A fourth and most venal class of avengers, the worst of the worst, also exist. They are called politicians. In their purest (i.e. vilest) form they are bluenose legislators with a fiscal fixation.

All four types are control addicts who can't abide any mores other than their own and see freedom as their God given right to impinge on the freedom of others.

Altogether they are known as Anti-Tobacco Crusaders, although the title may change as their targets change. Some are non-smokers whose lips have never been defiled by the devil's weed, some are ex-smokers who, having seen the light, want to blind everybody else with it, and some are even closet smokers themselves who just like to ride bandwagons and crack whips between cigars.

All are deaf and all have delusions of grandeur. More than anything, they all need a taste of persecution themselves.

Or maybe just a good cigar.

In 1778 Benjamin Franklin designed the first coin minted in the United States. It carried the phrase "Mind your own business." The days when that sentiment had any official endorsement are long gone.

In a forthcoming book, "A Nation of Meddlers," authors Charles Edgley (a professor of sociology at Oklahoma State) and Dennis Brissett (a professor of behavioral science at the University at Minnesota Medical school) discuss euphemisms currently used for meddling, then go on to indict certain euphemistic practices prevalent in a number of professions.

Workers and bureaucrats in the helping professions, they say, are among the more visible representatives at meddling by euphemism. Social workers, for instance, never meddle, butt in or tamper with other people's lives. Instead they engage in "professional intervention strategies," do "crisis intervention," "empower" or "treat," all part of what "therapy" is all about. If the client happens to believe that the intervener is actually meddling, and has the temerity to say so, the client, of course, is charged with being in "denial."

The authors define meddlers as "true believers who confuse the frequent validity of their derived views with a proprietary right to impose their generalizations full bloom on others."

Meddlers, they conclude, perceive meddlees as engaged in actions the meddler regards as negative, dangerous, unhealthy, and the like. Meddlers are indomitable peddlers of anti-themes. "For instance, to oppose MADD is to somehow condone highway carnage caused by alcohol while failure to denounce smokers at every opportunity is translated into an endorsement of cancer and the threat supposedly posed by passive smoke becomes a grim symbol of our times - innocent people being done in by the seemingly innocuous habits of others."

These anti-themes have come to permeate society. The world has become a war zone for meddlers armed with a special anti-interest and a totalitarian vision of a world made safe by stamping out those who differ. Ironically a language of freedom is increasingly being used by meddlers to cloak their anti-ideology. Adjectives such as SMOKE-FREE, ALCOHOL-FREE, RADON-FREE, PRAYER-FREE, and FRAGRANCE-FREE are used to create the appearance of democratic action. "Such post-modern freedom for people not to do something that they were never required to do in the first place replaces the more classical freedom to do what one wishes."

"In a nation in which selfhood is becoming more and more defined by what people DON'T do than by what they do, defending oneself becomes a matter of attacking and controlling what others do. The meddler's own self-denial becomes the justification for denying others the opportunity to do whatever it is that the meddler is not doing. In this sense, people meddle because their very self is threatened. Deviance, from whatever standard is asserted or presumed, challenges the life of the meddler, not by threatening to sweep him into the abyss of inequity implicit in the meddlee's dissolute behavior but by its very existence."

To meddlers, the authors say, people are not only known by what they don't do, but also by what they don't TOLERATE: "I don't drink, smoke, use drugs, or eat the wrong foods" is not enough. Now self is preserved by adding emphatically: "and I don't tolerate those who do!"

"The international 'no' symbol - a red-slashed circle - is the perfect icon for an age in which people are coming to be known more by what they aren't than what they are."

"If the meddlee seems to be happy, interesting, fun-loving, perhaps even healthy, satisfied, and fulfilled, this only increases the grim-faced challenge offered the meddler."

America has become a nation of puritanical meddlers for whom "should" and "should not" are the predominant words, and they view life as a series of progressive or regressive diseases for which early intervention is the only antidote.

The authors point out that vocational meddlers, those who meddle for money, "include a vast and growing array of personnel ranging from social workers, psychologists, and psychiatrists to lawyers, administrators, and government bureaucrats. The latter, operating in the belief that the presence of rules and regulations produces safety, security, and assurance, attempt to extend their own sphere of influence while claiming the noble justification of protecting the innocent. Despite the loftiness of motive, however, the primary task of all vocational meddlers is staying in business. Offices must be kept running, positions must be kept filled, budgets must be increased, promotions and raises must go on apace. The first concern of the meddling trades is steady work, and meddling is perhaps the closest thing there is to a recession-proof business. The only thing that could conceivably depress the economic forecast for professional meddlers would be an outbreak of health, harmony, and happiness. Unfortunately, these virtues have been so narrowly redefined by these same professionals that they are now more utopian abstractions than achievable realities."

