MORALITY-BASED ETHICS
Versus
CIGARETTE SELLING

Introduction Bible Values History Clergy Books
Islamic Rabbis Sin-Idolatry Action Request

A number of Christians know superficially of the Apostle Paul's New Testament principle against destroying the temple of one's body (I Corinthians 3:16-17, 6:19), and apply it to cigarette smoking. Others, however, say that those verses do not apply in that way.

Some say that numerous long-preceding Biblical principles apply, to forbid both smoking and, systemically, cigarette selling.

Others, however, go so far as to allege that, 'there are no Biblical principles at all on the subject. Smoke 'em if you got 'em!'

This site covers the matter in significant detail, beyond the superficial. This detailed presentation takes into account a full-scale analysis of the data over a long span of time, longer than you may imagine.

Devout people loving their neighbor as themselves want other people to be in good health (3 John 2). The Bible in both Testaments has multiple references to health issues and terminology,
  • with disease-prevention concepts, e.g., Isaiah 58:8 (speedy health);

  • Jeremiah 30:17 (restoring health)

  • Proverbs 12:18 (the wisdom-health correlation)

  • Jeremiah 33:6 (bringing health)

  • Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14 (dietary laws)

  • Acts 27:34 (taking action to promote health)

  • Deuteronomy 23:13 (ban on open sewers, which rule, had it been obeyed, would have prevented the millions of deaths from medieval plague—"Black Death"), etc.

  • five-fold condemnation of drug-abuse, in Galatians 5:20 and Revelation 9:21, 18:23, 21:8, and 22:15

  • Prevention is better than healing/treatment; being pro-active is better than after-the-factism; dealing with causes is better than dealing with effects; obedience is better than sacrifice (I Samuel 15:22).
  • Love does no harm to one's fellow man, indeed, love is the fulfillment of the law (Romans 13:10). A major emphasis and occurrence during Christ's in-person ministry was a massive, record number of healings, referenced time and again. Christ cared (cares) about health.

    Christians want to follow Christ's example, want to fulfill the law even to the extent of avoiding idle words on the tobacco subject; they want to say the right thing (Matthew 12:36). Christians cannot and do not accept money to say the wrong thing (2 Peter 2:15).

    Rabbis, Muslims, and Christians observe health authorities' statements that thirty seven million people, a holocaust-level number, are dying in the U.S alone of smoking; and vast numbers more, second-hand smokers, adults and children, are being killed on a daily basis by cigarettes' toxic chemicals and fires, without their consent and in many cases, over their strong objections. The numbers of fatal fires are so many that cigarette-caused fires were an issue in Congress (H.R. 1130, fire-safe cigarettes bill).

    Other concerned individuals point out cigarettes' other-than-personal physical health links, smoking's role in moral evils adversely affecting others, third-parties:
    Abortion Alcoholism Alzheimer's Birth Defects Crime
    Divorce Drugs Heart Disease Lung Cancer SIDS

    The foregoing are only some of the many ultrahazardous tobacco effects on people and property.

    Rabbis, Christians, Muslims, adherents of all religions, alike can observe that numbers of smokers are suing, saying convincingly to jurors that, 'tobacco pushers committed illegal fraud to conceal the chemicals, the hazard, and, thereby, to addict me, harm my body, the temple.'

    Eminent medical researchers repeatedly verify that pro-tobacco censorship and tobacco advertisements are so cunningly designed and effective as to have had that effect—fraudulent concealment of the hazard, and widespread smoker ignorance of the hazards, even the most basic ones.

    Are the people who say, 'the Bible says NOTHING about smoking issues,' right? Does the Bible really have nothing to say against fraud? poison? Are there numerous pertinent Biblical principles? Or none?

    The Bible is identified as a book of love. What kind of love would offer nothing, no commandment, no principles, not even one, to protect these tens of millions of people?

    Even atheists know enough to not hand out poisoned candy at Halloween! Even the atheist science writer Dr. Isaac Asimov opposed smoking. Shouldn't Christians have even more to say on the subject? at least as much as infidels! (I Timothy 5:8).

    Let's find out. Numbers of our religious ancestors, and even some now, think there are not just one, but many, pertinent Biblical principles. Where mass death is involved, much was written on the subject long before Paul's 'don't destroy the temple' words.

    At the very least, there was a commandment given thousands of years before Paul and his 'destroying the temple' principle, "Thou shalt not kill" (Exodus 20:13).

    A century ago, there were clergymen and Christians who were active and diligent in Bible study and in believing in and actively supporting the "Thou shalt not kill" commandment with respect to tobacco. A century ago, there were clergymen who had major roles in the movement against tobacco.

    For example, in 1860, one book supported by a number of clergymen, said of tobacco that by then already, "Twenty thousand of our fellow-citizens, say physicians, are killed by it annually."--Rev. George Trask, Letters on Tobacco, for American Lads; or, Uncle Toby's Anti-Tobacco Advice To His Nephew Billy Bruce (Fitchburg, Mass: Trask Pub, 1860), p ix.

    Rev. Trask referenced pertinent Bible principles, e.g., If sinners entice thee, do not consent. Proverbs 1:10. Instead of tobacco, think on what is lovely and of good report. Philippians 4:8. Trask, at p 40.

    Micah 6:8 lists three fundamental requirements: mercy, humility and justice. Trask said, smokers do not comply. In discussing the "arrogance of tobacco-users," he said, "Tobacco-users are always unjust towards others. They pollute the atmosphere," says Trask, p 114. This clearly violates the duties to
  • (a) not offend others (I Corinthians 8:13) and

  • (b) not obstruct the enjoyment of life (life more abundantly, John 10:10).
  • By that era, as early as 1757, courts would repeatedly uphold the "right to fresh and pure air," i.e., had banned actions discomforting to the enjoyment of life. Indeed, in 1866, the Maine Supreme Court cited the Golden (gospel) Rule in so doing.

    In applying the Golden Rule, for example, the 1860 General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church of Ohio resolved that "After the present session we will not receive any person into full communion who persists in the use of tobacco."—New York Times, 30 Oct 1860 (p 4, col 5).

    "The very fact that God has given to man eyes to see, is evidence that God wills that man should use them. The very fact that God has given him a body with a variety of members, is evidence that God wills that he should use it, and that he has a right to do so. And this right imposes on all others the obligation to leave him in the innocent exercise of this right. . ." [and not addict (enslave) the person to harm].—Rev. John G. Fee, An Anti-Slavery Manual, 2d ed. (New York: William Harned, 1851), pp 124-125.

    See also the analysis in Meta Lander's The Tobacco Problem (Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1882), pages 270-284, and her bottom line term, at p 381, "poison, alias cigarettes."

    In 1915, the Abingdon Press published an book tantamount to a Surgeon General Report on tobacco: by Bruce Fink, Professor of Botany, Miami University, Tobacco (Cincinnati: The Abingdon Press, 1915). The book has a good bibliography of references from the era. On page 40, it has this quotation:

    "In no instance is the sin of the father more strikingly visited upon his children than in the sin of tobacco-using." At p 108, "With all the facts before us, no concluding words can adequately condemn tobacco. . . all must suffer more or less . . . whether user or non-user. . . . everyone who uses tobacco is, in this respect, an enemy of public welfare" [legal terms, "ultrahazardous" and "universal malice," the opposite of "Christian love"].
    The 1915 conclusion, p 110, was that no Christian can use, sell, or support tobacco, but rather "must . . . use his influence in aiding those who are fighting" it.

    "No evils are so manifestly visited upon the third and fourth generations as the evils which spring from the use of tobacco."—Sir Benjamin C. Brodie, F.R.S. (1783-1862), alluding to Exodus 20:4-5 prohibiting idols. For examples, see our tobacco-caused birth-defects site.

    Note that "the practice of smoking could be a great nuisance to those who did not themselves indulge in it; many could not endure the new-fangled habit, while others were deterred by the discomfort which usually results from the first experiment. The consequence was that the use of tobacco . . . soon began to meet with fierce opposition. . . . the strongest opposition came from the clergy [who] hastened to described the new custom as 'godless,'" says Count Egon Corti, A History of Smoking, transl. by Paul England (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co, 1932), p 106.

    And "a decree was passed by the [Church] Provincial Council on October 7, 1588, by which the celebrant [church member] was forbidden, under pain of everlasting damnation, to use tobacco in any form whatever, whether for smoking, chewing, or snuff-taking," says Corti, supra, p 107.

    "It is both godless and unseemly that the mouth of man, which . . . is intended to breathe in the fresh air and to utter the praises of the Most High, should be defiled by the indrawing and expelling of tobacco smoke," cited by Hermann Pilz, Uber den Tabak und das Rauchen: Ernstes und heieteres aus der Kulturgeschichte (Leipzig: Gustav Weigel, 1899), p 148, quoted by Corti, supra, p 115.

    In the 1660's, "certain dignitaries of the Church decreed that in the reports of the diocesan visitations, individuals who were found to be addicted to smoking should be mentioned by name. Thus in a report, in 1662, on a certain Christrel Ledermann, he is described as a drunkard and a roysterer, and so strongly addicted to tobacco that on Easter Day, 118when he presented himself at the altar, he stank so of tobacco that the parson could scarcely bear it," says the "Report of the Baden-Durlach Consistory, in the Carlsruhe local archives. See Tiedeman, Geschichte des Tabacs, p 167, cited by Corti, supra, pp 117-118.

    "In other reports we read bitter complaints from the clergy that they could hardly breathe in church because the peasants reeked so of tobacco," says Corti, supra, p 118.

    Rev. Jacob Balde in 1657 referenced "the smoking fellows of Northern Germany who live only to smoke and who cannot live without it," says Corti, supra, p 118, citing Rev. Jakob Balde, Die Truckene Trunkenheit [Drunk without Drinking] (Nürnberg: Michael Endter Pub, 1658) from Satyra Contra Abusum Tabaci (Monaco, I. Wagneri Pub, 1657).   Rev. Balde continued by asking, "What difference is there between a smoker and a suicide, except that the one takes longer to kill himself than the other? Because of this perpetual smoking . . . life dries up and disappears . . . life itself flickers out. . . ," says Corti, supra, p 119. In discussing tobacco addiction, "he called the smoking taverns (tabagies) 'schools of slavery,' or schools for those who were desirous of learning the true nature of madness [insanity] [and referenced] 'the elaborate silliness' of those who frequented them, and the 'grotesque depravity of those who could thus outrage nature,'" says Corti, supra, p 120. Rev. Balde correctly referenced the adverse impact of tobacco on women as well, using tobacco "to the harm of their reputation, their fortune, their figures, and their offspring," says Corti, supra, p 120.

