TOBACCO ROAD

Kudos to letter-writer Michael Abrams for taking the health Nazis to task (“Vigilant Nonsmokers,” June 1). It goes without saying that smoking is not especially healthy and can be terribly addictive in some people. Worse, as I have reported in the Journal of Biological Psychiatry, the physical addiction arises from much more than nicotine.

But the claim that tobacco is our major environmental health risk is transparently hysterical. A trip to France or Japan will reveal a population of heavy smokers who live as long as vigilant nonsmokers. Exaggerating the risk of smoking only makes it more difficult to convince young people that they shouldn’t start smoking, just as the hyperbolic film “Reefer Madness” discredited any legitimate claim of risks for marijuana.

Allen D. Allen

Director of Research

CytoDyn of New Mexico, Inc.

Studio City

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The question Abrams asks is whether anti-tobacco extremism in the pursuit of good health is not a vice in itself. There is no law against this type of suicide. Smokers are free to kill themselves if they wish. These extremists object to being killed along with them in the process.

If that’s a vice, I’m all for it.

Irv Elman

Pacific Palisades