Enough, already

Some health Chicken Littles from the MassGeneral Hospital for think of the Children have released a so-called "scientific" study frantically warning about the dangers of -

-are you ready for this-

"third-hand smoke".

That's right. Merely smoking in your home or somewhere else at any point in your day when the kiddies aren't around, and then coming into contact with those same children, supposedly is now enough to expose them to all sorts of lethal chemicals that'll turn them into the Hulk or Radioactive Boy or something. I swear it's a wonder that any of us over the age of 35 actually made it to adulthood, what with the smoking and drinking and lack of helmets and all.

The real reason for them doing this study is revealed in the news release:

"Winickoff's study shows that increasing awareness of how third-hand smoke harms the health of children may encourage home smoking bans." (Emphasis mine)

Another flimsy pseudoscience-given excuse for criminalizing the use of a legal product in one's own home.

I don't smoke, nor do I enjoy being around it. In my opinion, however, this is just the kind of junk study that does nothing but stoke unwarranted fears and advocate radical social engineering, all in the name of "public health" .

If smoking is so bad for society, go ahead and ban it already. The loss of tax revenue and specter of creating another Mob is what's holding the craven politicians back from doing that, so they've resorted to using papers such as this to justify further reducing the peasants' freedoms by incremental degrees until they finally become exasperated enough to just quit, even if they don't wish to.

California will be the first state to attempt to ban smoking in privately-owned homes. Just watch.



Reference: Massachusetts General Hospital (2008, December 29). Third-hand Smoke: Another Reason To Quit Smoking. ScienceDaily.