If you haven’t already read the article (It’s been floating around on the many cigars forums alot lately) I would definitely recommend checking it out. The essay is a long read but well worth the time. Below you will find a link to Joe Jackson’s website where you can read/download the pdf article. It can also be found in the latest issue of Cigar Magazine (Winter 2007, Pages 24 through 51)
Smoke Lies, and the Nanny State
This essay, the culmination of four years of research, replaces Joe’s previous essay “The Smoking Issue”. Also included at the end of the essay are Joe’s op-ed pieces for the New York Times and the Telegraph of London.
Smoke Lies, and the Nanny State by Joe Jackson
This guy is Pure genius. Ignorance is bliss in America. IMHO, this is only the beginning of the efforts for total eradication of our basic personal human rights. This is blindingly apparent to those who can open their eyes and put two and two together!
Stogie Review rules. Keep ’em coming guys!
Thanks Walt, that was a great piece. We smokers have to start fighting to get our rights back.
I have to say as much as I enjoy an occasional cigar that essay is pure crap.
Chris, why do you think that? Before you answer, I’m not trying to flame you, or disagree with your view; I would just like to know your reasoning for dismissing it so easily.
I’m interested also Chris
I found the article interesting but I would have preferred his arguments to be framed in statistical data. For example, he states that the EPA performed a flawed study. This is more then likely true of all EPA studies due to the nature of how the secure funding which is they must show some form of grave harm to secure money from other government programs.
A simple example I have found to refute the EPA and the harms of smoking (second hand included) is the EPA study on Radon.
I created a chart which shows the death rate of Radon at the lowest levels possible to get to and in summary, Radon will even kill by lung cancer a “Never Smoked” at 5.43 times the rate at which people get lung cancer. This is at 2 pCi/L. And if you use the General Population, it’s 17.62 times more deaths from Radon induced lung cancer then actually die annually from lung cancer. If you smoke, you’ve killed your entire lineage, well, your bound to die at a rate of 49.22 times the rate of lung cancer from lung cancer. But don’t worry, your in good company with those that never smoked since they are dieing at far higher rates from lung cancer then those that actually die from lung cancer.
I can email you the spread sheet and the references to the Center for Disease control as data backup if anyone wishes as well as the references to the EPA web site.
So, now that it’s understood that the EPA will not only exaggerate but will indeed lie in order to generate hysteria to fund it’s budget over something as insignificant as Radon, imagine what they will do to try and capture billions from the tabacco industry? They might even lie there???
So while I prefer raw data to back up arguments, I have to disagree with Chris that the essay is pure crap. But I would agree it’s almost as verbose as my response 😛
Dave