That’s easy – Money, Money, Money.

The image of the lungs is great. My oldest friend is a doctor. He entered med school as a smoker and on examining the first lungs of cadavers he got to compare the healthy lungs of a non-smoking man who died of natural causes at age 80 to the lungs of a 25-year old smoker killed in a crash. The former were nice and pink, the latter all brown and wasted. My friend quit smoking on the spot.

I think that education, not prohibition, will curtail smoking. High taxes on smokes (or booze, etc.) only encourages smuggling and creates profits for the underworld and even terrorists. So does prohibition. And it is not good to have government revenue depend on “sin taxes”. With regard to tobacco, drugs, alcohol, tattoos, sexual practices, overeating, and proper diet, people must have knowledge and respect their bodies.

It is interesting to see how certain drugs and livestyles have been spread around the world. For example, tea, coffee and tobacco consumption spread to Europe after Europeans saw the use of those products in “exotic” lands and became fascinated. Since then, we have seen some abuse and commercialization the world over, but with more research, we have come to realize the evils of extensive use of some of these products. Many decades ago, smoking was seen as the hip thing and the cigarette companies made their fortunes, before it became shunned by society. Now, the coffee craze has taken over America, learning from practices in Europe and now fueled by brands such as Starbucks. Will we see a decline in use of coffee for health reasons similiarly to cigarettes? Maybe not, but it’s amazing to see how some cultural practices have been spread to other countries and the wider society and become the hip thing! We can see similar trends in other habits like tattoos, consumption of transfat in fast food products etc. Sometimes we need to be shocked from the false sense of well being we get from those substances before dumping a bad habit. Unfortunately it sometimes takes years before that sinks in. With the advent of information technology however, the conversion process will likely be much shorter!

pete

By the way Chris, there are many legal acts and and potentially dangerous substances in society that are allowed simply because taking them away would be seen as restricting human rights. Yes, it may be a crime or dishonor to kill oneself in some societies but not a crime or dishonor to use what could turn to be lethal: drugs, alcohol, and lifestyle habits (including how cars are driven or foods consumed). Isn’t it amazing? According to wikipedia: “Most Western and some Asian religions—the Abrahamic religions, Hinduism—consider suicide a dishonorable act; in the West it was regarded as a serious crime and an offense towards God due to religious belief in the sanctity of life.” We need to think more about the true meaning of sanctity as we kill ourselves softly. However, we can’t be too draconian, though it could save lives! We know from experience that some of these measures do not even work (take prohibition for example). We can’t make much of these things illegal, as in moderation, there can be some social and utilitarian value to them and even health benefits. Education and responsibility is the key it seems.

It is interesting to note that ALL of the world’s oldest people are or were…..SMOKERS!
http://www.forces.org/evidence/hamilton/other/oldest.htm

The Pig Lung Scam, Again and Again
The anti-smokers lie to children by obtaining pig lungs from meatpacking plants, soaking them in chemicals, and then claiming that this is what tobacco smoke does to them.
“Obviously, it was a lung, but it was as black as coal, bore tumorous growths and couldn’t hold its air very long. ‘This is what happens when you smoke,’ Capt. Rob Pankiw, drug demand reduction administrator with the Delaware National Guard’s Counterdrug Task Force, told a gaggle of wide-eyed adolescents in Dover. Pankiw described the centerpiece of his anti-smoking display as the diseased lung of a 150-pound man who smoked for 15 years. Actually, it was a pig’s lung shot full of various carcinogens on purpose, but, as Pankiw said later, his lesson was made stronger by not passing along that tidbit of truth.” (Burning passion brings 700 kids to anti-smoking rally. James Merriweather, Dover News Journal 2001 Apr 6.) But after this brief episode of truth, the article degenerates into the usual anti-smoking screed.
Merriweather / Dover

This old lie, which is making the rounds again, was presented to all new Airmen shortly after arriving at their permanent base. I first saw this film in 1960 as a mandatory showing. I later found that the lung was not human but a pig lung that was treated with chemicals to make it look diseased to those who were ignorant of actual facts. They were spreading this lie to reduce smoking in the Air Force. What is old is new again. Anything will be said to further the cause. When we are ignorant of the facts, the facts do not matter and fraud has no meaning. When I pointed this out about the lung that the ACS used at the New Albany smoking ban meeting, Mayor English dropped any more meetings about smoking bans.

One Crusader, a feeder at the public trough of Delaware National Guard’s Counter drug Task Force, likes to scare impressionable children by holding up a blackened, bloody, and diseased looking lung in classrooms while explaining that the cancerous thing came from a man who had smoked for just 15 years.
In reality, it is simply a pig’s lung shot full of carcinogens and prepared carefully to look disgusting, gruesome, and scary… not a human lung at all. The National Guard Captain explained to the reporter covering the story that his lesson was made stronger “by not passing along that tidbit of truth” (James Merriweather. Delaware News Journal. 04/05/01).

In the post on the Doctor, He had no idea what that particular person was subjected to in his/her life time. That person could have lived in any number of polluted environments or none at all and it could have been genetic. At best it was an opinion, just because of smoking.