Smoking is Good for You

SMOKING

IS

GOOD FOR YOU

By

DOCTOR WILLIAM T . WHITBY

THIS BOOK . . .

. . . COULD BE WORTH ITS WEIGHT IN

GOLD TO YOU HEALTH WISE

. . . EXPOSES THE ANTI-SMOKING

SCARE AS THE BIG LIE OF THE

ZoTH CENTURY

There are so many critics 4at' the smoking-lung cancer theory, physicians, scientists and statisticians, recognise°d authorities in their own countries and internationallv, that it is impossible to list, let alone quote, more than a t`ti:w . Professor Burch, University of Leeds, "Smoking has n(1 role in lung cancer" .

Dr R .H . Mole, British Medical Research Council, "Evidence in uranium miners permits the exclusion ()f smoking as a major causal agent" .

Dr B .K .S . Dijkstra, University of Pretoria, "The natural experiment shows conclusively that the hypothesis has to be abandoned" .

Professor Charles H . 1-4ine, University of California, "After vears of intensive research no compound in cigarette smoke has been established as a health hazard" .

Sir Ronald Fisher, "The theorv will eventually be re-garded as a conspicuous and catastrophic howler" .

Dr Ronald Okun, Director of Clinical Pathology, Los Angeles, "As a scientist I find no persuasive evidence that cigarette smoke causes lung cancer" .

Professor W .C . Hueper, National Cancer Institute, Swit-zerland, "Scientifically unsound and socially irresponsible" . Professor 1V1 . B . Rosenblatt, New York l'Iedical College, "It is fanciful extrapolation - not factual data" .

Dr Whitby was born in Iviareeba which much later was to become an important tobacco growing area . He left school at the age of r4 and spent some years roaming and working at a variety of jobs, and then decided to become a doctor . After over 30 years of wide experience in the medical world he is in a position to see its foibles as well as its merits . In y95o he took a law degree and was admitted as a barrister but did not practise law . He has now retired from active medical work and devotes his time mainly to his grand-children, but he still keeps up his interest in medicine .

v

SMOKING IS GOOD

FOR YOU

By

' ~k a

Published by Common Sense Publications

roo Old South Head Road, Bondi Junction, Sydney

Copyright by W .T . Whitby

Typeset by Filmset Limited, Hong Kong

CONTENT S

Chapters

i-. Anti-Smoking - The new religion

Why People Smoke

Why Smoking is Good for You Why People are Against Smoking Persecution of smokers

Modern Day Persecution The Bogy of Lung Cancer Big Brother's Campaign The New Crusaders

The Sad Failure of the Campaign Trickery with Statistics

"Experts"

Antics of the Anti-Smokers

Can you Believe a Word they Say? The "Passive Smoking" Hoax The Heart Bogy

Cancer - "Causes" Gal'ore The Innocence of Tobacco The Case against Radioactivity Some Questions

What smokers should do Conclusion -~ncnro'. t+:~ tv pczg,es I 3 5 12 20 25 2₉ 34 41 4

5

5$

96

ANTISMOKING

-THE NEW RELIGION

There's a new religion - the anti-smoking religion . A new religion with its puritanical hierarchy ; its powerful state-supported office of propaganda of the faith ; its virulent missionaries ardent in the field ; its hoodwinked disciples, bored people eager to escape the tedium of their lives with a new cause, now displaying hysterical zeal and intolerance rarely seen before in human history. A religion founded on patently false dogma . A religion that has succeeded by its insidious and repetitive brainwashing in lowering a black curtain over the harmless virtues of tobacco .

People have been smoking since before the dawn of history without any apparent harm . Now suddenly a group of people with millions and millions of dollars behind them tell us that smoking causes lung cancer . It just doesn't sound logical and there's not a shred of valid evidence for their claim . When I first read of the theory the fact that it was supported by the cream of the medical profession made me think there might be something in it . Still I wondered how this harmless age-old custom could suddenly become dangerous . Then I was struck by the fact that it was only since the atomic bomb that lung cancer had become so prevalent . When a number of eminent scientists exposed the campaign for its deceit ~ and. trickery I began to suspect that behind it all was the ~ dead hand of puritanism with the powerful backing of Big Brother . If the theory had any merit, why should it be ~ necessary for the campaigners to stoop to the really outrage- ~ ous deceit and trickery for which the campaign has become ~ so notorious? It is the big lie of the twentieth century and I, .i feel that I can easily prove this to the intelligent and unbiased reader .

The only case, if it can be called a case, that the anti-smokers have is that statistics, if we can believe them, are

2 Smoking is Good for You

claimed to show that lung cancer cases smoke more . The important fact, that they seem to ignore, is that many people with a chest complaint smoke more because they find it relieves their cough . They have no valid evidence, let alone proof, for the theory . Rather what evidence is available could mean that smoking could prevent such diseases as lung cancer and heart disease .

I haven't spoken out before because I feel that stupidity is the norm . We are all stupid in some ways - some more than others . People will believe anything . The bigger the lie the more it will be believed . Man is called a thinking animal, but how illogically he thinks . If the lower animals' brains performed like this they would soon all be extinct . However`now that the campaign is interfering with the rights and freedom of the people I think it is time to take a stand and expose this quackery for the hoax that it is .

It is certain that the self appointed "experts" will resent a humble 'general practitioner questioning what has become holy writ . But I could not be less concerned with their well-known vindictiveness and character assassination . They'll probably - quite falsely - accuse me of owning shares in a tobacco company or being in their pay for coming out in support of sTnoking . My only reason is that I hate stupidity and, knowing the wonderful effect that smoking has had on my own health, I want people to' know how harmless and beneficial it really is .

One of the most amazing things, more amazing even than the acceptance of this preposterous theory, is the spineless acceptance by . smokers of the bans and antics of the anti-smokers..

You might wonder why these people would conduct such an enormously expensive campaign on what is, compared with other diseases, not the major aspect of people's health . People who should know tell us that the campaign was deliberately promoted to take the public's- attention off radio-activity which, in spite of strong attempts to hush it up, has now been shown by leading scientists to be the major cause of lung cancer .

WHY PEOPLE SMOKE

Why do people smoke? The answer ia, "Because they enjoy it" . This could be the secret of the opposition to it because many 'peculiar people are against people enjoying anything .

People would'hardly smoke if they didn't enjoy it or feel that it did them good . From time immemorial they have been enjoying tobacco . In the Americas, of course, tobacco was smoked for countless ages . In the Western world, before tobacco was introduced, mankind had been smoking herbs of various kinds long before the dawn of history . Poets have sung tobacco's praises . Brilliant men have been aided by it to give the world great literature and scientific discoveries . Some famous men who smoked were Einstein, Freud, Thackeray, Darwin, Robert Louis Stevenson ; Zola, Chur-chill, Roosevelt, King Edward VII, King Edward VIII (later Duke of Windsor) - and it is worth noting that they all lived to a good old age .

Thackeray wrote, "I vow and declare that the cigar has been one of the greatest creature comforts of my life - a~~ kind companion, a gentle stimulant and an amiable anodyne, C~ a cementer of friendship" . Bishop Moorhouse of Manchester I` said, "I smoke, and I am a better Christian for doing it" .

