Word: tobacco
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...Many blacks lack an enzyme that breaks down a key carcinogen in tobacco smoke, which may help explain why black men who smoke are 48% more likely to develop lung cancer than white men who smoke...
...more than six hours, the top executives of the nation's seven largest tobacco companies underwent a hostile televised grilling before California Congressman Henry Waxman's House health subcommittee. The executives denied that cigarettes are addictive or that their companies manipulate nicotine content to keep smokers hooked. Cigarettes are no more addictive than coffee, tea or Twinkies, allowed one executive. "The difference between cigarettes and Twinkies," responded Waxman sharply, "is death...
...more than just tobacco-industry executives and die-hard smokers are raising questions about the current antismoking frenzy. Has the crusade turned into a witch-hunt? Will the campaign to ban smoking simply make the forbidden weed another rebellious turn-on for kids? What sort of policy sense does it make to try to legislate smoking out of existence at the same time that the government is becoming increasingly dependent on tobacco as a source of tax revenue? And for all the new efforts to enact tough restrictions on smoking, how widely does the American public support them...
...Mark Pertschuk, executive director of the national organization Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights, based in Berkeley, California, thinks another historical paradigm is more apt. Around the turn of the century, chewing tobacco was popular, and spittoons were commonplace in bars and restaurants. When an epidemic of tuberculosis broke out and the disease was linked to spittoons, a doctors' group that eventually became the American Lung Association campaigned to have them removed. "At the time, it was considered to be outrageous and anti-American to get rid of spittoons," says Pertschuk. "When historians look back on this ((smoking)) controversy in 25 years...
...usual, everything comes full circle. Baseball fans can no longer light up while cheering on their team at many stadiums. And about the only place left where one sees chewing tobacco anymore is at the ballpark...