Meddling in the name of health and safety a virtually unchallengable argument as well as a growth industry for those who would protect us. "The regulatory environment of the government bureaucracy, coupled with tort legislation, has turned injury and accidents into a national lottery in which too many citizens hope to transform their tragedies into jackpots. Accidents no longer exist, it seems, for everything is seen by the legal profession as 'preventative' and tort law has thus become unparalleled in its meddlesome consequences."

Edgley and Brissett quote Peter Huber in his "THE LEGAL REVOLUTlON AND ITS CONSEQUENCES: "No other country in the world administers anything like it. Tort law was set in place in the 1960's and 70's by a new generation of lawyers and judges... Some grew famous and more grew rich in selling their services to enforce the rights they themselves invented." Huber observes that claims that other people's wrong doings are responsible for life's difficulties generates is, in effect, a "tort tax" on goods and services that amount to a $300 billion levy on the American economy accounting for "30 percent of the price of a step-ladder and 95 percent of the price of childhood vaccines. All in the name of health and safety."

"A Nation of Meddlers" is scheduled for publication in the fall of 1998 by Westview Press. To be available in both hard cover and paperback, it promises to be interesting reading.

Study: Secondhand smoke kills

Science and Medicine

AP 2-Mar-1997 12:02 EST REF5139

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP)

Preface by Carol Thompson:

Hold onto your hats. This news report via Associated Press goes back to March 2, 1997. In it, you read that a study finds that secondhand smoke kills 4,700 non-smoking Californians each year, while 35,000 to 62,000 ETS-related deaths take place nationwide, 4,200 to 7,400 in California alone. We're told lung cancer caused by environmental tobacco smoke kills 3,000 Americans each year, 360 of them Californians. Meanwhile, a Harvard study claims that 6,700 children a year are killed by ETS. Why is it that central EPA has long taken its distance from the 30,000-death ETS figure, while this California report modifies it to a wide 35,000 to 62,000? In the meantime, the American Medical Association talks about 53,000 non-smokers killed by ETS year, while New York City's Public Advocate Mark Green claims that 100,000 Americans are killed by ETS. Confused? So are we. The criminal shotgun approach practice of scaring the public by throwing at it enormous, random, up-in-the-air death figures is well known by anyone who is involved in the fight against this fraud.

The important point is that this is not a study. It is just the anti-smokers' usual trick of applying their same old fraudulent computer program to raw demographic data, and spewing forth a bogus ETS death toll. It re-perpetrates all the epidemiological malpractice that I have exposed in "Deconstructing the anti-smoking movement".

And then they lie to us that they did a "study", when all they did was regurgitate their same old garbage. It's instant computer-generated propaganda: just add heated rhetoric and spew it in the public's faces.

Remember, the anti-smoking movement exists ONLY because of the media conspiracy set out to ram it down the public's unwilling throats. They railroaded their smoking bans through on the "strengths" of a corrupt EPA report; claiming to "save " people from an asthma death rate that's tripled since they came along; and making sacred cows out of a good squad of hyperventilators who accuse smokers of harming them, even when they know that the EMTs actually treated them for hyperventilation, not asthma.

These people should pay for everything they've done to humiliate and degrade smokers. We should not be satisfied until they've paid with every stick of property, and every penny they have made while lying to entire nations, and an entire generation, and trying to commit cultural genocide on smokers.

"Secondhand smoke kills at least 4,700 non-smoking Californians each year and causes respiratory illnesses in tens of thousands of children, according to a new state study" the report says.

And: "The state EPA report concludes that there is sufficient evidence from the body of existing research to conclude that secondhand smoke is responsible for a wide variety of health problems, including premature births, sudden infant death syndrome, lung cancer and heart disease."

"The reports estimates that secondhand smoke caused between 35,000 and 62,000 deaths nationwide from heart attack and stroke, and between 4,200 and 7,440 such deaths in California alone."

