I didn't get a chance to put my 2 cents in in the other thread, but here they are now.
Interesting article I found, from the
JAPAN TIMES you can read it here,
http://www3.ocn.ne.jp/~muen/kenkounihon21/JapanTimes20000323.html, interesting part that says, "Currently, more than 50 percent of men and 10 percent of women -- which translates to just over a third of all Japanese -- smoke, according to ministry statistics." Now, I know it is a 3 year old article, but I doubt that in 3 years the percentage of people who smoke in Japan tripled from 33% to 97%. Speaking of which, 33% of Japan smokes, population of Japan is 128 million (42,240,000 people in Japan smoke)
Also, this survey done by Japan's largest producer of ciggarettes,
http://www.gate39.com/culture/smoking.aspx, shows that men smoke on average roughly 24 ciggs a day where women smoke 17, nowhere near 8 packs a day considering packs contain what, 10-20 ciggs? I don't know, I don't smoke. However, that Japan Times article says that on average each person smokes 3,100 ciggarettes annually, 3100, divided by 15 in a pack sound fair, divided by 365 days in a year, turns out to be about half a pack a day...mighty suspicious...
Also, 400,000 people in the US die yearly from smoking related diseases according to the US Surgeons General, now, considering the US has a population of about 292 million, thats 0.13% of the population who die yearly of smoking related diseases not the 17% VB speaks of (that would be an astonishing 49,640,000 people per year of lung cancer eep!)
Now, also in my research, I found that the percentage of American's who smoke dropped from 46% in 1964 to about 28% in 2000, now I also found this number has risen a bit in 2003 to 31% (90,520,000 people smoke in the US), which cuts VB's almost 64% right down the middle.
So basically what I'm trying to tell you is, more people in the US die of smoking related diseases, because basically, more people in the US smoke, Japan has a higher smoking rate, but only has 43% of the US' population and only smokes 69% of the cigarettes yearly that are smoked in the US
http://www.taima.org/en/nicotine.htm. Nuff said, more Americans smoke, more American's die of smoking related diseases....
Now VB, let's see you argue my stats that I backed up with sources that involved extensive research to find
RELIABLE sources.
Just a little more math fun
42,240,000 people in japan smoke 3100 cigarrettes a piece yearly = 1.30944x10^11 (over 130 billion ciggarettes yowza!)
Now, thats only 69% of the amount smoked in the US so lets take the old calculator, to find that 1.7153664x10^11 cigarrettes are smoked annually in the US a difference of over 40 billion cigarettes, no wonder more people die in the US of smoking related diseases, they smoke more cigarettes. And all I needed was my calculator to figure it out.
AND IN FACT! I wouldn't be surprised if the US' stats were slightly tipped to deter people from smoking, not promote like VB praises, which is why cigarettes are so expensive, to deter people from buying them! Not to milk money, they're expensive because of higher taxes, the cigarette companies aren't milking money, the government is deterring people from smoking.
My head hurts
