Prevent Suicide
Here is 90% of Who/Why/How
Introduction Medical Statistics Explanation
Congress' Role Prevention Laws Letter-Writing
This site deals with the norm in suicide, the 90%, as distinct from the exceptions, the 10%. The medical record reveals since about the 1830's to present, that one factor is the 90% common factor in leading to suicide. That common factor has remained constant notwithstanding any and all other variables over the many decades then and now.

The National Strategy for Suicide Prevention: Goals and Objectives for Action (May 2001) says:

Background
  • Every 17 minutes another life is lost to suicide. Every day 86 Americans take their own life and over 1500 attempt suicide.

  • "Suicide is now the eighth leading cause of death in Americans.

  • For every two victims of homicide in the U.S. there are three persons who take their own lives.

  • There are now twice as many deaths due to suicide than due to HIV/AIDS.

  • Between 1952 and 1995, the incidence of suicide among adolescents and young adults nearly tripled.

  • In the month prior to their suicide, 75% of elderly persons had visited a physician.

  • Over half of all suicides occur in adult men, aged 25-65.

  • Many who make suicide attempts never seek professional care immediately after the attempt.

  • Males are four times more likely to die from suicide than are females.

  • More teenagers and young adults die from suicide than from cancer, heart disease, AIDS, birth defects, stroke, pneumonia and influenza, and chronic lung disease, combined.

  • Suicide takes the lives of more than 30,000 Americans."

    • Thirteen years later, the number is nearing 40,000, says "American nightmare; : 40,000 Americans kill themselves each year" (11 October 2014) ("Nearly 40,000 Americans kill themselves each year due to mental illness and other difficulties, a staggering death toll largely ignored by the country, according to a new report. There's a suicide in the United States every 13 minutes, a health crisis that US officials and the public are almost complacent with.")

    Of course they're "complacent." Almost all suicide is by one subset of the population whom very few people care about.

    Extensive data shows that suicide is almost exclusively committed by people foreseeably and actually being subjected to protracted torture. One classic example is from Roman history, and the 70's A.D. seige at Masada in Judea (now Israel). The people about to conquered by the Roman Army, Judean Jews who had fled from Jerusalem, anticipated being tortured, wherefore they committed suicide.

    The extreme suffering link to suicide is still extant, and accounts for about 90% of suicides. This site summarizes what is reported in medical analyses on the subject. The data may surprise or offend you, but to help save lives, please keep reading.

    What is the 90% factor in suicide? Which population group is identified as having about 90% of the suicides? Medical researchers have published the answer (generally in medical journals not read by laymen) for well over a century. Now you can know what those otherwise obscure medical journal reports of their research have been saying all these years.

    Let's get to the point. The 90% factor is smoking.

    The population group that commits about 90% of the suicides is smokers. In other words, if politicians would cooperate with doctors' advisories on the tobacco drug, and deal with the 90%, vs. their typical fixation on the rare exceptions among the 10%, we could eliminate most all suicide. We'll get to references in a moment.

    This site assists in preventing suicide by citing the role of cigarettes in the suicide process (the cigarettes-suicide link, which accounts for about 90% of suicide). The Surgeon General and many others before, show that cigarettes are the No. 1 cause of death and preceding extreme protracted suffering tantamount to torture. The subject has been extensively researched and reported since the 1850's.

    Check the chemical facts. Cigarettes

    Torturing people (slaves) was accepted in the Old South as a right during the U.S. slavery era. Torture was one of the reasons abolitionists (e.g., Harriet B. Stowe, Key (1853), pp 35, 77-80, 83, 87, 103, 107-110, 124; Rev. John Rankin, Letters (1853), pp 16-17; etc.) opposed slavery. Slavery was primarily by tobacco farmers. Yes, tobacco farmers. To intimidate and coerce the slaves, such slavers became skilled in torture techniques and protracting torture, including by mixing chemical substances for such use.

