BOOKS (and other
recommended reads):
Cigarettiquette!
A Smoker's Manifesto, by Sandy Lynn Riefberg - A collection of
vignettes about cigarette smoking which highlights the whims and joys of
the smoker lifestyle, and discusses the smoker experience at length. With
Cigarettiquette!, Sandy Lynn Riefberg provides a voice for the almost voiceless:
those shunned dreamers who absolutely love to smoke. Light up or lighten
up!
TobakkoNacht
- The Antismoking Endgame, by Michael J. McFadden - A frontal attack
on the misuse of science and language to promote unjustified levels of
smoking bans and taxes. It can best be summed up like this: It shows how
the denormalization of smokers has warped science and ripped holes in our
social fabric while transforming a worthy public health effort into a destructive
social force assaulting our lives, our families, and our communities --
and it shows how to fight back!
Rampant Antismoking Signifies
Grave Danger by Vincent-Riccardo Di Pierri, PhD - Presents an examination
of the antismoking mentality in greater, multidimensional context. The
book's discussion covers biological (epidemiologic), psychological, social/relational,
moral, legal, and metaphysical considerations in indicating that rampant
antismoking is not coincidental but symptomatic of dangerous, fully-fledged
materialism (rule by superficiality): The unchecked rise of antismoking,
globally, is a telling, disturbing sign of the times.
Smoke Screens, by Richard White
- A book which has its basis after years of research on smoking and
is the first comprehensive book on the topic - looking at the studies,
what researchers have to say, the scientists involved in the anti-smoking
movement, previous attacks on smoking, where the anti-smoking movement
came from and who is involved, and diseases said to be caused by smoking.
The author explains, "Regardless of a person's stance on smoking - pro,
anti, or neutral - it is hard to deny that it is one of the biggest and
most important topics in our society... Smoke Screens is not a book
to advocate smoking, nor does it review pro-smoking science. Instead,
it reviews the exact studies anti-smokers have used, to see whether the
hysteria is justified, as well as looking at a number of other factors
that are overlooked conventionally."
Hyping Health Risks. Environmental
Hazards in Daily Life and the Science of Epidemiology, by Geoffrey C. Kabat
- "The media constantly bombard us with news of health hazards lurking
in our everyday lives. But many of these hazards turn out to have
been greatly overblown. According to author and epidemiologist this
hyping of low-level environmental hazards leads to needless anxiety and
confusion on the part of the public about which exposures have important
effects on health and which are likely to have minimal or no effect...
By means of four case studies [pollutants, electromagnetic fields, radon,
secondhand smoke], Kabat demonstrates how a powerful confluence of interests
can lead to overstating or distorting scientific evidence."
Velvet
Glove Iron Fist. A history of anti-smoking, by Christopher Snowdon
- A series of short articles about scientific incompetence and intellectual
dishonesty in the anti-smoking movement. It takes three of the most outlandish
claims made by some of the movement's most influential figures in recent
years and looks at how they originated. "In each case, common sense dictated
that the claim could not possibly be true and yet all of them have been
widely circulated and have been almost universally accepted by the anti-smoking
movement. How, in an age of reason, have so many people been fooled into
disbelieving the evidence of their own eyes?"
Science and Secondhand Smoke.
The Need for a Good Puff of Skepticism, by Sidney Zion (reprinted from
Skeptic Magazine)
Outcasts:
The Obese and Other Victims of Denormalization, by Patrick Basham &
John Luik, Democracy Institute - "One of the more disturbing contemporary
trends in public health is the government’s attempt to socially engineer
our cultural and political environment so that the public becomes less
tolerant of obesity and those the government categorises as obese, as well
as less tolerant of gambling and of gamblers, less tolerant of smoking
and of smokers, and less tolerant of those who manufacture and drink alcohol.
Through such nanny-state paternalism, the government seeks to ensure that
people behave in ‘appropriate’ ways, as defined by itself and a coterie
of public
health bureaucrats and academics. This study examines the government’s
increasing use of respective ‘denormalisation’ campaigns against the food,
gambling, drinks, and tobacco industries."
Defending Legitimate
Epidemiologic Research: Combating Lysenko Pseudoscience, by Prof. James
Enstrom, printed in Epidemiologic Perspectives & Innovations
Nanny State, by David
Harsanyi - The subtitle pretty much tells it all: "How Food Fascists,
Teetotaling Do-Gooders, Priggish Moralists, and Other Boneheaded Bureaucrats
Are Turning America Into a Nation of Children." Described more:
"When did we lose our right to be lazy, unhealthy, and politically incorrect?
The government, under pressure from the nanny minority, is twisting the
public's arm into obedience. Playground police, food fascists, anti-porn
crusaders—whether they're legislating morality or wellbeing—nannies are
popping up all over America. In the name of health, safety, decency, and—shudder—good
intentions, these ever-vigilant politicians and social activists are dictating
what we eat, where we smoke, what we watch and read, and whom we marry."
Dissecting Antismokers' Brains,
by Michael J. McFadden - Michael McFadden's groundbreaking handbook
is a "must have" for anyone involved in or studying the smokers' rights
movement It provides insight into the forces and motivations
driving Antismokers and examines the media-intensive techniques they've
used to mold political opinion and action around this issue. The
book examines not only the internal psychologies of Antismoking Crusaders,
but the psychological tricks and techniques they've used in their campaigns
and public debates. Finally, it provides some of the clearest scientific
arguments in the literature while examining the exaggerations and realities
of exposure to secondary smoke. (Book
Reviewed in Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons Volume 14 Number
2 Summer 2009)
In Defense Of
Smokers, by Larry Colby - This book is available for download from
this site.
Slow
Burn: The Great American Anti-Smoking Scam (And Why It Will Fail), by Don
Oakley - Available at Barnes & Noble, Amazon or Junk Science
For Your Own Good - The Anti-Smoking
Crusade and the Tyranny of Public Health, by Jacob Sullum - Read an
introduction to this book: "Ten
Myths of the Anti-Smoking Movement"
Passive
Smoke: The EPA's Betrayal of Science and Policy - The authors,
Drs. Gio B. Gori and John C. Luik, assert that the EPA "was caught red-handed
in a conspiracy of public dis-information.'' Available from the Fraser
Institute
For a Complete List of all Smoking Related Books Debunking The Lies
& Exaggerations visit:
http://www.forces.org/writers/bookcase/bookcase.htm
The Cato Instituters F. A. Hayek Auditorium was the setting for a seminar,
"Cutting through the Smoke: The
Science and Politics of Tobacco," which discusses the rights of smokers.
Review the
transcript.
Civil Warriors - The author spent six years following the lawyer
who made the tobacco industry pay. An article entitled "Coughing
It Up" explains, according to the author, "The litigation did
not -- and was never intended to -- shut down the tobacco companies."
When one of this lawyer's partners left the firm and took the side of the
tobacco companies, he explained, "That he didn't want the tobacco companies
to go bankrupt, because 'it kills the goose, so to speak.'" |