Cigarettes

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I could compare some of the religions today with cigarettes (I avoid using “opium” as an example because I do not want some people to get on their high horses and drag Mr Karl Marx out of his deep sleep!)

Only using common sense, one could see that cigarettes are harmful to our health. Just looking at the amount of yellow nicotine resin coating on fingers after only a few cigarettes, one could tell what actually takes place inside the lungs of a long-term smoker. Yet when talking with an addict, we could see how warply and cleverly the human mind can operate. When having a reasoning target to achieve, the mind could twist and turn, dodge and weave to bring out smart arguments using benign "facts" to cover harmful reality.

When craving for a smoke (because of withdrawal or lack of strong will) a person could convince and calm themselves with benign "facts" (such as "science has not proved exclusively that smoking is harmful", "if smoking is really harmful then the government would have forbidden it just like heronine", "hundreds of millions other people also smoke, it should be ok", "smoking relaxes the mind", "smoking is cool", etc.) and push aside the harmful reality of smoking (the rates of having cancer in lungs, ears, nose, throat and early death in smokers are much higher than in non-smokers)

The cigarette industry of course because of profits has always hidden the real facts about cigarettes. They have carried out researches about impacts of cigarettes on human bodies, however instead of announcing its toxic truth they use the knowledge to try to produce more products that are more attractive and addictive to people. Governments also because of the huge tax benefits from cigarette production and distribution have ignored this matter until the recent years.

Science today has proved clearly that breathing other people's cigarette smoke ("passive smoking") is just as harmful as actually smoking it. However, when the law prohibits smoking in some public places, many smokers got very angry. They see their freedom has been violated. They see their needs and lifestyle should be respected by everyone.

We still often see people smoking in the middle of a crowd or mothers obliviously smoking right next to their young children. To avoid the confrontation, rather than out of politeness, we walk away from them instead of come up and object to what they are doing.

Until when, and in what situations, should we stop worrying about confrontation and let these people know our actual views about this?

If everyone thinks somebody else will do it, then who will?

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