CIGARETTE SMOKING'S AN ADDICTION, TOO

I just finished reading the Feb. 27 article regarding battling pill
mills. There are statistics regarding "seven Floridians dying every
day in 2009, on average, from overdoses involving prescription drugs.
2,488 total deaths." It struck me as a sad notion, but completely
pale in comparison to the 440,000 people who die each year in the
United States alone (according to the World Health Organization) from
smoking cigarettes. Is anyone rushing to shut down cigarette makers?
No! Is anyone trying to set up a tracking system as a weapon against
the narcotics in cigarettes? No! Why? Because it is perfectly legal
to kill yourself with tobacco. It is also fairly easy to say that you
can also kill your spouse with second-hand smoke and put your
childrens', friends' and complete strangers' health at risk with the same.

The tobacco and cigarette makers are the real merchants of death. The
pill mill doctors should switch careers and grow tobacco products
instead. They'd be safely shrouded by an archaic legal system that
allows the No. 1 cause of preventable death to be sold legally. If
tobacco were illegal, people would still smoke, surely. But they
might realize that they, too, are drug addicts, with an addiction
that kills more people annually than any other drug on the planet.

Teresa Higgins, Davie