Peter Jennings: The Latest Victim Of The Tobacco Industry

A very great news legend had his life tragically cut short because of the evils of cigarette smoking. Peter Jennings was well loved and respected. A calming and continental voice of class for the news. Yet despite his seeming endless wisdom, Jennings smoked 20 years ago, and restarted shortly during the 9/11 attacks of terrible stress for America. The effect of all the 4,000 poisons in cigarette smoke and the amount of harmful additives which can number as much as 600 in number, cut down Peter Jennings life. His pained gravelly voice from the effects of the cancer should be a clear warning of anyone of normal intelligence to realize that cigarettes are nothing but poison, to both the smoker and nonsmoker alike.

A recent Email from Philip Morris USA regarding the harmful effects of cigarette smoke is startling in their admissions of the harm from cigarettes.

The Email acknowledged that " Public health officials have concluded that secondhand smoke from cigarettes causes disease, including lung cancer and heart disease, in non-smoking adults, as well as causes conditions in children such as asthma, respiratory infections, cough, wheeze, otitis media(middle ear infection) and Sudden Infant death Syndrome. In addition, public health officials have concluded that secondhand smoke can exacerbate adult asthma and cause eye, throat and nasal irritation".

But most startling is the conclusion that secondhand smoke is such a serious health danger that Philip Morris USA supports government action to regulate public smoking and post health warning notices in areas where public smoking is permitted. The Philip Morris USA Email continues, "Philip Morris USA believes that the conclusions of public health officials concerning environmental tobacco smoke are sufficient to warrant measures that regulate smoking in public places. We also believe that where smoking is permitted, the govenment should require the posting of warning notices that communicate public health officials' conclusions that secondhand smoke causes disease in non-smokers".

So where is government on following the safety recommendations of Philip Morris USA? Smokers can stand on crowded public sidewalks, and choose to impose their poisons on all others standing for about half a block radius. Smokers can smoke in public store entrances. Smokers can smoke in crowded traffic with windows wide open with their poisons injuring all in traffic with open or even in some cases closed windows. Smokers can smell up the homes of nonsmokers as smoke soaks into their homes those with asthma or other health conditions through tiny window clearances as wind blows up from the street or sidewalk. Philip Morris USA warns of the health dangers of their products, yet few smokers are ticketed or arrested for public smoking. And virtually no warning signs are posted in areas where smokers are. The people who are rude enough to smoke in public places face few legal sanctions against the enormous and expensive health problems they create.

Government cannot prevent people from smoking in their own homes. But based on the Email from Philip Morris USA, it should clearly act to end all public smoking and fine or arrest persons who harm children or the ill with these unnecessary poisons by criminalizing all public smoking.