Editor;
I’m going to try and summarize my position in one letter so that we can give the P.M. and its readers a break. If the others don’t buy it, so be it.
You can submit all of the studies you like, but I might remind you that some studies are like sales pitches, they can be slanted any way the creator likes. The fact is that the very air we breathe is polluted and carcinogenic. If you consider the volume of motor vehicle exhaust, industrial smoke, cooking smoke, etc., being pumped into the atmosphere daily, it becomes fairly obvious that it is impossible to attribute a given number of victims, or any at all for that matter, to second hand cigarette smoke. And yet people continue to come up with these “studies”.
As I pointed out before, since the surgeon general issued his “findings” on second hand smoke, the number of smokers in America has decreased from the low 30s percentile to about 19 percent of the population. Further, smokers have been totally segregated. And yet, the number of non-smokers getting lung cancer has increased. Now who do you suppose is the culprit?
When you can answer these questions for me, I will withdraw.
I want to thank the Pattaya Mail for printing an alternative view. They have never endorsed my views or supported them, they simply have remained objective, which is what a newspaper is supposed to do in its letters column.
They also allowed me to mention the recent World Health Organization’s study on air pollution. Something no other English language newspaper in Thailand would do. As a matter of fact, none of the other newspapers even printed the story released by CNN, so most of the citizens of Thailand are unaware of it.
This entire episode goes a lot further than simply a smoking debate. Hopefully, some day some of you out there will understand that.
John Arnone
