The vote by the Oregon House committee to increase taxes on cigarettes to more than $2 a pack to provide health care to children (East Oregonian, Jan. 27) was a blatant and unjustifiable act against a group that is routinely attacked by anti-smoking organizations, busybodies and politicians.

I had hoped the EO would decry this unfair and discriminatory move to take from one group to provide a benefit to another group.

Instead, the EO rationalized that since smokers abuse their health, they should be made to provide health benefits to others. I can’t imagine the EO defending a similar proposal to tax the obese, alcohol drinkers or homosexual males based on the same arguments.

The demonizing of smokers also is used to impose more and more restrictions on them and to ultimately eradicate the practice.

Leading attack dogs in this endeavor are ASH (Action on Smoking and Health) and the Smoke-Free Oregon Coalition. Both groups have as their ultimate objective to deprive Americans of the right to smoke.

Much of the hysteria behind their efforts is based on the conclusions of an Environmental Protection Agency’s report referred to as the “EPA ’93 Study.” Their document was not a study at all. Instead, it was an analysis of other studies; was performed by a graduate student; and failed standard statistical confidence levels.

The EPA has never conducted nor financed a single study of Environmental Tobacco Smoke, or ETS, which is the same thing as second-hand smoke. Nonetheless, the EPA concluded 3,000 people die each year from ETS. Fourteen years later, anti-smoking groups are still touting that same figure despite severe restrictions on smokers and their greatly reduced numbers.

Recent studies, which had been suppressed by the media and anti-smoking groups, have come to light that destroy politically correct propaganda concerning the effect of second-hand smoke on health.

A 39-year study of 118,094 adults, by the School of Public Health, UCLA, concluded the results of the study do not support a causal relationship between ETS and tobacco-related mortality.

Another study, by the World Health Organization, involved 2,192 people from 12 centers in seven European countries for a seven-year period. It concluded: “No statistically significant risk existed for non-smokers who either lived or worked with smokers.”

Although the World Health Organization attempted to bury its findings, it was exposed by the British newspaper, The Telegraph.

Nikolai Lenin is credited with this Quote: “A lie told often enough becomes truth.” Sadly, those opposed to smoking and those who would demonize smokers in order to pay for grandiose schemes have painted the second-hand-smoke threat as a truth. But it is still a lie.

For additional information, search “World Health Organization 2nd Hand smoke” and view reports by Dave Hitt.

Paul H. Bouchard

Pendleton