smokers

With the news that Australia is still on course to become the first country to force cigarettes into bland, brand free packets, a quote from Nicola Roxon, their Health Minister, has me confused

"It will give our country the best chance of having the lowest smoking rates and, of course, that will mean many lives are saved and many families that don't go through the grief and pain of seeing someone die because of a tobacco-related illness."

I remember years ago (late 80s, early 90s?) there was a book released about smoking, smoking rates, smoking related illness incidence, smoking statistics written from an anti-anti-smoking-lobby point of view. In it the author examined, among other things, the claims that smoking caused smoking related diseases. He looked at the available statistics for smoking and hospital admissions in many countries around the world and found there was not always a direct correlation between the two.

In fact in Japan, which had one of the highest percentages of smokers in the adult population, there were relatively few cases of smoking related illness.

Australia on the other hand had relatively few smokers but a very high number of smoking related illnesses.

Which leads inevitably to the conclusion that the Australians are, for whatever reason, more disposed towards smoking related illnesses than the Japanese and that this may not be connected to the actual act of smoking.

I wish I could find a copy of this book and whether it's been comprehensively disproven yet ......