    In Switzerland, under "the strict moral code introduced by [religious reformer John] Calvin at the Reformation . . . the sins of the inhabitants were brought to light," says Corti, supra, p 122. One writing, "dated September 9, 1656, complains bitterly of the growing iniquities of the people--cursing and swearing . . . the universal spread of 'tobacco-drinking' even among females, resulting in serious financial loss to the country. . . . From many of the [Swiss] counties--Kyburg, for instance--came complaints that 'the abuse of tobacco had become so general [widespread] that lads of twelve might be seen pipe in hand even in farm buildings, which were thereby exposed to serious risk of fire. Moreover, the rage for [tobacco] contributed not a little to the present scarcity of money . . . and especially was it to be noted that young people . . . were by this habit driven to reckless excess and became drunken and dissipated,'" says Corti, supra, p 122.

    "In Zurich [Switzerland], in 1667 [effort was made] by solemn warnings and admonitions to reform 'all dissolute and godless wastrels, especially those who are addicted to the pernicious habits of smoking and snuff-taking." Penalties included expulsion, whipping and if "incorrigible sentenced to perpetual banishment, 'in order to rid ourselves and our people of any further annoyance,'" says Corti, supra, p 123, citing "Edict of the town of Zurich, June 3, 1667 (Zurich State Archives)."

    "Those who refuse to examine the evidence are, unquestionably, enemies of the human race—consequently enemies of God." [I John 4:20].—Charles G. Pease, M.D., Correspondence on Smoking: Is There Betrayal of the Human Race?, (New York: NSPLA, 1929), p 16.

    William A. Alcott M.D., The Use of Tobacco: Its Physical, Intellectual, and Moral Effects on The Human System (New York: Fowler and Wells, 1836), p 51, traced church awareness of the tobacco evil back to pre-1836.

    Religious concern continues. For example, see Resolution No. 9 of the Proceeedings of the 1984 Southern Baptist Convention, p 63, opposing cigarette smoking as addicting, and leading to lung cancer, emphysema, heart disease, birth defects, etc., and telling tobacco farmers to cease and desist.

    The Presbyterian Church took an anti-cigarette position in 1998.

    A number of Mississippi churches in mid-1999 were taking anti-cigarette action, the subject of an article "Up in Smoke" by Eugene Stockstill, in the Biloxi Sun Herald (12/11/99).

    And the RCA's ten-page formal statement in December 1999 shows that the concern is a continuing one. See also its "Ban Use of Tobacco Products" (3 July 2006).

    In addition, in the nineteenth century, due to smokers' ultimate arrogance, committing violence against one's fellow man, killing them, clergymen were concerned about the cigarette link to alcoholism and crime. Modern issues such as lung cancer were then unknown.

    Soon, the activist clergy deemed cigarettes' link to alcoholism and crime sufficient to warrant a systemic approach, meaning a ban on cigarettes' manufacture and sale, pursuant to doctors' findings. (Back then, people actually respected doctors' advice and thought the way to solve problems was the James 2:16 way, to deal with causes, not sham concern via hand-wringing wishing away of adverse effects!!)

    Some people want to talk in favor of good effects, but they don't want to do the actions involving causes. (Matthew 21:28-31, the parable of the two people, one said he'd do the action, the other said he wouldn't, but then each did the opposite!). They refuse, even when secular medical research leads the way.

    "No man—need the statement to be repeated?—is a true follower of Christ, who indulges himself, habitually, in any known sin. How then can he who professes to be the servant of Christ, and really intends to be so, refuse to give up the use of tobacco, whenever he clearly sees that to use it is a sin?"—Wm. A. Alcott, M.D., The Use of Tobacco: Its Physical, Intellectual, and Moral Effects on The Human System (New York: Fowler and Wells, 1836), pp 81-82.

              Those of the turn-of-the-century era who wanted to deal with causes, succeeded in many states. For example, Iowa in 1897, Tennessee in 1897, and Michigan in 1909 under three-term Governor Fred M. Warner, abolished cigarettes by law, MCL § 750.27, MSA § 28.216.

           Since then, having lost clergy involvement, the movement has lost moral focus. It barely seeks to protect children, and that only as a health issue.

             This amoral narrowness omits long known moral aspects, tobacco's abulia-related link to suicide, alcoholism, promiscuity, abortion, drunk driving, drug abuse, baby deaths, divorce, birth defects, and crime, activities preventable on a systemic basis by law such as Christians succeeded in getting passed in 1909.

    Nineteenth century anti-tobacco writings, some by clergymen (e.g., Rev. George Trask), included much more than the mere health issue, important as that is. Concerns of the Christians of that era involved morals issues such as the tobacco link to alcoholism and crime.

    “Prevention of delinquency was the primary thrust of the early church.” “There has always been religious and church-related work with juvenile delinquents and adult offenders. In America, the Christian church played an important role in the development of correctional practice, because crime, like poverty, was considered to be endemic to society.”—Vernon Fox, Prof., Florida St Univ, Introduction to Criminology (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc, 1976), p 283.
    "Indeed, the anti-cigarette movement of the United States—and the same is true of that of Britain—has in a considerable degree been of religious inspiration."—Prof. Pryns Hopkins, Ph.D., Gone Up in Smoke: An Analysis of Tobaccoism (Culver City, CA: The Highland Press, 1948), p 221.
    Reason for Christian concern about criminals: Pursuant to the Final Judgment, a key issue will be: "When I was in prison, you visited me." Matthew 25:30. As says Fr. John S. Rausch, Director, Catholic Committee of Appalachia, "It isn't 'I was up for charges and you made sure they threw the book at me.'" (Cited by the Associated Press, Samira Jafari, in "'Get saved or get busted': Kentucky churches toughen up on addicts," in The Macomb Daily, p 3B (21 July 2007). See also his article on prisons, "Rural Gulags" in Glenmary Challenge (Spring 2007).
    But now in the US, the "up for charges" approach is the norm. See Ted Rall, "One Nation, Under a Heartless God: Why Is America So Mean?" (23 April 2008).

    Christians know the duty to not aid and abet evil, to not partake, to keep themselves pure. Ephesians 5:7. “Be not ye therefore partakers with them.” See also 1 Timothy 5:22,   John 17:15,   2 Corinthians 6:14-18, and Revelation 18:4. Instead, people are to become partakers in the holy divine nature, 2 Peter 1:4. Example: “Let him that stole steal no more,” Ephesians 4:28. Don't be overcome by evil, Romans 12:21. Resist the devil, James 4:7 and 2 Peter 5:8-9. Be holy, 1 Peter 1:16. Abstain from lusts, 1 Peter 2:11.

    The "early church" took action. Genuine prevention of evil requires pro-active action, not passivity. It means rejecting the 'what will be, will be' ('que sera, sera') ineffectiveness of Eli (I Samuel 2:29). It means rejecting the underlying 'let somebody else do it' attitude of Eli (I Samuel 3:18). (Eli observed immoral acts (I Samuel 2:22) but merely talked against them, never taking effective preventive action [I Samuel 2:23-36].)

    Prevention vs treatment. Prevention vs surgery. Prevention vs rehabilitation. Crime prevention vs crime fighting. Before-the-fact proactive effort vs after-the-fact remedial and semi-remedial steps. Prevention of future effects that will thus never occur, vs allowing effects whose causative mechanism will then be denied anyway by some! Obedience vs sacrifice (I Samuel 15:22). It is the age-old dilemma and question. Bible-believers then knew the answer: prevention. Prevention = obedience, the rest = disobedience, constituting a specific intent to harm one's fellow man via refusal to interdict in advance of, before, prior to the "natural and probable consequences" occurring.

    These early activists saw that society could not leave solution to any after-the-factism approach: Wherefore, only prevention [e.g., Iowa-style], only before-the-factism, pro-active direction, dealing with the 90% factor (tobacco-use) in so many systemic problems, could be relied on as offering any hope of actual solution.
    Only this would prevent calculated continuance of the problems, with eternal counselings, rehabilitations, prison-constructions, $$$$$$$$ and empire-building ad infinitum.

    Action, systemic action, against cigarettes doesn't sound or look like alcoholism prevention and crime prevention; that is because it is prevention action IAW I Samuel 15:22, pro-active action IAW James 2:16, not sham hand-wringing lamenting about effects, merely wishing them away, devoid of reference to and action concerning, causation processes. Meaningful action is what counts, not talk. (Matthew 21:28-31).

    This is so even when there is no current outward sign of a link. Example: the link between working in a garden in the spring, and harvesting garden crops in the fall; or the link between cows on a farm, and milk in a carton in a big-city grocery. Comprehension of those links requires significant understanding of pertinent scientific knowledge. Likewise, with the cigarette-crime link. And all other cigarette effects.

    Man does not live by bread—health—alone. (Deuteronomy 8:3; Matthew 4:4; Luke 4:4). Once the moral emphasis was gone, most of the matters cited herein—though known to our ancestors and even their children of the era—are now unknown to—and disbelieved by when told—most people including adults.

    Anti-cigarette laws (e.g., Iowa's, Tennessee's, and Michigan's were adopted a century ago, back when religion had more impact, so people were more aware that mental processes (activities in the mind) have a role in sin: The duty is to prevent injury, even a statistically rare injury such as someone being injured by falling off a roof (Deuteronomy 22:8,   Commandment # 263). "Lust" wants to NOT prevent harm, and lust, when it has "conceived" "brings forth sin." (James 1:15). The end thereof is "death" (Romans 6:21, 23).

    Pursuant to 2 Corinthians 2:11, people are not to be "ignorant of Satan's devices." Said "devices" are schemes, methods, means, techniques, products whereby lust is conceived and produces sin (James 1:15). For example, in alcoholism case, this is medically known as 90% related to tobacco. And see fuller list. While people cannot grant others the Holy Spirit, people can eliminate many "devices," e.g., tobacco, and re war, weapons (Isaiah 2:4,   Joel 3:10,   Micah 4:3, beat swords into plowshares). The divine goal is shown in Isaiah 11:9, Isaiah 65:25 (neither hurting nor destroying in all His holy mountain [Earth]).

    Tobacco is a mind-altering drug as the tobacco-lobby admitted [in courts] in the late 1800's when that admission was then "politically correct." Sin spreads. 2 Timothy 3:13.

    Tobacco pushers display "unsurpassed arrogance and immorality," says Albert R. Hunt, "Going into the Tank for Tobacco," Wall Street Journal, p A15 (2 Aug 2001).

    Cigarette-selling, like any other sin, may seem small or a "least commandment" issue at first. (Zechariah 4:10; Matthew 5:19).

    Cigarette selling and harm supposedly merely violates minor, small or "least" commands: Do not curse the deaf nor put a stumbling block before the blind. (Leviticus 19:14). (Placing stumbling blocks out where they can linger and cause harm indiscriminately, placing ambient cigarette smoke out to linger in the air, placing cigarette packs out for sale, manufacturing them in the first place, is called a "universal malice" act, and is therefore illegal.)

    The December 1999 RCA position paper shows that smoking is not minor or a "least" matter, but rather an

    "assault": "Smoking should be banned from all synagogues, synagogue functions, Day Schools, Mikva'ot [ritual bathhouses] and all other institutions and events under supervision of the rabbi. Rabbis should themselves cease to smoke, and should publicly educate their congregations as to the medical and Halachic [Jewish law] severity of smoking. This should include not tolerating smoking in their own homes and businesses, as either facilitates or causes assault on others."

