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opinion/analysis
 Tuesday March 30, 2004 02:54 by Watchdog
Oppose use of natural plants.
As the Prohibition of Marijuana was done for the benefit of health-damaging industries like logging, pulp, chlorine, pesticides, petrochemical plastics, big pharma and the like, so too is the virtually inevitable Prohibition of Tobacco. Those who like the idea of another Prohibition, please step to the front of the "anti-smoking" crusade. This will be to just ask some questions.
* Why do those who elsewhere fight the harms of pesticide and other chemical industries IGNORE those same industries, even the same specific firms, for their part in cigarettes? Pub proprietors will be fined, arrested, and put out of business for allowing "smoking", but Dow, DuPont, BASF, Uniroyal, Shell, and the rest won't even be embarrassed for their KNOWN toxic/carcinogenic, and unlisted cigarette adulterants.
* In Ireland, have gov't officials who work for the Smoke Ban been checked to see if they are economically linked to parts of the cig industry that dearly hope to remain Out Of The Picture? This refers to oil/pharm firms that make tobacco pesticides, chlorine firms that supply the materials for pesticides and the cig paper bleach, paper firms that supply the bleached paper, ag biz firms that supply so many non-tobacco cig additives, and so forth. If they were economically linked to Insurance Firms that have investment holdings in cigs and cig suppliers, would that be acceptable as they work to pass blame and burdens of law onto Publicans and their customers?
* If health is the issue (as they say), why aren't the KNOWN health damaging non-tobacco parts of typical cigs Long GONE? They aren't even mentioned.
* Ireland signed the POPs Treaty...to globally eliminate chlorine's by-product, dioxin (and 11 of the other top worst industrial pollutants). Why then is dioxin STILL allowed in cigarette smoke due to the CONTINUED tolerance of chlorine cig contaminants?
* If Dioxin is so bad, why is there no Warning Label about it on cig packages? (We know why. It would indict those who LET it be there.)
* It's said that "tobacco smoke" is harmful. How then is it that NO STUDIES of tobacco smoke (as opposed to ADULTERATED tobacco smoke) have been presented?
* Has anyone noticed that the word "smoking" puts blame on the victims, the ones doing the smoking...and that it IGNORES Manufacturing Processes, where the untested and known deadly stuff is made into an undefined, unlabeled "cigarette"?
* Has anyone noticed that the well-known effects of dioxin are virtually IDENTICAL to what are called (by corporate entities) "smoking-related illnesses". Has anyone noticed that NO PLANT, tobacco or other, is capable of such effects? Why, then, is tobacco the focus? Rhetorical question.
* Do we WANT another Prohibition of yet another natural, smokeable, traditionally-used public domain plant?
* Why does the World Trade Org. push for smoke bans? It does NOT push for getting the known deadly industrial stuff OUT of cigarettes, nor does it even call for listing of these things. And, of course, it doesn't ask that a single unwitting, unprotected, insufficiently-warned consumer be compensated.
* And...is a side-"benefit" here something about reducing Pub patronage?...a stealth war on alcohol...an echo of a former, ill-fated Prohibition. Has Talibanism become a global plague?
* Do folks believe that the Corporatocracy cares about ANYONE's health? Pub workers respiratory health seems to be more of an urgent issue than the LIVES of untold thousands of Iraqis and Afghanis and so forth.
* Is it not interesting that OTHER work-place dangers are not included in this "clean air" program? How can a law be legitimate unless the other things are eliminated too? What about auto-exhaust in shops and parking garages, welding fumes, copy-machine fumes, paints/solvents/varnishes/ lacquers/disinfectants/pesticides...and etc?
What about candles, cooking smoke and CHURCH INCENSE?
Save an altar boy. Say NO to Incense!
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Comments (4 of 4)
Jump To Comment: 4 3 2 1Inhaling natural smoke from plain tobacco...as has been done for over 10,000 years...is one thing. But when certain corporate interests secretly put untested and even known non-tobacco stuff into cigs, still call it "tobacco", then evade the consequences for the inevitable health calamaties, that is Quite Another Thing.
Swimming, for instance poses risks (as does any smoke)...but if a business secretly put sharks and nuclear waste into their pool, then just "warned" folks that "swimming is dangerous", that business has committed a crime and is responsible for deaths/injuries.
I have little interest in taking Mother Nature to court for her Tobacco Smoke...but we damn well ought take Big Cig to court for what it did to tobacco...and millions of smokers.
Of course the government aren't really that interested in taking on the tobacco industry. They implemented this as studies showed them it would be popular and because it cost nothing. The tobacco industry obviously opposed it, but it wasn't that costly to them and they aren't a real force in Ireland anyway. A relatively painless way of gaining popularity and the appearance of principle.
However, don't be a fool, of course tobacco is harmful. Anybody who doesn't realise that inhaling any type of smoke into their lungs is harmful, is kidding themselves. Our lungs, although hardy, have evolved to inhale a certain mix of gases and adding a whole load of dense smoke to the mix doesn't help in the long run.
It's not that anything ought be REMOVED from tobacco leaves, it's that the cig makers must not PUT stuff there in the first place.
Not one tobacco adulterant has been tested alone or in combination. Many adulterants are KNOWN to be harmful alone and in combinations or when burned. This makes smokers nothing less than murder victims, victims of attempted murder, and Guinea pigs who gave no Informed Consent to be thusly experimented upon.
Third Reich leaders were executed for experimenting on subjects without such consent. Nuremberg Principles forbid the practice. Cigarette makers and their government allies may be ignorant of the law...but that's not an excuse.
One would think that the perpetrators would be the ones feeling burdens of law ...but in the "smoking" case, the victims will be hit with fines and arrests.
Organic tobacco is already available....but STUDIES of real or expected health effects of it have not been presented. Regular cigs would likely NOT compare well...so, to protect the cig firms AND their many ingredients/contaminants suppliers, no comparative studies are brought out.
It would be like comparing a campfire to an industrial incinerator.
Fair point but my understanding is that it is still legal to smoke 'herbal' cigarettes in pubs. If, because of the amount of chemicals in over the counter cigarettes they are far removed from natural tobacco leaves then maybe smoking pure tobacco might not be illegal.
Give it a go and let us know how you get on