Passive Smoking

The Telegraph reveals in an article by James Delingpole that research shows that the amount of harm caused by passive smoking is "statistically insignificant".

A large prospective cohort study of more than 76,000 women confirmed a strong association between cigarette smoking and lung cancer but found no link between the disease and secondhand smoke.

This is not a report written and published by the tobacco industry, but by no less an authority than the American National Cancer Institute.

So all that has been claimed about the dangerous effect of passive smoking is now shown to be untrue, and is the result of a statistically insignificant number of non smokers who got lung cancer. The number of people exposed to passive smoking who caught the disease was not statistically any different from those who had not been exposed to it.

Now I don't smoke, and prefer a smoke free environment. But some of my friends smoke, and as a result we are no longer able to enjoy an evening in the local pub, as popping outside for a cigarette makes it preferable for them to stay at home where they probably drink more as it costs considerably less. I never had any problems at our local, it is well ventilated and certainly I never came home smelling of cigarette smoke as I used to before smoking  was banned on public transsport.

But I am glad to learn that this exposure to cigarette smoke during much of my working life is unlikely to have had any significant effect. But I resent the scare tactics where non-smokers like myself have been led to believe, and may indeed have worried about, our lives being at risk in our later years due to exposure to cigarette smoke in our younger days.

The line now being taken by the anti-smoking lobby is basically that it doesn't matter if what was said is untrue because it has achieved its objective of reducing smoking in the country.

In other words, the end justifies the means.

Now where have I heard that before?