There are a LOT of things left out of the "smoking" controversy. It's a large-scale stunt to save a wide cartel of complicit industries...and corrupted gov't "regulators".

THE GREAT "SMOKING" SCAM SLITHERS ALONG.

Here are just some things that, in all likelihood, will NOT be part of the current court case in Montreal about what they incorrectly and deceitfully call "tobacco". (If any Canadian laws make any of this different from the U.S. situation, these differences are not well known.)

1) IS IT TOBACCO? Typical cigarettes are NOT necessarilly made from any tobacco at all! They may have "fine tobacco TASTE" but that's not the same, is it? According to U.S. Patents (search "Intellectual Property Network" on web), typical cigarettes (in the U.S. at least) may be made partly or entirely of various forms of fake tobacco cooked out of industrial waste cellulose...such as Timber Products Waste, Paper Manufacturing Waste, Food Processing Waste, Municipal Paper Waste and...just about anything. To use the word "tobacco" without qualification is to help the cigarette makers hide these, of many, inconvenient facts.

2) "SECRET RECIPE" There are likely over a THOUSAND different ingredients added to the vile mash that is turned into a typical cigarette. Only 599 of them were revealed by Big Cig a few years back in an attempt to appear "open". Not all, of course, are in any single cigarette. The thing is...not ONE of these things has been tested for safety... the vital Precautionary Principle that we all fight for. Noting the EFFECTS of these complex processed products,. THIS, above all, could be the rallying point for DEMANDING pre-use safety testing in all products. Some ingredients are known to be toxic and/or cancer-causing on their own or when treated to cigarette heat or when in combination with other elements. It's all legal as pie because...well...look at what industries have economic links to the gov't regulators. Ingredients come from a wide cartel of industries...ones that have proven themselves dangerous to health and our environment across the board. The list of additives AND other non-tobacco goodies involves the timber/pulp/paper industry, many quite non-organic agricultural products, sugars, pharmaceuticals (artificial sweeteners, preservatives, stabilizers, flavorings, scents, etc), chlorine, pesticides (some from pharmaceuticals again), fertilizers, adhesives...and so on.

3) LEGAL INDUSTRIAL POISONS...INCLUDING DIOXIN! The ingredients are not all "additives" but contaminants...some very serious ones. There are an incredible FOUR HUNDRED FIFTY tobacco pesticides "legal" for use in the US...according to Pesticide Action Network last year. Hard to say, but it is thought that about two dozen of these end up in a cigarette as residues. They include carbamate, organophosphate and chlorine pesticides. All...Bad News. The chlorine pesticide residues contribute to the HIGH level of dioxin found in typical cigarette smoke. Dioxin, now slated for a Global BAN because it's so bad, gets into cigarette smoke (and smoker's lungs)via the pesticides, the bleached paper, the non-organic agricultural additives, any number of other aditives (most top secret) and the waste crap used to make fake tobacco. These are DIOXIN DOWELS, or "Pesticide Pegs"?...not the innocent, almost natural-sounding "tobacco products". Gov't agencies allowed this and continue to do so. No photos of Chlorine Chemicals on cig packages, are there?

4)THE BIG INSURANCE LINK. According to info from the US Securities & Exchange Commission...and other sources...none other than some of the top U.S. Health (?) Insurers are HUGE multi-million dollar investors in top cigarette makers!
These same insurers work mightilly to destroy Canadian public health system. Who wants THEM to be in any way part of health care??
No doubt, they also invest in the tobacco pesticide firms which include Big Oil petrochemical firms AND pharmaceuticals, cigarette advertising firms, probably all the cigarette additives suppliers and the cigarette paper processors. Point is...these "health" insurers have a HUGE motive to take all eyes away from the adulterants by focusing attention on the natural plant, the unpatentable, traditionally-used tobacco.