    An "assault" is not a "least" matter, indeed, can be fatal.

    The ban on stumbling blocks means that people can NEVER smoke. The idea of the "stumbling block ban" is to prevent harm to persons who may arrive in the future in the area. (Such future arrival is of course unknown to the stumbling-block placer at the time of placing it; however, such future arrivals are foreseeable, though specific identities of exactly who will thereafter arrive are unknown.)

    Children are blind and deaf to the cigarette danger; even adults are unaware of it. If fire (such as from a cigarette) leads to harm, money damages are mandatory. (Exodus 22:6).

    Tobacco-Induced Blindness
    Tobacco-Induced Deafness
    Tobacco-Induced Fires

              "Small" sin violating "least" commands, spreads, leads to more violations. For example, when non-human agency such as an ox (or tobacco) kills a human, those who knew that tendency (ox owner, tobacco pusher) are to be executed. (Exodus 21:28-29). That law is unenforced, so the sin of cigarette-selling leads to more violations.

    Cigarettes have a record of containing coumarin for revenge, even though the command says, Do not take revenge; instead love your neighbor as yourself. (Leviticus 19:18; James 2:8). One must not destroy the temple of his own body (I Cor 3:16-17, 6:19), so cannot do so to others.

    Do not harm strangers, e.g., children in a store where tobacco is sold. (Exodus 22:21). Remember the millstone example (Matthew 18:6, Luke 17:2)? It'd be better for the tobacco seller (or smoker setting a bad example) to have that happen to him/her, than to sell tobacco to children. Do not afflict (nor cause) widows and orphans. (Exodus 22:22). Do not follow a multitude to do evil, e.g., sell tobacco. (Exodus 23:2). Do not smite a fellow human with guile, e.g., abulia-causing toxic substances or slow-motion death. (Exodus 21:14).

    When sin spreads, and becomes routine, it kills anyone via fires and babies via SIDS. Such killings inherently involve violating the command against establishing stumbling blocks (the duty to NEVER smoke), lest persons who shall thereafter come in contact be harmed. The command is a prevention-of-harm command. (Admittedly, the immoral society in which we live, and the immoral lawmakers and judges, focus on punishment after the fact, far too late for the victim. [That after-the-fact punishment focus is bribery-induced.] The duty is prevention; thus no punishment need occur, for after-tobacco-use effects that would thus not occur).

    When the pusher or smoker has violated the prevention duty, and people are killed, the pusher or smoker then pretends, 'I didn't mean it!' Yes, he did intend it (death), because the fact the people stumble upon coming in contact with stumbling blocks is foreseeable, a "natural and probable consequence" of having placed the stumbling block in the first place. Indeed, such deaths constitute intentional killings (murder) pursuant to standard legal definitions, e.g., of "universal malice," causing harm generally and indiscriminately.

    Preventing such harm occurs when you obey the commands, Do not do fraud (Exodus 22:9), or Do not curse the deaf nor put a stumbling block before the blind. (Leviticus 19:14).

    You must make loving your neighbor routine. Then when you come in contact with the person who'd otherwise be killed, you will not kill. After all, the baby CANNOT be expected to say, 'just this one time, don't smoke' to whomever has made sin, spraying toxic chemicals generally and indiscriminately, a common, routine daily occurrence.

    Loving one's neighbor as oneself all the time, not once in a while, by special request, is what fulfills the law. (Romans 13:8). But tobacco is a mind-altering drug. It seems "small." (Zechariah 4:10). And "least." (Matthew 5:19). The word "abulia" is so small, and anti-tobacco commandments seem so "least," most never heard of it or them. Ministers mostly refuse to preach them, even though the deaths (smokers and nonsmokers) exceed those of Manasseh's era (2 Kings 21:16). So due to the mass commandment-breaking, it leads to evil effects that our paper explaining the law (medically and legally) alludes to.

    Too many clergymen nowadays refuse to deal with the issue except in a vacuum, a self-absorbed approach, as though smoking can occur without affecting others on a daily, hourly basis, whether or not known to the manufacturer, seller, and user.

    Examples of Impacts on Others That Such Clergymen Ignore
    Abortion, Which Many Purport To Preach Against!
    AIDS, A Burden To All Society
    Alcoholism and Drunk Driving, Endangering All
    Alzheimers, A Real Burden on The Family
    Birth Defects Impacting Future
    Generations Sometimes For Life

    Costs Burdening Us All
    Crime Including Murder, Rape,
    Robbery and Other Major Offenses

    Deafness
    Divorce, A Severe Family Trauma
    Impacting Spouse, Children, Etc.

    Drug Abuse Hurting Family,
    Neighbors, and Strangers

    Fires Killing Families and Strangers
    Suicide, Disrupting Family and Friends

    Notice any evasion efforts, for example, efforts to
    (a) say that doctors don't know what they are talking about! even though doctors have developed the research process over centuries; and

    (b) cite only one Biblical command or principle (proof-texting), as though that is all the Bible has to say on the subject, though you see otherwise here!

    Ministers mostly refuse to preach the commands and principles herein cited, even though the deaths exceed those of Manasseh's (2 Kings 21:16). So due to the mass commandment-breaking, and widespread clergy silence on this rampant body-temple-destroying, tobacco leads to evil effects.

    There is no basis for pusher ignorance. For example, by 1836, yes, 1836, it was already well-established "that thousands and tens of thousands die of diseases of the lungs generally brought on by tobacco smoking. . . . How is it possible to be otherwise? Tobacco is a poison. A man will die of an infusion of tobacco as of a shot through the head." —Samuel Green, New England Almanack and Farmer's Friend (1836).

    That year, 1836, a medical survey of nicotine poisoning deaths was published. "Death occurred in nearly all of the cases of nicotine poisoning within a few minutes to a few hours . . . ."—Julia Fontanelle, 2 Jour. de Chimie Med. 652 (1836).

    Here are Bible-linked examples of results when sin spreads. Curses result from sin and evil-doing such as

  • "wicked inventions" (Deuteronomy 28:20) and "corrupted air" (Deuteronomy 28:22), words aptly descriptive of cigarettes and their toxic emissions, e.g.,

  • "pestilence" (Deuteronomy 28:21) and "incurable" conditions (Deuteronomy 28:35), e.g., lung cancer;

  • "cursed shall be the fruit of thy womb" (Deuteronomy 28:18), e.g., abortion, birth defects, SIDS;

  • "madness and blindness and fury of mind" (Deuteronomy 28:28), e.g., Alzheimer's Disease, Macular Degeneration, mental disorder, and insanity.


    We will be adding to the list as new sites are developed. In the interim, please consult our tobacco effects overview site.

  • The benefit of respecting even "least" commands is evident from promises such as the benefit of respecting persons who have more experience and education with such matters, e.g., parents pursuant to Exodus 20:12 ("Honor thy father and thy mother, that thou mayest be long-lived. . . ."); Leviticus 19:32 ("Rise up before the hoary head"); and Psalm 90:7 ("A thousand shall fall at thy side; and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee").

    Respect includes respect for doctors and medical researchers. Those without such respect, e.g., smokers, die prematurely. The deaths of 37,000,000, the government's count, are one result. For those of who follow these respect principles, you, except for involuntary smokers, know that such death "shall not come nigh thee."

    For those religions who teach to not destroy the temple of one's body (I Corinthians 3:16-17, 6:19) and whose members do not smoke (i.e., they honor/respect their elders who have studied pertinent-to-life subjects, and thus are less likely to be deceived by persons offering poison for sale), this is literally true. Example: The nation's lowest smoking rate in 1998 was in Mormon Utah.

    For the others, here is the body count. The U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), book entitled Research on Smoking Behavior, Research Monograph 17, Publication ADM 78-581, p v (December 1977), states the body count:
    "Over 37 million people (one of every six Americans alive today) will die from cigarette smoking years before they otherwise would."

    The web writer is the person who helped change many people's beliefs on cigarette costs to society. Back in 1980, there were people who believed cigarettes were a cost benefit and loudly said so. A religious magazine editor asked whether anyone could write a rebuttal. This writer submitted a paper showing $130 billion cost to society that year alone. (That religious magazine was more widely distributed than many medical journals, even to non-members, and at drug-counseling offices, the writer's source.) Its circulating the $130 billion data outside standard medical circles helped set the stage for the Attorney General litigation to recover taxpayers' money spent on smokers' health care, as others began studying and finding huge cigarette costs!

    Our more religious 1897-1909 ancestors, better educated than people of this era and more respectful of medical findings on cigarette effects, knew that fraud is a sin (Exodus 22:9). They knew that cigarette selling is a sin, a word we don't hear much anymore. They actually believed in "Thou shalt not kill." (Consent of the kill-ee means nothing in law!! State v Fransua, 85 NM 173; 510 P2d 106 [1973], etc.)

    They knew that as people must be able to have absolute reliance upon total ethics and unconditional integrity in business, even minor deceptive business practices (false measuring) were ten-fold condemned (Exodus 23:7, Leviticus 19:35-36, Deuteronomy 25:13 and 15; Proverbs 11:1, 20:10 and 20:23, Ezekiel 45:10, Amos 8:5, Micah 6:11).

    For even this type of minor business deception, false weights and measures, the nation was to tremble with severe consequences (Amos 8:7-8). Imagine the penalty when a businessman's product would actually kill a customer. The divine command (Exodus 21:28-29) was that the businessman be executed. Kill him. Now that's a real "product liability" law!! And to make doubly sure that execution would ensue, there was a second command. Don't let him buy his way out of it. "Thou shalt not take money of him that is guilty of blood, but he shall die forthwith" (Numbers 35:31).

    "Buyer beware" personal responsibility is a "tradition of men," an immoral tradition. The divine principle is to put responsibility for knowing the product on the seller. One seller can far more efficiently know the hazards of his product, than thousands or millions of separate buyers—typically of all ages and states of competence as far as understanding chemistry, biology, botany, metallurgy, and all other possible sciences. (In law, it is understood that children do not perceive hazard, American Tobacco Co v Harrison, 181 Va 800; 27 SE2d 181 [1943] context.) Why burden all of society—potential buyers—to study every possible product and potential hazard, and perhaps likely misunderstand, when the very manufacturer or seller already knows the answer!! The obvious answer is to deal with the systemic issue, have the seller abide by the knowledge he already knows!!

    "Seller beware" is the godly answer. By their fruits you shall know them. (Matthew 7:16, 20). "What would Jesus do?"—sell poisoned products to children? Of course not, say real Christians. The fruit of "buyer beware" is decades of fruitless litigation, the continuation of the sinful business practices, and thus tens of millions of deaths. The fruit of "seller beware" is zero buyer deaths. That is real "love thy neighbor as thyself" (the "Golden Rule") (Matthew 19:19 and 22:39; Mark 12:31; Luke 10:27; Romans 13:9-10; Galatians 5:14; and James 2:3).

    Note the ultimate solution of eliminating immoral business practices and trafficking forever, cited in Revelation 18:11-24 and Zechariah 14:21.

