Smoke, Lies and the Nanny State.
http://heartland.org/sites/all/modules/custom/heartland_migration/files/pdfs/23216.pdf
For thousands of years in the Americas, and about 500 years pretty
much everywhere else, tobacco has been a friend to mankind. It has
been used to relax, to stimulate, and to treat various ailments. It has
been a vital part of rituals both social and spiritual. It has been used
as currency. Whole communities have been founded on it - including,
arguably, the United States of America.
Wait a minute. Scratch that! Smoking is a vile, filthy habit that
will almost inevitably kill you. No one smokes willingly; they are simply
pathetic addicts, duped by evil tobacco companies. Tobacco is a plague
which must be wiped out.
Like most people these days, I was more inclined, up until a few
years ago, to believe the second paragraph than the first. I was a very moderate smoker and
almost gave up. But something about the sheer hysteria of the antismoking movement, and the
various holes and contradictions in their arguments, made me suspicious. Some time in the late
1990s I arrived in Los Angeles and, as my taxi pulled out of the airport, I was confronted by a huge
red billboard: SECONDHAND SMOKE KILLS. I thought: even heavy smokers take several decades to
develop lung cancer. Surely a nonsmoker, even regularly exposed to smoke in the air, would have
to live to be about 300 to catch up? And how exactly would you know it was smoke that killed
them, as opposed to, say, the appalling LA smog?
The rest of this epic manifesto is at link...worth the read...
