AirCare sampled emissions directly, so their study is based not on statistical surveys, estimates and speculations but on hard numbers taken directly from vehicles' tailpipes. While the health-damaging substances in auto emissions are virtually the same as those from burning cigarettes, the quantities produced by automobiles are measured in hundred of thousands of tonnes, not grams. Nevertheless, automakers continue the production and the promotion of their products with the welcoming complicity of all levels of government.

We are waiting to see what your intentions are regarding lawsuits in light of these facts. Hopefully, you will inform the public that you have instructed your legal department to explore all legal options for suing the automakers for the recovery of preventable accidents and illness caused by automobiles. Moreover, if you are to be consistent, we would expect similar action against fast-food manufacturers, notorious for the fat content of their products - another preventable cause of heart disease, as well as alcohol manufacturers, who are responsible directly and indirectly for hundred of thousands of deaths.

2) In most cases, medical research is incapable of differentiating with absolute certainty lung cancer caused by smoking from that caused by atmospheric pollution. The cancer is simply logged as tobacco-related if the patient smokes, regardless of age, and often in ignorance of other factors.

Moreover, according to many studies, if a subject has smoked more than five packs of cigarettes in a lifetime, he or she is a smoker. If a subject has been living with a smoker, he/she is also often classified as a smoker. This sort of criteria confuses the issue of causality, particularly in the light of other factors such as air pollution, and has been criticized by many scientists for inflating "epidemic" figures. More than a suspicion exists that significant air pollution-related lung cancer is being buried in the pursuit of a relatively easy, "politically correct" target: tobacco products, and smokers.

3) We have access to at least 50 independent, reputable international scientific studies demonstrating that the dangers of smoking and ETS are NOT what state propaganda and anti-smoking interests groups portray them to be. Yet the promotion and support of smoking bans in public places on the basis of the "scientific evidence" concerning the dangers of smoking and second hand smoke goes on without discussion of the real dissent that exists in the international scientific community on this question.

If you and your Ministry are not aware of these studies, then it is logical to conclude that you are incompetent for not knowing about them, and for not bringing all the facts forward in the debate over smoking issues. If you are aware of the studies, then the logical conclusion is that intentional misinformation is presented to the public through omission because of political expediency. That is a serious matter, since the omission is helping to instigate the virtual social outcasting of a quarter of the population of B.C. who chooses to smoke -- something which is despicable, and hopefully prosecutable by law. While not advocating smoking, we must point out that the so-called "overwhelming evidence" against ETS and smoking in general is overwhelming only in the eyes of anti-smoking lobbying groups, and of governments who have decided to listen to just one side of the issue, and act accordingly.

4) Copying like parrots the U.S. approach of "protection" of minors from the dangers of tobacco promotion is the latest, unoriginal twist in the agenda of what we regard as a political smokescreen. Countries in which the promotion of tobacco products has always been illegal do not show any significantly lower percentage of smokers in any age range. As a matter of fact, Greece has the highest percentage of smokers -- as well as the longest life expectancy -- of the European Union.

We believe that the high level of attention and the high profile prohibition given by North American governments to tobacco products are a main cause of the current, unprecedented increase in teen-age smoking. The total denial of access to tobacco products by minors is not achievable, and -- in the eyes of teenagers -- raises tobacco to a very desirable forbidden product, to a symbol of personal liberty and independence. We hold the B.C. Ministry of Health largely responsible for creating the next generation of B.C. smokers, while acting on the basis of short-term political gain, if it presumes to stop teenage smoking by saying, in effect, "the adults say you can't, so don't you dare...".

Even accepting the questionable assumption that the large majority of lung cancers are caused exclusively by smoking, the argument that smokers cost the Health Care system an unbearable amount of money is severely flawed.

What does the B.C. government do with the yearly $516 million revenue from tobacco tax? If tobacco tax is a "sin" tax, why isn't that money then all used to support Medicare so that smokers' money is used directly for paying their way in the system? We smokers are paying our way, so why is this not acknowledged? People who buy gasoline and pollute everyone's air have roads built for them with the revenue of the tax they pay.

In fact, we submit that taking our tobacco tax money while condemning smoking is hypocritical on the part of government, especially when government tries to tell the public how much smoking is "costing" in dollar terms. This is truly a schizophrenic position. Government is just as "dirty" as tobacco companies when it comes to financial interest.

It is a sad day for democracy when governments no longer dialogue with minorities, but barricade themselves behind cliches, use the media to engineer public support, and use the power that people entrusted to them for the purpose of social control. We can only hope that our judicial system, which sometimes seems like the last bastion of justice left behind by the preceding generations, will be able to hold back the current repressive wave.

Ms. McPhail, the current battle over tobacco use is really a battle between two social philosophies: the right of the state to establish and control what is good for the citizen versus the right of the citizen to establish and control what is good for him or her in a pluralistic society where different beliefs and practices are allowed to coexist. The outcome of this battle will determine the direction of all things to come in this province and in this country.

We demand an assurance that the Ministry of Health and the B.C. government will not let the anti-smoking juggernaut make this province a socially hostile place for smokers who live and are taxed here, or for those who come to visit. This would be in the best interests of British Columbians.

We are awaiting your response.

Respectfully,

Gian Turci, President

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