An anonymous commenter replied to a video and comments I posted last June (see
Smoking Lettuce). My posting has been lax lately, so the reply gets a whole post to itself.
To briefly summarize,
Representative Steve Buyer thinks smoking lettuce is the same as smoking cigarettes. I copied a statement from Buyer's web site stating that the FDA is under-funded and over-stressed and that they have no business trying to regulate a risky product; I agree to the first point and strongly disagree with the second. Oh ... and I might have implied that
Representative Buyer is
not the sharpest knife in the drawer.
But enough summarizing, you can read the original post if you must, let's get on to
Anon's comment:
Hello
Anon,
Thanks for stopping by to comment. I suspect you have a certain political inclination on this, which is fine, but I think your concerns on this issue are misplaced.
You may indeed have similar problems with smoking lettuce, but I doubt there will ever be a serious study on the effects. However, I am certain that tobacco is
naturally higher in aromatic hydrocarbons, tars, and has a number of ingredients artificially added (like formaldehyde). Aside from the smoke, chewing tobacco also has links to diseases such as oral cancer, and I am reasonable sure that you can chew lettuce all you want with no particular risk of cancer. So I can't prove that smoking lettuce is safer than smoking tobacco, but I strongly suspect it is true.
The stuff that keeps people smoking tobacco is
nicotine, also naturally occurring, except that the tobacco companies strictly control the "dose" of nicotine delivered much in the same way that pharmaceutical companies control the dose of other drugs. If I recall, was the FDA's basis for the regulation of tobacco; tobacco may be naturally grown, but cigarettes are produced to the tolerances of prescription drug, are highly habit forming, are a serious health risk, and are
marketed to kids. Now nicotine itself,
addictive properties aside, isn't especially harmful, but it keeps their customers locked in a nearly unbreakable habit, and exposing themselves to the other harmful properties over-and-over again, sometimes for life ... and often a rather shorter and less healthy life. Tobacco companies know darn well that if someone starts smoking as a teenager they are much more likely to stay a smoker for life, and generally have a long history of bad behavior when it comes to making a few bucks for themselves. Industries that behave badly deserve the regulations they get.
I will agree that the FDA is over-stressed and under-resourced. I absolutely disagree that controlling a highly addictive drug with dangerous side effects is beyond their jurisdiction. You don't have to look too hard on the
FDA site to find something that we know is dangerous and needs to be regulated. We know that high-traffic intersections can be dangerous, right? And since everybody knows this, we can just take down all those silly useless stop signs and traffic lights. Right?? No???
I don't know what to make of
Anon's comment about taxes on cigarettes, which are already very heavily taxed already. I worry these taxes tend to be an extra burden on the poor, but I have no sympathy for those in the business of distributing cigarettes. If the distributors don't like it, then there are plenty of other products they can make money distributing.
So to wrap this up; No,
Steve Buyer was
not right ... about the lettuce.
Addendum: TBA
[Image LaughingSquid]I am a child of Alzheimer's. For many years, my father, Sargent Shriver, would testify before Congress for increased funding for his beloved Peace Corps -- and for all the War On Poverty programs he started. My father was an idealistic, intelligent, optimistic public servant, sharp and witty, his mind a beautifully-tuned instrument that left people in awe and inspired. That was then...today he doesn't know my name or who I am. When my Dad was diagnosed in 2003, I felt confused, powerless and alone. There was little information -- and even less hope. My mother, my four brothers and I felt we were entering a world that was terrifying and incomprehensible. Like cancer, people didn't talk about Alzheimer's back then -- they whispered about it. It was a diagnosis shrouded in shame.
