The Health Benefits of Tobacco: A Smoker's Paradox Review

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(More customer reviews)I am only a very occasional smoker, and don't like inhaling other people's fumes. The book raises a lot of questions that need to be asked, and indeed, if you bother to check WHO stats online, there is no clear correlation between rates of lung cancer and rates of smoking. I would like to add my two cents:
1. Bill Dufty's book Sugar Blues mentioned a 1972 BBC documentary that made a connection between tobacco adulterated with sugar and other additives, and additive free tobacco, and lung cancer. Apparently, US makers of cigarettes are not required to list these additives. Virginia style flue cured tobacco is also seen as a possible culprit - it raises the sugar content of the leaf much higher than air drying. Cigar tobacco is often air cured. Many cigarettes are combined air and flue cured tobacco. Russian, Chinese and Taiwanese cigarettes at that time (70's) were made of air dried tobacco, and no correlation between lung cancer and rates of smoking could be found in those countries.
2. I lived in Japan for 8 years. I didn't find the Japanese diet particularly healthy - it consists of a lot of beer drinking and believe in or not, deep fried foods - fried shrimp, oysters, and croquettes are especially popular, and the high salt content leads to mini strokes in the brain and early senility. I also question the so called longevity - I wouldn't be surprised if the Okinawans were taken out of the picture that the death rate might be on a par with the US. Also, Japan has an astronomical rate of stomach cancer - maybe due to the talc they put in the rice to keep it from sticking?
However, it is true that lung cancer rates are lower than the US, even though the Japanese smoke more. Is this due to air cured tobacco?
As for smoking "freedom" in Japan, the government in the early 90's had instituted sanctions against smoking on train platforms, however smoking in private establishments is still in a large part unregulated. There are now smoking and non-smoking sections of restaurants, something which didn't exist prior to the 90's in Japan.
3. I have to wonder why there has been such a war declared on tobacco while commercials advertising both beer and pharmaceuticals seem to have increased tenfold. Moreover, beer commercials are aimed primarily at youth - doesn't anyone consider drunkeness, liver damage and drunk driving to be hazards? Why is this happening? Well, at the risk of sounding goofy, Fritz Springmeier (Bloodlines of the Illuminati) mentioned somewhere that the Reynolds family is on the outs with the other Illuminati families. Maybe the war on tobacco is a turf war between ruling elitists? Why aren't we protecting our children from drunk drivers with the same ferocity? It just seems so strange that we focus so hard on tobacco as a health hazard and ignore alcohol, and pharmaceuticals that can cause sudden death (among other, numerous side effects).

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