How They Attribute Deaths to Smoking

RUSH: I got an interesting e-mail from a subscriber to my website, RushLimbaugh.com, named James Ward. It talked about the New Jersey smoking ban that went into effect recently. Last week, the day before it went into effect, the businesses learned that there are all kinds of things they didn’t know about it such as no smoking within 25 feet of a building, which meant that a lot of restaurant owners had to nix plans — and they had only started to build outdoor decks and patios to accommodate the business of smokers. Twenty-five feet away from your average building puts you smack-dab in the middle of the street, effectively making you rode kill if the smoke in New Jersey.
So I got this interesting note, and I’ve always believed this, and I read this to you because it echoes some reaction that I have. I think there’s so much hysteria about so much in this country that’s irrational. Everything becomes a crisis and everything becomes hysteria, and smoking and secondhand smoke is nothing more than an irrational hysteria. Global warming, man-made global warming, is nothing more than a mass irrational hysteria which can’t be supported by facts. There are any number of issues like this. But Mr. Ward writes, “Not only can they not find one documented case of secondhand smoke the primary cause of death…” and, by the way, the quote from New Jersey regarding their new smoking ban is that ban will “save 1,800 lives a year in New Jersey, from secondhand smoke,” and Mr. Ward points out, “Not only can they not find one documented case of secondhand smoking the primary cause of death, they would also be hard-pressed to find a documented primary cause of death from firsthand smoke.”
Firsthand smoke!

Now, I know when you hear that — because you’ve been subjected to this mass hysteria for years — you think I’m going nuts. You think I’m going Looney Toons, and you think this periodically on this program. I know some of you do. I’ll come out with an opinion, you think, “Oh, my gosh, Rush is losing it,” and after 18 years of stellar success and a brilliant track record how anybody can doubt me every again is beyond me, but I know that it happens. It’s human nature. So when you hear somebody say and then you hear me agree with the notion that they would be hard-pressed to find a documented primary cause of death from firsthand smoke, you can’t believe it. Here’s how they arrive at these massive numbers of deaths attributed to smoking. Everyone who dies and has ever smoked is counted as a smoking related death.
Now, we’re not saying that smoking is good for you, but how long do you have to smoke before it kills you? In many cases, something that does no harm, no significant harm for 45 years of activity can’t be that bad, since we’re all going to die anyway. That may be a shock to some of you at the Center for Science and the Public Interest and so forth, but stop and think about it. People who smoke, smoke 45 years or whatever, takes a long time for the effects of smoking. In other words, you don’t inhale a cigarette and die. You just don’t. By the way, nicotine is the most powerfully addictive drug on the planet. Here’s the best way to explain it. I know you don’t believe that. “No, come on Rush! It’s gotta be cocaine or crystal meth.” No, no, it’s nicotine. You know how you can tell? Nobody, nobody, nobody has a pleasant first experience with it, and yet they keep it up. You ever seen a first-time smoker? (Coughing, choking.) And they keep going. You feel sick and you swear you’re never going to do it again, and bammo! Unlike most other addictions which are based on euphoria or pleasure, there’s no pleasant first experience with nicotine. So that’s how you know.

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