup, Cheese Wiz.
And reading the blurb on the back of the Kriket package is hilarious!
Even 1-4 cigarettes per day is very harmful:
> Results: Adjusted relative risk (95% confidence interval) in smokers of 1–4 cigarettes per day, with never smokers as reference, of dying from ischaemic heart disease was 2.74 (2.07 to 3.61) in men and 2.94 (1.75 to 4.95) in women. The corresponding figures for all cancer were 1.08 (0.78 to 1.49) and 1.14 (0.84 to 1.55), for lung cancer 2.79 (0.94 to 8.28) and 5.03 (1.81 to 13.98), and for any cause 1.57 (1.33 to 1.85) and 1.47 (1.19 to 1.82).
> Conclusions: In both sexes, smoking 1–4 cigarettes per day was associated with a significantly higher risk of dying from ischaemic heart disease and from all causes, and from lung cancer in women. Smoking control policymakers and health educators should emphasise more strongly that light smokers also endanger their health.
https://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/14/5/315
Cigarettes also happen to create an addiction, which makes it harder over time to stay below 5 cigarettes per day.
Do you have any specific studies pointing towards 1-4 cigarettes significantly reducing the risk of emphysema compared to 5+?
(edit - and it's my belief that emphysema/COPD is the most serious risk of chronic smoking, where basically the lungs just wear out.)
I guess there is also a chance that if someone smokes 20 a day they won't have any serious resultant health issues, but the study I showed earlier indicates that even 1-4 drastically increases your chance of complications.
> (edit - and it's my belief that emphysema/COPD is the most serious risk of chronic smoking, where basically the lungs just wear out.)
It's possible, but shouldn't you try to find actual evidence for the likelihood of emphysema being much lower with 1-4 cigarettes per day, beyond "cigarette culture" and having "thought about it"?
(edit - but let me amend my original statement and then I'm leaving it at that: "I may add that I would guess the product probably wouldn't be so harmful if people kept their consumption to under five cigarettes a day.")
We're talking about a product that is highly addictive, highly profitable, extremely harmful, and has served no useful purpose beyond making a small number of people extremely rich.
If an individual was responsible for this they'd be jailed, and possibly (in the US) executed.
When will the sanctimonious get off of their high-horse?
But if you look downwards, bad food and health are choices that people make. Many people want this stuff - individuals are getting what they want.
However banks aren't directly responsible for encouraging you to consume diabetes can. heart attack crisps or cancer sticks
Hence why we push more for regulation against these industries thar are directly responsible while leaving financial watch dogs to look into banks for now.
Do you think govt and corporations aren't working together?
You are asking for more of that.