    Even atheists know not to poison Halloween candy. Our religious ancestors in Iowa, Tennessee, Michigan, etc., told tobacco pushers, be at least that ethical, that moral! No poisoned cigarettes!

    Quibblers like to say that the tobacco killings are slow, i.e., the children do not die instantly. Such people disregard two facts: (a) killings by abortion and SIDS are fast, and (b) even re slow deaths, the law against murder and poisoning people does not allow slow killings!

    There is no statute of limitations that withdraws the protection of law from victims who simply do not die fast enough to please their killers!! Slow killings violate the command against killing with "guile." (Exodus 21:14). Prosecution for murder is the law even if the victim takes many (e.g., five) years to die, People v Stevenson, 416 Mich 383; 331 NW2d 143, 145-6 (1982), concept upheld, Rogers v Tennessee, 992 SW2d 393 (Tenn, 1999), affirmed by U.S. Supreme Court Case # 99-6218; 532 US 451; 121 S Ct 1693; 149 L Ed 2d 697 (14 May 2001).

    To be blunt, prosecution for murder is applicable whenever doctors can ascertain the cause of the unlawful death, without any time limit. (The idea that a time limit exists is pro-tobacco propaganda, lay myth, unbiblical tradition of unconverted men. Compare 2 Kings 21:16 [circa 642 BC] with 25:2 [circa 587 BC], the Biblical penalty for deaths in Manasseh's era was imposed over five decades later! The penalty, destruction of the nation, was done in two violent phases, first by raider bands' terrorist attacks [2 Kings 24:2-4], then by full-scale war [2 Kings 24:10-11 through 2 Kings 25:4]. Terrorist attacks and war are each a foreseeable consequence of sin as per, e.g., Proverbs 16:7, and Amos 7:9.)

    "The law clearly covers and includes any and all means and mediums by or through which a death is caused by one engaged in an unlawful act," Ex parte Heigho, 18 Idaho 566; 110 P 1029, 1031-1032 (1910), or in lawful acts, The Nurnberg Trial, 6 FRD 69 (1946) (e.g., newspaper publishing, lawmaking, legislation-signing, litigation 'deals,' anything "corrupting minds," leading to foreseeable deaths caused by such 'lawful' actions).

    On the "corrupting minds" concept, note that "the HitlerYouth adult leadership corps was deemed to have committed crimes against peace in corrupting the young minds of Germany. Many top HJ [Hitler Youth] leaders were put on trial by Allied authorities, with [its leader] Baldur von Schirach sentenced to twenty years in prison." Reference "Hitler Youth," the "Post World War II" section.

    The need to prosecute such people for their words having a "corrupting" influence or impact leading to others' deaths was recognized as long ago as during the 1861-1865 Civil War, by President Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln observed that writers and speakers were "corrupting" youth into anti-Union actions including desertion. Lincoln asked:

    “Must I shoot a simpleminded soldier who
    deserts, while I must not touch a hair of the wily
    agitator who [by words] induces him to desert?”

    As the Nurnberg Trial precedent shows, the answer is 'No,' the corrupter by words can also be prosecuted to the fullest, convicted, even executed.

    Incidently, contrary to myth, the Nurnberg Trial concept of executing officials and law makers for lawful acts constituting sin had voluminous precedents, beyond the scope of this paper. Examples include but are not limited to the following:
  • Exodus 2:12 (Moses' execution of oppressing official, first-offense)
  • Numbers 25:7-14 (Phinehas' execution of official setting bad moral example)
  • Judges 3:19-23 (Ehud's execution of King Eglon for oppression)
  • Judges 4:21-22 (Jael's execution of General Sisera for war of aggression)
  • Judges 9:53 (woman's killing of King Abimelech during war of aggression)
  • Judges 15:53 (Samson's execution of 1000 arresting officers sent to arrest
    him [i.e., killed for their committing the sin of extortion] against his will)
  • Judges 16:27, 30 (Samsons's execution of 3,000 officials and families
    [members of the oppressive ruling class])
  • I Samuel 15:32-33 (Samuel's execution of King Agag for war crimes)
  • 2 Samuel 8:2 (King David's execution of 50% of Moab's military)
  • 2 Kings 1:9-12 (Elijah's killing 102 arresting officers sent to arrest him [i.e., killed for their committing the sin of extortion] against his will)
  • 2 Kings 9-10 (King Jehu's execution of officials, accessories, and families)
  • Daniel 6:24 (King Darius' executions of officials [and families] for conspiracy)
  • Esther 7:10 (execution of official Haman [and family], for planning genocide)
  • In New Testament terms, such executions are called "rendering unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's," says Professor Timothy Patton in his article "Render Unto Caesar: An Interpretation of Romans 13."
    For other examples, click here.
  • In the 1920's, John Harvey Kellogg, M.D., provided pertinent data on tobacco's slow killing process in his book Tobaccoism, or, How Tobacco Kills (Battle Creek, MI: The Modern Medicine Publishing Co, 1922 and 1923). Rev. John B. Wight, Tobacco: Its Use and Abuse (Columbia, SC: L. L. Pickett Pub Co, 1889), pp 100-102, had said likewise in 1889.

    Poisoning people—whether fast or slow death ensures—is clearly unlawful, both pursuant to standard definitions and case law. Even slow-motion harm to the body such as via "gluttony," reflecting an attitude of unconcern, not necessarily even directly harming one's fellow man, typically only oneself, is identified as improper. (Deuteronomy 21:20; Proverbs 23:21; Matthew 11:19; and Luke 7:34).

              Christians recognize that tobacco-caused killings violate the command against killing with "guile." (Exodus 21:14). Part of the "guile" is that tobacco pushers and their accessories in the media never list, mention, cite, or even acknowledge the toxic chemicals in cigarettes. Some in the media have gone so far as to conceal, refuse to print, the law number of pertinent protective law, so as to obstruct people finding it. Concealing one's methodology of killing is a standard killer technique, an essence of "guile." All the killers, both principals and accessories in the media, bear responsibility. Judgment includes every idle word. (Matthew 12:36)

    Biblical Examples of Death Penalty for Words
  • Leviticus 24:10-16 (cursing God's name)
  • I Kings 18:26-40 (using false data on obtaining fire)
  • 2 Kings 7:2 and 17 (falsely denying problem-solving data)
  • Proverbs 21:28 (false witnesses)
  • Jeremiah 34:8-22 (false promises of action)
  • Daniel 6:24 (conspiracy to oppress)
  • Acts 5:1-10 (false price information)
  •           Some people like to quibble over whether doctors have been able to prove some specific high number of deaths from tobacco. They argue that whatever number medical authorities such as the Surgeon General say (419,000 or 435,000, or whatever) is in error. You can tell that such people are not Christians, or indeed adherents to any religion that teaches, "Thou shalt not kill even one person." People who believe "Thou shalt not kill one person" do not raise such issues as, 'tobacco killings are ok unless some [insert high number] of deaths first occur.' Christians see that ONE killing is one too many. This concept is recognized judically: "If no one else" but one person is harmed, "that is so much of loss fortunately saved to respondent [perpetrator]," DeMarco v United States, 204 F Supp 290, 292 (ED NY, 1962). Adherence to that moral value by all, would immediately stop all cigarette deaths.

    Let him that stole, steal no more, instead do good (Ephesians 4:28). Let him who steals life stop doing so. Love your neighbor as yourself (the "Golden Rule") (Matthew 19:19 and 22:39; Mark 12:31; Luke 10:27; Romans 13:9-10; Galatians 5:14; and James 2:3)).

              You can notice the immoral attitude of the numbers-quibblers by their refusal to say, 'even the first killing is wrong, a sin.' The quibblers are helping to drag moral values down. Their support of killing adults by, e.g., undisputed killings such as lung cancer, spreads to others.

    Sin spreads. 2 Timothy 3:13. Once killing slaves is ok, then killing other adults is ok (post-1836), next it eventually became ok—as per Roe v Wade, 410 US 113; 93 S Ct 705; 35 L Ed 2d 147 (1973)—to kill the unborn and babies. Abortion was occurring long before that decision; almost a century ago, in 1902, doctors were already citing a significant tobacco link to abortion.

    If the first tobacco pusher had been executed at the first death, let's say, by 1836, the problem would long ago have gone away. "Because sentence against an evil work is not speedily pronounced, evildoers commit evil without any fear [deterrence]." (Ecclesiastes 8:11).

    A Christian would advocate immediate prosecutions of tobacco pushers for the undisputed deaths.

    Some did advocate this type approach on slavers (tobacco farmers), e.g.,

  • Walker, David, Walker's Appeal, in Four Parts, to the Colored Citizens of the World (Boston, 1829)

  • Rev. Henry Highland Garnet (1815-1882), 16 August 1843 An Address to the Slaves of the United States of America (Troy, New York: J. H. Tobbitt Pub, 1843 and 1848).

  • Wendell Phillips (cited by Prof. Oscar Sherwin (English, City College NY), Prophet of Liberty: The Life and Times of Wendell Phillips (NY: Bookman Associates, 1958), at e.g., pp 226, 265, and 450.

  • Phillips was an attorney aware that the Fugitive Slave Bill preempted State Personal Liberty Laws allowing trials, i.e, banned trials for alleged "fugitive slaves," thus let non-slaves be kidnapped and enslaved without trial. The only way for such a person to get a trial was thus: for "fugitive slaves to arm themselves [under the Second Amendment] and kill their pursuers [would-be kidnappers] in order to secure a jury trial for themselves" [p 226].

  • Phillips "asserted the inalienable right of the slave to protect [rescue] himself and to use every means that he had to resist arrest . . . try! [Thus cause] trial for such an act. . . . appeal to a . . . jury . . . I would . . . aid [represent] him . . . [pp 265-266]."

  • "there will [not] be any peace until 347,000 slave holders are either hung or exiled. . . . History shows no precedent of getting rid of an aristocracy [tyranny] like this, except by . . . death of a generation [p 450]."

  • But as you see, these advocacies of the Bible approach to dealing with slavery [not even citing tobacco] were very few, hardly known, and given no heed. Indeed, e.g., Walker shortly after publishing, was found mysteriously dead on the street (murder suspected).
    Bottom line: Bible precedents were not followed, and still have not been.
    Only Mexico, at the Alamo, followed the Bible precedent of executing all the pro-slavers. Sadly, the U.S. after the Civil War, did not follow that wise approach. Thus a reign of mass murder and terror perpetrated by unreconstructed Confederates occurred. For background on this mass violence and slaughter, called the "Second Civil War," see the many writings cited in Profs. James M. Smallwood, Barry A. Crouch, and Larry Peacock, Murder and Mayhem: The War of Reconstruction in Texas (College Station: Texas A&M Univ Press, 2003) (Review 1,   2,   3).
  • Even one prosecution for an undisputed death from lung cancer, or SIDS, or tobacco-induced abortion, could help stop all the killings, assuming a deterrent effect (Ecclesiastes 8:11). At least, such prosecutions would drive the sales underground, and eliminate the societal stamp of approval on sin.

