by Patrick Sills

Created on: July 23, 2009   Last Updated: July 25, 2009

For those who believe World War III will never happen, I have some rather earth-shattering news to divulge. It's already here. I refer to the ongoing battle of smokers versus nonsmokers. This figurative war officially began in 1993 when the United States Environmental Protection Agency declared that tobacco smoke, both exhaled by smokers as well as that which burned from the lit ends of cigarettes, cigars, or pipes, was a carcinogen. In layman's terms, we're talking about a known agent that causes cancer in humans. Furthermore, the EPA even claimed that some 3000 lung cancer deaths each year were attributed to passive or secondhand smoke.

Was there any proof to back these claims up? Uh, no. There wasn't and there still isn't. No matter. Practically overnight, smokers were suddenly thrown outside of restaurants and workplaces. You see, the laws of physics amazingly underwent a metamorphosis at the same time. All of a sudden, tobacco smoke took on the uncanny characteristic of being able to drift several feet over to nonsmokers, enter their bloodstreams, and begin to wreak havoc on their very health. Who ever knew? I mean, come on, folks. Whenever I spray my dandelions with weed-killer, it only kills my weeds!

In addition, this mysterious hue of tobacco smoke we all thought we were familiar with suddenly developed poltergeist-like qualities as well, for now it could pass right through solid walls and ceilings too! Nonsmokers were anointed with the olfactory senses of predatory sharks when they suddenly claimed that they could smell tobacco smoke from moving cars and apartments on opposite ends of entire complexes. There was no escape in high-rise office buildings, either. The deadly toxins were everywhere.

It's funny, because nobody made these claims before the landmark EPA Report. Moreover, many more people smoked during the previous decades. How is it that so many Baby-Boomers escaped death, 4-5 bypass surgeries, or a miserable life hooked up to a respirator? Could it be that the EPA'S claims were just a wee bit exaggerated? A Federal Judge named William Osteen thought so in 1998, and he determined that their findings were invalid. Thus, that should have been the end of it, right?

Sadly, it wasn't. In fact, this ruling was completely ignored, as were many other facts disputing what amounted to junk science. To cite a couple of examples: Did you know that one tankful of gasoline will put more toxins into the air than what a smoker could produce during his/her

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