The Anti-Smoking Crusade

FOR YOUR OWN GOOD - The Anti-Smoking Crusade and the Tyranny of Public Health,
by Jacob Sullum

Jacob Sullum, Reason Magazine, editor and featured speaker at the Banquet of the 55th Annual Meeting of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons in Raleigh, North Carolina on October 10, 1998, spoke on "Doctor's Orders: How Public Health Lobbyists Prescribe Morality." With many Tobacco suits having been settled since Sullum's address, a look at his book is enlightening. On the frontispiece, the author quotes former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop: "1984: I believe the ultimate goal should be a smoke-free society by the year 2000; 1996: From my point of view, anything that stops smoking is good." The second quotation, though disturbing, lends perspective to the issues Sullum discusses.

As conference participants noted, most physicians are to the right of center, while many of our leaders and administrators are to the left of center. Unfortunately, because those left of center often prejudge the motives of those right of center, a reason-based discussion becomes difficult. Sullum's book deals with principles and he asserts that even when the goals of both sides are identical, those on the left see the issues not as a matter of principle, but of expediency. Those on the right perceive the efforts of those on the left to try to rescue tens of millions of smokers as an exercise in tyranny that resorts to censorship, punitive taxes, and violations of property rights.

Sullum begins by pointing out the prejudices inherent in the voice of reason. He works for Reason magazine, published by Reason Foundation, a think tank to which Philip Morris Companies contribute. Although the Reason Foundation does not support tobacco research, and tobacco contributions are less than 1% of the revenues, Sullum has been accused of being in an industry-financed conspiracy to undermine the anti-smoking movement. Some refer to "Mr. Sullum and his tobacco patrons." How can one prevent all contributions from organizations of questionable merit?

Sullum has learned about his own motives. When only 10 years old, he put up "Thank You For Not Smoking" signs around the family home and hid the ashtrays his parents had for their guests. Years later he realized that he had not been concerned about the guests' health-- he was on a power kick based on moral superiority.

Sullum's next self-realization came after giving up his crusade for a smoke-free society. He began to understand that freedom to make choices comes from accepting responsibility for the consequences of one's actions, agreeing with John Stuart Mill that the only time a person should be made to do something against their will, is when their action harm others--"his own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant." . . .

Sullum valiantly strikes for a return to reason. The lack of reason among the numerous members of the anti-smoking forces prevents them from understanding freedom to choose, personal liberty and responsibility, and rational behavior. However, our efforts must continue or we will lose life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Read the entire book review . . .  
To read more book reviews . . .
To read book reviews topically . . .

Feedback . . .
Subscribe MedicalTuesday . . .
Subscribe HealthPlanUSA . . .

The Book Review Section Is an Insider's View of What Doctors Are Reading and Writing.

subscribe

Why we forget

THE MEMORY CURE by Thomas H. Crook III, Ph.D. & Brenda Adderly, M.H.A.,
Pocket Books, New York, 1998, 287 pages, $24. ISBN: 0-671-02642-9

Thomas H. Crook III, an international expert on memory retention and loss, along with Brenda Adderly, M.H.A., a health care researcher, writer and former staff assistant under Dr. C Everett Koop, explain "What is Memory?" and "Why we Forget."

In each of our lives there comes a time when we are afflicted with more than simple forgetfulness. We begin to forget important things. Since less than 10 percent of us get Alzheimer's disease or irreversible memory loss, there is a large area of loss for which many proposals of alleviation are being investigated. The authors treat the problem of age associate memory impairment (AAMI), which affects all of us past age 40. Dr. Crook has conducted research that actually measures memory loss.

There are four types of memory. Immediate memory lets you look up a telephone number, dial it, and then forget it. Short-term memory or "concentrating" stays with us for minutes or hours but may have no value to us next week. We can usually remember seven chunks of information, give or take two, at the same time. For instance, the letters S-E-E-C-I-A-C-B-S can be thought of as nine chunks (hard for most people to memorize), or as three chunks, SEE, CIA, and CBS (much easier to recall).

Long-term or "permanent" memory stores knowledge about our friends, job, locations, and (hopefully) most of our medical education. It too fades, but more gradually, and can be recalled. The more often recalled, the more permanent it becomes. Long-term memory can store a quadrillion bits of information (10¹⁵ bits--is that really a million times more than my gigabyte hard drive?)

Finally, remote or procedural memory is essentially unforgettable knowledge, much of which seems to have been with us all our lives, and that we always recall this side of Alzheimer's disease. This includes our names, our family, our long-time friends, childhood memories, even how to recite verses learned in grade school. Remote memory is usually not in the forefront of our consciousness until we need it. We then transfer it into long-term memory. If portions of this are forgotten - such as, after 40 years, the loss of our native tongue - it can be restored in a matter of weeks if the previous environment is reproduced, say by a trip back to our ancestral home. It is then available in long-term memory again.

These four types of memory--immediate, short-term, long-term, and remote--decline at different rates with advancing age. Thus, the degree to which age-related loss needs to be "cured" varies also. The first and last types of memory, immediate and remote, decline relatively little. We may have to concentrate a little harder on immediate recall but it is an insignificant absolute figure. At the other end of the scale, remote memory is so deeply embedded that we retain it unless our minds are badly eroded by disease. Even then, many basal memories persist . . . 

Most declines come in short-term and long-term memory. Of these, the declines in short-term memory are more apparent and observable: the inability to remember names, faces, appointments, to recall where we put our keys--all very noticeable both to the persons forgetting and to family and friends. . .

-Del Meyer, MD

Read the entire book review at . . .
To read more book reviews . . .  
To read book reviews topically . . .  

Feedback . . .
Subscribe MedicalTuesday . . .
Subscribe HealthPlanUSA . . .

Socialized treatment isn't free, it's just depersonalized.

We invite you to sign up for this biweekly newsletter.