    The abolition of slavery did not suddenly cause tobacco farmers to forget their torture skills, including how to mix toxic chemicals used for torture.  They did not lose their chemicals-for-torture skill.

    As a matter of background, please read the toxic chemicals site, then the coumarin site, then return here.

    Now you see why smokers suffer disproportionately, why it has long been medically reported, that it is primarily among smokers that suicide occurs. The suicide-by-suffering-smokers serves to end the torture-level suffering. About 90% of suicides are by smokers. Doctors by fact-analysis have known and reported this fact since at least the 1850's.

    This fact analysis may seem unusual, but here is an example of the analysis-process we all remember from grade school:

    We learned that Dr. James Lind in 1747 observed that statistics showed a scurvy-fruit juice link. Sailors who drank fruit juice (from oranges, lemons, or limes) did not get scurvy. Others did get scurvy. Dr. Lind did not know why the statistics showing a scurvy-fruit juice link were true. Vitamins such as vitamin C would not be discovered for almost two centuries.

    Since Dr. Lind had nothing to prove his link claim but statistics (who gets the scurvy, not, why they get it), politicians refused to accept Lind's statistics for almost fifty years. Many people suffered as a result. Politicians professed to care!! But their disrespect for statistics shows that they did not care enough to act.

    Doctors know the value of statistical evidence. What is that value? "The utmost. In the hands of experts [like doctors] it is pure science."—Alton Ochsner, M.D., Smoking and Your Life (New York: Julian Messner Pub, 1954 rev 1964), p 108.

    Decades went by. People kept suffering. More decades. More politicians pretenses of concern. More suffering.

    Finally, fifty years later, in 1795, the British navy agreed not to wait for proof the statistics are true, but simply to respect them. The navy put limes on its ships, so many that British sailors would sometimes be called "limeys." Scurvy ceased among them! Knowing who gets a problem and dealing with that, works, they found—no need to wait centuries until some research doctor discovers why!

    Not until almost two centuries after Dr. Lind's discovery did chemist Jack C. Drummond call the mysterious statistical thing that was working—"Vitamin C"—in 1920. (A reader-friendly book on this subject is by Isaac Asimov, Ph.D., How Did We Find Out About Vitamins? (New York: Walker and Co, 1974), pages 8-10. A lot of lives were saved beginning in 1795, by finally simply accepting the 1747 statistics, and not waiting for that 1920 discovery.

    The same type analysis is true on the cigarette-suicide link.

    Dr. Bruce Leistikow has the data:

    "smokers have excesses of suicide: risks; thoughts; attempts; and deaths . . . Suicide [is] strongly . . . associated with smoking . . . independent of age, gender, exercise, cholesterol, race, low local income, diabetes, MI [myocardial infarction], etc. [variables]. Ex-smokers had lower suicide rates than current smokers. The pooled dose-response statistic [is] highly significant. . . . Suicide is prospectively, independently, consistently, strongly, and highly significantly dose-response associated with smoking."—Bruce N. Leistikow, M.D., M.S., D. Martin, J. Jacobs, M.D., M.P.H., and C. Sherman, Ph.D., "A Meta-Analysis of the Prospective Association Between Smoking and Suicide," 15 Journal of Addictive Diseases 141 (1996).

    Michael J. Cowell and Brian L. Hirst have the statistics, cited in their article, "Mortality Differences Between Smokers and Nonsmokers," 32 Transactions of the Society of Actuaries 185-261 (1980), Table 9, p 200. They found that there is 9-1 smoker-nonsmoker suicide ratio, the same 90% ratio as lung cancer.

    "Smoking linked to increased risk of suicide: study" (28 March 2010) says smoking is "linked with an increased risk of suicide, independent of mental illness. . . . nicotine dependence is associated with suicide attempts regardless of the mental disorders and physical disease that often accompany suicidal behaviour."