Charles Kingsley wrote in "Westward Ho", "Tobacco I aN' lone man's companion, a bachelor's friend, a hungry man's r : food, a sad man's cordial, a wakeful man's sleep, and a chilly man's. fire . . . there's no herb like it under the canopy of heaven" .

General Pershing, Commander of the U . S . World Wa~ I forces in France, cabled to the Secretary of War in Washing-ton, "You ask me what we need to win this war . I answer

you, tobacco - as much as bullets . Tobacco is as necessary as food. We need a thousand tons at once" . The Secretary

4 Smoking is Good for You

of War said, "Tobacco has established its claim to a recog-nised place in the soldier's life . To men enduring hardship tobacco fills a need nothing else can satisfy" . General Douglas McArthur in World War II said "Money collected for the war effort should be used to purchase cigarettes" . Over the centuries tobacco played an important part in the social life of most countries . People thought nothing could be more pleasant than talking in a coffee house or tavern with their pipes . Women too smoked for hundreds of years . Among the peasants of many countries it was, and still is, common to see the womenfolk with their clay pipes . In seventeenth century England schoolteachers encouraged children to take their pipes and tobacco to school . In many far eastern countries today women smoke cigars . Even the children smoke and everybody thinks it is a good thing . Dr C .Y . C;aldwell wrote in the British INAed .ical Journal of 26 February 1977 that the Semai people of Malaysia start smoking at the age of two when they give up breast feeding . It is a sort of weaning . Then they continue to smoke all their lives .

People of all ages and countries have found smoking enjoyable and beneficial . Is the wisdom of the ages to be thrown into the trash can at the behest of the anti-smoking militants 7

WHY SMOKING IS GOOD

FOR YOU

Saying that smoking is beneficial will cause some of the anti-smoking leaders to just about have a seizure . Well, that can't be helped, for it is the truth .

In my medical practice patients frequently told me that smoking relieved their coughs . Because this was contrary to what the text books~and the lecturers said, I at first thought

they just imagined it . But as it continued over the years I began to wonder if there were something in it . My own experience with smoking showed me just how right they were . From childhood I had a history of bronchitis accom-panied by marked wheezing . I was warned by doctors not to smoke . In my late thirties I got such frequent disabling attacks, sometimes with pneumonia, that they seriously interfered with my work and made life rather distressing . An old country doctor said to me one day, "I used to be like you . Then someone put me onto the secret - take up the pipe . I did and I've never .been better" .

I had never smoked because -of warnings from chest "experts" but remembering my patients' claims, I took the old doctor's advice . The change in my health was miraculous . In the years since I took up smoking my chest troubles have been few . I'm sure I would have been dead long ago if I hadn't smoked . When I hear "experts" talking or I read text books decrying smoking in chest conditions, I just smile to myself and think how little they know .

This certainly bears out the claim of the North American Indians who told the early explorers they smoked to ease their coughs . But who'd take notice of "savages", even if they were only telling what they observed? Must their wise practices be scorned because they were not civilised like the European conquerors? Like them I have found that when I get a cough, smoking will ease it . _

6 Smoking is Good for You

Having personally experienced the great relief that smoking gives to bronchitis, I felt it was my duty to help others . Over the past few years in suitable cases I have been advising bronchitic and asthmatic patients to try smoking .

In most cases the results have been strikingly successful and the sufferers have been most grateful . Since it is chronic bronchitis that probably leads to lung cancer, it seems only reasonable that by protecting the lungs in this way, smoking will _prevent lung cancer .

Over the past few years I have met quite a few doctors who also have found how smoking helps their coughs and the coughs of their patients . One of them told me he had written a letter to a medical journal about it but, as he expected, it was not published .

When I was young doctors often prescribed smoking for the relief of asthma, but these days this has gone out of fashion . It is interesting to read a report from Dr F .E . de W . Cayley of the Brighton Chest Clinic, England, in the British Medical Journal (i4) i .78) in which he said, "It has become apparent that type 3 allergy is commoner in rlon-smokers and it is thought that the effect of smoking may ' produce a protective lining of mucus so that the allergen

does not reach the bronchial mucosa . I have seen two, patients this month who developed type i allergy as soon as they gave up smoking. Should we therefore encourage our asthmatic patients to smoke? Many chronic bronchitic patients find that the first cigarette of the day clears their lungs and gets rid of all their sputum and they are free for the next few hours" :

Criticism of tobacco must be mystifying to the millions of central and south American Indians who regard it as a gift from the gods . They smoked probably for thousands of years enjoying its health-giving virtues, before passing it on to the Western world . It must be equally mystifying to the millions of Indonesia, Burma, the Philippines, and neigh-bouring countries, men and women, young and old, who are among the world's greatest smokers, and to the long-lived Russian Georgians. Also to the countless people in the Arab

, .,,. _ ..~~ :~..- ... .. . . ... .. ..._.

Why Smoking is Good for 'i'ou 7 world with their hookahs . The Arabs have a saying, "Qadis, old women and smokers live so long, you've got to take an axe to them" . Is it because they smoke so much that they don't get lung cancer and heart disease j

How tobacco exerts its beneficial effect on the body re-mains to be fully worked out by researchers . Probably reduced tension of muscles has a large bearing on it . I have no doubt from my observations of patients that it relieves bronchitis . This could be due to the effect of nicotine on the tiny muscles in the bronchial walls, keeping them at the right tension . To say that smoking causes bronchitis is the opposite of the truth . The so-called "smoker's cough" of chronic bronchitis patients is a misnomer . It is not the smoking that causes the cough . It is that the sufferer finds that smoking relieves it . Doctors., finding that these people smoke a lot, have jumped to the wrong ' conclusion and blamed the smoking. Of all the bronchitics I have known who gave up smoking I don't know of one who still did not have his cough .

I have noticed that smokers don't seem to get high blood pressure nearly as much as non-smokers : Independent research workers have found that nicotine reduces tension on the tiny muscles in the walls of the arteries which cause dilatation and constriction of the vessels . The research workers claim that by reducing muscle tension, arterioscle-rosis is less likely to occur, thus tending to prevent high blood pressure with the resultant strokes . Nicotine can be con-verted to Nicotinic Acid . While not the same substance as r, .) nicotine, nicotinic acid is commonly prescribed by doctors Cn all over the world for . diseases of the circulation . But the 0 very name is abhorrent to some tobacco-hating doctors .

Since, because of its undeniable value, it cannot be replaced N by any other effective medication, there have been sug- Cr-, gesrions to change the name so that patients won't think -~ they are being benefited by nicotine I

Nicotine would tend to keep the heart healthy by pre-venting arteriosclerosis which is well known to be associated with coronary heart disease . There is also another mechanism

8 Smoking is Good for You

in which tobacco plays a beneficial part, that is, in relieving nervous stress . In a person under constant stress, the excess secretion of epinephrine or adrenalin is tied to cholesterol excess, according to biochemists, and cholesterol is tied to heart disease . Since this stress is the big killer in heart disease, countless numbers of smokers relieve the stress and so escape coronary attacks .

It has been shown that there are agents present in tobacco smoke that prevent cancer . The work of Dr Weiss, which I shall mention later, bears this out .