"In comparison, environmental tobacco smoke is responsible for lung cancer that kills 3,000 Americans each year, 360 of them Californians."

"Among the findings of the California study is that secondhand tobacco smoke hits the children of smokers especially hard. The study blames secondhand smoking for up to 3,000 new childhood asthma cases in California each year and for as many as 188,000 doctor visits for middle-ear infections."

It would be interesting to know just how many times the phrase, "protect the children" or variations thereof have appeared in anti-smoking literature. Considering its occurrence in government agency statements plus those of all the supposedly privately funded coalitions at work on tobacco control it would be a pretty high figure.

Saving the children from the clutches of the Devil's weed and the "lethal" effects of second hand smoke is a constant refrain with the nanny antis. They love to take refuge behind the kiddies in their fund seeking and propaganda war.

Dictum: Widen the net with phony claims backed by spin doctors in the service of the Tobacco Inquisition. Rally 'round the lies, boys. If something is lacking, add "Save the Children" and stir. Appeal to that segment of the public uninformed enough to swallow it.

In 1994 the Marquette Law Review even published the statement that, "Parents who expose their children to ETS should be viewed as committing child abuse." Maybe they figured that might open the door to a whole new area of profitable litigation.

One of the main usages of monies realized through taxation or anti-tobacco litigation is always purportedly educational programs to not only warn "the children" about the heinous evils of tobacco, but to inform adults on the terrible peril their offspring are subjected to by evil smoking.

If one had access to all the figures it would be instructive to determine just what percentage of this money is actually funneled into such programs -- after lawyers, program administrators, PR teams and so on rake in their take from the funds passing through their hands.

When some dollars do trickle down to these oh so essential education programs, how much "education"" will result and how much propaganda? The antis often aren't too adept at getting their facts and figures right even for adult consumption, imagine how much laxity might prevail when they are dealing directly with innocent, vulnerable minds.

Unless you equate educating with scare tactics and brain washing there is little likelihood of much anti-tobacco education taking place.

Example: "Researchers revealed today that about half of the early childhood cases of asthma, chronic bronchitis and wheezing are attributable to exposure to second hand smoke. Based on their findings they found that environmental smoke (ETS) causes an extra 160,000 cases of asthma per year, 79,000 cases of bronchitis and 172,000 cases of wheezing in the United States. They also estimated that second hand smoke is responsible for between 40 percent and 60 percent of cases of asthma, bronchitis and wheezing among young children."

"Based on their findings" they found... Interesting wording. And how do you determine "extra" cases of asthma? Probably by asking if anybody in the home smoked and if the answer was "yes," logging that case as an "extra" one. At least that's what I find... based on my findings.

They also published an article from "The Pediatrics" which found that 38 percent of children breathed in cigarette smoke from others smoking at home and 24 percent of children were exposed in the womb to their mothers' smoking.

Then there was the story published in the American Journal of Public Health with found that second-hand smoke can even show up in breast milk. "In fact," it said, "babies may get more exposure to tobacco through breast milk than by breathing second-hand smoke." (But nothing about nicotine stains on the mothers' brassieres?)

There is one organization that emphasizes child safety in the smoke filled world -- the "Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids." They come up with some dubious data at times. Take this bit:

"97,009 kids currently under age 18 will die prematurely from tobacco-related diseases. (CDC projection)" Not 97,000 but 97,000 and nine. How do they do it? I can't help getting suspicious when I run into data like that.

This is from one of a set of 50 flash cards the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids have come up with that show how tobacco is used among kids "in every state and all across the country." (If they just hadn't tried to double the impact by adding that "and all across the country" it might have been more believable.)

These cards, packaged in a flip top box like cigarettes are bound to be a waste.

Each card has a picture of a young person, cigarette in hand and copy which gives the statistics for the state represented.

On the card for Minnesota for example is says: "Each year minors illegally purchase 4.6 million packs of cigarettes resulting in $9.8 million in sales." Based on what is known about adolescent psychology stuff like that is as likely to encourage them to smoke as deter them. "Wow! kids around here are buying 4.6 million packs of illegal cigarettes a year. I better get in on that!"

And if that many packs of cigarettes are illegally sold to minors maybe the state should enforce the existing laws. But of course, there's no money in that. Better to sue the tobacco companies for big bucks. That'll teach the kids not to smoke.

Contrary to the propaganda from anti-tobacco flaks who have closed their minds and want to close yours, there is another side to the question.

