India just finalized a ban on cigarette smoking in public places, except for open spaces. Why is India ahead of the U.S. on such an obvious issue of public health? My guess is that it has something to do with the fact that the U.S. has a very rich and powerful tobacco lobby in Washington D.C. This group is always working to ensure a 'friendly' atmosphere for domestic tobacco sales for the cigarette manufacturers. Again, if we follow the money we can get to the source of many of our largest societal problems.
We need to insist that our politicians begin cleaning up the greedy and cynical system of lobbying against the interests of the people of our nation, and in many cases by extension (think certain Defense Dept. contractors or Big Oil as examples) the people of the entire planet.
We can and should be leading on these matters. The U.S. should provide the example on issues of sustainability and social justice. It is a very dramatic redirection, but I truly believe we have the capability, we just need the individual discipline and political will.
(Title Link to BBC article.)
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
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1 comment:
I've never understood why we continue to subsidize a crop which is so obviously killing our citizens when these same farmers could be growing something useful like the immensely versatile hemp plant. We can make food, fuel and an unending variety of postitive impact products instead of paying to grow a plant which will make our citizens sick, and increase our health costs, productivity costs thereby creating an exponential, easily avoidable expense
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