Les BEWLEY © life sentences ® LET US admit it: quite a number of citizens take pleasure in watching people beating up on other people. pointed out the research had been partly-funded by the tobacco in- dustry; the near-defamatory in- ference being that these scientists would prostitute their standings on that account. There used to be some rules and limits to the business, however. Once involved gallantry toward the bested opponent who, when his crew loudly cheered the sight of their enemy afire and sinking, gently reproached them with: A couple of weeks ago, Dr. Ray “Don't cheer, lads, the poor devils Johnstone, a physiologist at the are dying." University of Western Australia, N. ot long ago twe respected researchers at Simon Fraser University reported the results of their study, which concluded that second-hand or side-stream smoke had little or no effect upon the health of others and that perhaps one fatality - not the hundreds usually claimed - could be attributed to it,’”’ Another was that you never, ever kick a man when he is down. What we are watching today is the latest underdog — the smoker — winded, wounded and down, with zealous anti-smoking groups and health officials like loutish English soccer fans, kicking the daylights out of him with stcel- capped boots. . This is not sporting, chaps. It is not donc. ” All this comes 10 mind watching television shots of shivering py- jama-clad Vancouvec General Hospital patients standing out- doors in the caid and rain becausc the hospital refuses to allow them one solacing smoke, anywhere within this huge edifice. They have been driven out; outcasts; our un- touchable caste. You would think the hospital could find some fJittle cubbyhole in the basement or somewhere they could have a puff or two, out of sight. No; the VGH cannot muster up even that small tender bit of human compassion. The smoker is a sinner, He must suffer even more. The hospital now proclaims it is going to drive these poor devils away from the entrance and right off the grounds. They can get pneumonia in the slush-filled gut- ter. They can expire under car wheels. Who cares? These new victors, with smokers up against the wall, apparently seek total annihilation (‘A Smoke-Free Canada’’). They have issued their orders, which must at all times be OBEYED, because they are good for you. I am now almost prepared to believe that if anyone dares to run a first World War documentary showing a brave, muddied, cheer- ful soldier singing: ‘*As long as you've a lucifer to light your fag, smile, boys, that’s the style’’ the anti-smoking forces would be all over the projectionist and audience with whips, knouts, boots and rifle butts, within minutes. . The virulence of their actions, their absolute belief in their cause, their disinclination to hear evidence challenging their convic- ‘tions, is disturbing. Not long ago two respected researchers at Simon Fraser Uni- versity reported the results of their study, which concluded that second-hand or side-stream smoke had little or no effect upon the health of others and that perhaps one fatality — not the hundreds usually claimed — could be at- tributed to it. None of the anti-smoking groups appeared interested in re- examination of the data they rely upon in the light of this report. All that happened was that the SFU faculty members were im- mediately smeared by those who asserted that he had examined nine major world health studies and concluded that cight of them really showed there was no improvement in life expectancy and no reduction in deaths from cancer or heart disease in thase groups that took up exercise, changed their diet or stopped smoking. ” This startling assertion received exactly six column inches from in- ternational news services. There has been no ascertainable rush, since, by those who have made up their minds, to now re-examine their own conclusions. Chances are that they will claim that Dr. Johnstone is the crazed offspring of a kangaroo and a koala bear and no attention should be paid to him. When you think about it, this whole noisy smoking/non-smoking business has had some very odd aspects to it, from the start. Consider: everyone insists that smokers cut seven years from their natural lifespans. If that is unques- tionably so, then perhans we should be encouraging them,” because few if any of them will be around to require the very expen- sive extended care treatment in publicly funded hospitals and nur- sing homes. (The elderly are the largest users of the health-care system, accounting for 40 per cent of total costs.) In addition, by voluntarily ex- Piring seven years carly, the smok- ers are also saving us additional billions of dollars in old age secu- rity pensions they would have been paid over those years. There are naw 2.697.575 Cana- dians (by the vear 2000, 3,830,800) who are 65 years and older. The quarter of them who smoke are saving us, in the pensions we do not pay them for seven years, about $16 billions. If allcurrent old age pensioners smoked, we would save about $70 billion (2.69 million pensioners multiptied by $3,720 multiplied by seven years) enough to pay off, twice, the annual national ceficit. This is all in addition to billions we sweated out of them, while alive, in savage taxcs. The smokers lose more; they lose those happy fun-filled last seven years enjoying life in extend- ed care homes and beds, batiling incontinence, porridge escaping from toothless gums and the fun of trying to remember the name of the offspring who come infre- quently on duty visits. 1am beginning to fear that smokers and new researchers have not had a fair hearing. A new trial may well be in order. 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