Dear Editor,

The recent World No Tobacco Day left me a tad puzzled.

If the multiple warnings from the World Health Organization and similar organisations about the health dangers of tobacco smoking are scientifically sound, why are governments pussyfooting around the issue by simply increasing taxation on cigarettes and demanding better warning labels?

How about progressive legislation towards the elimination of the tobacco industry (read smoking)? Unrealistic, idealistic? Maybe, but are we realistic in thinking that increased taxation on tobacco products is really different from benefiting from the proceeds of a crime against humanity? Like seriously?

So we think better warning labels will make a greater dent in the attractiveness of cigarettes to youngsters and others? Who is kidding whom? How about working towards making the deadly product unavailable?

If you are concerned about protecting the rights of smokers to do what they choose with their own bodies, do bear in mind the effects of second-hand smoke on other people’s bodies.

So again, if the health warnings about second-hand smoke are scientifically sound, smokers are being allowed (by a rights argument) to be, at once, suicidal and homicidal. Would any defender of such rights stand up in a serious debate or in a court of law and argue this kind of case?

Alas, humanity seems to be progressively diminishing the claim to be called homo sapiens (wise or sensible human) and is sliding towards being called homo saps (eediat [idiotic] human)!

Rev Clinton Chisholm

clintchis@yahoo.com