"Smoking bans" are said to be justified for health
reasons. There would be no need or
pretense for such socially-fracturing prohibitions against yet another
smokable, even medicinal, natural, public domain plant, if government officials
had simply done their sworn and paid duties to protect the public from some
significant and long-term crimes by the broad cigarette industry. "[L]ong-term" meaning"back to the
turn-of-the-century era dawn of industrial pesticides and chlorine. Before
that, tobacco was tobacco. Now, something else altogether.
A host of "smoking related" bans would have served the public enormously over the decades but were not legislated, or even requested. Why? Easy. Because so many officials benefit from the cigarette industry by "sin tax" revenues replacing legitimate income taxes, campaign gifts, jobs with the industry after terms of office, and even personal and family investments. Almost invariably, those same officials are now top "concerned" anti-smoking (blame the victims) activists. They are like arsonists paid to start a fire, then getting paid again to heroically put out the fires they started.
For Ballot Initiatives, here are some suggested bans of a few still "legal" things:
BAN--- Pesticide residues on tobacco and in most cigarettes, tobacco being the sixth most pesticide-intensive crop"and inhalation being the worst exposure path.
BAN- DDT in smoking products because of government ending checks for that in import tobacco from lands that still use DDT legally or illegally. Is Rachel Carson erased from history?
BAN- Chlorine tobacco pesticides especially, because they produce cancer-causing, immune-suppressing, fetal-damaging, pregnancy-disrupting, etc., dioxins in the smoke.
BAN- Chlorine-bleached paper, source of more dioxins in the smoke.
BAN- Added burn accelerants, responsible for so many fires, injuries, property losses, orphanings, and deaths.
BAN- Added kid-attracting cigarette additives such as sweeteners, flavorings, aromas, and soothing substances.
BAN- Any untested or known-toxic non-tobacco cigarette additives, there being about 1400 such things from which cigarette makers concoct their secret recipes.
BAN- Licorice, a common additive that becomes co-carcinogenic when burned.
BAN- Certain phosphate tobacco fertilizers that put cancer-causing levels of PO-210 radiation into cigarettes.
BAN- Ammonia in cigarettes, used to speed up nicotine delivery into the system, which is notoriously dangerous when mixed with chlorine, another "legal" cigarette component.
BAN- Addiction-enhancing additives such as ammonia, but also caffeine, cocoa, sugar, and chocolate.
BAN- Fake tobacco cigarettes, unlabeled as such, made in patented ways from all sorts of industrial waste cellulose including wood, paper, corn, etc."none of it likely organic.
BAN- Application of "tobacco taxes" and "tobacco bans" on cigarettes that contain no tobacco at all.
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