Decline in Adult Smoking in the US Has Ended
In Medscape Pathology & Lab Medicine of September 8, 2010, Nick Mulcahy, in an article titled "Decline in Adult Smoking in the US Has Ended", states that, according to the CDC, "The 4-decade-long decline in smoking among American adults has levelled off. Since that time, the number of adult smokers has remained at 20%, or 1 in 5".
Then he reports some blah blah from Dr. Frieden about who is to blame for this stop, and concludes the article with:
"According to the CDC, California has had the longest-running comprehensive tobacco control program. Adult smoking in California declined by about 40% from 1998 to 2006, and lung cancer in the state has been declining 4 times faster than in the rest of the nation".
Now, let’s think about. The smoking ban was enacted by the state of California in 1998. I am willing to believe that smoking in California declined by 40% but, for heaven’s sake, what has it to do with the declining of lung cancer seeing that it takes from 30 years up before it manifests itself? Therefore, to determine if the smoking ban has decreased the lung cancer, one should wait for the statistics of the year 2028 – ie 30 years after the start of the ban – but, let’s be generous: we’ll wait for the year 2020, or 2018, or whatever you want. The ignorance of the author, and the editor, is ludicrous. It is 12 years since the ban and they want to convince the gullible that, thanks the prohibition of smoking, in California the lung cancer has decreased at a rate four times higher than in the rest of the USA! …
In that article I do not see an obvious conflict of interest as much as a bigoted belief in the motto "Smoking = Cancer." However, at the various websites and print media, the news is often "accompanied" by advertising on anti-smoking products!
P.S. For those who want to know more, just enter a phrase like "decline smokers stopped".
P.P.S. When I was about to send this letter to the editor, I found that Canadians too no longer believe – or at least have many reservations about the anti-smoking campaign that has pursued them for years!
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