One undeniable benefit of smoking is that it tends to prevent obesity, which is commonly found in people with high blood pressure and heart disease . The old saying is, "The shorter the waist line the longer the life line" . How many people have died, and will die, from the effects of obesity after quitting smoking? Compared with the millions who die from over-eating the number of people who die from lung cancer must be infinitesimally small .

All the above indicates that smokers are generally more healthy and tend to live longer . Professor Sterling, the famous statistician, quotes figures supplied by the U .S . government's National Center for Health Statistics (1967) which show that ex-smokers had more diseases than current heavy smokers .

The famous psychiatrist, Walter Nienninger of the Menninger Boundatiori of Kansas, who is a non-smoker, wrote, "Certain individuals may live longer because they smoke - because it releases their tensions" .

Dr Christian Barnard, the famous heart transplant* sur- ~ geon, thinks so highly of the virtues of tobacco that he e) advised his daughter to take up cigarette smoking . She was ~ overweight and lost 18 kilograms in six months . ~ Apart from the physical side, smokers have described over 01, the centuries how tobacco gave them a feeling of well-being, s,o banished gloom and depression and generally made life ~° worth living . Even the U .S. Surgeon-General's -committee

on smoking begrudgingly admits this .

Why Smoking is Good for You 9

® ,R.educes tension in the agitated .

0 Improves concentration in periods of stress, particularly prolonged stress .

* Satisfies a need in people whose temperament makes them more susceptible than others to emotional arousal . In 197o a study by the Swedish Medical Research Council

proved that smoking counteracts the decrease in efficiency that typically occurs in boring, monotonous situations . Also in 1972 they established that smokers improve their per-formance in choice situations .

".I'he French National Association for Highway Safety proved that smokers were more vigilant drivers than non-smokers over long periods . This was confirmed in 1967 by University of South Dakota workers who showed that during a six hour driving test non-smokers became more aggressive than smokers . I

Hutchison and Emly of Michigan in 1972 reported experiments proving that nicotine reduces the aggressiveness, hostility and irritability of monkeys and human beings ; -and that nicotine helps rats and monkeys cope with fear and anxiety . '

The U . S . Surgeon General's report of 1964 admits that experimental and clinical evidence confirms the popular view that smoking reduces the appetite . Thus smoking reduces the incidence of obesity and the mortality associated with it .

Dr Ray Fuller of Trinity College, Dublin, reported (1975) that nicotine decreases, the sensitivity to electric shocks and that with greater levels of nicotine still higher levels, of shock can be tolerated, suggesting that nicotine increases our ability to withstand pain .

A study by Dr F . Gyntelberg of Copenhagen published in April 1974 showed broadly that people smoking up to ten cigarettes a day -can take in even 'more oxygen during exercise than non-smokers . This would indicate that smokers are fitter athletes than non-smokers .

t o Smoking is Good for You

April 1967, "Nicotine produces highly desirable effects upon the brain" . He goes on to say that experiments to test the learning capacity of rats after injections of nicotine, showed an improved performance, parallel to the effect of cigarette smoking in man, whereby he is able to concentrate more effectively on work, either mental or physical, which requires attention over a period of time . He further reported that from experiments with animals he found that nicotine increases the will to succeed when faced by the need to accomplish some demanding task .

He concludes by saying, "There is a growing body of experimental evidence to support the impression that smoking can induce tranquility or increase efficiency, according to circumstances" .

I have found that smokers are generally happy and contented people . I feel that they are less likely to commit suicide than non-smokers .

One of the best examples of the benefits of smoking that I can give is also a personal one . Some years ago I decided to become a barrister, just for the interest in studying law . I was struck by the amazing difference that smoking made to study . When I studied medicine, because of warnirigs from chest specialists I was a non-smoker . When I studied law I was a smoker . I found it so much easier, in spite of a busy practice, to study, to concentrate, and to remember, that I passed the examinations with high passes in a record time . How I wished that I'd smoked when studying medi-cine . I'm certain I would have found it so much easier

. IPQ regard this as an experiment showing the benefit of tobacco . t.n The main virtue of tobacco over other types of relaxants ° is its harmlessness . Compared with alcohol, even if it were,." harmful (and I am sure it is not) it would be only a very rI,-O'

minor offender . How many have been killed by drivers under t7-. the influence of tobacco? How many homes and lives have 0 been wrecked by it? How many have been arrested because they were, under the influence of tobacco? How many have been treated in psychiatric wards? Yet there has been no serious call for bans on drinking or T .V. ads for alcohol . So why pick on poor old tobacco? I am not against alcohol although I detest - alcoholics .

Why Smoking is Good for You i i Faced with the known benefits of smoking and the nebulous and imaginary dangers of smoking, I know what my choice would be .

I believe that millions of people would not be alive today if they had not smoked . It protects countless numbers from coronary heart attacks . It relieves chest troubles . If people smoked more they would be healthier and happier and live longer . I have no hesitation in recommending it as a health measure .

WHY PEOPLE ARE

AV AIl 1 S 1 SMOKING

Smokers don't object to people who don't smoke, but the converse is not always true . Many non-smokers do not mind people smoking, but unfortunately most do . These anti-smokers may be placed in several categories . There are people who, while disliking it, are not actively against it, since they recognise the rights of others . There are people

who actively hate it and try to stop it . Some of these are purely puritans, having a religious bias . Some are psy-chological (or psychotic) haters . All these people would still be against smoking even if the scientific world pro-nounced tomorrow that it was absolutely harmless . Then we have the large segment of brainwashed people who have fallen for the big lie that smoking is harmful to health, converts being the worst . A good proportion are militant campaigners, many now breaking the laws of the land by painting slogans on property and also committing assaults on smokers. The most obnoxious are the paid campaigners . Many of these are highly educated people, often with a scientific background . I cannot believe some of them do ' not realise what a lie the whole thing is, or at least have some

grave doubts .

Ever since tobacco was first introduced into the Western world, some people have been against it . Why is this? Is there some kind of an atavistic, fear - fear of a dreaded fire god, forgotten in the mists of the past but lingering on in a folk memory? Perhaps it is an association with the devil who dwells in hell midst fire and smoke .

Some of the objection is religious in origin . Many religions have tenets against smoking although there are none in the Christian teaching . None the less, many of its sects are rabidly anti-tobacco . This i religious opposition probably stems from the well-known practice of seeking the'favour of

Why People are Against Smoking 13 the deity by making a sacrifice . The sacrifice can be your eldest son, or his foreskin, or it can be a sheep or goat - or it can be abstemption from something you enjoy, like fish or alcohol or tobacco .

The smell of tobacco can be offensive to some people, like lots of other things . This has been recognised over the years and been provided for by separate compartments in trains and elsewhere . This has worked well up until now, when the fanatics will not even agree to smoking in separate com-partments . How can non-smokers be affected if they are separated? How unfair can these people be !Many people find that there are much worse smells emanating from human beings than tobacco . It is often purgatory to sit near someone with bad breath or body odour . Could tobacco smoke be as bad?

