Similarly, Rodu demonstrates the vacuity of complaints that tobacco companies "manipulate" nicotine levels in cigarettes. "Cigarettes are blended from several different strains of tobacco," he writes. "Thus, it is conceivable that cigarette manufacturers adjust the nicotine concentration to achieve consistency in taste[in] which nicotine plays an important role. Even if the amount of nicotine in cigarette tobacco is artificially modified, you cannot deny that a Marlboro smoker de serves the same product uniformity as a McDonald's, Pizza Hut, or Coca-Cola customer." As for reports that Brown & Williamson developed a high-nicotine tobacco plant, Rodu notes that people genuinely concerned about the health of smokers should welcome such innovation. Smokers of high -nicotine, low-tar cigarettes (like smokers of high-potency marijuana) would tend to absorb lower levels of toxins while achieving the effect they desire.
Rodu also questions the received wisdom about the hazards of environmental tobacco smoke, noting that the evidence is open to question and that the Environmental Protection Agency has been criticized for prejudging the issue. But he adds that fears about ETS, well grounded or not, are widespread, feeding hostility against smokers and driving the movement to ban smoking in restau rants and workplaces.
Although Rodu pulls no punches in describing the hazards of smoking, he criticizes the idea that smokers impose huge costs "on society" because of the illnesses to which they are prone. After all, everybody dies of something. The smoker who drops dead at 45 from a heart attack will not live to develop Alzheimer'sor collect Social Security checks. When you look at the long-term savings as well as the short-term costs, Rodu notes, "the excise taxes on cigarettes more than compensate for the external costs that smokers impose on society's nonsmokers." He is not impressed by popular support for raising tobacco taxes. "Polls currently indicate that Americans favor increasing excise taxes on cigarettes by a margin of 3 to 1, which should surprise no one," he writes. "That's the ratio of nonsmokers to smokers."
Rodu's common sense and intellectual honesty are especially striking in light of his strong anti -smoking views. He questions claims ("secondhand smoke kills," "smokers are a burden on society") that he considers shaky or erroneous, even though they would reinforce his argument for switching from cigarettes to smokeless tobacco. That kind of rigor is rare in the anti-smoking movement, which could use a few more heretics.
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