According to the 2023 “State of Lung Cancer” report, Tennessee ranked 45th, making the state among the worst in the country, indicating more work is needed to reduce the burden of lung cancer, the association said.
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That doesn't surprise me. It seems like everybody here smokes, and if they don't smoke they chew leaf tobacco or dip.
It's part of the culture with as much tobacco is grown around here, although I'm seeing more and more farmers switching to other crops such as soybeans due to government interference and the fact that tobacco use everywhere else is dropping.
My old man and my uncle contributed to those statistics.
ReplyDeleteRadon is the leading cause of lung cancer in people who don't smoke.
ReplyDeleteI live in west Knox County, and I wouldn't say EVERYONE smokes. But then I tend to hang out in healthy places like my gym, upscale restaurants, etc., and smoking is very rare in those locales. More than smoking, I've often wondered how bad Radon gas is here in east Tennessee. Much of ET is underlain by limestone, we have a lot of sinkholes open up, and being a porous rock, limestone tends to let Radon gas leak to the surface. I've known several people who never smoked a day in their lives but who died from lung cancer here.
ReplyDeleteYou should have seen how much tobacco was grown back before they ended the quota system. Round my place we went from any bare spot of land growing tobacco to you seldom see it any more.
ReplyDeleteIt was pretty thick around here when I first moved in. All up and down my road it was either tobacco, soybean or sileage, changing places every year for the rotation. Now it's either bean or corn with less and less tobacco.
DeleteI lived in Southern Kentucky as a teenager in the 80s and worked tobacco for the local farmers. I went back to visit about 15 years ago and almost nobody was still growing burley. Another piece of my childhood gone. My suburban, Florida-raised kids have a hard time wrapping their heads around the fact that I started dipping snuff when I was 11.
DeleteMy neighbor in Bristol VA quit growing tobacco because of the .gov regs.
ReplyDeleteThey did not mention the age of people with lung cancer. If you are 80 years old you could have caught it from a lot of things. I am surprised I dont have it from sucking in plaster dust. Then you have mist from any type of spray. Tobacco was setup as the cancer culprit because of the deep pockets. One thing they dont mention is the stress relief people get from smoking. Without some kind of habit they would wind up and explode. Smoking is a budget killer just like drinking. It is going to be something.
ReplyDeleteGee, couldn't tell that people are smoking less. From what I see in a college town, people are smoking more tobacco than they used to.
ReplyDeleteSmoking is very much a minority activity in the UK now.
ReplyDeleteCoal Miners, Oak Ridge Nuclear bomb plant, Kingsport Eastman chemical plant, Rogersville depleted uranium tank killers the list goes on
ReplyDeleteSeems like New Jersey used to be near or at the top because of Radon. I worked with a woman from NJ. Both of her parents died of lung cancer and neither had ever smoked.
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