We should realise that the present campaign, with all its pseudo-scientific trappings, is only a flare-up of the epide-mics of anti-smoking plagues that have occurred throughout history . The campaigners are the same old types who brought in prohibition of alcohol . What they want now is total prohibition of tobacco . Then instead. of rum running we'll have tobacco running with mobsters controlling the whole scene . They haven't learnt a thing from the failure of their predecessors .

When I was at medical school we had the usual collection of puritans among the students . It is interesting to note that many of these students are now among the front ranks of the anti-smoking doctors . To them the smoking-lung cancer Cn scare must have been very welcome . I do not believe the 0 anti-smoking puritans are really interested in the health of ~ ; their fellow men . All they are interested in is in stopping , . : them from indulging in the harmless and beneficial habit of ~ smoking which they abhor because of their mental make-up . w • It is well known to psychologists that a certain type of ~ person will get no greater pleasure out .of life than in pre-venting his fellows from doing something they enjoy . It seems to be all this'type of person lives for . They enjoy the sense of power that they get, apart from the satisfaction in

14 Smoking is Good for You

stopping someone's enjoyment . These are sick people, sufl'ering, . according to the psychiatrists, from some sexual maladjustment .

A New York psychiatrist, Samuel V . Dunkell, is recorded as saying the whole thing is a struggle between macho and puritan images . He added "When people stop smoking it is part of a calculated campaign of reform of the personality . They do it like a reformation in religious terms and they feel that they have to convert others" .

A discerning psychologist sagely observed "It's not the smoke that bothers them, it's people smoking"

. The antics of the anti-smoking campaigners provide a

large field for study by psychiatrists and psychologists .

"Look dear, a man smoking . What utterly , disgusting

Why People are Against Smoking i'5 There must be material for hundreds of doctoral theses . The tobacco industry is often accused of unfairly depicting the smoker as a healthy normal athletic type. But isn't this the truth? One is more likely to see a soldier smoking than a pansy boy . Can you imagine in some future war soldiers being forbidden to smoke? It would be the downfall•of Big Brother .

----__--.~_~

t b Smoking is Good for You

Converts from smoking, like converts of any kind, are the most fanatical . Sanctimoniously, like repentant sinners at a revivalist meeting, they say, "I have given it up . Why can't you?" What they really mean is "I am no longer enjoying it . Why should you r"

I have had the opportunity to examine these militant fanatics at close quarters and have found some of them to have signs of mental derangement . In fact I would have no hesitation in giving some a certificate for admission for treatment in a mental hospital . Manic depressive types can be seen who will probably develop into violent maniacs as has recently happened . A man tried to crash his truck through the gates of the White House to warn the President about "poison" from cigarettes . In Los Angeles a young man held a hostage at gunpoint on the top of a skyscraper for two and a half hours "to warn the world against tobacco" . Other criminal acts are becoming common .

So when you meet a militant anti-smoker ask yourself if his opposition is based on his religious background, or is he just a sick person suffering from some neurosis or psychosis buried deeply in some sexual hangup . Or, perhaps better still, ask him .

PERSECUi IOl\ OF

SMOKERS

Ever since tobacco was introduced into the old world there have been sporadic campaigns against it, which continue right down to today . Many of these were waged by religious groups, who "discovered" scriptural prohibitions . In 1634 the Church of Rome forbade its adherents to take tobacco in any shape or form . Several papal bulls were issued over the years . The Greek church promulgated a doctrine that it was tobacco smoke that intoxicated Noah and so caused his naughty conduct (;tien . 9 21) . In 1661 Berne, Switzerland, passed a law against tobacco as coming within the seventh commandment (adultery) .

All kinds of fantastic claims were made . Reminiscent of present day fanatics' claims was the announcement in 166o by an English tobacco hater named Cobb that "four people have died from smoking in a week . One of them voided a bushel of soot" .

But even in those times smokers puffed calmly on, ignoring the fantasies of the tobacco haters .

Many kings thundered and threatened . Although just as many were lovers of the herb . James I, whom history suspects of perversion, was a prominent hater, even writing a book on the evils of smoking . This was answered by the Jesuits who claimed that smoking was good for health and morals . James tried to ~restrict the tobacco trade to . the doctors, who were grateful for this lucrative privilege .

In Eastern countries many kings outlawed tobacco and inflicted the most barbarous punishments on offenders . Smokers were first tortured and then either beheaded or burnt alive . In 1615 Shah Abbas of Persia had a tobacco seller burnt alive on a pyre made from his stock of tobacco . Later, in a moment of idle curiosity he tried a pipe of tobacco . He was so pleased that he immediately repealed all

18 Smoking is Good for You laws against it .

The Mogul Emperor, Jehangir, who was an opium addict, ordered the inflicting of the death penalty in various forms for smoking . But no objection was tnade to the use of opium of course .

Shah Sefi of Persia was a virtuoso in punishments . He adopted the happy practice of pouring molten lead down the throats of smokers .

In 1634 the Czar of Russia ordered a complete ban on tobacco . For the first offence whipping was prescribed . For the second, torture, exile to Siberia or death . People who snuffed tobacco had their noses cut off . In 1700 Peter the Great tried a pipe for himself. He enjoyed it so much he revoked all Russian laws against tobacco . In 1724 Pope Benedict XIII did likewise and revoked all papal bulls . Other kings ordered that smokers' pipes be forcibly thrust stem first through their noses . But even these harsh penalties did not stop people enjoying their friend tobacco .

In the Eastern countries, while tobacco smokers were subjected to such horrible punishments, smoking of hashish or pot was allowed, even the taking of opium . Now that government committees in some countries have recom-mended that pot be decriminalised, the wheel has turned full circle .

"Why can't we do that?"

MODERN. DAY

PERSECUTION

It takes something like the controversy . on smoking to bring out the worst in people . Many anti-smoking fanatics have exhibited such spitefulness, hatred, intolerance, mean-ness, vindictivemean-ness, character assassination, barefaced lies and lack of fair play that it opens one's eyes to the dark side of human nature and makes one wonder if these people may be called human beings .

The lack of tolerance has suddenly increased . Once it was unusual to hear people complaining of the smell of tobacco . Sometimes they did but it was really uncommon. It was just one of the many smells that people took as a matter of course and didn't seem to worry about . Now as a result of the anti-smokers' fear campaign their sense of smell has become magnified and we hear complaints often accompanied by harrowing 'details of how it made them ill - highly exag-gerated or purely imaginary . We now hear of people having an "allergy" to cigarette smoke . Is there really such a thing?

I wonder .how one of these people would care to be told by a smoker how much his or her body odour or cheap perfume affected him?

The inventor Thomas Edison well known for his puritan-ism would notemploy anyone who smoked . An anti-smoking employer - was heard openly boasting how many smoking workers he has been ableto get rid of on one pretext or another .

Character assassination is a favourite weapon against any outspoken supporter of smoking . A whispering campaign will start with all sorts of scurrilous stories of immorality and dishonesty and eccentricity . I have been accused of criminal negligence for advising patients to smoke and calls for my deregistration have been made . Recently the anti-smokers visited my premises in the night and painted large

:'Vloderri Day Persecution 21 anti-smoking signs and insulting words . When Professor Burch came out against their beloved theory, saying that smoking had nothing to do with lung cancer, he was vin-dictively attacked by doctors and called, "a dangerous heretic" and a "witchdoctor" . `

I t is remarkable that one may express doubts about various medical theories without arousing any outcry, but if one just breathes a word querying the sacred smoking theory he is at once branded as a traitor, criminal, madman and so on . It is like denying 3''vlahomed in the Ka'ba itself.

