David Smith wrote: > >Tobacco smoking is hardly a victimless pastime, but more like a deadly >epidemic of addiction and air pollution that has crippled the American >economy while consigning millions of people to agonizing deaths. > >There is a difference between constitutionally protected forms of >expression, and the concerted, cynical efforts by corporate drug pushers >and poisoners to misuse mass entertainment media in order to hypnotize and >seduce their prey. > I'm not sure whether this got anything to do with film or not, but a recent= =20 Swedish study shows that smoking actually strengthens the state economy (sm= okers =20 pay a lot of tobacco tax but doesn't get as much state pension as non-smoke= rs).=20 I do not know if this is the case in the U.S. since both the tobacco tax an= d the=20 state pension is conciderably lower than in Sweden, but I strongly doubt th= at=20 smoking is the major reason for the 'crippled American economy'. Cheers, Ulf (happy tobacco addict) Ulf Dalquist Phone: +46 46 2224266 Dept. of Sociology Fax: +46 46 2224794 Box 114 221 00 Lund SWEDEN E-mail: [log in to unmask] =20 'When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.' Dr. Hunter S. Thompson ---- To signoff SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]