Winnipeg Free Press

01 December 1999

Cigarette smoke least of worries

Holy smoke! What a tempest Tom Oleson's column has raised about smoking -- probably his tongue-in-cheek intention.

What's all the fuss about? Why all the concentration on the evils of cigarette smoke when everyone is exposed to a huge variety of airborne toxic vapours? We have sick buildings that are smoke free yet leave employees ill at the end of their work day. The streets are thick with gasoline and diesel exhaust fumes, and lawns, parks, schoolyards and city trees and apartments are regularly sprayed with pesticides that emit unhealthy and long-lasting vapour traces.

How did God get mixed up in the smoking controversy? She gave us free will and the tobacco plant, which, by the way, makes a safe and effective insecticide. You can smoke it or use it to make a pale coloured tea to kill bugs in your garden. It's your free choice.

ELLEN FRANCIS
Silver, Mantioba