Dr Richard Bates wrote in the Michigan Medicine Journal

22 Smoking is Good for You

in March 1976, "Come . Let us pick on smokers . It is a good healthy sport" . What a century we live in !

In the medical world the persecution is worst of all . Young doctors dare not smoke for fear of offending their seniors . And students would be running a grave risk of being in the examiner's black book if he were, as he usually is, an anti-smoker. I'll give an illustration of how far things go . I was in the office of a famous specialist in one of London's hospitals, when his assistant came in and reminded him that a decision had to be made on choosiiig a young graduate to be his resident . The chief asked who the likely candidates were . The assistant said "Smith and Jones . They are equally good and it would be hard to choose ." The chief asked, "Do they smoke?" On being told that Jones did and Smith didn't he said, "I'll have Smith" . The lucky man would become the chief's successor in due time . The unlucky one would spend the rest of his days in the doldrumsa of medicine . I know many doctors who support my stand but they dare not speak out believing (how rightly) they will be victimised in their careers . But if they haven't the courage to stand up and speak out they will find that not only will they eventually be unable to get tobacco but probably also find their Scotch banned . Tobacco today . Alcohol tomorrow !

The attitude of most doctors to their'patients is becoming quite laughable . Like little gods they bully their patients -often quite rudely . Many even refuse to see patients again if they don't give up smoking . They very often embarrass them by smelling their breaths to see if they . can detect the faintest smell of tobacco . Nurses are often just as bad . I recently d heard of some old first war nurses, who were accustomed to smoking for 6o years or more, having to creep into the toilets of their veterans' home in order to have a cigarette, for fear off the nursing staff . Just what harm could smoking do these old ladies in their eighties? I have just read a report that smoking has been- banned in public toilets in Minnesota. Do the police keep people under observation whilst they are in the toilets?

The blackest hour in - the U . S . campaign was when the

Modern Day Persecution 23

"I think I can smell something . „

r Chicago police were ordered to arrest smokers on the public transit system . Most people were unaware they were breaking any law, and were incredulous when arrested . Some thought the police were having some sort of joke . Many women who protested were dragged screaming to jail . There was no question of just taking names and addresses and issuing a ticket as for parking offences . No . Like desperate criminals they had to be taken to jail . Those who had enough money with them were allowed bail, but many . who . hadn't had to stay in jail until they appeared in court . One woman, on a shopping -expedition, was on her way home to welcome the children home from school . The kids wondered where `mom' was . She spent the night in jail . This happened in a country which calls itself enlightened - the Land -,of the Free . The people of `Russia and China must just about

~ z 29<x.:,,

`4 Smoking is Good for You

bust a rib laughing when they hear of this .

When the smokers appeared in court, it was packed by anti-smokers all wearing their badges . When the offenders were sentenced they applauded loudly like the Roman mob at the Colosseum .

There have been reports of cowardly attacks on smokers in the streets by packs of anti-smokers indulging in the "healthy sport" advocated bv Dr Bates . Let's hope for their sakes these cowards don't pick the husbands of the women who spent the night in jail .

In the main street of a large city a crusader. snatched a valuable pipe from a smoker's mouth and dashed it to the pavement . Where were the police? Too busy catching smokers on trains and buses I suppose .

There have been cases of judges almost apologising for having to fine anti-smoking thugs for their criminal acts, making such statements as, "I admire your spirit", and so

virtually patting them on the back and encouraging them in further lawless acts, which are becoming more and more common .

The pioneers who made America great were largely smokers . They must be turning in their graves . Some of their descendants would probably lock up their own grandfathers for smoking if they could .

The fanatics leave no stone unturned in harrassing smokers . They call now for the government to refuse medical aid to them on the *grounds that any illnesses they suffer are • self-inflicted . They are also asking insurance companies to

refuse to insure them or else have specially high premiums, I, and other people who defend smoking, receive heaps of offensive letters - mostly, it seems, from people with twisted minds . One gem contains the following "Christian" senti-ment, "Smoking kills but it is unfortunate'it takes so long .

It would be wonderful if it were quicker - instantaneous would be great" .

While we have, as yet, no burning alive or hot lead poured down our throats, I have no doubt these vicious people would gladly do it if they could get away with it .

THE BO GY OF

LUNG CANCER

On first hearing the report of the Royal College of Physi-cians the average smoker is stunned and is ready to throw away his cigarettes, so deadly is the scare made to sound . But if he is a person of above average common sense, he will have second thoughts and take another look .

From the way the campaigners talk one would think that just about every second person in the community gets lung cancer . But even the College in its report (though this is not mentioned by the campaigners) says, "On1y a minority of even the heaviest smokers get lung cancer", and, "Most smokers suffer no impairment of health or shortening of life" . In actual fact, compared with other diseases it is rare . Your chance of getting it is less than being hit by an automobile . We should realise too that most people who get it are over 6o years old .

From time to time over the past three hundred years smoking has been denounced without any proof as being harmful . This has occurred in waves . A hundred years ago, long before the lung cancer scare, the pages of medical journals were filled with letters for and against smoking . It is not a new thing for smoking to be the whipping boy of medicine .

What is their case this time? It is based purely on statistics and we know how misleading they can be . One might ask

why they didn't collect statistics for other suspected car-cinogenic (cancer causing) agents instead of just singling out the old favourite suspect . Even the famous Dr poll, 'who first claimed a correlation between smoking and lung cancer, pointed out that smoking was not the only major cause . With typical lack of candour the campaigners omit to mention this . To them smoking is the only cause . However, as we shall see, it does not appear to be a cause at all . Can one be

k

26 Smoking is Good for You

excused for asking why they haven't been able to induce authentic lung cancer in laboratory animals? After all, the

accepted carcinogenic agents produce this most easily . But not tobacco .

Since the medical world, in spite of the many wonderful advances, is still in a state of darkness regarding cancer and its cause, it is really presumptious of anyone to say that some one thing is the cause . There are many suggested agents, notably radio-activity and smog . It has been pointed out that lung cancer was rare before these became so prevalent . In many countries compulsory x-rays, a form of radio-activity, were-carried out on the public annually . It wasn't until some scientists provided epidemiological data implicating these x-rays in causing cancer that the practice has largely faded out . How many lung cancers were caused by these x-rays? We must remember that lung cancer arises iri the part of the body subjected to these compulsory x-rays . In addition to this there are all sorts of gases and poisons being released into the environment, many of them proven cancer causers . There are so many likely agents, but no, the puritans say, „ it is

smoking, something that has been used for centuries without any apparent harm . Cancer may not be due to any external agent at all . Professor R . Burch of the University of Leeds is of the opinion that lung cancer is due to spontaneous muta-tions in tissue cells and has nothing to do with smoking .

Why can't the medical know-it-alls' be a little modest and honest and admit that they are in the dark about cancer?

