2005 Piece

Reply to a reader from Canada
Agreed. However, Conservatives like Mayor Bloomberg in New York City, continue to use the issue to their advantage. Your Government recently dodged a fall but what would you have if it did fall? Throw all the rascals out!!!!!!!
Until conservatives are willing to pay their fair share and liberals stop taking money from anywhere they can get it, our lifestyles will suffer and statesmanship will continue to breathe with a death rattle, and it won't be because of tobacco smoke.
For all the reasons, the majority of Canadians has been wrong on just about everything. Ventilation should be a decision for property owners only. It would be nice everywhere but I still like smoky old pool rooms, bars and restaurants.
There's always been smoking restrictions but working from the false premise that property owners can be forced to apply restrictions that free choice dictates otherwise, is just wrong. We got along fine with a common sense application.



I suppose there are many cover up issues, each group having their own list. Major air polluters are happy to blame tobacco smoke. So are doctors who have a culprit to blame when they don't know what they are doing. Airlines, who started the major federal involvement, saved millions when they switched the cabin air intake system and didn't have to worry about a smoker backlash. There are many reasons to blame tobacco smoke and a ready made prejudice made it easy for all. If you are a non-smoker, you just don't care and if you are an anti-smoker, you don't like the smell.
Of course, the money and political parts are all encompassing. The polarizing effects are enormous and easy to capitalize on.
The other possibility you mention covers a lot of ground. My first wife was a Registered Nurse and I studied one of her college textbooks, Tabor's Medical Encyclopedia, pretty extensively. Nicotine stimulates the pituitary gland, which regulates all the other glands. It cuts back hormones when there are too many and adds hormones when there aren't enough. There's enough medical stuff there to make doctors and druggists cringe with worry over medicating losses. The drug Wellbutrin, an anti-depressant, works like nicotine and was developed during one of the smoking studies. A pill can't replace the action of smoking, though, and the drug's side effects are enormous and dangerous. Smoking only causes a constriction of blood vessels robbing oxygen from the body. Too much oxygen will give you a headache, anyway.

I could go on and on but I really believe that human genetics holds all the answers and will answer all the questions shortly, if they'll stop spending all the money on anti-smoking studies.
Sam