5) INDEPENDENT SCIENCE. Tobacco, the supposed TOPIC of the case and the controversy, has apparently NOT EVER BEEN TESTED to show what it, alone, would do or not do to health. Well, that's not exactly correct...the US Dept of Health and Human Services has information about health BENEFITS of nicotine (!)...for various mental pathologies like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases. Nicotine, of course, is also an appetite suppressant, a stress reliever, an alertness drug and a digestive aid. Funny how this fairly describes a lot of top-of-the-shelf synthetic pharmaceuticals. Could it be that Big Pharma (as John le Carre calls it) wants to eliminate the public domain competing plant(s) to leave no option but the more profitable synthetics? Could it be that they want to sell more-profitable alternatives to tobacco? Could it be that they hope Desperately to keep the dioxin and cigs story OUT of the picture since, after all, they use a lot of chlorine?
Could it be that they PRETEND to be "anti-smoking" to look nice and trustworthy even as they are PART of the cigarette cartel? NO ONE with links to Big Pharma (or chlorine or oil or ag biz or insurance or etc) ought sit in decision-making positions on "smoking" legislation. Justice or the appearance of justice would be impossible.

6) "LITE" CIGARETTES: It has been said that these are safer"... but they cannot be so. To compensate for the lost flavor from Lower Tar and Nicotine, many more additives were used...again, none tested for safety, of course. Some are very bad news. ALL of them, no matter what, add to the addictive levels. The lower nicotine simply prompts people to not only smoke more deeply but to smoke MORE, to get that "satisfaction". So, viciously and unconscionably, smokers are allowed to believe they are safer while it is JUST the opposite. NO LAW prohibits the ingredients and no gov't regulator has come out to even MENTION them to consumers. "Lite" cigarettes INCREASED sales. It is quite unlikly that an industry that has spread so much poison and death for so long would be "concerned" about consumer's health...or life.

7) LISTING ALL NON-TOBACCO CONSTITUENTS...INCLUDING RADIATION: When a Federal Court in Massachussets ruled, not long ago, that the state may require firms to reveal all non-tobacco ingredients, cig makers threatened to pull all business out of the state if the rule is implemented! Imagine. A state with only organic smokes! According to Mass.Public Health official, this listing would have to also include the dioxins AND even the radiation that comes to one's lungs thanks to certain STILL LEGAL high-phosphate tobacco fertilizers. This is not just about informing consumers...it would, inescapably, lead to CRIMINAL INDICTMENTS for knowingly and recklessly endangering the public, experimentingn on the public w/out consent, risking wide health catastrophes, failue to inform officials of known or likely non-inherent dangers...and on and on. Concievably, the government's part in this may have violated part of the Nuremberg Principles that forbid gov't experimentation on uninformed subjects. Would be nice to see this tested in Intenational Courts.

8) There are FIRE STARTING chemicals in cigarettes... for "even burning", say the cig makers. These STILL LEGAL additives make a cig burn like a veritable FUSE thus, inevitably, contributing to thousands of so-called "smoking related" fires and deaths each year. (Natural tobacco tends to self-extinguish if left untended.) Does anyone recall a cig maker,or the chemical firm, or an official who ALLOWED this, being brought to court to answer for this? And, of course, what's the effect of smoking/inhaling such chemicals?

9) "SMOKING-RELATED DISEASE? Really? What does THAT mean, medically, anyhow? It's essentially meangless...like saying that a knife stabbing is "metal related". Conveniently,if a person smokes the typical Dioxin Dowel, his/her illnesses from the job, from upwind pollution, from household chemical exposures, from food/water contaminants etc can ALL be blamed, MOST UNSCIENTIFICALLY, on "smoking". It's the fault of one's ignoring of fake and insufficient gov't "warnings" and the fault of an apparently as-yet UNSTUDIED (for harms) natural plant. Can't sue Mother Nature. All the corporate/industrial crap is exonerated...off the hook...innocent...not even seen as a suspect. It's just "tar and nicotine". How convenient.

See for an intro course in non-tobacco cigarette components...and for links to all sorts of acacemic and other info sources. It's not that the info doesn't exist...it's just not allowed to come into play in legislation or the courts....or in the chlorine-bleached newspapers. The scope of the injustice, whether one cares about smoking itself or not, is astonishing. Since many just don't care about those darn pesky smokers, the scam works like a deadly charm. There are MANY ovelaps and similarities here to the cruel, devastaing and despicable "war" on hemp and marijuana... same industries involved, same absence of science, same corporate demonization campaign, same use of popular religious bias against (non-corporate) drugs, same paid-off officials...and on and on.
Both topics involve Big Oil via pesticides and chlorine etc...NOT needed for Hemp agriculture or processing...used a LOT in tobacco agriculture and processing.
It's all about money for the few...not about health, except for the wholesome wrapping. It COULD be a catalyst for finally effectively indicting private industry corruption of public governing.