On 12/29/06, Paul Stenquist <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I was wondering when this thread might turn to the tobacco habits of > so many of our European friends. There are those among them who are > quick to criticize the vehicle habits of Americans but staunchly > defend their right to burn tobacco leaves all day long. A strange > dichotomy. > Paul
Paul, Nobody in Europe are "staunchly defending their right to burn tobacco leaves all day long" any more than the Californian bar guests that Scott describes elsewhere in this thread. According to numbers from WHO, the consumption of cigarettes in 1998 was 606 billions for Western Europe, and 451 billions for USA. Adjust for population size, and the per capita consume is about the same in the two regions. Sources: http://www.who.int/entity/tobacco/en/atlas8.pdf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_USA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_European_Union Another aspect is that tobacco is a cash crop. Just like cocaine, opium, and cannabis it is intended solely for supporting a nerve-system stimulating habit.. With the latter three, much effort goes into encouraging farmers to produce other crops instead. That would be nice for tobacco too. And for the record of dichotomies, both USA and European countries are among the top ten tobacco producers of the world. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco There's virtually no difference in European and American positions on tobacco. <g> Except that Europeans smoke in smaller, less polluting cars. </g> Jostein -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
