Now There's A Headline About Taxing Tobacco/This guy is a joke, right?

The Bangor Daily News ^ | June 20, 2002 | Gerald Oleson

[SheLion]

Thanks you for your June 13 editorial about taxing tobacco. We know from research that teen-age smoking goes down when the price of tobacco goes up.

Cigarette smoke now kills about 500,000 Americans annually; more deaths than from alcohol (including drunken driving), cocaine, morphine, heroin, murder, suicides, car accidents, fires and AIDS combined. Alcohol not only is not in the same league as tobacco; it’s not in the same game; it need not even suit up.

I saw a headline last week that 17 people have died of heroin in Maine this year. According to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, 945 Mainers will have died from January to June of this year from tobacco-related illnesses. Now there is a real headline.

Gerald Oleson

Bangor

[SheLion]

Cigarette smoke now kills about 500,000 Americans annually; more deaths than from alcohol (including drunken driving), cocaine, morphine, heroin, murder, suicides, car accidents, fires and AIDS combined. Alcohol not only is not in the same league as tobacco; it’s not in the same game; it need not even suit up.

What is THIS guy smoking? And what is the EDITOR smoking for even PRINTING this garbage!

[SheLion]

letters@bangordailynews.net

[spqrzilla9]

500,000 is an exaggeration of the fraudulent "400,000" deaths annually from "smoking-related" diseases number. Both numbers are manure.

[SheLion]

Exactly! And where did he get THIS? We read the Centers for Disease Control all the time. There was nothing in it pointing to Maine. This guy is on dope.

According to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, 945 Mainers will have died from January to June of this year from tobacco-related illnesses. Now there is a real headline.

[PeoplesRepublicOfWashington]

The average American lives 75 years. The average American smoker lives 70 years. The average American homosexual male lives 47 years. Therefore, being a homosexual male is 5.6-times more dangerous than smoking.

[SheLion]

Therefore, being a homosexual male is 5.6-times more dangerous than smoking.

Thank you! I didn't know this.

[yikes]

What is THIS guy smoking? And what is the EDITOR smoking for even PRINTING this garbage!

Soon you will see this statistic applied to every item in a fast food restaurant. In a world where politics drives the science, you will see statistics like: hamburgers cause 2,000 American deaths a year, cheeseburgers cause 2,150 American deaths a year, and so on.

[Centurion2000]

The average American lives 75 years. The average American smoker lives 70 years. The average American homosexual male lives 47 years. Therefore, being a homosexual male is 5.6-times more dangerous than smoking.

You think we could get this put up on a billboard maybe ?

[Eastbound]

Bump!

[PeoplesRepublicOfWashington]

There are only two "common" activities I know of that are more dangerous than smoking--I gave you one; the other is motorcycle riding. However, motorcycle riding is far safer than being a homosexual male.

[PeoplesRepublicOfWashington]

I read a paper once that proved that gubmint regulation killed people--that money removed from the economy by taxation and regulation deprived people of jobs, the lost income from which deprived people of needed health care--something like that. Gubmint kills!

[PeoplesRepublicOfWashington]

The average American lives 75 years. The average American smoker lives 70 years. The average American homosexual male lives 47 years. Therefore, being a homosexual male is 5.6-times more dangerous than smoking.

You think we could get this put up on a billboard maybe ?

You'd think the ad guys at Phillip Morris could come up with something slick. How about, "Prolong your life with tobacco: give up the skin flute and light up instead"?

[philetus]

I smoke while I am riding my motorcycle.

[resistance]

My great uncle died of smoking related emphasema. He was 87, smoked hand rolled cigarettes, chewed plug tobacco, drank a pint of wiskey a day, and could work circles around most 30 year olds till the last few years of his life. He is one of the people in the statisics about "smoking related deaths". Good thing his liver was stronger than his lungs or he would have been killed by alcohol.

Just think, if he hadn't drank or smoked he could have died of natural causes!

[PeoplesRepublicOfWashington]

I smoke while I am riding my motorcycle.

As long as you are not engaged in homosexual activity, you should be relatively safe.

[Flyer]

I smoke while I am riding my motorcycle.

Now put the right passenger behind you on the seat and you are already dead.

