Harm Reduction

The front cover of a recent Time magazine announces a big story on women and heart disease inside. What are the main causes? How does the risk compare to that from other diseases facing women, such as breast cancer?

A New York City ban on smoking in bars goes into effect this coming Sunday, and a statewide ban goes into effect four months later. Some see it as reasonable regulation. Others condemn smoking but question the rationale for the regulations.

We know that cigarettes are bad for our health, but there is an indirect way they can kill that we rarely stop to think about. Cigarettes are the number one cause of fatal house fires.

One brief programming note:

Australian researchers note the immense cost to society of smoking compared to illegal drugs...

Europeans, out of some romantic rebellion against America and high technology, were shunning U.S.-grown food containing G.M.O.'s [genetically-modified organisms] even though there is no scientific evidence that these are harmful.

"...it's literally true that something like a thousand people will not die each year that would have otherwise died..."

There have been several reports lately about the odd, non-health-related projects that all that settlement money extracted from the tobacco companies went to, such as bridges, sprinkler systems, and even subsidies to tobacco farmers.

I wrote a big essay called LIBERTARIANS, SMOKING, AND INSANITY: How Ideology Affects Ideas About Freedom and Health a few months ago, suggesting that even those who d