The title is incendiary but the use of society’s most despicable slur is not gratuitous. Nor does the subject matter have anything to do with race, although racism, along with human kind’s long list of other destructive pathologies, is central to this article.
Donald Homa is a cognitive psychologist in the Department of Psychology at ASU. We are glad to publish the article he has sent. “I became involved in this issue – the dangers of secondhand smoke – some years ago, and have had extended articles printed in a number of newspapers, but no one here would publish a recent article of mine, which I’ve included as an attachment”, he writes to us – and we are certainly not surprised the mainstream media hopes it remains hidden. Dr. Homa exposes the passive smoke for what it is: a fraud institutions should be ashamed of, driven by vitriolic hatred to “denigrate and vulgarize the smoker. Arizona has seen television spots in which the smoker is urinated on by a dog, and an unsuspecting young lady drinks the phlegm of a smoker”. Political terror and intimidation control the press these days on the issue of smoking and health in general. Even the slightest indication of the truth – that the health authorities are divulging false information to instigate hatred – is enough to censor any information right out . The media must "help" the people believe that passive smoke kills, so people can have licence to hate. Hatred, so anti-tobacco thinks, will eventually drive smoking out of society.
That is the ultimate mistake, however. It is true that antitobacco is out of control; it is true that there is hatred without limitation. But it is also true that, around the world, a rapidly growing number of smokers is getting ready to lower themselves to the level of their enemies, and to get down to the dirty job of making them understand that they will be those who are urinated on – and forced to swallow the phlegm of their own hatred. Because even the “niggers”, one day, will decide that they have had enough.
Smoker as Nigger
June 12, 2007 – Substitute ‘woman’ for ‘smoker’, and you have Naomi Weisstein’s (1969) controversial article lamenting the degrading treatment of women in the 1960’s. The details of Weisstein’s argument are not critical – suffice that Weisstein decried the falsehoods and distortions of that age. Today, the mantel of ‘Nigger’ has shifted to the smoker, who is abused with vulgar commercials, bogus health claims, and taxed without recourse. Last November, citizens of Arizona voted on two smoking propositions. Each eliminated choice, presumably the hallmark of a free society, and each was based on utterly fraudulent health concerns.
Consider. Passive smoking likely harms no one, because it is physically impossible to inhale more than a fraction of a cigarette, even when working along side 6 or more smoking co-workers (1984, New England Journal of Medicine), with estimates as low as 1/7th of a cigarette for persons frequenting bars, restaurants, and bowling alleys. Meta-analyses that combined upwards of 50 studies of passive smoking showed zero or minimal risk – the EPA study (1993), WHO (1998), and the British study (1998). Enstrom (2003) found that 40 years of exposure to secondhand smoke did not increase the relative risk of coronary heart disease, lung cancer, and obstructive pulmonary diseases of the non-smoking spouse: “…The results do not support a causal relation between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality.” Blettner (2002) evaluated 38 years and 250,000 person years of exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke, finding nothing.
Pregnant mothers? Barr (1991) evaluated the impact of nicotine, caffeine, alcohol, and aspirin during pregnancy on neuromuscular and intellectual functioning of their children at age 4 and found damage when the fetus was exposed to alcohol, followed by aspirin and caffeine – only nicotine was associated with no ill effects: “…this study replicates previous evaluations…in which we were unable to detect neurobehavioral consequences of prenatal cigarette exposure…”
Asthma? Childhood asthma increased from 11% to 19% from 1990-1998, but “…the rise in respiratory problems could not be linked to…passive smoking… because this factor declined over the period,” (Silverman, 2001), a conclusion reached by Beckett (2001) “…serum cotinine level at baseline among nonsmokers (reflecting environmental tobacco smoke exposure), was not significantly associated with asthma.” Hjern (2001) found “…children of mothers who smoked at least 15 cigarettes a day tended to have lower odds for suffering from…allergic asthma…compared to mothers who had never smoked.” Add this – the CDC in 1995 reported that asthma rates and deaths increased by 40% from 1982-1992. Therefore, the asthma epidemic, from 1982 to the present time, has occurred while exposure to secondhand smoke has markedly decreased. To claim that secondhand exposure to cigarette smoke is responsible for the rise in asthma is not simply illogical or unscientific or disingenuous – it is a lie.
Breast cancer? Researchers (Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 2000) investigated 150,000 never smoking women whose husbands smoked and found “…no association between exposure to ETS and death from breast cancer,” and Strohsnitter (2005, Epidemiology) found an inverse relationship between incidence of breast cancer and exposure to secondhand smoke. Doll (2002, British Journal of Cancer) concluded that “…drinking, but not smoking, increases the risk of breast cancer.”
Perspective. Each year, medical mistakes claim 100,000 lives each year (Kohn et al., 1999), and 1.5 million yearly abortions erase 120 million life years. Iatrogenesis – defined as any adverse or physical condition induced in a patient through the effects of treatment by a physician or surgeon – kills 225,000 patients yearly, according to Dr. Starfield of Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene (American Medical Association, 2000). Exposure to secondhand smoke is claimed to kill 3,000 each year (EPA, 1993) or roughly 6,000 life years, a figure dismissed by a federal judge in 1998 as unsupported by scientific findings.
What drives bogus and fraudulent claims? Money – massive amounts of it from lawsuits and taxes – and control. Last year, one billion dollars from the tobacco lawsuits was spent on nationwide ads and promotions that rarely educated but did denigrate and vulgarize the smoker. Arizona has seen television spots in which the smoker is urinated on by a dog, and an unsuspecting young lady drinks the phlegm of a smoker. Even the Phoenix Suns gorilla holds his nose, dancing like a bought monkey in a children’s chorus line. Forget that these costs are ultimately borne by the smoker, 40% of whom are at or below the poverty line. Also forget that the rise in asthma, diabetes, obesity, autism, attention deficit disorder, Alzheimers, and Parkinson’s disease has risen amongst those who have had their exposure reduced, not increased, by secondhand smoke. Alice in Wonderland.
Children are taught that we live in a republic, not a democracy, yet we now deny bar and restaurant owners the right to regulate their own business. Fifty years ago, Southerners debated whether African Americans should be relegated to the back seat of the bus or banned altogether. Proposition 206 and 201. Smoker as Nigger.
“Whose breath blew out the light within this brain?” asked the American poet, Charles Markham. It takes a village.
— Donald Homa, Ph.D.
Donald Homa is a cognitive psychologist in the Department of Psychology at ASU. He regularly teaches classes in research methodology and human cognition.
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