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Cigarettes for the health conscious

Impregnate cigarette paper with aspirin
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Cigarettes make your blood sticky, it's a fact, and sticky blood causes heart attacks. Aspirin causes blood to be less sticky and prevents heart attacks. Smokers aren't likely to pop an aspirin everyday just because I say so, so why not impregnate the paper over the filter with soluble aspirin. That way smokers would get a measured dose and the more they smoke the more aspirin they would get. Cut 10p (10cents) off the price to encourage uptake, this would pay for itself in terms of less visits to hospital and increased productivity etc.
clowntriggerfish, May 09 2005

Why do cigarettes make blood 'sticky'? http://www.eurheart...ontent/refs/22/1/56
[clowntriggerfish, May 12 2005]

Theraflu Thin Strips http://www.epinions...ontent_161900957316
DXM (cough suppressant) in breath-strip format. [disbomber, May 13 2005]

[link]






       Wouldn't burning aspirin have an effect on its chemical composition? Maybe if it was powdered and impregnating the filter instead of the paper, but I can't imagine that not affecting the taste of the smoke.
Soterios, May 09 2005
  

       "Smell that? Somebody's smoking vitamans".
normzone, May 09 2005
  

       Cigarettes makes your blood sticky??
contracts, May 09 2005
  

       I was wondering about that [contracts]. Also, I suspect justifying name like that would need a bit more than adding a bit of painkiller.
hidden truths, May 09 2005
  

       The aspirin only goes in the bit of the paper that touches the lips and the small amount of moisture there is enough to dissolve the soluble aspirin so it doesn't get burned.   

       Cigarettes do all kinds of things including making you impotent and even making your blood extra sticky.   

       Aspirin is not just a painkiller, it also controls fever and makes blood less sticky.   

       But I agree that this idea is a best quater baked.
clowntriggerfish, May 10 2005
  

       How much aspirin are you going to include? If I smoke a pack a day or more, am I now going to have to worry about an aspirin overdose?
Noexit, May 10 2005
  

       How muc aspirin could you really get in a filter?
hidden truths, May 10 2005
  

       Just out of curiosity, which component of cigarette smoke causes thickening of the blood? Is it the nicotine or the other crud? Does nicotine itself have any adverse consequences?
Basepair, May 10 2005
  

       I would put 75 mg of aspirin in a pack of twenty because the recommended dose is 75-300mg per day and if anyone smokes more than 80 per day they will have more to worry about than a little extra aspirin.   

       You could definately put Viagra in the tips by the same method to get over the impotence problem.
clowntriggerfish, May 12 2005
  

       Just looked up the stickiness thing. It seems that it is the nicotine itself possibly along with something called cotinine which causes the blood to become more 'sticky'. See link for the study.
clowntriggerfish, May 12 2005
  

       I got it, I got it. (I don't know the proper term for part of it though)
The paper on the filter can have a "tear away tag" similar to what you use to open the plastic on the cigarette packaging.
When you pull the "tear away tag" the outside layer of 2 layers of paper pulls away to reveal:
(drum roll)
A breath mint.
In the breath mint (think of those made by Lysterine)is a small dose of aspirin 4 mg?
Zimmy, May 12 2005
  

       I heartily dispute the impotence claim. :-)   

       From the link: "Platelet-dependent thrombin level is enhanced in smokers, even when not smoking, when compared with non-smokers and increases immediately after smoking. Increases in nicotine and cotinine levels caused by smoking induced a prothrombotic state in smokers via increased platelet-dependent thrombogenesis."   

       So it sounds like you're talking about clot formation due to platelets. I guess that could make sense from an "adhesive" perspective . . . I guess.
contracts, May 12 2005
  

       Zimmy, that is a great idea, hiding drugs inside sweets (candie) could go a long way.
clowntriggerfish, May 12 2005
  

       Contracts, Sticky is really just a word to use with patients, i could have said ' a prothrombotic state with increased platelet aggregation and fibrin formation' but i just think sticky sums it up.   

       In fact a patient once said to me that he took aspirin to stop his blood from 'curdling' which although not strictly accurate is a nice turn of phrase.
clowntriggerfish, May 12 2005
  

       They keep my lungs strong.
goatfaceKilla, May 13 2005
  

       //Zimmy, that is a great idea, hiding drugs inside sweets (candie) could go a long way.//   

       Baked. See link.
disbomber, May 13 2005
  

       You smokers will try ANYthing to justify that habit, won't you? You know it's gonna make you ill. You know aspirin thins your blood for you. If you can't be responsible now, what makes you think you're going to like the taste of aspirins in your filthy cancer sticks? I can see it now...   

