Smoking

Press, 13 April 1989, Page 12

Smoking

Sir,—The Tobacco Institute can rest easy. Although it is, indeed, annoying to be bombarded by the current hysteria concerning smoking, we may be assured that the politicians in the end will be politicians. Smoking tobacco generates such huge tax volumes that the end result will not be less smoke but simply more tax. —Yours, etc., JOHN FRANCIS. April 7, 1989. Sir, — Cigarette smoking might once have been a social grace, but it is now an addiction at a social cost far exceeding the revenue from taxation. Mental obsession could be a greater threat than cancer, emphysema and chronic bronchitis. The nonsmoker is a victim of behaviour beyond the control of the addict. Part of the personality pattern is carelessness, not only of the nonsmoker’s health, but of unrepentant littering and fire hazards in bed and around the countryside and forests. A 20 per cent drop in smoking could mean a similar reduction in insurance claims and premiums, as well as in infant mortality. An American study of smokers and driving suggested that paroxysms of coughing cause loss of control on the roads. There is probably no cure for the tobacco obsession, so it must be controlled at the source by banning the sale of the poison. — Yours, etc., VARIAN J. WILSON. April 9, 1989. Sir, — In his facile eulogy of the benefits which smokers confer on non-smokers, Ray Robinson (March 30) ignored the prime reason why he should have dropped the habit. Is he concerned for the welfare of babies, children and adolescents, our future assets? I doubt it. They are vulnerable and inarticulate. Yet again, adult double standards prevail. — Yours, etc., LORNA ANKER. April 7, 1989.