Court washed its hands of smoking issue
Dave Johnson from Texas (Irish Examiner letters, Sept 9) states that the judge who originally dismissed the US Environmental Protection Association (EPA) claim “that environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) is a carcinogen” lived in North Carolina which, incredibly, is a tobacco-growing state.
This apparently is sufficient evidence for Mr Johnson to conclude that this judge must himself be corrupt.
He also states that “the 4th US circuit court of appeals later threw out his ruling.” What actually happened was that this 4th US circuit court, sitting in December 2002, never actually examined the issues around the effects of ETS on non-smokers or examined the misleading assumptions that had been made in the first place.
Instead, they arrived at the decision that “the Environmental Protection Agency’s report on secondhand smoke was not a final agency action subject to court review.”
In other words, the courts themselves felt they were not empowered to sanction or overturn it. It is still not an established fact that ETS causes any harm, but Mr Johnson wants the Irish public to accept it anyway.
It is a simple formula: scare people about their health and you can get them to behave as you wish and then, critically for the scaremongers, acquire power over them.
On that December day in 2002, Judge H Emory Widener Jr wrote that “while the report’s (the EPA’s) persuasive value may lead private groups to impose tobacco-related restrictions, these decisions are attributable to independent responses and choices of third parties.”
The court had washed its hands of this debate - it did not want to get involved.
Mr Johnson mentioned a friend who has one lung and he would want everyone to believe that this is exclusively due to her smoking parents. While one naturally feels sympathy with this lady, and everyone who suffers from an affliction of any kind, is it sufficient or correct to make such a judgement? After all, we used to burn witches.
Instead, Mr Johnson might look at the real cancer causing agents in the US such as nuclear fission materials in their atmosphere with a half-life of 500 years from which, sadly, the rest of us are also suffering the cancerous effects.
John Mallon
5 Shamrock Grove
Mayfield
Cork