As long as we're at it, here are excerpts from a number of research projects sharply at odds with the propaganda put out by the anti-tobacco minions. It makes interesting reading and is an indication that you don't get the whole story from either the government or anti-tobacco activists.

Countering their one-sided myopia consider the following items:

A new report based on research from the World Health Organization, reproduced in full.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Researchers said they were surprised and even embarrassed to find that smoking cigarettes apparently reduces the risk of breast cancer among women with an unusual gene mutation.

Researchers caution that the study does not mean women should smoke.

"The risks of smoking are so serious that there's absolutely no reason that any woman should consider smoking whether she is at high risk or low risk for breast cancer," said Dr. Lynn Schuchter, an oncologist at the University of Pennsylvania Cancer Center.

Smokers had half as many cancers

The study is being published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. The authors were trying to find out what lifestyle factors might influence cancer development in women with a mutated gene called BRCA-1 or BRCA-2. By some estimates, about 80 percent of such women will develop breast cancer during their lifetime. One in 250 women have the mutated gene. Doctors are hoping this discovery leads to new treatment strategies

The researchers were surprised by the results. "We found that among women who carried a mutation in one of these genes, cigarette smoking did have an effect in reducing their risk of developing breast cancer," said Dr. Caryn Lerman of the Lombardi Cancer Center.

The incidence of breast cancer among study participants who smoked heavily was 54 percent lower than among the non-smokers. The study found the more the women smoked, the less likely they were to get breast cancer.

Estrogen's role: The researchers said cigarettes are probably protecting these women because some compound in cigarettes interferes with the use of estrogen, a hormone already linked to breast cancer.

Doctors hope their research will lead to the development of new medications that reduce breast cancer risk without the deadly effects of smoking. Smoking still sharply increases the incidence of other cancers, including deadly lung cancer.

"We are embarrassed because we feel that the tobacco industry may propagate this without being responsible," said Gilbert Lenoir, a biologist who worked on the study.

Correspondent Dr. Steve Salvatore, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

"No statistically significant relationship was found in either community between smoking and coronary heart disease, hypertension or somatic complaints"

1477. University of Texas School of Allied Health Sciences. Philips, B.U., Jr.; Bruhn, J.G. "Smoking Habits and Reported Illness in Two Communities With Different Systems of Social Support." FUNDING: Univ. of Texas; National Institute of Mental Health. 1981-83.

"Preliminary data indicate greater frequency of anterior infarctions among non-smokers." "Among patients with unstable angina, smoking was associated with less persistent rest pain and a lower proportion of smokers had chronic angina of effort prior to hospital admission. Preliminary analysis suggests a marginally lower in-hospital mortality rate among smokers after controlling for age and other prognostic factors."

0298. St. Vincent's Hospital, Dept. of Preventive Cardiology and Cardiac Dept. (Dublin, Ireland). Cohort of 898 males and 415 female heart patients. 12/80-1/86.

Pipe smokers have a higher intake of nicotine than cigarette smokers (as measured by serum and urinary cotinine levels). "Since pipe smokers have little excess risk of CHD [chronic heart disease], higher chronic nicotine exposure is unlikely to be the cause of the excess seen in cigarette smokers."

0534. Medical College of St. Bartholomew's Hospital. Dept. of Environmental and Preventative Medicine (England). Wald, M.J.; Bailey, A. "Nicotine and Heart Disease.".

"No difference in prevalence of cardiovascular symptoms was found [between those living with smokers and those not]"

0591. West of Scotland Cancer Surveillance Unit, Ruchill Hospital (Scotland). Gillis, C.R.; Hole, D.J.; Hawthorne, V.M. "Health Effects of Exposure to ETS (Environmental Tobacco Smoke] in the West of Scotland." Cohort of 16,171 (45-64 years old) screened in 1972 and 1976.

"Secular trends in mortality from esophageal cancer in the United Kingdom are independent of secular changes in cigarette consumption, but well correlated with secular changes in alcohol consumption...alcohol acts as an indirect causal agent. The proximal causal agent is likely to be a precipitator, such as a microorganism. Genetic predisposition is also implicated"

0564. University of Leeds. Dept. of Medical Physics (England). Burch, P.R.J. "Tests of Causal, constitutional, and Mixed Hypotheses of Associations Between Smoking and Disease in Man." Funding: Univ. of Leeds. 1972 - continuing.

