by Mark Silva
Before President-elect Barack Obama makes good on any New Year's resolution to give up smoking for good, the next commander-in-chief may want to consider the benefits of nicotine.
So says a health-blogger at the Wall Street Journal.
"With Barack Obama readying himself to take on what will be quite a high-stakes and stressful job, are we sure we actually want him to quit smoking?'' Sarah Rubenstein asks.
"We put in a call to Neal Benowitz of the University of California, San Francisco, an expert in nicotine addiction,'' she reports. "He told us that there is evidence that stopping smoking can cause irritability, slowed reaction time, or difficulty concentrating and solving problems. But that's typically in heavy smokers -- people who've smoked 10 or more cigarettes a day.''
There's little evidence that that occasional smokers like Obama, who has admitted to falling off the wagon once in a while, experience the same sorts of impairments without cigarettes, Benowitz told the Journal's Health Blog.
"I'm not so concerned about Obama," he said. "I'm sure there might be a time when he wants to sneak out to the Rose Garden and have a cigarette. I'm not really sure it helps him think better, but if he thinks that and it's an occasional cigarette, it's not going to do much to him."
So hold that resolution, perhaps -- 60 percent of all Americans surveyed say they won't be making any big changes next year.
And hold the ash trays - we don't want anyone setting the Rose Garden on fire either.
Comments
He won't be able to quit the smokes for the forseeable future, not with Fitzpatrick saying today that there's a lot more Blago tapes than previously thought... and that he now wants to play 'em for the Illinois legislature.
Hey Barack, did you bring your laptop to the beach? Wouldn't want you to miss any of this fun.
There's some guys in sunglasses that want to talk to you and Rahm when you get back, BTW
http://reaganiterepublicanresistance.blogspot.com
Posted by: Reaganite Republican Resistance | December 29, 2008 6:15 PM
I Obama wants to smoke, let him smoke, he wil quit one day dont worry guys, but he needs it now.d
Posted by: scataloglu | December 29, 2008 6:44 PM
.
If Obama hasn't enough sense to quite. let him smoke but please don't burn down The White House again.
Posted by: Inky | December 29, 2008 7:22 PM
Are the goons over at WSJ trying to kill off the president-elect?
And Bush should have eaten more pretzels to calm his nerves...
http://www.political-buzz.com/
Posted by: matt | December 29, 2008 7:32 PM
I see the effects of smoking every day in my office. 40 year old men with blocked arteries who say they only smoked "socially". There is a cumulative effect with smoking where the number of years x the number of cigarettes smoked per day = the amount of damage to the body's organs and circulatory system. Men and women have run marathons, play pick-up basketball, racquetball and other sports and often end up either in the ER or dead because of the silent diseases that develop due to smoking. It is insidious and the only way to reverse the changes (at least the ones that are reversible) is to stop smoking.
He is not sending a very positive message to our youth or to our country, which is already becoming sicker by the day. Irritable or not, it is time for him to quit. All smokers do eventually quit ... it is known as an early death, especially if there is a family predisposition to certain diseases like cancer, which is what lead to his mother's early death.
Sometimes the people that look the fittest (see Hawaii photos on the beach of PEBO) are not necessarily so on the inside.
Posted by: Pretzel1 | December 30, 2008 12:49 AM
The Brits burned down the White House Inky.
Posted by: Doug R. | December 30, 2008 3:53 PM
Did you know that there are over 4,000 chemicals in cigarette smoke? These include formaldehyde (used to preserve dead bodies), ammonia (used in strong cleaning liquids) and cadmium (a highly poisonous metal used in batteries).
And if that isn’t reason enough for you to quit smoking.
Posted by: Deepak | February 14, 2009 6:09 AM