              To a Christian, it is irrelevant whether tobacco kills 1 or 163,000 or 400,000 or 419,000: one killing is one too many. The command says, "Thou shalt not kill," not 'the debatable ones are ok! and the undisputed rest, don't prosecute their perpetrators either.' Prosecuting the pushers who set in motion the undisputed tobacco-caused deaths can end all cigarette-caused deaths, even those deaths which doctors supposedly have not proven to tobacco lobby satisfaction (Ecclesiastes 8:11).

    The pro-tobacco quibblers (sometimes pretending to be "Christian") in the media and lawyer occupations, focus only on the so-called 'debatable' deaths (denouncing saying such deaths are equally proven medically), while conspicuously avoiding saying, 'let's enforce the commands with respect to the deaths conceded even by them to be beyond dispute.'

    Let's never forget, if the first tobacco pusher had been executed at the first death, let's say, by 1836, whether cigarette-chemicals or cigarette-fire caused, the problem would long ago have gone away. (Ecclesiastes 8:11). The failure to have done this reflects a widespread disregard of being our brothers' keepers (Genesis 4:9).

    When someone else sins, e.g., the tobacco pusher, the consequences can impact others, even fatally, thus making others' sinning our business (Joshua 7, on the sin of Achan). The sin of one person, Achan, was imputed to all the people, says Joshua 1:7. Wherefore, all the people were held responsible for stopping him (Joshua 7:25).

    People are responsible to aid those being drawn unto death. People are not to say, 'it is not my concern.' (Proverbs 24:11).

    Reason: We are our "brother's keeper" (Genesis 4:9). The Good Samaritan followed the principle of aiding someone being hurt by the action of third parties, and he volunteered to assist (Luke 10:33).

    Of course, the best form of aid is to prevent the injury and death from occurring in the first place (I Samuel 15:2); after-the-fact aid may be too little too late. The Proverbs have multiple principles about preventing incidents in the first place.

    Example of How Prevention Would Work
    In Deuteronomy 21:18-21 is a command on dealing with a rebellious child—stoning. Around 1897, there was a rebellious child, Adolf, who was so bad that at age eight, he was expelled from school. But he was not stoned.
    Suppose the Deut. 21:18-21 prevention-oriented command had been obeyed. Suppose bad little Adolf had been stoned as per the Bible advisory. About 50,000,000 people would have been saved, i.e., by prevention of World War II.
    All that era's deaths, 1939-1945, were caused by societal refusal to have done basic prevention in 1897.
    As in Manasseh's time, cited supra, there was about a five-decade delay between the sin in one small town, and the fatal consequences for the people generally.

              Turn-of-the century Christians saw from I Samuel 15:2 the duty to thoroughly prevent adverse effects such as violence, and at minimum, from the parable of the Good Samaritan, the duty to assist in preventing additional suffering once some was caused due to the lack of full-scale I Samuel 15:2-type prevention. They saw that they could not be like the parable's priest and Levite, refusing to aid in preventing suffering. They saw that the parable is not an obsolete quaint old story. They went beyond preaching, to meddling—advocating applicability of the parable in the modern circumstances, by passing a law banning deleterious cigarettes—"meddling."

              Early Christians called Luke (the author of "Luke" and "Acts") the beloved physician (Colossians 4:14). There was respect for doctors. Turn of-the-century-Christians did not say, 'let's ignore what doctors say about the cigarette link to alcoholism and crime.' (Remember, the cigarette link to such things as lung cancer was not then widely known; their concern was cigarettes' link to alcoholism and crime).

               They did not believe as so many now, let's go by media pundits, politicians and others who have never studied the subect. They respected persons—the beloved physician—who have more experience and education with such matters, e.g., parents pursuant to Exodus 20:12 ("Honor thy father and thy mother, that thou mayest be long-lived. . . ."); Leviticus 19:32 ("Rise up before the hoary head"). Wherefore turn-of-the-century Christians who got the 1890's - 1910's anti-cigarette legislation adopted rejected the notion of a conflict between religion and medicine. (They had seen other clergymen commit the folly of denouncing science, Galileo, railroads, street lights, science conventions, etc., and would have none of that).

    A parable pursuant to Genesis: Adam told Eve, I talked to God, and He told me, infallibly, 'don't put that plant in your mouth, or you'll die.'
    Eve rebelliously said, I don't believe that educated being. Besides, the death alleged is only a correlation. It's not a causation. Besides, even if it is the latter, He hasn't shown me personally and individually the evidence, the proof. I need not have respect for, adhere to, comply with, any educated being's advice unless he has first personally shown me—the big self-important I—the evidence and proof. I don't go by statistics, they're impersonal, no cutesy stories there!
    Adam failed to stop her, the same negligent sin-by-omission as Achan's neighbors' in their time, having failed to control him.
    The result was, deaths.

    The tobacco lobby claims to be ignorant of the deaths it is causing. The fact is, even such "ignorant" individuals are to be put away from the public-at-large (Deuteronomy 19:4, citing exiling accidental killers).

            The actual fact is, of course, that tobacco deaths are intentional and "premeditated" as per standard lawbook definitions. Perpetrators are to be executed (Deuteronomy 19:12-13).

    This is the rule even, or, especially, when they constitute large numbers who have en masse decided to violate the commandments.

    They have in essence, become idolaters, placing themselves and their tobacco-selling/using traditions above the commandments (Deuteronomy 13:12-16), causing evil effects.

    Tobacco pushers are the No. 1 example of "enchanters with drugs." That is a Revelation 21:8 concept. That verse links drug-pushers ("sorcerers") with murder, idolatry, and other ultra-major sins.

    Revelation 9:21 links drug-pushing ["sorcery" / "enchanting with drugs"] with ultra-major sins such as murders, fornication, and thefts.

    Galatians 5:20, Revelation 21:8 and Rev. 22:15 link drug-pushers, whoremongers, murderers, idolaters, and liars. Tobacco pushers are, of course, the No. 1 drug pushers, sorcerers, enchanters with drugs; they push the starter drug, the No. 1 killer. And see the commentary on these verses in The Ryrie Study Bible (Chicago: Moody Press, 1976).

    See nineteenth century examples of references to tobacco in lust, sin, idolatry, and vice, context:

    This refers to “the great god Nick o'Teen.”—Rudyard Kipling, Departmental Ditties (London, 1890).

    Romans 6:23

    "The wages of sin is death."

             The point of anti-cigarette laws such as Michigan's, and their essential effect, was and is to make a cigarette smoke-free society, thus prevent

  • (a) tobacco injuries aka diseases (e.g., lung cancer and heart disease) and costs, and

  • (b) more significantly, prevent abulia-related effects, e.g., suicide, alcoholism, promiscuity, abortion, pornography, Alzheimer's Disease, drunk driving, drug abuse, divorce, AIDS, birth defects, SIDS, and 90% of crime.
  •           Repeat: 90% of alcoholism, 90% of crime, is by cigarette smokers, a fact known for a century and a half. Christians of the turn-of-the-century era, unlike many nowadays, knew the concept of the mote and the beam (Matthew 7:3-5; Luke 6:41-42). Education had not then deteriorated so low as nowadays, when most people seem wholly unaware of the brain-damaging effect of toxic chemicals in general, much less, those from cigarettes in particular. Children in 1914—better educated in practical science—could understand Thomas Alva Edison when he linked cigarettes to permanent irreversible brain damage. (As an experiment, try citing Edison's concept to children and adults nowadays!! You'll verify!!).

              So Christians of that better-educated era chose to deal with the beam—the system issue, the 90% factor in crime, not with motes, individuals. Christians then rejected the tradition of hypocrites (in Christ's lifetime and nowadays) which focuses on motes, not beams (90% factors). Christians then respected medical knowledge and research.

    People who focus on some mote in crime vs the beam—the 90% factor—intend harm. Imagine your doctor knowing you have treatable cancer, but distracting you onto a discussion of your dirty fingernails!! The intent would be to kill you.
    Devout persons in past eras recognized the same is true of people who cite motes, other aspects than smoking—the 90% factor in crime—by tirades against guns, videos, liberals, NRA, whatever. The intent of such diversionary tactics is to keep crime continuing, i.e., to cause you as much harm, including death, as possible. See our legal definitions website.
    Distracting a target is a commonly known criminal, murderous tactic. The "natural and probable consequence" of distracting attempts is . . . you are distracted. That is what mote-citers "intend"—that you be distracted off the medically verified 90% factor. People who focus on the mote vs the beam in crime, are the enemy as surely as in any other holocaust. Never forget that.

    Anti-smoking Christians of the turn-of-the-19th-century knew that the solution was not posting the Ten Commandments in schools! Obedience to rules requires ability to remember the rules. Tobacco-induced brain damage impairs that aspect of memory. We might almost say, everybody who was anybody knew that, even children, back then. How low education has fallen—that the basic chemistry fact that toxic chemicals can impair the brain's memory function—is nowadays unknown! (A brain-damaged person with memory loss can't remember the commandments, 10 or any other number! So advocates of commandment-posting "as a crime solution," are knowingly committing fraud, with the intent to cause the harm that will foreseeably result from the non-solution).

              Genuine Christians knew, in the 19th century, to prevent the memory loss, the brain damage leading to crime. So, as cigarette hazards had been well-established medically by then, our 1909 religious ancestors, as a morality and smokers' rights measure, banned manufacture, giveaway, and sale of deleterious and adulterated cigarettes.

    However, due to the nature of the criminal justice system, the law is never enforced. (Question: If you knew that 90% of your 'business' comes from one group of 'customers,' would you want to eliminate that group?)

    The tobacco lobby and media propaganda has people now believing that people agreeing to be killed (so-called "choice"), repeals the command "Thou shalt not kill"! Violating the command is a "RIGHT"!!

    Amazing, isn't it? How morals have slid so low just since 1909! Almost nobody now, including nonsmokers, believes in that obsolete old commandment! So-called "choice"—a pagan tradition of heathen men (Matthew 15:6; Mark 7:9, 13)—overrides the "Thou shalt not kill" commandment! So 37,000,000 die.

    Before reading this section, you should read our webpage on cigarette emissions. Notice that carbon monoxide is doing 42,000 in a 50 zone.

