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Friday, September 01, 2006
Raising Nicotine Doses, on the Sly I teach at Brooklyn College next door to Midwood High School. I watch with sadness the young students as they head home -- puffing away as we did. So many dear friends have been murdered by these animals. A knowledgeable friend who lives in tobacco country tells me that out in the boondocks the tobacco growers use all sorts of illegal pesticides that also kill. Yesterday I shared the following NY Times editorial and news report with my students and showed them the lovely reproduction in simulated parchment of the Bill of Rights supplied to me by Philip Morris as a pr gesture -- http://www.philipmorris.com/ What is being done by our government to curb these mass murderers -- nearly 500,000 a year now killed in the U.S. alone? Nothing! We outlaw other addictive substances that kill no more than a few thousand a year and allow the real mass murderers to prosper -- with tax payer subsidies no less. Only in Amerika! Shame! Ed Kent] ******************************* Editorial Raising Nicotine Doses, on the Sly Published: August 31, 2006 While most of us thought the country was trying to curb smoking, and the rapacious habits of the tobacco companies, it turns out the industry has been sneakily making cigarettes more addictive. Evidence of what looks like an increasingly desperate effort to hook new young smokers and prevent older ones from quitting has been uncovered by a Massachusetts law that forces tobacco companies to report test results showing how much nicotine is inhaled by typical smokers of their various brands. This week, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health revealed that from 1998 through 2004, as public health campaigns were mounted to curb smoking, the manufacturers increased the amount of addictive nicotine delivered to the average smoker by 10 percent. Of 179 cigarette brands tested in 2004, an astonishing 166 brands fell into the state’s highest nicotine yield range, including 59 brands that the manufacturers had labeled “light” and 14 described as “ultra-light.” The three most popular brands chosen by young smokers — Marlboro, Newport and Camel — all delivered significantly more nicotine as the years passed. Virtually all brands were found to deliver a high enough nicotine dose to cause heavy dependence. This trend has escaped notice because the standard government test uses a smoking machine that fails to mimic real-life smoking. A manufacturer, for example, can design a cigarette that will score low in nicotine delivery to the machine by placing tiny ventilation holes in the filter to dilute the smoke. But in real life a smoker will often cover the vents with lips or fingers, thereby inhaling a higher dose of nicotine. When Massachusetts required the manufacturers to use what it considered a more realistic method, the nicotine yields were more than twice those found on the standard test. The Massachusetts approach may not be perfect, but it is surely a lot more accurate than the traditional test, which virtually all independent experts consider deficient. It is stunning to discover how easily this rogue industry was able to increase public consumption of nicotine without anyone knowing about it until Massachusetts blew the whistle. The Massachusetts report bears out the conclusions of a federal judge in Washington, who recently concluded that the companies have designed cigarettes to produce low nicotine readings on the standard test while delivering enough nicotine to create and sustain addiction. It is long past time for Congress to bring this damaging and deceitful industry under federal regulatory control. If the companies had to justify to the Food and Drug Administration why they should be allowed to increase the nicotine inhaled by smokers, you can bet they wouldn’t even try. -- "A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli) -- Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies] http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/ http://www.bloggernews.net Blogger News Network is advertiser-supported, and your visits to our advertisers help BNN to meet its expenses. Help keep us afloat! posted by Ed Kent at 1:06 PM |
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2 Comments:
Perhaps if you were less biased and less willing to deny Constitutional rights, you could appreciate a different view of the story.
Any other retailer that improved their product would be praised. Bigger TV's, more fuel efficient cars, energy saving refrigerators. But not those evil tabacco producers, who do little differently than a cotton farmer trying to keep weeds out of their "garden" and raise their yeilds. In fact, cotton farmers should perhaps be considered worse than tobacco farmers as they spray chemicals on cotton much like Agent Orange, and then sell their LEGAL product to be used as clothes, linens, and so many other products that come into direct contact with humans.
Perhaps by increasing the nicotine levels, tabacco smokers feel like they are now getting more for their money. Some may now actually smoke fewer cigarettes because the improved product better delivers what the smoker wants. After all, it is the nicotine they are seeking.
I bet you wouldn't bitch at all if your Glen Levitt had more alcohol, especially while you were thinking of how to spend all that tobacco settlement money that is so strongly linked to the CONTINUATION of selling tobacco.
Can you say "hypocrit", boys and girls?
Those that fail to learn from the mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat those mistakes.
Prohibition does NOT work as history has REPEATEDLY PROVED.
The prohibition of ANY substance that is readily produced and consumed by an individual, will NEVER be successful, and the public as a whole will suffer in the attempt.
Until our government learns from the past, our prisons will grow, lives will be ruined, families will suffer, and the burden on the public will increase. Of course, now that their is profit to be made in prisons (Cornell Corrections aka "Crooks Holding Crooks") we may see all kinds of things made illegal. Maybe even books.
Preach on Mr. Kent.
Hopefully one day, tobacco will be illegal and not Prohibited as Mr. Upsidedown states.
I wonder what the pro-smokes would say if it had been higher arsenic content? Tobacco companies are, by nature, unethical and prove it over and over again.
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