Chapter 6: Passive Smoking
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Without doubt the single biggest weapon in the
anti-smoking campaign, and resulting in the massive attention on public health,
is passive smoking, or environmental tobacco smoke (ETS). Given that being told smoking was harmful did
little to stop people smoking, we were told that smokers are damaging the
health of other people too. This has
obvious implications: throughout history, and to this day, people can defend
their actions by saying it is their body, their right, and ultimately does not
affect anyone else. So, of course, being
told that, actually, smoking tobacco will harm, and possibly kill, those around
that person means that suddenly smoking is not just an inconvenience to
non-smokers, but a threat to their health.
At first most people did not pay much attention to the warnings and
shrugged it off, but in recent years the ETS campaign has grown with alarming
speed, to the point where some people now claim smokers should be prosecuted
for attempted murder.
There are, naturally, scary figures
to accompany the scare; how else would we be convinced? Of course, it does not matter in the least to
those creating the figures – and the hype – that no such danger really exists -
this is all for the bigger picture: demonising smoking, at any cost.
I have already explained how,
given the amount of people who smoke, it appears smoking cannot be killing as
many people as we are led to believe – this can be determined without looking
at studies, mere population statistics tell this. The fact the studies do not prove what they
set out to also speaks volumes. But, if
second-hand smoke is killing as well, then there would hardly be anyone left in
the world today; if 80% smoked, 100% would be exposed to the smoke, meaning that,
if we believe the official line, 50% of those active smokers would be dead,
plus however many people passive smoke is supposedly killing (it is hard to
say, given the figures change with rapid regularity).
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