[Thumper1960]

You forgot to include those who work themselves to death trying to provide a decent living for their families while all confiscatory government taxes "take" more than 50% of the wage earners dollar.

THAT is the REAL headline.

[KS Flyover]

Gerald Oleson is not only an Anti-smoking Nazi, he is an Anti-American.

This Marxist Commie POS is a member of:

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Bangor — Tuesdays, 5-6 PM, Federal Building, Harlow Street (downtown).; contact Ilze Petersons, peacectr@gwi.net, Gerald Oleson, 207-947-2970, geraldole@aol.com.

http://www.warresisters.org/demos.htm

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And ...

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Demonstrations Against W-ar

MAINE
Bangor
Women in Black will hold a vigil each Sunday from 12:30-1 p.m. at Westmarket Square.
Peace and Justice Center of Eastern Maine holds a vigil every Tuesday between 5 pm - 6 pm in front of the Federal Building on Harlow St.; contact Ilze Petersons, peacectr@gwi.net, Gerald Oleson, 207-947-2970, geraldole@aol.com.

http://www.legitgov.org/peaceprotests.html

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His other email address is: goleson@bangornews.infi.net

[metesky]

Here's a letter that someone wrote the BDN:

re: Now there’s a headline

It's interesting to me that anti-tobacco crusaders like Gerald Oleson feel the need to exaggerate in their furious efforts to wipe out the evil sot-weed. Although even 400,000 deaths a year attributed to tobacco is already a number that, to be polite, has been massaged, Mr. Oleson feels the need to magically inflate that number by 25% to 500,000.

The deceit required to arrive at even the 400,000 number can be seen in the Cato Institute's paper, "Smoke, Lies and 400,000 Smoking-Related Deaths which for those with an internet connection can be found at:

http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv21n4/lies.pdf

A few excerpts from the report:

"The truth is that smoking-related deaths, even under the generous definitions used by CDC, are associated with old age. Nearly 60 percent of the deaths occur at age 70 or above; nearly 45 percent at age 75 or above; and almost 17 percent at the grand old age of 85 or above! Nevertheless, without the slightest embarrassment, the public health community persists in characterizing those deaths as "premature." Regrettable, yes; premature, no.

"Suppose for a moment that all tobacco-related deaths occurred at age 99. Surely the gravity of that problem would be tempered by the fact that the decedents would have died soon from some other cause. Actually, tobacco-related deaths occur at an average age of roughly 72, an age at which mortality is not unusual among smokers and non-smokers alike.

"By comparison, car accidents, suicide, and homicide kill nearly 97,000 people annually; but the average age at death is only 39. Contrasted with a 72-year life expectancy for smokers, each of those non-smoking deaths snuffs out 33 years of life -- our most important years from both an economic and parenting perspective. Yet states go to war against nicotine -- which is not an intoxicant, has no causal connection with crime, and poses little danger to young adults or family members. The unvarnished fact is that children do not die of tobacco-related diseases. If they smoke heavily during their teens, they may die of lung cancer, fifty or sixty years from now, assuming lung cancer is still a threat by then. No matter how you slice it, a high-intensity government campaign against tobacco -- in the guise of "protecting children" -- is disingenuous at best.

"None of this is to suggest that the attack against cigarettes is entirely dishonest. Without question, the evidence is that cigarettes substantially increase the risk of lung cancer, bronchitis, and emphysema. But most deaths from those diseases occur at an advanced age. The relationship between smoking and other diseases is not nearly so clear; and the scare mongering that has passed for science is quite simply appalling. The unifying bond of all science is that truth is its aim. That goal must not yield to politics, and science must not be corrupted to advance predetermined political ends. Sadly, that is exactly what has transpired as our public officials fabricate evidence to promote their crusade against big tobacco. "

While I commiserate with Mr. Oleson on his own personal fight with cancer and congratulate him on being a survivor, I feel it is important to fight tobacco or any thing else that is deemed "bad" with truth and real facts not exaggerations, fabrications and outright lies.

[SheLion]

Great letter, to which I see didn't get printed this morning. ~sigh..........

And take a look at post 18! This is the kind of people that the Bangor Daily News caters too, and not the truth from decent citizens.

I'm starting to "wonder" about the political make-up of the Bangor Daily News when they get into bed with the likes of Mr. Oleson.