For decades, America has had a destructive war against tobacco products and those who use them. Tobacco as a crop was so important that it is quite possible that the British colonies that eventually became the United States would have failed, with settlers returning to England. Tobacco growing and product manufacturing was important enough to have received government subsidization until very recently. Historically, tobacco smoking was considered something of a miracle cure for many ailments.
About 50 years ago, a campaign began to blame smoking for cancer. Cancer had become such a terrifying disease that the word "cancer" was often alluded to rather than speaking the name aloud, even being referred to as the C disease. The American Cancer Society, having failed to produce significant results in fighting cancer, chose to erect smoking as a straw man to take heat off themselves. Since that beginning, one of the world's great frauds has proceeded, to demonize smoking to the point that most people believe there is unquestionable scientific evidence that smoking is a major killer. When even that level of fright didn't convince smokers to quit, the spectre of "secondhand" smoke was created out of thin air, to continue the campaign that was making so many organizations rich on donations and tax money in hopes of actually curing cancer. Deception, outright lies, and statistical trickery have been used to such a great and effective extent that "junk science" has spread to many other areas.
Even though over half of American smokers have long since quit, the health benefits are invisible. If anything, America is less healthy in significant ways. The health BENEFITS of smoking, even though scientifically obvious, have been blasted out of existence as more and more smokers have been forced to quit and as researchers with any positive results have been demonized and even physically threatened.
One thing is clear to me: If smoking had not been made the false demon causing many ailments, and the money and effort that went into the war on smoking had been spent on actually learning what causes cancer, heart disease, etc., we might actually have cures by now. Perhaps when all smoking has finally been eliminated, we will all realize that the War on Smoking has, like all wars, been pure destruction with no upside at all.