No doubt there will be a breakthrough before long and someone will discover the mechanisms of its cause, and its cure made simple like having a shot of penicillin . Until that day all we can do is guess . And this is what the smoking hypothesis is, a guess - and many . leading scientists say, a bad guess .

For a theory to be accepted scientifically, it has to be proved in accordance with rigorous scientific requirements . Firstly the suspected agent must be isolated, and -then, when used . -in laboratory experiments, the identical disease it is alleged to cause must be reproduced . This the anti-smokers

The Bogy of Lung Cancer 2.7 have completely failed to do, even though countless experi-ments have been carried out for many years . In spite of all this, these people have no hestitation in saying that their theory has been "proved" . Real scientists must laugh when doctors speak of medical "science" .

Many people, who are perhaps not clear thinkers, don't realise the distinction between evidence and proof. They often accept a case not realising that evidence itself is not proof. This is Lynch law . If evidence were proof there would be no need for a jury to decide if the evidence amounted to proof. The only evidence (if you can call it evidence) that the anti-smokers have is a statistical relationship which they claim tends to show that lung cancer patients smoke more . It would be surprising if they didn't because many people with a lung condition tend to smoke to ease the cough . A court of science would throw their case out the door . Even a court of law, where the standard of proof is not so high, would throw it out very smartly, no doubt with acid remarks from the judge, who would not even allow it to go to the j ury .

Some remarks - from scientists of repute showing the falseness of the theory may be of interest .

Professor M .B . Rosenblatt, New .York Medical College said, "It is fanciful extrapolation - not factual data ." He also sa id, "The unscientific way in which the study was made bothers us most . The committee agreed first that smoking causes lung cancer and then they set out to prove it statist-ically ." _

W . C . Hueper, former Head of the National Cancer lnstitute of Switzerland, -"Scientifica .lly unsound and socially irresponsible" .

Professor R . Burch, University of Leeds, - "Linking of smQking and lung cancer is due to elementary lapses in scientific logic . Their excessive zeal leads to methodological short cuts, spurious arguments, premature conclusions and sacrifice of the truth . Smoking has no role in lung cancer ."

Sir Ronald Fisher (a non-smoker) - "The theory will eventually be regardect as a catastrophic and conspicuous

28 Smoking is Good for You howler" .

Dr R .H . Mole (1z977) British Medical Research Council -"'Evidence in uranium miners permits the exclusion of smoking as a major causal agent" .

Dr Ronald Okun, Director of Clinical Pathology, Los Angeles, -"As a scientist I#ind no persuasive evidence that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer . (Congressional Committee) .

Professor Charles H . Hine, University of California, -"After years of intensive research no compound in cigarette smoke has been established as a health hazard" .

Dr B .' . S . Dijkstra (1977), University of Pretoria - "The `natural experiment' (referring to rise in lung cancer when people smoked less j shows conclusively that the hypothesis has to be abandoned" .

Dr Hiram Langston, Professor of Surgery, University of Illinois, says, "In addition to clinical observations refuting the hypothesis, there exists strong evidence that lung cancer has crested and is turning down . Thus the rise and fall of this disease is a biological phenomenon rather than a con-sequence of any action on our part" .

Fear is the key to the whole campaign . Many doctors themselves have been scared into stopping -smoking . Natu-rally they are hostile to thQse who don't give up and go on enjoying the pleasure they have denied themselves . The campaigners claim that ioo,ooo doctors have given up smoking . It is worth noting that there has been no change in the death rate of doctors .

Even if the statistics- are not biased, as some scientists claim, it doesn't mean a thing . It only means what we already know, and what shouldn't surprise us one bit, that people with chest troubles smoke to get relief .

iJ

IG BROT

S

CAMPAIGN

In the sixties the U . S . Government was under strong attack by the anti-uranium forces, as it still is, because of the effects of radiation on the human body . The government became very worried indeed when some scientists of note published reports claiming that lung cancer, which had been rather uncommon earlier, was being caused by radiation from atomic tests and power plants . Its own experts secretly informed the government that they agreed with this . Now the government was in a spot . With a big section of the public already up in arms about radiation they couldn't afford these adverse reports . On the other hand, in view of the threat of attack from Russia and China they couldn't cut down on the atomic weapons program .

In the middle of this dilemma the government had a great stroke of luck . Doctors Doll and Hill of England published a report in which they claimed statistics showed that lung cancer patients were more likely to be smokers than not . (This report was based purely on statistics, with no other evidence) . Here was the government's big chance . It didn't hesitate . It seized on this theory in a big way . Doll and Hill spoke merely of "correlation", that is, relationship . Without any hesitation the 'Surgeon General's committee substituted the word "causation" as being more positive and of course, more fear-inspiring . They had no medical or scientific grounds whatever for this step . Had they in mind the maxim, "The bigger the lie, the more people -will believe it?" I am reliably informed by people who should know that a campaign was deliberately launched, with the aid of the health department, to take the blame off radiation and lay it at the door of tobacco . No expense was to be spared ; and millions and millions of dollars have been spent on one of the greatest and most deceitful campaigns in history . A

,. ~ ~ ... _. .. _{... .,_ ;~. .. .. ..~ ~}

30 Smoking is Good for You

~

" .

If you think this is rough what will it be like when they find out that it's radio-activity that causes 4cng cancer ." black

. curtain was drawn over the harmless and beneficial practice of smoking.

The beauty of the scheme is that no one can prove it . How can they? Governments don't usually leave themselves open to exposure . But still things do leak out and now a

Big Brother's Campaign 31 number of medical people familiar with the Washington scene are convinced that it was a cold-blooded conspiracy . To get proof is another matter . Still one day another Water-gate may be unearthed . We know that WaterWater-gate was exposed

by a mere accident .

Lying by the government has become more common . Starting with President Eisenhower's lie about the U2 plane it has extended through the Nixon era so that now American people largely believe the government lies to them .

One thing that should have made people suspicious was the readiness of the government to hand out such huge sums of money . Uovernments don't give money away freely -rather the opposite . We have only to see the many deserving scientific and medical projects starved for funds . How often have we heard researchers say, "If the government would only give us enough money we'd have the puzzle of cancer licked" . But there was no starvation for the anti-smoking campaign. Why? Because it was well worth all the money to get the heat off uranium .

Another thing that should have made people suspicious was the government's sudden concern for the people's health and only in a limited field . Lung cancer is a relatively small part of human illness . There were other larger fields urgently crying out for help . It seems strange that only this one illness was selected for the spending bf so many millions . It was so unprecedented that it should have made people wonder . To say the very least, the smoking-lung cancer theory cannot be unwelcome to governments using uranium pro-ducts and the great utility companies that have invested billions in atomic power plants .

The campaign got rolling like wildfire . It was not confined to America but was extended through the World Health C)rganisation . of the United Nations and now flourishes all over the world . It provides good jobs for hundreds of doctors not to mention countless thousands of laymen . It has become such a gigantic organisation that it is often referred to as the anti-smoking "industry" . So the smoking-lung cancer theory, which would most probably have died out like so

32 Smoking is Good for You

many other half-baked theories, has been kept alive .

