Tobacco Prevention is one of the sobriquets the anti-smoking crowd dubs its agenda of prohibition and smoker vilification.
Like everything anti-tobacco touches, Tobacco Prevention, as a concept and descriptor, is an absurdity. Tobacco, like any plant is. It cannot be prevented since it already exists and, as far as human beings are concerned, has always existed. We do agree with the anti-smoking maniacs that Tobacco Prevention is a far nicer term than the adjectives that do accurately describe their activities; fascist, hateful, fraudulent, grandiose, wasteful, to name a few.
Now even the Tobacco Prevention euphemism may no longer make even symbolic sense as scientists ponder and develop all sorts of wonderful things that the tobacco plant may bestow upon human beings. As the article linked to below explains "preventing" (eliminating) tobacco would be a crime against humanity as all sorts of health benefits could flow from that grievously slandered plant. Protection against cervical cancer, hepatitis B, gastroenteritis and a whole host of ailments are in the works by genetically beefing up the plant. Scientists see the sky as the limit to the uses to which the plant may be harnessed.
None of these great things are particularly new. For hundreds of years after tobacco was introduced to Europe the medicinal benefits of smoking were discussed and documented. Inhabitants of the Americas, of course, have celebrated the benefits of tobacco for thousands of years. Only in the past generation or so have bigoted, agenda-driven ideologues distorted and perverted the benign attributes of tobacco, turning them into "certain, painful death."
Will the list of new vaccines and medications listed in this new story come to pass? Only time will tell but in the meanwhile the desire to "prohibit" tobacco will become to be seen as insane, if not criminal. Also some of the ailments that tobacco may help end, such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s are already known to be less prevalent in those who smoke. Sometimes it turns out that folk medicine, such as smoking or chewing the amazing tobacco leaf, is just what the doctor ordered.
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