Anti-tobacco lies & more lies

In 1975, British delegate to the World Health Organization, Sir George Goober informed that august body of the means by which smokers could be encouraged to quit: “foster an atmosphere where it was perceived that active smokers would injure those around them, especially their family and any infants or young children who would be exposed involuntarily” to secondhand smoke.

Note the use of the word “perceived”. It implies that the hazards of secondhand smoke didn’t have to exist; merely that the public perception that secondhand smoke was harmful to family, friends and co-workers had to be created.

Although anti-smoker activism has been with us for hundreds of years, they had failed miserably to coerce people into quitting the habit. Mostly, they failed because they attacked smokers on moral grounds or insisting on their right to be free of the “sickening stench” of tobacco.

But with Sir George’s dictum that it was the perception of harm, not the reality, that would be most advantageous in attaining the objective of coercing people to quit, the opposition to smoking took a different tack. True to form, the truth became the first casualty in the war about to be waged against smokers.

First the faulty methodology of the science, followed by the exaggeration and distortion of the science, eventually graduating into outright lies and propaganda.

Tobacco control became a growth industry shortly after Sir George’s address to WHO.

Non-smoker’s rights groups, smoke-free this-and-that groups, and others in the anti-smoker brigade saw funding opportunities increase in direct proportion to the lie, with those making the most outrageous claims often being the biggest benefactors.

Few of these groups are, in fact, grassroots movements. They are structured from the top down. They are, more often than not, funded by the pharmaceutical industry and taxpayer dollars filtered down from the usurious tax burden placed on smokers to force them to kick the habit. And, if they had to survive through member “donations”, they’d likely have to fold their tents and steal away like any other thief in the night.

The public has been indoctrinated to believe that evidence contrary to the propaganda spouted by the prohibitionists is the work of “tobacco stooges”, and not to be believed. The public is largely unaware that these “organizations” are funded largely through taxes imposed on the smoking public and funding provided by the multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical industry.

They are wary of any studies funded by big tobacco, but readily accept the deceit of big pharma, because the information is processed through legitimate public health sources such as Health Canada, The Canadian Cancer Society and The Ontario Ministry of Health Promotion, among others. The problem, of course, is that even these organizations often receive substantial funding from the pharmaceutical giants.

The ultimate goal of the anti-smoker brigade is the outright prohibition of tobacco. Jim Watson (Ottawa-West Nepean MPP) declared his desire to make cigarettes illegal while serving as Ontario’s Minister of Health Promotion on April 9, 2006: "If I had my druthers I would not want to see tobacco anywhere in Canada….we know it kills people. If I had the ultimate authority to ban tobacco from the province or the country, of course I would."

Smokers themselves seem content to hang their heads in shame for choosing to use a perfectly legal product. They seem reluctant to fight back against what has become outright discrimination against smokers which would not be tolerated against any other minority group. They would do well to remember the words of Desiderada, “You are a child of the universe; you have a right to be here.”

This child of the universe chooses to smoke. No apologies.

Recommended Reading:
Passive Smoking: An Institutional Problem – Fabricated Risks Attributed to Passive Smoking. Click on the link: Forces International

Fact or Fiction 3

The (US) Surgeon General's Report concluded "there is no safe level of secondhand smoke.”

Actually, the Surgeon General’s Report concluded no such thing. No safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke can be easily determined simply because, as the anti-smoker brigade will be quick to tell you, there are over 4,000 chemicals in SHS. Whether that number is accurate or not is open to debate. At any rate, safe exposure levels to each of the individual components of secondhand smoke have been determined.

OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Association), in the US, is responsible for determining permissible safe exposure levels for hazardous workplace substances, including the many chemicals in tobacco.

OSHA has stated regarding secondhand smoke: "Field studies of environmental tobacco smoke indicate that under normal conditions, the components in tobacco smoke are diluted below existing Permissible Exposure Levels (PELS.) as referenced in the Air Contaminant Standard (29 CFR 1910.1000) ... It would be very rare to find a workplace with so much smoking that any individual PEL would be exceeded."

Recommended Reading: Clean Air Quality American Cancer Society Test Results

The Ministry of Health Propaganda

The Ontario Ministry of Health Promotion, in a letter responding to an inquiry about the proposed ban on smoking in motor vehicles with children present, claimed: "Clearly, medical science shows that children who breathe second-hand smoke are more likely to suffer Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, asthma, and cardiac arrest."

Dr. Michael Siegel, an anti-smoking advocate, took issue with this claim from the Liberal propaganda ministry, saying: “I do not understand why the Ministry of Health Promotion would fabricate such a claim.”

In his blog, The Rest of The Story, he says, “There is simply no way to justify or explain the statement that secondhand smoke causes cardiac arrest among exposed children. There is no degree of leniency on the terminology that we can allow that would enable us to interpret that statement as being anything other than blatantly inaccurate.”

