Far be it for me to defend tobacco companies or inconsiderate smokers among us, but frankly, this article stinks.  Where’s the control group study? Where’s the mechanism?  Where do they allow for massive air pollution in nations like China that see pollution controls as “anti-production”?

The anti-smoker craze has caused many cities and towns to ban smoking in all public establishments, not even allowing special facilities.  Others go even further and ban smoking OUTDOORS, where one out-of-tune diesel bus alone tosses out more pollution than any 100 smokers.

Does the study control for any of that? Not it what I saw!  What are the REAL dangers of smoking (My father died of lung cancer, and smoked most of his life) and what are the phony, hysteria-induced ones?  You know, the ones cited by folks who see someone smoking outside, 100’ away and start fake-coughing.

After smoking is banned air pollution from factories is next.

How will corporate personage handle that?

I positively live for the day when JAPAN will ban all smoking from all commercial
establishments. So far I dare not venture into most coffee shops, bars, and
restaurants. Their loss in my revenue.

While common sense should tell one not to expose children to day long indoor smoke this study sounds highly speculative.  The last 2 sentences which should be the first 2 sentences of this article sum it up.  A more worthwhile review would focus on these difficulties while still presenting the potential for harm among this group of ignorant people.

“Writing in…Lancet, Dr Heather Wipfli of the University of Southern California and colleagues, said: “There are well acknowledged uncertainties in estimates of disease burden” and “However, there can be no question that the 1.2bn smokers in the world are exposing billions of non-smokers to second-hand smoke, a disease-causing indoor air pollutant.”

This smells like someone may just be cooking the books a little bit as the CDC stated in 2005 that 400,000 people died just in the U.S. alone from second-hand smoke. Now, WHO is claiming 600,000 out of the 57,000,000 yearly estimated dead are dying from this second-hand smoke?
Isn’t WHO part of the same UN that claimed all the world’s glaciers would be gone by 2035?

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5425a1.htm

I think governments should offer hypnosis C.D’s to those wanting to quit. I bought one recently and it worked wonders, these could be made at low cost and distributed easily. The issue is that the taxes raised from cigerretes is actuallty pretty helpful.