The World Health Organisation (W .H .O .) was strongly under the influence of the U . S . government . Some people regard it as, in effect, an extension of its health department . Staffed by government type doctors under ordets from the top, W. H . U . has been looked upon by free doctors as j ust another arm of Big Brother, and they give it as little credence

as they do government health departments . The anti-smokers love to quote W .H .O . reports but independent thinkers treat them with suspicion .

Many scientists were quick to condemn the theory, for example Rosenblatt and Hueper, but they were shouted down and their voices lost in the mass publicity given to it . The campaigners soon captured the media and the views of dissenters got little or no mention . Even though many intelligent people had very grave doubts, the incessant brainwashing has been to a great measure successful and appears to have captured most of the politicians of the world . This was the important target - to get the support of govern-ments everywhere .

Another important target was medical men . Without their support they could not have achieved much . One might wonder how they won the doctors over, since they are supposed to be highly intelligent people with scientific training . But doctors are no more immune to brainwashing than anyone else . It takes only a few of the so-called leaders

of the profession to be won over for the rest to follow like sheep . Doctors like to think themselves scientists, but they seem to have forgotten that it was instilled into them in their basic science years never to accept anything without scientific proof - and of course there is no proof of any kind, scientific or otherwise, for the theory .

The average doctor will admit that he has not studied the reports on the theory very closely, but is likely to say, "If it's good enough for the `college', it's good enough for me" . It is rare to f nd a doctor who has read - or heard of - adverse reports . It is not new, of course, for doctors to accept theories that are unproven . The history of medicine is full

Big Brother's Campaign 33 of this . Most of them seem to have a logic-tight compart-ment in the brain making it impossible for them to question the theory . Many of them become quite enraged when talking of smoking - much more enraged than about alcohol or heroin, the misery of which seems to leave them unmoved .

People find it difficult and extremely painful to give up their favourite theory . It often means loss of face . Perhaps it is their unconscious doubting of the theory that makes them so bitter . Like the flat earthers they just won't face reality . Real scientists must be appalled when doctors who accept this nonsense refer to medicine as a scientific discipline . What claim can it have to be scientific when I have been abused by many of them for daring to ask for scientific proof ?Yes . The doctors have been brainwashed like the rest of the public .

We have seen how the Chinese in Korea were so successful with their brainwashing . Many prisoners, who were loyal

and reasonably intelligent Americans, were indoctrinated with anti-American views . The advertising industry knows the almost unbelieveable power of - incessantly repeated advertising . The anti-smokers have learned from all this and we have the never-ending campaign with its advertising, its pamphlets and government ordered warnings .

Who would have believed only a few years ago that it would be possible to convert such numbers in almost every walk of life - doctors, judges and politicians, and fill them

,vith such intolerance and poison? The extent of the brain-washing in the U . S . has amazed observers, making them ask if the immense painstaking and skilful exercise was organised by some special agency set up by the government, perhaps as an experiment in mind bending for time to come . If all the millions spent on the reat cam ai had been

-s ent on re we r would h ve a cure for cancer toda

Surely the people responsible for this deceitful campaign should be punished . It will be an even greater crime if they are not .

THE NEW CRUSADERS

In their fanatical campaigning the do-gooders outdo the most hot-gospelling sects of the fundamental religions of today . just as the fundamentalists depend on the fear of imaginary hellfire, the zealots depend on the fear of equally imaginary bodily diseases of dire varieties . Fear is the key . There is no doubt a big section of the public has been upset

by the harrowing scare stories . Recently a woman, a cigarette smoker, who was expecting her first baby, heard a talk by a campaigning doctor who, even though there is no valid evidence, predicted that children born of smoking mothers would have all sorts of defects and deformities . An English study in 1958 claimed a higher mortality rate among infants born of smoking mothers . But several later studies reported there was no difference . The poor woman was in a state of fear and worry for some months until a perfectly healthy baby was born . Surely laws should be passed to make this sort of thing severely punishable .

An attempt has been made in England to get pregnant women to quit smoking by a scare that 15oo babies die a year because of smoking mothers . Statisticians are quite horrified by this unscientific claim . It has been pointed out that late pregnancy is no time to place a woman under the additional stress of giving up smoking .

It has been claimed that young people are being scared so much that they are by-passing cigarettes- for marihuana . A drug squad officer recently gave evidence before a govern-ment inquiry on drugs that when it was scarce - probably a deliberately, ccaused scarcity - pot smokers went on to heroin . It is worth noting that the increase in drug use has gone hand in hand with the anti-smoking campaign .

People who have been ordered off smoking by their doctors run great health risks . It sometimes can be

The New Crusaders 35 amount to a sentence of death . I know of a man aged 6o who smoked for 40 years until he stopped on his doctor's orders . He had since put on over 20 pounds in weight, his blood pressure was dangerously high and he was a "bundle of nerves" . To try to replace the calming effect of tobacco the doctor had prescribed a tranquillising drug . This man was heading for a stroke or a heart seizure . The correct advice, of course, was to resume smoking . His risk from obesity and its associated effects was much greater than any risk from lung cancer .

The do-gooders, leaving truth by the wayside, give what are merely opinions as categorical statements of fact . With the greatest glibness they use such words as

"incontro-vertible" and "proven" which couldn't be further from the truth. They repeat this unwarranted rubbish, these parrot cries, perhaps in the hope, like children, that by repeatedly saying it, it will make it true - "Wishing will make it true" . If doctors think smoking is harmful, surely their duty' ends with telling the patient of the alleged risk . It is beyond the bounds of duty to go out campaigning . They don't campaign like this about alcohol, drugs, dangerous working conditions, the road toll and other mucli more life-destroying things .

The anti-smoking industry has been busy churning out pamphlets and posters, making films and tapes and distri-buting them all over the country . Doctors are sent to lecture anywhere and to anyone they can cajole into listening . All this is at the public's expense .

Some targets are church organisations, clubs, unions and of course schools . Little 'children are being indoctrinated ~ and _being scared at the prospect of early death for parents o who smoke . You have probably heard of tiny tots pleading ~, with daddy or mummy not to smoke . ~

Teachers, nurses, pharmacists, and doctors are showered ~ with pamphlets and posters for adorning their walls . In some tn doctor's waiting rooms there are more of these pin-ups than Cn

of nude ladies in a bachelor's apartment .

news-iuiiml~ m~tid~!li~~Enu .WtitiAA

36 Smoking is Good for You

CIGARE7TE5

K1LLiON1ILL#ON

A YEAR

"[XJe have no proof but it's incontrovertible . If anyone i disagrees - off with his head . "(" tiYjit.h apologies to Alice

in Wonderland)

papers,,radio and television . For the T . V . people to support the campaign is beyond understanding, since in many parts of the world due to the campaign they have lost a big part of their income from tobacco advertisements . If the zealots have their way newspapers will lose income by a ban on all

advertising of tobacco products - perhaps even chewing tobacco . Yet some newspapers seem to be doing all they can to help the campaign .

The New Crusaders 37 the result of pressure by the fanatics-~ If so it won't be long before this is given the sanction of law . What will happen to re-runs of Groucho Marx and Sherlock Holmes?

The campaigners carefully seek out non-smokers in the media, particularly if they are in positions of influence . Some of these who have fallen for the phoney propaganda don't lose an opportunity to help the campaign along . It seems that the campaigners have captured the souls of most of the media .

