Smoking

It is alleged that Sir Walter Raleigh first imported the 'noxious weed' into Britain from America and the smoking habit swiftly caught on. Today, the tobacco industry brings employment to thousands in the various growing, picking, curing and manufacturing processes. Most of it comes from America, Turkey or the Balkans, but tobacco is shipped to factories for curing and manufacturing in almost every country in the world, although its ownership is shared between a few giant international combines. Cigars, pipe tobacco, cigarettes, and snuff, another by-product are subjected to government anti-smoking propaganda, a sharp decline in tobacco consumption is not desired by countries such as Britain, as it would result in an embarrassing financial loss.Nobody denies that smoking habits are distasteful to the non-smoker, but opinion is harpy divided about the alleged medical harm. Statistics can be made to prove anything, and while doctors alarming figures allege a direct connection between cigarette smoking and lung cancer, the cigarette maker's own research, understandably enough, seems to indicate that there is no connection at all, and furthermore that more lung cancer is caused by atmospheric pollution in industrial cities than by the smoking habit. So far, the medical case remains 'not proven', but it is sufficiently frightening to deter many people who have never smoked before from making  start.

Nobody denies that smoking habits are distasteful to the non-smoker, but opinion is harpy divided about the alleged medical harm. Statistics can be made to prove anything, and while doctors alarming figures allege a direct connection between cigarette smoking and lung cancer, the cigarette maker's own research, understandably enough, seems to indicate that there is no connection at all, and furthermore that more lung cancer is caused by atmospheric pollution in industrial cities than by the smoking habit. So far, the medical case remains 'not proven', but it is sufficiently frightening to deter many people who have never smoked before from making  start.

But the best advice about the smoking remains this. If you do, cut down; if you don't, don't start !