Letter: Smokers catch too much heat

Saturday, Nov. 25, 2006 | 7:02 a.m.

I do not see how it can be proved that second-hand smoke causes all the problems laid at its door. How can anyone possibly conduct a controlled experiment to show what damage it does? It cannot be proven conclusively that people who develop cancer or cardiac problems, who have never smoked, that the cause was second-hand smoke. There are too many other possible factors.

I have never smoked, but I voted against both smoking measures on the Nov. 7 ballot. I'm sympathetic because my mother was a heavy smoker. She started during World War II because smoke helped to fill a starving stomach and dulled appetite. At this time in Europe people would smoke straw, dried grass and anything they got hold of.

Once she had access to LSMFT (an advertising acronym meaning Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco), she was hooked. She tried hard to quit many times but the tobacco companies researched ways to make their product more addictive. Why are we allowing tobacco companies to exist and why are we still subsidizing tobacco farmers in Virginia and the Carolinas?

My mother died this year of lung cancer, at age 84. She mowed her own lawn with a hand mower up until two years before she died. I know many nonsmokers who do not live to see age 84. And please don't blame second-hand smoke for that. I am 67 years old and have no respiratory or cardiac problems, nor have my two siblings died because our mother was a heavy smoker.

Most smokers try to be considerate of nonsmokers. Nonsmokers should not take out their anger against people who were addicted deliberately by greedy tobacco companies. And if you are worried about your children, keep them out of casinos and bars.

Nadia Romeo, Las Vegas