Politicians should realise that they have been sadly used by the campaigners in introducing bans on smoking . The main grounds for bans in trains and buses appear to be the passive smoking theory . Now that this has been shown without doubt to be false (this is admitted by many leading anti-smoking doctors j the politicians should have the grace to lift the bans immediately . But this might involve loss of face, so we won't expect it too soon . When faced with proof of the falseness of the passive smoking claim, some of the anti-smoking doctors say, "Ah, well, but it's a filthy habit", as

if this justifies taking away people's liberties .

Some of their best friends should tell the politicians how they have been bamboozled . A leading anti-smoking doctor said recently from his Olympian heights, "We must develop some capacity to communicate with politicians at their own intellectual level" . Presumably he didn't think their intel-lectual level was anything like his . But no doubt he thought them useful in the furtherance of the campaign .

Shopkeepers are being pestered into - putting up "No ~ Smoking" signs . This is rather foolish of them, for any ~ smoker with an ounce of principle will not patronise them .,_, For the past couple of years a big store that I patronised for ~ over thirty years has displayed such signs . Needless to say ~ they don't get my business now, nor that of a large number ~ of my friends . . _J

It is becoming common for taxi drivers to claim they are allergic to smoking and to have such signs as "Thank You for Not Smoking" or just "No Smoking" in their cabs . Where will this all end? Will we see "Thank you for not

38 Smoking is Good for You

having body odour", "Thank you for not being drunk", "Thank you for supporting the ban on uranium", "Thank you for supporting the Jews (or Arabs)" or perhaps some religious signs as are seen in taxis in Latin America? I have heard of some unpleasant incidents when passengers insisted on smoking . `

When I asked a leading allergy specialist about allergy to tobacco smoke, he just about exploded . "Rubbish, absolute rubbish", he said . "I don't believe there is such a thing . I know that some doctors claim there is, but it must be very rare for in all my years I ha~~e never seen a case . But this is not tobacco . It is smoke - after the combustion of tobacco,

which is a very different thing . I certainly don't believe it . I'd say it was all in the mind" . This shows how the deceivers have acted on the fears of the people . What may have been mere dislike of tobacco smoke has been grossly magnified into an allergy . Or perhaps the taxi-driver always hated smoking and now he has a chance to knock it . Some cynics say it is j ust a way of avoiding the trouble . of emptying ashtrays .

I have since contacted a nut"nber of other allergists . They all, without exception, say that tobacco smoke contains no allergens . However the campaigners are still trying desper-ately to bring in allergy . So it might be as well to mention the results of investigations done by some scientists . Dr William B . Sherwin, Director of Allergy, Roosevelt Hospital, in 1968 reported he could find no evidence that tobacco

smoke contains allergens . Dr Geoffrey Taylor, University of Manchester in 1974 reported his investigations showed there was no proof of specific sensitization to tobacco smoke . McDougall and Gleich reported in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology r976, that they were unable to detect any allergic response to tobacco leaf protein or tobacco-smoke in patients who believed they were allergic to tobacco .

A. S .H . (Action on Smoking and Health) wants to ban cigarettes in British hospitals .

Donald Gould, writing in "New Scientist" warns, "Cigarettes calm, they comfort, they give pleasure . They act

-The New Crusaders 39

"Poor Harry . He thinks he's allergic to tobacco . It's only my steak burning. " ,

as a kind of stockade = a barrier between the naked individual and a hostile and perplexing world . The efforts of A . S .H .

by exploiting the peculiar helplessness of the hospital patient are too -close to those of the Inquisition and the censor . Enthusiasts for a cause are frequently tempted to ride roughshod over the rights and the wishes of their fellows for

40 Smoking is Good for You

the sake of preserving them from a single evil which the enthusiasts happen to hold in special horror and dislike . But freedom has always been most powerfully threatened, not by conscienceless tyrants, but by those who desperately wish to do us good" .

The campaign is mainly run by salaried doctors, especially of government health departments, doctors who wittingly or unwittingly, are working to bring free doctors under the control of Big Brother . Can they really be surprised if many free doctors heartily despise and detest them and treat what they say with great suspicion?

THE SAD FAIA.r URE OF

THE CAMPAIGN

\

With all the multi-million dollar government backing the campaigners have to face the sad fact that the campaign has failed . Although the public generally is not aware of this, the failure has been admitted recently by many governments . They may have won over the politicians, they may have won over some of the doctors (In spite of the claims of the antis it is surprising the number of doctors who still smoke), but they have not won over the people . People are smoking more than ever .

The ban on cigarette advertising has been a complete failure . In the United States, England and Australia adver-tising was removed from T .V . and radio without any effect .

In Italy a similar ban was introduced in 1963 . By 1977 consumption was up by 35 per cent .

In Norway all advertising was banned in 1963 . By 1977 consumption was up by over 5 per cent .

The `French Minister for Health announced in 1978 that after the ban on T .V ., radio and other advertising, con-sumption had increased . It seems that people are determined to smoke, even though they have had incessant warnings, so the only way Big Brother will stop them is to bring in complete prohibition of tobacco . Even then they'll probably tobacco grow in the back garden .

Why has the great campaign failed? The• answer, it seems, is because of the healthy scepticism of the public . Perhaps they have an inbuilt common sense that is resistant to hum-buggery . Perhaps they are too mindful of the painful history of boo-boos and volte faces of the "experts" . Could it be that they just resent Big Brother interfering with their freedom?

. Or could it be that they are just beginning to see, behind the Black Curtain, the views of noted scientists ridiculing the whole campaign? Big Brother has apparently forgotten

42 Smoking is Good for You

the maxim, "It never pays to mislead the public" .

Whatever the reason, the campaigners, like a wounded animal at bay, are making a savage last stand . Although the people have defied Big Brother, he is not going to give up . He is now going to get really tough and wield the big stick . Government committees have been set up to see what can be done . One committee in its report talks in the typical jargon of the totalitarian state of "mechanism for the dis-couragement of drugs", tobacco being regarded as a drug along with heroin . We wait now to see what the ultimate in repression will be .

The campaign has now been extended to cover such things as heart disease and the contraceptive "pill" . What will be next?

In the U .S . the new secretary of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Joseph Califano, is launching a new, attack on smoking . The ,vast sum of thirty million dollars has been provided for a new campaign . Until two years ago he was a 3 pack a day cigarette smoker but is now a convert . Now like a reformed sinner he is in a position to further his new beliefs . He declares, "Cigarette smoking is public health enemy number one" . In almost the same breath he announces that about five million Americans are expected to die from lung cancer caused by asbestos . It reminds one of "Alice in Wonderland" . For a man in charge of such a huge department he seems singularly mixed up in his priorities . Yet again there is to be . another Surgeon General's report on smoking and health . We . wonder that gems they'll come up with this time . C.alifano plans to make this new report into a great media event to shock people into not smoking . He has written to the networks to have an increase in the number of anti-smoking spots . He wants schools to teach the "dangers" of smoking He has written to the 5oo largest companies in the country to have smoking banned on their premises . He has asked the Civil Aeronautics Board to ban all smoking in aircraft . He is- also requesting insurance companies to give cut rates to non-smokers, in effect, make smokers pay more .