"Overall, smoking was not found to be associated with any of the cancers studied." (Endometrial, Ovarian, and Breast Cancer)

Centres for Disease Control. Epidemiologic Studies Branch. Division of Reproductive Health. Rubin, G.; Tyler, C.W.; Franks, A.L.; Stroup, M. "Smoking and Endometrial, Ovarian, and Breast Cancer." FUNDING: NICHD.

"The risk of breast cancer does not appear to be influenced by cigarette smoking"

1039. Boston University Medical Centre. Drug Epidemiology Unit. Shapiro. S Rosenberg. L.; Kaufman. D. "Multiple Case-Control Study of the Long Term Effects of Drug, Use in the Treatment of Chronic Disease." FUNDING: FDA (U01 FD01222-03) and NICHD [National Institute of Child Health & Human Development].

"Women who smoke during pregnancy have full-term babies which, on the average are 5-6 grams [a fraction of an ounce] smaller than full-term babies born to non-smoking mothers."

0755. University of Colorado. Health Sciences Centre. Moore. L.C. "Maternal O2 Transport During Pregnancy at High Altitude "

1. Birth weight lower in the smoking group, but the incidence of smoking was higher in young, unmarried women of lower socioeconomic status. Perinatal death was also higher among young, unmarried, low income women.

2. "No differences in antepartum hemorrhage or congenital anomalies between the groups"

3. "Hypertension and postpartum hemorrhage were lower in smokers."

0045. University of Tasmania, ( Queen Alexandra Hospital, Dept. of Obstetrics & Gynaecology. Correy, J.; Newman. N.: Currarn, J "An Assessment of Smoking in Pregnancy." Method: Since I974, this study was conducted on ALL patients in Tasmania (smoking data was collected since Jan. 1981 ). Details of alcohol ingestion and drug use were also included. By 1984 information available on 90% of patients on average birth weight of infants, incidence of low birth weight (less than 2,500 grams), incidence of prematurity, congenital abnormalities, perinatal death antepartum hemorrhage and hypertension in pregnancy.

No convincing differences for viral infection or respiratory illness were seen with parental smoking as an isolated factor..."

1462. Baylor College of Medicine, Influenza Research Centre (Texas). Gardner, G.C.; Frank, A.L.; Taber, L.H. "Effects of Social and Family Factors on Viral Respiratory Infection and Illness in the First Year of Life." A longitudinal study, 1975 - I980. This study was published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 39 (1); 42-48, March, I984.

1. Smoking improves human information processing.

2. Higher nicotine cigarettes produce greater improvements [in information processing] than low-nicotine cigarettes.

3. Nicotine tablets produce similar effects.

4. Nicotine can reverse the detrimental effects of scopolamine on performance

5. Smoking effects are accompanied by increases in EEG arousal and decreases in the latency of the late positive component of the evoked potential."

0574. University of Reading, Department of Psychology (England). Warburton., D.M.; Wesnes, K. "The Effects of Cigarette Smoking on Human Information Processing and the role of Nicotine in These Effects "

"In general, motor performance in all groups improved after smoking."

0530. London University, Institute of Psychiatry. O'Connor, K.P "Individual Differences in Psychophysiology of Smoking and Smoking Behavior"

"Smokers in general are thinner than non-smokers, even when they ingest more calories." [Numerous studies, but only two are listed below]

0885. Kentucky State University. Lee. C.J.: Panemangalore. M. "Obesity Among Selected Elderly Females In Central Kentucky." FUNDING: USDA 0942. University of Louisville. Belknap Campus School of Medicine. Stamford, B.A.; Matter, S.; Fell, R.D., et al. "Cigarette Smoking, Exercise and High Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol" FUNDING: American Heart Association.

"...all smokers had less plaque, gingival inflammation and tooth mobility than non-smokers and similar periodontal pocket depth."

Veterans Administration, Outpatient Clinic (Boston). Chauncey. H.H,; Kapur, K.K.; Feldmar, R S. "The Longitudinal and Cross-Sectional Study of Oral Health: in Healthy Veterans (Dental Longitudinal Study)

"Smokers have lower incidence of postoperative deep vein thrombosis than non-smokers."

Guy's Hospital Medical School (England). Jones, R.M. "Influence of Smoking on Peri-Operative Morbidity."