       Pumpkin: "Honey, since you refuse to quit, I bought you these. <hands "Honey" a pack of "Aspir-igs">
Honey: "Oh... look at that. It's got aspirin right in the filters. Huh. Thanks, Pumpkin. I'll give them a try."
  

       Honey heads out for a smoke, tries one of your inventions, winces grotesquely and curses the things. Honey then realizes these are the only source of nicotine on hand for the current fix, so he tears off the medicated filters and puffs away at the remainders. "Ahh, that's better," he thinks as he takes a drag.   

       You've effectively shortened Honey's life by trying to help prolong it. Smokers are like children. They know better, but they do' wanna! I say let 'em suffer. On with Natural Selection.
XSarenkaX, May 13 2005
  

       //Smokers are like children// Well that's a troublesome generalization.
contracts, May 13 2005
  

       //You've effectively shortened Honey's life by trying to help prolong it. Smokers are like children. They know better, but they do' wanna!//   

       Or maybe they just like to smoke. You always have the option of leaving the area if people are smoking, especially since these days most of it has to commence outdoors. If you feel suffocated in a particular restaurant, don't eat there. (Think you can't stand any indoor smoking whatsoever, and that nothing can change that except non-smoking laws? Visit a Las Vegas casino. Encourage local restaurateurs to do the same and learn a lesson about proper ventilation.) If your friend smokes in his house without proper ventilation, don't go to his house. If a friend insists on smoking in your house, she's not your friend.   

       Non-smokers' problems with smokers are easily resolved: don't hang around the smoke.   

       //I say let 'em suffer. On with Natural Selection.//   

       Now here's the first sensible anti-smoking idea I've seen on the HB. Seriously.   

       //You smokers will try ANYthing to justify that habit, won't you?//   

       As an ex-smoker, I'm sick of this--for lack of a better word--half-baked mentality stating that adults need to "justify" or "apologize for" (as in "smoking apologists") their desire to use a legal product they enjoy that doesn't harm anyone else except asthmatics and allergic folks (most of the work attributing second-hand smoke to harmful effects in adults is bunk). The idea that smokers need to answer to everyone else for their legal habit is ridiculous. Are those with AIDS condemned for having too much sex with the wrong people? Do we demand that the disgustingly overweight, many of whom are fated to die younger than their smoker friends, apologize for pigging out at Burger King? And lastly, how many of the things you do each day are made possible at least partly through tobacco tax money? I'll bet you'd be surprised, especially if you live in New York state.
disbomber, May 13 2005
  

       disbomber, so we can't go see our favorite bands in concert or go play trivia in a restaurant b/c we don't smoke? hmph.
goober, May 14 2005
  

       I vaguely recall that Indonesian cigs (and I speak from experience at a quikimart in Queens) have sugar on their filters somehow, which makes for an interesting combination when you smoke and lick your lips.
cloudface, May 14 2005
  

       [Disbomber], that was very well said.   

       //disbomber, so we can't go see our favorite bands in concert or go play trivia in a restaurant b/c we don't smoke? // [Goober], I don't think there's an establishment in the world that bans non-smokers.
contracts, May 14 2005
  

       //...their desire to use a legal product they enjoy that doesn't harm anyone else except asthmatics and allergic folks...//   

       You smokers are polluting the air we ALL share. I happen to suffer from allergies and asthma. I'm not blaming smokers, as many factors contribute, but you ain't helping me.   

       //Do we demand that the disgustingly overweight, many of whom are fated to die younger than their smoker friends, apologize for pigging out at Burger King?//   

       Hey, I'm all for people choosing to do whatever they want to themselves - as long as it doesn't affect me. Smoking affects everyone on the planet, including those who can't speak up for themselves, like babies, animals, the balance of nature, and those people who enable the smokers by tolerating it (because they're too chicken to say or do anything).   

       //If you feel suffocated in a particular restaurant, don't eat there.//   

       So you smokers get to cough your stinky air onto whatever restaurant or public place you want and you own it? That's not fair to non-smokers, is it? Restaurants that ban smoking may not be fair to smokers, either, but at least smokers can still eat there while they're not smoking. Non-smokers can't really eat at a smoker-allowed restaurant without inhaling pollutants. Ick!   

       So, face it: smokers are harming the planet, not just themselves. I do what I can to avoid it, but it still affects me, even if I never see smoke myself. The pollution adds up and we ALL have to suffer as a result of their "hobby".
XSarenkaX, May 16 2005
  

       That's it. I'm getting a new hobby. I'll soon be down at the Home Depot getting the hardware to assemble my new coal burning electrical plant.
Zimmy, May 16 2005
  
      
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