“Children's hearts do not stop beating suddenly because of exposure to secondhand smoke. There is no evidence that secondhand smoke exposure causes acute coronary events of any kind among children. This claim seems to be pulled completely out of the blue. It's not like the claim is even an exaggeration of a claim for which there is evidence. In other words, this is not merely an exaggeration, it is a complete fabrication.”

Earlier this year, in March, Ontario Premier Dalton McGinty claimed publicly that “being exposed to one hour of secondhand smoke in a car is the same for a young child as smoking an entire pack of cigarettes.”

Dave Orazietti (Saulte St. Marie MPP), and sponsor of the bill, claimed during a press conference last December that “young people are especially susceptible to the harmful effects of second hand smoke and as a result they are more likely to suffer from cancer, heart disease, asthma and a number of other respiratory problems."

Mr. McGinty’s remarks were labelled “inaccurate” while Mr. Orazietti’s comments were labeled “irresponsible and unethical”.

The politicians get their information exclusively from the anti-smoker brigade.Their outrageous claims are based on seriously distorted science and statistics passed off as “fact”. Contrary opinions are simply ignored; their authors disparaged as “tobacco stooges”.

The press ignores the distortions of fact, perhaps too lazy, or maybe too gullible, to investigate the claims being made by such august bodies as Health Canada, non-smokers rights groups, Dalton’s Ministry of Health Propaganda and others.

The politicians take their cue from the fanatics in the anti-smoker brigade whose goal is to vilify and demonize smokers so that the public will accept any degree of blatant discrimination directed against smokers without resistance.

The “loyal” opposition in the Ontario legislature is loyal to no other interests, save their own. They’re all afraid of questioning the dishonest claims being made from the government bench lest they be seen as opposing efforts to “protect our children”.

The politicians can make their wild claims knowing there is no effective opposition to challenge their outlandish claims.

Check out Dr. Siegel’s latest post, “Ontario Health Ministry Tells Public that Secondhand Smoke Causes Cardiac Arrest Among Children” on his blog: The Rest of The Story

Smokers, bad science & bans

The smoking ban in restaurants didn't bother me much. The establishments which I frequent had, for the most part, already prohibited smoking before the government saw fit to intrude on the free choice of the owners. The owners made legitimate business decisions based on what they felt was best for the success of their business. But, before the bans, I could simply retire to my favourite watering hole for a brandy and my after dinner smoke. At any rate, I don't dine out all that often anymore.

The smoking bans in bars, likewise, didn't bother me all that much. Next year I'll be, officially, a senior. Having been married for forty years, the bar scene just doesn't appeal to me anymore.

The ban on smoking in private clubs and legion halls was a little more troublesome. In years past, the Royal Canadian Legion, where I've been a member for over forty years, was at the centre of our social life. We seldom go there anymore. The walk to the parking lot is too long; and winters are far too cold up here in the Great White North. And, besides, it's demeaning.

Once, in the rapidly receding past, smokers and non-smokers could co-habit the same space without rancor. They probably still could. In fact, they still do at social gatherings in private homes. But now, there are efforts afoot to deprive smokers of even that limited social interaction. For now, it's limited to rental accommodation in multi-unit apartment buildings. To-morrow it will include private homes; count on it.

So what happened? There was no grassroots movement to ban smoking in these areas; no hue and cry from the public.

The “movement” was started, and is being perpetuated, by anti-smoker groups and government agencies funded by both the government and the pharmaceutical industry. Many of these groups are funded in part through taxes extorted from smokers themselves.

The outrageous claims of the anti-smoker brigade are based on seriously distorted science and statistics passed off as “fact”. Contrary opinions are simply ignored; their authors disparaged as “tobacco stooges”. But, It has been estimated that for every study showing a link to SHS and cancer, there are six showing no risk at all.

The World Health Organization tried to bury a study they commissioned from IARC because it didn't demonstrate what they wanted to show; that secondhand smoke caused lung cancer. The EPA study in the States was blasted by both the congress and the judiciary for scientific and procedural irregularities, including conflict of interest. The American Cancer Society pulled funding from a study by Enstrom and Kabat when the preliminary findings indicated that, like the WHO study, it wouldn't prove what ACS wanted to prove. Then they criticized the study because it was completed with funding from the tobacco industry.

The anti-smoker activists want people to believe that a society capable of putting a man on the moon, is incapable of building a ventilation system to protect non-smokers from exposure to SHS. They turned the scientific theory that the poison is in the dose upside down by proclaiming that “there is no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke.”

Politicians, eager to score a few cheap brownie points with their constituents, routinely take the information provided by the anti-smoker brigade as gospel; their gullibility, apparently, matched only by their lack of scientific literacy.

So the lies continue and the discrimination against smokers grows.

Maybe, some time in the future, there will be a politician with the integrity to do his/her own research and the moral courage to speak out against the discrimination. Maybe.

But, a word of caution; holding your breath that long may be hazardous to your health.

Recommended Reading:
Edmund Contoski posted an excellent essay on this topic recently. Check it out. Death by smoking ban