    Here is the point. Some clergymen cite Romans 13:1-5 and say, for example, don't do 55 in a 50 zone. But they say nothing about cigarettes' emissions doing 42,000 in a 50 zone! Here is a word picture of this concept:

    | 42,000 ppm - cigarettes' carbon monoxide
    |      
    |
    | 32,000       For perspective, police stop speeders going 60 in a 50 mph zone.
    |                   Tobacco far exceeds the "speed limits." Tobacco kills precisely
    |                   because its toxic chemicals are above the safe levels.
    | 22,000
    |
    |      
    | 12,000 ppm - cars' limit           "Cigarette Makers Get Away With Murder,"
    |  (40 CFR § 85.2203-81)            says Elizabeth M. Whelan, Sc.D., M.P.H.,
    |                                                    in The Detroit News, p 4B (3-14-93). The
    |                                                    cited "speed limit" numbers show why.
    |      
    | 2,000                       (Not to scale)
    |      
    |      
    |      50 - legal amount indoors (29 CFR § 1910.1000)
    |        9 - legal amount outdoors
    |        0 - amount cigarette pushers allow from their personal furnaces

              It is because cigarettes' emissions vastly exceed the "speed limits" that they are dangerous and so fatal as to kill millions of people. If cigarettes' toxic chemicals were under the "speed limits," they'd be safe! Example: The "speed limit" for carbon monoxide is about 50, whereas it's doing 42,000. If Romans 13:1-5 means to not go 55 in a 50 zone, surely it means, don't do 42,000 in a 50 zone!!

               Contact with a smoke plume / cloud in the air is tantamount to being slugged, that is how it kills many people within moments. Notice that

    "little mixing takes place, as can be seen by watching smoke plumes rise in still air. Even when the plume is disturbed, the visible core can be observed to maintain homogeneity over a distance of one to three meters . . . . the core with concentrations of tens to hundreds of parts per million of the powerful irritants acrolein and formaldehyde can readily contact eyes or be breathed with only slight dilution. The irritant properties of these materials may be partly inferred by their occupational limits. These are 0.1 to 0.3 ppm for acrolein and 1 to 3 ppm for formaldehyde."—Howard E. Ayer, M.S., David W. Yeager, B.S., "Irritants in Cigarette Smoke Plumes," 72 Am J Pub Health (#11) 1283 (Nov 1982).


    An Example From World War I Experience

         “The conspicuous part played by poisonous gases in the Great War naturally led to a careful study of the effects of poisonous gases.”—John Harvey Kellogg, M.D., LL.D., F.A.C.S., Tobaccoism, supra, p 139.

         “Professor [W. N.] Boldyreff made another highly important observation which brings out clearly the probability of wide-spread and very serious injury to non-smokers in the inhalation of smoke-tainted air. The Professor, during the war was at one time engaged in training a body of troops in methods of defense against poisonous gases. In performing his duties he several times inhaled so much of the poisonous gas as to be quite severely poisoned by it. He, as well as others, found himself after this experience highly sensitized to poisonous gases of all sorts. It has long been known that this is a usual result of gas poisoning. In the words of the Professor, ‘A man who had been thus poisoned thereafter feels at once even the smallest amount of these gases in the air; he becomes, so to speak, the most sensitive indicator of their presence in the air. The Professor cites an interesting experience in illustration of this fact,—

         "‘At the time of one of the German gas attacks our soldiers, nurses, and higher medical staff, even when in the open air, did not notice a feeble current of poison gas that reached them; while the sick in the hospital at that place, who had been gassed before, at once felt the presence of the poison, although they were in a closed building. This happened in October when the doors were tightly closed and the windows had double frames, pasted up for the winter. These patients immediately raised the alarm and soon their statements were confirmed, as a real wave of the gas came. The gas, without any doubt, was harmful to the well people outdoors, although they were not aware of the presence of the poison. This case clearly shows that people may suffer injurious effects from poisonous gases, such as tobacco smoke, without being aware of the fact.’"

         "'People who have been poisoned with gas can at once detect the presence of an extremely small proportion of carbon monoxide in the air and, in general, are exceptionally sensitive to all harmful gaseous substances. They also become very sensitive to tobacco smoke. I have been told by many who were poisoned with gases during the war, that now they positively cannot endure tobacco smoke.’”—Kellogg, supra, pp 147-148.

               Christians should agree that this goes beyond the duty to not offend others (I Corinthians 8:13) and that it is in fact direct sin (murder) to spray a wartime poison gas at their fellow human beings in peace time. But this is what is occurring daily, hourly, minute by minute, with vast numbers of casualties. Such action demonstrates specific intent to murder as defined in law.

    "Because sentence against an evil work is not speedily pronounced, evildoers commit evil without any fear [deterrence]." (Ecclesiastes 8:11).

    If on the system level, tobacco manufacturers and sellers aiding and abetting smokers were immediately executed, as they should be, when they kill a nonsmoker, e.g., with lung cancer, or a baby via SIDS, or tobacco-induced abortion, that would help stop all the killings, assuming a deterrent effect (Ecclesiastes 8:11).

               Words aiding and abetting killings are themselves sin (Matthew 12:36). By law, they are to lead to both civil and criminal prosecution and have, at, for example, The Nurnberg Trial, 6 FRD 69 (1946). There one defendant, writer Julius Streicher, was hanged solely for his pro-death words. Freedom of speech does not extend to saying, ‘this is ok,’ this is not wrong,’ ‘this is not sin,’ when the contrary is the actual reality. Such words are murderous, and as The Nuremberg Trial shows, subject to criminal prosecution, and then to execution.

    Let him that stole, steal no more (Ephesians 4:28). Let him who steals life stop doing so. NOW.

    Let him not say, 'Paul, how about I do one more heist, one more rape, one more murder, one more tobacco planting, one more harvest, one more manufacturing, one more sale'?

    NO. The rule is, "no more," not ten more, not five more, not two more, not one more.

    The time is now, now, the appointed time, to give no offence in anything. (2 Corinthians 6:2-3). If you are a tobacco farmer, manufacturer, distributor, seller, STOP. Today, not tomorrow.

    Tomorrow may, for you, never come. (Genesis 19:24-25; James 4:13-14, etc.).

    Smoking: The "Greatest Enemy"
    "Those who refuse to examine the evidence are, unquestionably, enemies of the human race—consequently enemies of God."—Charles G. Pease, M.D., President, Non-Smokers' Protective League of America, 30 March 1928, Correspondence on Smoking With and Among Health Department Officials and Clergymen on Smoking (1928-1929): Is There Betrayal of the Human Race? (New York: NSPLA, 1929), p 16.
    Clergy-Written / Religion-Citing / Religion-Publisher-Printed
    'Hazards of Tobacco' Books/Essays:
    Rev. Jakob Balde (1604-1668), Satyra Contra Abusum Tabaci, ad Aemilianvm Aloysivm Gvevarram (Monachii: sumptibus Ioannis Wagneri, typis Lucæ Stravbii, 1657, 1969; earlier translated by Sigmund von Birken [1626-1681] into German as Die truckene Trunkenheit. Eine aus . . . Lateinischem gedeutschte Satyra oder Straff-Rede wider den Missbrauch des Tabaks: Samt einem Discurs von dem Nahmen, Ankunfft, Natur, Krafft und Würkung dieses Krauts, Nürnberg: Michael Endter, 1658), reprinted as Die truckene Trunkenheit (München: Kösel, 1967) (linking smoking and suicide, addiction, depravity, and birth defects)
    Rev. Adam Clarke, M.A., LL.D., A Dissertation on
    the Use and Abuse of Tobacco
    (1797)
    Richard Tabraham, An Affectionate and Earnest Address to Christians in General on the Importance of Self-denial in the Common Use of Tobacco in Any Form: and in Special Application to Missionary Purposes (Aberdeen: D. Chalmers & Co., 1823)
    Rev. Orin S. Fowler, Disquisition on the Evils of Using Tobacco, and the Necessity of Immediate and Entire Reformation (Providence: S. R. Weeden, 1833)
    Reuben D. Mussey, M.D., LL.D., "Tobacco," Vol. 1, The Boston Observer and Religious Intelligencer (#25) p 200 (Boston, 1835)
    Rev. Benjamin I. Lane, The Mysteries of Tobacco (1845)
    Rev. Charles G. Finney, Complete Works (1835-1870) (use search engine for word "tobacco")
    Rev. George Trask, Letters on Tobacco (1860)
    W. M. Hutchings, Exposé of
    Clergy Bad Example Smoking
    (1874)
    Rev. B. W. Chase, Tobacco: Its Physical, Mental,
    Moral and Social Influences
    (1878)
    James B. T. Marsh, Epistle to Paul: "These are Some of the Reasons, Paul, Why I Do Not Believe in Tobacco" (Chicago, Advance Pub Co, 1881)
    John I. D. Hinds, Ph.D., The Use of Tobacco (1882)
    Rev. Russell L. Carpenter, A Lecture on Tobacco (1882)
    Rev. John B. Wight, Tobacco: Its Use and Abuse (1889)
    Rev. Jenkin Lloyd Jones, Tobacco, the Second Intoxicant (Chicago: Charles H. Kerr & Company, 1893) [Excerpt]
    David Starr Jordan, The Strength of Being Clean
    (Boston: The American Unitarian Association, 1900)
    I. L. Kephart, An Essay on the Evils of the Use
    of Tobacco by Christians
    (Dayton, Ohio:
    United Brethren Publishing House, 1902)
    Zillah Foster Stevens, "Cigarettes:
    A Perilous Intemperance" (Philadelphia:
    The Sunday School Times Co, 1902)
    Anonymous, "The Cigarette" (Philadelphia:
    The Sunday School Times, 1907)
    E. G. White, "An Appeal to Christian Workers,"
    22 Life and Health 371-372 (1907)
    Anonymous, "Why We Boys Don't Smoke Cigarettes" (Philadelphia: The Sunday School Times, 1911)
    Herbert H. Tidswell, M.D., The Tobacco Habit:
    Its History and Pathology
    (1912) e.g., pp 3, 176
    H. L. Smith, "The Boy Who Smokes," 22 Sci Temp J 92 (1913). Reprinted from United Presbyterian (20 March 1913)
    Rev. Luther H. Higley, The Evils of Tobacco and Cigarettes (1916), especially Chapter V, pp 64-81
    Kress, Daniel Hartman, M.D., The Cigarette or Tobacco Smoke Inhalation and Its Influence on Civilized Races: Is the Habit Curable? (Chicago: Methodist Book Concern, 1916)
    E. A. Mills, The Christian and Tobacco (Wilmore Press: October 1951)
    Seventh-Day Adventist Church,
    Chemical Use, Abuse, and Dependency (5 July 1990)
    Seventh-Day Adventist Church,
    Historic Stand for Temperance Principles and Acceptance of Donations Statement Impacts Social Change" (11 October 1992)
    Seventh-Day Adventist Church,
    A Statement on Smoking and Tobacco (1995)
    Seventh-Day Adventist Church,
    A Statement Regarding Smoking and Ethics (1996)
    Muhammad al-Jibaly, “Smoking: A Social Poison” (1996)
    "Suicide by Smoking" (1997)
    Fr. Michael H. Crosby, Tobacco Program Coordinator, Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, "Sins of Tobacco Require More than Day's Indulgence," National Catholic Reporter (18 December 1998)
    Rabbi Jeffrey R. Wolfe, et al., R. C. A. Roundtable:
    Proposal on Smoking
    (Dec 1999, rev June 2006)
    John Hooper,“Attack on Smoking Gets Papal Blessing” [of John Paul II] (The Guardian, 31 December 2004) (Details), citing Fr. Giuseppe De Rosa, “È Severamente Vietato Fumare,” IV Civilta Cattolica (#3707) 491-500 (4 December 2004).
    Ayatollah Nasser Makarem-Shirazi,
    Iranian Religious Opposition to Tobacco (25 May 2005)
    "Religious Leaders Press Boehner on FDA Tobacco Regulation" (17 May 2006)
    "Smoking Ban for Evansville Catholic Diocese" (WTVW Fox 7 [Evansville, IN], 30 Dec 2006)
    See also Benj. Lay's Slaveholders, Apostates (1737), page 197.


