"MPs in all-out assault on tobacco industry", 16 June 2000. And about time too! Perhaps some of them would like to pay back the money they or their party have received from the tobacco industry over the years.

The tobacco industry and their advertising agencies present a classic example of man's susceptibility to evil, as well as his general inability to recognise it, even when staring him in the face - and that 6000 odd years after he is supposed to have eaten the forbidden fruit that gave him the ability to distinguish between good and evil.

Many years ago the harmfulness of smoking was unknown, and thus the sale and promotion of cigarettes was as blameless and innocent a business as most others.

In the meantime, it has long been shown beyond reasonable doubt that smoking is not only very damaging to human health, but is the cause of about 3 MILLION premature deaths annually worldwide. That is an awful
lot of death and an immeasurable amount of human suffering.

Because of their addictive properties, as well as their immense personal and social importance, it would be impossible, at the moment at least, to prohibit smoking altogether, but to continue promoting it in any fashion whatsoever is nothing less than an evil crime - albeit, for the most part, still a perfectly legal one.

The reason for the promotion of cigarettes still being legal is its economic importance. The tobacco industry has paid millions to political parties and individual politicians (much of it perfectly legally, I do not doubt); and, of course, they can usually count on the support of those who benefit directly or indirectly from the vast sums they spend on advertising and promoting their pernicious products. Narrow self-interest makes even supposedly decent people (and not just Germans) blind to evil. 

The connection between smoking and damage to health and premature death is not obvious to our senses. If it were, only the ignorant, fools, or the hopelessly addicted would smoke.

The proven connection is provided by statistics, which even those who understand the mathematics still fail to appreciate at an emotional level. Just think of all those Greens, who (rightly) condemn all who pollute the natural environment, while at the same time puffing on a cigarette and polluting themselves.

Those evildoers who promote cigarettes, deliberately maginalise the higher faculties where our understanding of statistical knowledge resides, appealing to us directly through our senses, by associating their pernicious products with things that are wholly positive, such as healthy, attractive and trendy young people, sporting events, nature, freedom, adventure, individuality, humour, even antiracism (Come together!) and environmental protection. They know exactly what they are  doing, and deserve to be damned for it.

Not that it is for me, or  any other mortal to do that. What we can do, though, is change the law, making such evil illegal, just as we do in respect to hard drugs - which, bad as they are, do not kill anything like 3 million people a year.

Not smoking is evil. But promoting it in any form whatsoever certainly is.