You raise a few interesting historical points.
Since 90% of the population is now younger than I am (and hence Freepers, too, I suppose) in the interest of fairness, I should comment on them.
I remember when smoking was also allowed (and common) in movie theaters.
As you correctly point out, smoking was everywhere until the 70s and average longevity hasn't taken a dramatic leap forward since then. Morbid Obesity and disease-ridden lifestyles may have masked any improvements due to reductions in smoking.
The largest, longest running study of second-hand smoke (I will steer clear of third and beyond, which drifts into mental pathology) was performed by the UN World health Organization, before it was politicized, and it was quietly shelved because it did not provide the "correct" answer. There is no way to access the methodology and controls used, or the data and "adjustments" of the results.
No attempts were ever made to refute the multimillion$ study results, it was simply shelved or destroyed. Why?
It has been suggested that smoking inured the general population to otherrespiratory maladies. Asthma, for instance, must have taken a huge plunge tracking the drop of smoking from 50% of the population to 25%. If such a truly scientific study has ever even been attempted I do not know. I suspect not, since the neurasthenics have been silent on the subject, for decades now.
The argument that smoking creates dull and unintelligent people (often thrown out by the ignorant) always seems more comical when newsreels or documentaries of NASA Mission Control are shown. It would be impossible to edit out the ubiquitous smoking. It should not be necessary to mention here that the subject actually is rocket science.
The fraud perpetrated on smokers, selective taxation of an identifiable group, for the purpose of health expenditures resulting from smoking was probably the biggest fraud and scam prior to 2009 Obama and "carbon credits" and global warming.
Finally, if one were to research written history (and if that that history has not yet been "sanitized") you will find that of the ten documented, longest-lived human beings in history, five smoked all their lives, and the five others smoked until age 95. This suggests that all human beings are not equally susceptible to smoking-related diseases. The question then becomes, to what extent are people with bad genes entitled to set the rules for everyone else?
When do we get the peanut ban?
When does the seafood ban arrive?
When do we get true insurance rates based on our healthier genes?
When do we dump the "least common denominator" rule of thumb for our tens of thousands of laws?
BUMP.
That’s why I laugh at all the hysterical rantings of radio jocks and jockettes at the Obama Agenda.
Where were they back when. The die is cast. Now they can rant about the CC debate, but the imposition of taxes, fees and other costs to “reduce” our “impact” on the planet is an accepted part of public policy, empirical stringency or future technological advances be damned.
Science is justified by the ends. Outcome based Science, since we already know what’s best for you.
Conservatives, who sometimes do not see the ramifications of the demonisation of tabak and the extension of the logic of that policy as applied to ALL facets of our lives.