    "For the sake of your time, a large portion of which is irreparably lost, particularly in smoking. Have you any time to dispose of—to murder? Is there no need of prayer—reading—study?" said Rev. Adam Clarke, supra. And:
    "Consider how disagreeable your custom is, to those who do not follow it. An Atmosphere of Tobacco effluvia surrounds you whithersoever you go. Every article about you smells of it; your apartments, your clothes, and even your very breath. Nor is there a smell in nature more disagreeable than that of stale Tobacco, arising in warm exhalations from the human body, rendered still more offensive by passing thro' the pores, and becoming strongly impregnated with that noxious matter which was before insensibly perspired. Consider what pain your friends may be put to in standing near you, in order to consult you on some important business, or to be improved by your conversation. Will you oblige them to pay so heavily for the benefit of your advice?"

               Listen to clergymen nowadays who claim, "cigarette selling and smoking are not sins." Ask, is spraying poison around a sin? when it kills instantly? an hour? two hours? What is the cut-off? If they agree on some short duration, then ask, how can the next baby victim protect him or herself if you refuse to tell people, make "loving your neighbor" a routine?! Is spraying the same toxic chemicals in the air acceptable from other containers, e.g., from an aerosol can?

              Please understand that the widespread mythology in favor of smoking as somehow a right or the norm, only arises in societies having a prevalence of immoral government officials who care only for themselves, as predicted in I Samuel 8:11-18 and Daniel 4:17 and verified in modern medicine.

    Where, as in 1640's Turkey under Sultan Murad IV, tobacco sellers and smokers are executed, beheaded, shot, on-the-spot for "smoking—first offense," or "tobacco selling-first offense," such mythology (of smoking as a 'right') does not exist, and of course, no deaths from smoking-caused effects. Nonsmokers in such places are of course safe from such effects; and the vast casualties we now see, did not then exist.

              Related to this fact, is this concept: Officials must not accept gifts (campaign contributions). (Exodus 23:8). Mass violation of the latter command, and buying endorsements by prominent people and lawyers, and advertising, has led to the mass violation of the foregoing commands.

    "A common apology [excuse, rationalization] of [carnal, unrepentant, unconverted] mankind is, 'I see no harm in it.' A far nobler thought is, 'Do others see harm in it?' This is what Paul meant when he said, 'Wherefore if meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no more flesh while the world standeth.'"—1 Cor. VIII.13.—Prof. John I. D. Hinds, Ph.D., The Use of Tobacco (Nashville, Tenn: Cumberland Presbyterian Publishing House, 1882), p 60.

               Some alleged Christians say "grace" means permission to continue the killings, sellers can kill smokers, and smokers can kill nonsmokers, all without sin!! That type of claim was refuted 2,000 years ago (Romans 6:1) so is now without excuse. You can easily test such people who say such mass killings are not sin, for hypocrisy. Apply the mote and beam principle (Matthew 7:3-5; Luke 6:41-42). Ask them their view on suicide and Dr. Jack Kevorkian and carbon monoxide. If they say that his using carbon monoxide leading to others' death (perhaps hours, days, or months, prematurely) is sin and murder, while denying that tobacco companies using carbon monoxide to kill en masse is NOT sin, you can be certain that they are hypocrites, indeed, not Christians. (By definition, a Christian cannot label one violation (a mote), "sin," but mass violation (a beam) of the command, 'thou shalt not kill,' "not sin"! and refuse to repent). Smokers, using the same gas, carbon monoxide, kill nonsmokers, e.g., babies with SIDS, decades early. Readers, let's have some consistency!!

                 Joseph Stalin said, in essence, 'one killing is a tragedy; a million is a statistic.' Christians should do better than that! (I Timothy 5:8).

    Leaders can follow member examples. In a study of 'who smokes,' note

    "evidence on the association between smoking . . . and church attendance. . . . Church attendance was most closely related to non-smoking . . . . Thus, men who were not churchgoers were not only more likely to smoke at all, but were also more likely to smoke heavily. . . . non-smoking tended to be associated with abstention from alcohol. In addition, men who took alcohol regularly . . . were much more likely to be heavy smokers. . . . Men in unskilled occupations were not only more likely to smoke and to smoke heavily, but also to begin to smoke at an earlier age. . . . The lower the social-class level, the higher the ratio of smokers to non-smokers, the greater the proportion of heavy smokers, and the earlier the age at which regular smoking began."—A. Cartwright, F. M. Martin, and J. G. Thomson, "Distribution and Development of Smoking Habits," 2 Lancet (#7105) 725-727 (31 Oct 1959).
    Christians smoke less, hence, they are the beneficiaries of the Psalms 91:10 principle, that though tens of thousands die around them, no such evil result shall befall them. Applying Galatians 6:7, reaping as you sow, eliminate the cause, sowing; the effect, the reaping, disappears: "Sublatâ causa, tollitur effectus: Otez la cause, l'effet disparaît."—Dr. Hippolyte Adéon Depierris, Physiologie Sociale (Paris: Dentu, 1876), p 328.

    "Indeed, the anti-cigarette movement of the United States—and the same is true of that of Britain—has in a considerable degree been of religious inspiration."—Pryns Hopkins, Ph.D., Gone Up in Smoke: An Analysis of Tobaccoism (Culver City, CA: The Highland Press, 1948), p 221.

    Christians know the duty to not aid and abet evil, to not partake, to keep themselves pure. Ephesians 5:7. “Be not ye therefore partakers with them.” 1 Timothy 5:22.

      Some Historical Background  

    There is a long record of efforts to create a system of law to prevent holocaust-level situations of the type seen here. We all resall that there was a Civil War, 1861-1865. We know that with respect to other nation's wars, enmity and revenge feelings can continue for centuries. A current example is the recent war in the former Yugoslavia. Parents have passed a desire for revenge for past war incidents, on to their children, for centuries, generation after generation.

              The same is true here in America. The South—the Confederates—was angry at the North for enforcing the Constitution, winning the Civil War and "stealing" (freeing) their slaves. Our ancestors saw that poisoned cigarettes are manufactured because revengeful Confederates and their accessories do not love their neighbor as themselves. They developed the "Good Old Rebel" song of killing more Yankees.

    Unrepentant Confederates, now in the tobacco business, changed the formula for tobacco to add coumarin, for rat poison, and began a crop raising and harvesting project that involves inserting millions of pounds of this poison into cigarettes.

    As abolitionists said, the Bible provides that enslaving someone is a death penalty offense (Exodus 21:16 and Deuteronomy 24:7). Tobacco farmers began the major use of slaves in the U.S. See Glenn Porter, ed., Encyclopedia of American Economic History, Vol II (NY: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1980), "Slavery," pp 552-561. It says "of the American slave population . . . most worked in tobacco," p 552. Details are at our website on slavery as illegal and unconstitutional.

    Had the first enslaver who owned a tobacco farm been executed (as per Exodus 21:16 and Deuteronomy 24:7) for the first enslavement, let's say in the year 1620, the problem would long ago have gone away. "Because sentence against an evil work is not speedily pronounced, evildoers commit evil without any fear [deterrence]." (Ecclesiastes 8:11).

    A further opportunity to have solved this situation was clearly lost at the time of the U.S. Civil War. The duty to execute perpetrators (Deuteronomy 19:12-13), even when they constitute large numbers who have en masse decided to violate the commandments, e.g., against manstealing, in essence, becoming idolaters, placing themselves and their political traditions above divine commandments (Deuteronomy 13:12-16) was not carried out.

    Slavery was not ended properly. America never repented of slavery. (Slavery was ended by war, not by repentance.) As soon as the slaves were free, they were abandoned by the North, and brutalized and lynched by the “Religious Right” “Bible-Belt” South. The Bible precedent on providing to freed slaves land, jewels, gold, etc., was ignored. The Bible precedent on killing 100% of the entire slaver army (the Egyptians at the Red Sea) was ignored; only 25% of Confederate troops were casualties. The unrepentant South brutalized the 'freed' slaves, murdered many, continues revenge via tobacco and poisonings and mass criminalization.

    The slavers lived, to devise, invent and perpetuate new abominations, e.g., putting coumarin in tobacco.

    An abolitionist clergyman, Rev. John G. Fee, founder, Berea College, Kentucky, in 1849, gave an example of a company doing mass poisoning, as murder. See Non-Fellowship With Slaveholders The Duty of Christians (New York: John A. Gray, 1855 ed.), p 13. Read the book, wherever it says 'slave-holder,' substitute the term 'tobacco-pusher,' thus, develop a concept of what such conduct involves.

              Still harming the hated Yankees, they perpetuate and condone the vast illegal sales of cigarettes to unsuspecting children and the resultant foreseeable deaths of tens of millions. Unlike the Good Samaritan, too many people look the other way when they see this suffering; they lack love.

    Too many clergymen refuse to speak up on the subject. Slavery involved tobacco; most clergymen would not speak up against slavery. See data on this by Rev. Parker Pillsbury, Acts of the Anti-slavery Apstles (1883), p 374. They wouldn't speak up against old slavery; they naturally don't speak up against this modern slavery, tobacco addiction, and its holocaust level of effects.


              So Christians, few as they are who are involved, are doing a good work in trying to reverse this state of affairs. It's hard, I know. Here in Michigan, despite my best efforts (the web writer herein has been advocating and writing on this subject for nearly twenty years) and what others have been doing for even longer, we cannot even get prosecutors, nor Attorney General, nor sheriffs, nor Governor-controlled state police, nor local police, to begin to enforce the law. How many must die before the enforcers begin to enforce?

              The unloving mentality of death spreads: in the U.S., there was the sin of not loving neighbors—first Indians, then slaves. The latter unloving mentality spread into the attitude of revenge after the Civil War cited in more detail in our paper explaining the law; mushroomed into the tens of millions of cigarette deaths occurring from abulic (addictive) tobacco smoking; and is further mushrooming in the recent two decades into additional millions of abortions, a horrifying next step that in hindsight we could have seen coming. Once it is became "ok" to kill slaves, 1400's - 1865, then, next, 'ok' to kill adult smokers, 1836-1909, killing children and the unborn was not far behind. The death rate is at the genocidal level.

    "No evils are so manifestly visited upon the third and fourth generations as the evils which spring from the use of tobacco."—Sir Benjamin C. Brodie, F.R.S. (1783-1862), alluding to Exodus 20:4 prohibiting idols.

              Sin (unloving mentality) spreads. We see it do so over the centuries. Mental processes conceive. The mind has an impact. The mind-altering starter drug exacerbates that impact. Its abulic effect has an impact. We must break the cycle at the mental process stage, the initial mind-altering drug stage, the cigarette stage.

