"Gooooooooood moooooooorning,
America. The latest news from the war on tobacco is that smoking is down and
lung cancer is .......... up. The Office of the US Surgeon General expresses
it's puzzlement, speculating that smoking cessation is not strong enough. We
might even be in a novel situation, where not being exposed to ETS could be
hazardous to your health. That only goes to show just how dangerous smoking is.
And now for the weather."
The toll from lung cancer in the US is now 163.500 deaths per year. That is the
highest number ever recorded. Yet not in living memory has there been so little
smoking going on in the US. How could this be?
Lets go back 55 years in time, and follow the path of events.
In 1950, a heck of a lot of smoking went on in the US. That year about 20.000
lung cancer deaths occured in the US. A couple of British quacks discovered that
smoking 'causes' lung cancer. 'Study' after 'study' repeated the 'discovery'.
Soon it was out everywhere - smoking 'causes' lung cancer! The foundations of a
great pandemonium were laid out. Marlboro man wasn't born yet.
In 1964, the same year that Westmoreland was appointed Commander in Chief of US
forces in Vietnam, the US embarked upon another war - the war on smoking. It was
ushered in by a little publication known as "The Terry Report", in much the same
way that "The Tonkin Bay Affair" ushered in a decade of war in Vietnam. In 1964,
there were 50.000 lung cancer deaths in the US. Marlboro man denied being the
culprit.
In 1975, Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese. Two years earlier, the last
American serviceman had abandoned South Vietnam. The war in Southeast Asia was
over. In 1975, there were 87.000 lung cancer deaths in the US. The War on
Smoking was about to gear up. The new frontier of war was in the homeland.
Marlboro man declined his involvement in the killing.
In 1981, the situation became unbearable for American smokers. They started to
cave in to the mountainloads of propaganda. Passive smoking was invented. That
year, cigarette sales topped with 636 billion. There were 111.000 US lung cancer
deaths that year. Two years earlier, in 1979, the Soviets had invaded
Afghanistan.
By 1991, the anti smoking crusade was rolling in full fury. Perversion of
science was wielded as a weapon. Passive smoke kills. The holy war degraded into
a war of attrition. Groups of citizens who never smoked were made casualties of
the jihad. They contracted some of the same diseases attributed to smoking.
Rather than taking this to the logical conclusion that those diseases could not
possibly be caused by smoking, they were used as a pretext for elevating
'passive smoking' to a 'fact'. Pure alchemy was passed over as 'science'.
Citizens were thus deliberatly sacrificed. In 1991, 149.000 Americans succumbed
to lung cancer, despite the fact that smoking rates had been dropping for almost
a decade. The iron curtain had just fallen.
In 1998, Judge Osteen trashed EPA's contention that exposure to ETS 'causes'
lung cancer. Nobody cared. The goal of achieving a 'smoke free' society took
precedence over facts and science. Lung cancer rates had levelled off to a
temporary maximum of almost 160.000 lung cancer cases. The following years, lung
cancer rates dropped a trifle. For a brief interlude it looked as though 'the
war' was finally paying off. Marlboro man had been tortured into confessing his
guilt.
In 2002 lung cancer rates crept up. Nobody took notice. It was a forewarning of
what was to come.
On the eve of 2005, we began to see the next stage in the growth of lung cancer
in the US. Like a Victor Charlie Tet offensive, lung cancer unleashed its fury
on the unsuspecting Americans. 163.500 lung cancer deaths on the horizon. The
slaughter increased! Marlboro man quietly tugs the iron ball chained to his
feet.
As 2006 unfolds, it is becoming increasingly clear, that the war on smoking,
shot in by The Terry Report in 1964, is yet another American quagmire gone
completely out of control.
Those 163.500 lung cancer deaths are clearly not caused by smoking.
When this terrible war is over, Americans citizens will have paid a huge price.
The Second World War, the First World War and even the American Civil War, will
be dwarfed by the war on smoking. For now, the total toll, in American lung
cancer deaths alone, since 1950, is more than 5.000.000, and rising, not in any
way in response to smoking.
When will Americans wake up to the terrible revelation, that smoking tobacco
does not cause lung cancer - at all?
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