Open Debate?

Dear Editor,

In your June 29th "Kicking the Habit" story, Editor Stephen Marth quotes the VP of health sciences as saying, "If you can smell smoke, you are breathing in cancer-causing chemicals."

That's perfectly true. It's also perfectly true that if you are within 500 feet or so of a running car that "you are breathing in cancer-causing chemicals." And according to the National College of DUI Defense at:

http://www.ncdd.com/dsp_articledetails.cfm?article=15

you will be breathing in carcinogenic benzene, as well as isoprene, acetone, toluene and a hundred or so other nasty chemicals if you happen to be sharing an enclosed area with another living, breathing human being: Human respiration is a mechanism for getting rid of many noxious metabolic byproducts and chemicals.

So will the University be banning indoor space sharing and outdoor automobiles within 500 feet of campus (or at least ON campus)? I doubt it. Secondhand smoke is just the sideshow "smoke and mirrors" excuse for the real reason for bans on campuses, in bars/restaurants, and elsewhere, as admitted by Dr. Cappuccino: "By de-normalizing smoking on campus, we will be able to take steps in helping students never start."

I spoke of "DeNormalization" and social engineering as motivations for smoking bans ten years ago and was usually met with the response that I was seeing "black helicopters" that didn't exist. Back then the motivation was rarely acknowledged publicly by those pushing for bans because it was felt it would inspire too much resistance: far better to simply trump up fears around scary sounding chemical names that people might be exposed to in almost imaginary quantities: picograms, femtograms, attograms, or even zeptograms.

Today antismoking activists are at least a bit more honest about why they're doing what they do, but they still play the "fear" card and the "save the children" card, and they still wildly distort scientific studies or even deliberately design research from scratch to misrepresent facts to the public. And when students fall from ledges or get mugged on dark streets where they sneak smokes, or when fires occur because of improperly and hastily disposed of butts... where will the University, those activists, and those researchers be then?

If the University actually believes in honest and open academic debate about its policies and any students would like more information about what lies at the root of smoking bans like this, they are more than welcome to email me at Cantiloper on the aol system.


Michael J. McFadden
Author of "Dissecting Antismokers' Brains"
4424 Ludlow St.
Philadelphia, PA 19104
215-386-8430