    Religious people of past eras were able to understand the systemic aspects, including in crime. They understood tobacco's role in causing brain damage, including abulia, undermining personal responsibility.

    They knew the rebuttal to the belief of too many people who react with horror to the notion that society has a role in causing crime. They insist that the SOLE FACTOR is personal responsibility.

    They did not (in contrast to modern "religious right" types who mouth "personality responsibility" while routinely supporting pro-tobacco politicians causing yet more abulia) make the mistake of medievals, of rejecting scientific data. (Rejecting sceintific data on tobacco and abulia, damaged personal responsibility, is the same type error as involved in, e.g., rejecting science data on earth-shape (round vs flat) and age.)

    Christians of the past, before the modern deception by so-called "fundamentalists" (carryovers from slavery era clergy), knew the concept of the head being sick (Isaiah 1:5). When Israelite kings were good, society did better. When the leaders went astray, many in society did likewise.

    Here is a parable that may help explain. Once there was a society called Nazi Germany (NG). In a ghetto of 100,000 Jews, society (NG) decided, premeditated, intentional, with malice aforethought, to cause crime. Impossible!, you say?

    NG knew, on the contrary, that criminalizing people is easy, can even be systematized. Issue not 100,000 ration cards, just 75,000. To eat, 25,000 will—by definition—steal. Presto: 25,000 "criminals."

    And they themselves will typically even believe they are criminals. The false notion of 'personal responsibility as the SOLE factor' is so much a matter of propaganda that even those suffering from its effects, can rarely if ever see even what should be an obvious blatant, brazen, clearcut, systemic aspect.


    Examples of Not Executing
    Individual Perpetrators,
    But Rather, Officials Who Had
    Led the Individuals Astray
    • 2 Kings 9:30-35 (Queen Jezebel, who had plotted crimes such as judicial/'legal' murder, I Kgs. 21:8-14)
    • 2 Kings 9:24-26 (King Jehoram, beneficiary of the above crime, equivalent to Governor/President)
    • 2 Kings 10:6-7 (the King's 70 sons, the nation's chief advisers, equivalent to Legislature/Congress)
    • 2 Kings 10:23-25 (the nation's apostate clergymen, responsible for false religion, and resultant deaths)

    Pursuant to the concept of punishing officials almost exclusively, not individual perpetrators, there were no prisons or police in Israel.

    In contrast, under modern "religious right" influence, prisons and police typically focus on the little people, the perpetrators, and almost never on the highest officials, leading individual citizens astray.

    Ask yourself, in Nazi Germany (under Catholics Hitler and Himmler and Lutheran Goering), did the police arrest the German officials behind the genocide?!!

    Ask yourself, here in the U.S., do the police arrest the pro-tobacco officials who cause, aid and abet, tobacco pushers in causing tobacco effects, including drug abuse and crime?

    See also our sites with background on officials' widespread corruption, and on prosecuting and extraditing corrupt U.S. officials.


    In the past, "Christianity had a profound influence on the attitude toward crime. [They saw that one] important factor [in the government deciding to begin defining crimes] was . . . to build up a strong central government. Acts [previously legal] became crimes.

    "As the king [government] became more powerful, legislation against private crime increased and after the Norman conquest [of England by William the Conqueror, 1066-1087] a distinct body of criminal law evolved for the first time. . . ."

    "As part of his policy of strengthening the central government, Henry II (1154-89) established the system [leading to modern] judges.

    "[In the] reign of Henry VII [1485-1509] . . . a strong central government [did] emerge . . . reflected by a great increase in the types of crimes against which legislation was passed. . . .

    "Under the Stuarts [1603-1649, 1660-1688], the need to raise money for the crown led to new crimes being defined."—"Crime," Encyclopædia Britannica, Vol 6, pp 754-758 (this quote, pp 756-757) (1963).


    "In 1971 Philip Zimbardo, a professor of psychology at Stanford University, conducted an unusual study of the behavioral and psychological effects of being a prisoner or a prison guard. . . . By the fifth day, about one-third of the guards had become 'extremely hostile, arbitrary, inventive in their forms of degradation and humiliation, and appeared to thoroughly enjoy the power they wielded.'

    "Equally revealing was that the 'good' guards never once interfered with . . . a cruel guard or did anything to rectify the situation, in effect condoning 'guard brutality' by their silence. The scheduled two-week prison experiment had to be terminated after six days because [the situation] had begun to destroy and brutalize both groups alike. . . ."

    "'In less than a week, the experience of imprisonment undid . . . a lifetime of [moral] learning . . . values were suspended, self-concepts were challenged, and the ugliest, most base, patholoogical side of human nature surfaced.' Most of the guards were distressed by the decision to stop the experiment prematurely."—Craig Haney, Curtis Banks, and Philip Zimbardo, "Interpersonal Dynamics in a Simulated Prison," Internat'l Journal of Criminology and Penology, pp 69-97 (Feb 1973); Ali Banuazizi and Siamak Movahedi, "Interpersonal Dynamics in a Simulated Prison: A Methodological Analysis," American Psychologist, pp 152-159 (Feb 1975); and Prof. Gerald D. Robin (Univ of New Haven), Introduction to the Criminal Justice System, 3rd ed (New York: Harper & Row, 1987), p 369.


    The Hebrew Covenant did not allow prisons, law enforcement jobs, police, prison guards. Involuntary detentions violate numerous commands, against the 'original grant,' extortion, family destruction, the parental duty of raising one's own children, etc., oft the same violations as slavery. Altering Bible rules to add a 'criminal justice system' was forbidden (Deuteronomy 4:2 and 12:32; Leviticus 18:3-5; cf. James 2:10 and (Revelation 22:18-19) and subject to the death penalty (see Korah precedent, Numbers 16). Each family handled incidents against members. The temple priests, expert in God's law, adjudicated cases brought to them; lay juries were forbidden. Instead of jails, 'criminals' would live among the priests, subject to the uplifting influence of such moral leaders. As the Bible system provided for equality of land-ownership for all, with regular "Jubilee Years" to eliminate inequities, via regular leveling action, with prosperity for all as a reward for obedience, crime in any case was ultra rare; the Book of Judges covering 400 years records almost no incidents!
    Note economic inequity underlying criminal justification—Tony Parker and Robert Allerton, The Courage of His Convictions (New York: Norton, 1962), pp 21, 30, 42-43, 89-90.

    Bottom line: Politician-passed criminal laws were invented not to protect people, but rather to increase government power and revenue, and promote sadism! The automatic immediate "natural and probable consequences" / effect is ugly, base, pathological degradation. So preventing people from becoming addicted to a substance that would put them in the target category of people being caused to have a disproportionate rate of crime, was deemed urgent. Too bad we have lost that past awareness and concern.


    Michigan Governor John Engler (1991-2002) and his staff were paper supportive. But they were primarily only trying to halt tax-evasion cigarette smuggling. They were not dealing with the big picture.

    But they did issue six pertinent memoranda on the subject.
    Exec Order 1992-3 Law Support Letter # 1 Anti-Cigarette Smuggling Finding Law Support Letter # 2 Veto Message Governor's Overview

                 Recommended Websites for Background Data
    Cigarette Ingredients Crime Prevention Definitions of Terms
    Drug Prevention Illegal Cigarette Ads Judicial System
    Medical Statistics Michigan Law Murder Precedents

    Search the Bible:


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    Call to Action
              To carry on the legacy of the turn-of-the century era that still believed in "Thou shalt not kill" via fire or a known toxic substance, and to assist in controlling the revengeful Confederate-caused cigarette epidemic, please write a letter seeking enforcement of MCL § 750.27, MSA § 28.216 to the Michigan State Police Director, to the Michigan Governor Rick Snyder; and to the Michigan Attorney General William Schuette. Those are sample letters. Or you can use your own words. Here are their addresses:

    Honorable Rick Snyder Honorable William Schuette Col. Kristie Etue, Director
    Governor, State of MichiganAttorney General, State of MichiganDepartment of State Police
    P. O. Box 30013 P. O. Box 30213 333 S. Grand Ave. P.O. Box 30634
    Lansing MI 48909-7513 Lansing MI 48909 Lansing MI 48909-0634

    Letters To Other State and Federal Officials Are Also Needed
    President Barack ObamaU.S. Senator _______U.S. Representative __Governor ___ State Senator __State Representative __
    1600 Pennsylvania AvenueSenate Office BuildingHouse Office BuildingState CapitolState CapitolState Capitol
    Washington DC 20500Washington DC 20510Washington DC 20515City State ZipCity State ZipCity State Zip

    Overview of Data And Action

    In December 1999, the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA) at its website states that smoking is a sin. Some Christians agree, and have long felt likewise. It is good to see agreement on this subject.

    In April 2001, Pakistan's Islamic leadership likewise concurred on smoking as a sin. See also Muhammad al-Jibaly, "Smoking: A Social Poison" (1996) for additional Islamic analysis.

    Our goal is to revive the turn-of-the-century coalition, with additions for additional information acquired since then. Different readers may have different concerns, though we should all indeed bear each others' burdens. To aid in this endeavor, background material with sample letters tailored to each concern, are at the following sites:

    Abortion Addiction AIDS Alcoholism
    Alzheimer's Birth Defects Blindness Brain Damage
    Breast Cancer Bronchitis (Chronic)
    Crime  Divorce
    Drugs Emphysema
    Fires Hearing Loss
    Heart Disease Lung Cancer Mental Disorders Seat Belt Disuse
    SIDS Suicide
    Tuberculosis
    Total List

    RELATED SITES
    "Web Pages United Against Smoking"

    Is Smoking a Sin?

    David Wilkerson's Sept 2001 Message Urging National Repentance

    Smoking: The "Greatest Enemy"
    As Noted by Clergy Books

    The Mysteries of Tobacco, by
    Rev. Benjamin I. Lane (1845)
    Tobacco: Its Physical, Mental,
    Moral and Social Influences
    ,
    by Rev. B. W. Chase (1878)
    Tobacco: Its Use and Abuse,
    by Rev. John B. Wight (1889)

    "This Author's Short Message"
    Cigarette Selling Is A Sin

    Non-Smoking Page

    Discussion Group: More Participants Welcome

    CyberHymnal.org & Youtube.com Sites
  • All Glory, Laud and Honor
  • Amazing Grace
  • Joyful, Joyful
  • Mighty Fortress
  • Thine is the Glory
  • Be Thou My Vision
  • Hail the Conquering Hero
  • We Are God's People
  • The Didache

             Suggestions for additions, improvements,
    re-writing for clarity, etc., are welcome by email.

    Graphic Credit
    Skull of a Skeleton with Burning Cigarette
    Vincent van Gogh, 1885-1886

     This site is sponsored as a public service
    and a current list of subjects is provided by
    The Crime Prevention Group
    including at our 'tobacco effects overview' site.

    Copyright © 1998, 1999 Leroy J. Pletten