    "Campaigns for reducing smoking should also point to the elevated risk of suicidality for occasional and regular smokers," concluded researchers led by Thomas Bronisch of the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich. See Suicide-Smoking Link Data, "Smoking predicts suicidality: Findings from a prospective community study," in Journal of Affective Disorders (January 2008).

    Statistics show the cigarette-suicide link. The government should act on those statistics, not wait for two centuries, with many suffering needlessly and dying while we wait for the proof of why the statistics are true.

    Actually, we don't need to wait. We already know the proof for the statistics on the cigarette-suicide link. We already know why the cigarettes-suicide link exists. We already know that smoking is the No. 1 cause of disease, suffering, and premature death. So as a "natural and probable consequence," it is statistically smokers who commit suicide to end their suffering. (This parallels the disproprotionate tobacco user role in alcoholism.)

    And, "daily smoking is significantly connected to suicide attempts and self-mutilation in teens hospitalized for psychiatric illnesses," and "Teens who smoke daily have a quadrupled chance of attempted suicide and suicidal thoughts, and a tripled risk of self-mutilation, compared to teens who do not smoke," says Paula Brady, "New study links smoking and suicide," Yale Daily News (7 April 2004), citing the Journal of Adolescent Medicine (April 2004). See also "Study Shows Link Between Smoking and Suicide," The Prevention Researcher (9 April 2004).

    Note that "tobacco companies continue to knowingly slaughter their customers, seeking to replace those who die with gullible young substitutes. Conferences on lung cancer . . . would be almost unnecessary if cigarettes, cigars, hookahs and other nicotine "delivery systems" had not been invented," says Judy Siegel-Itzkovich, "Suicide (and murder) by cigarette" Jerusalem Post (25 November 2006).

    Cigarettes' toxic chemicals depress the body and mind. See Johnson, et al, "Smoking and Anxiety Disorders," J Am Med Ass'n (8 Nov 2000) ("The risk for agoraphobia, generalized anxiety disorder, and panic disorder during early adulthood was increased among adolescents who smoked 20 cigarettes or more per day.")

    Elizabeth Goodman and John Capitman, "Depressive Symptoms and Cigarette Smoking Among Teens," 106 Pediatrics (#4) 748-755 (Oct 2000) report:

    "The study . . . shows that adolescents who smoke are at an almost four-fold risk of developing high-level depressive symptoms. Other social factors, including previous experimentation with tobacco products, poor school performance, peer tobacco use, more frequent use of alcohol, and parent report of bad temper predicted progression to heavy smoking. The effect of smoking on the development of depression may be attributable to the impact of nicotine or other smoking by-products on the central nervous system. And, "current cigarette use is a powerful determinant of developing high depressive symptoms."

    Richard W. Hudgens, M.D., "Preventing Suicide," 308 New England Journal of Medicine 897-898 (14 April 1983) advises:

    "Depressed people who kill themselves are not simply upset over life's losses, such as divorce, death of a relative or unemployment. Rather, they suffer from [tobacco-induced] disorder of brain function, a major affective disorder, which has robbed them of the capacity to sustain enthusiasm, energy, and mental efficiency, and has plagued them with an agitated spirit and the often irrational conviction that life is not worth living and never will be . . . . People with this illness who kill themselves may indeed have sustained recent bereavements and other misfortunes, as everyone does eventually; but such events are usually not enough to convince people to kill themselves. Psychiatric illness is the usual precondition."

    Dr. Hippolyte A. Depierris, Physiologie Sociale (Paris: Dentu, 1876), p 319, had said likewise a century earlier. He referenced the underlying factor, tobacco, on why suicides kill themselves: "Ils se tuaient par aberration de leur sens moral, ou de leur faculté d'aimer, dégradés par le narcotisme." They kill themselves due to aberration of the moral sense and normal loving faculty, degraded by tobacco narcotism. "Non, ce n'est pas de"—No, it is not because of the immediate preceding event.
    "Avant le . . . tabac, la folie était une maladie très rare dans l'humanité," Depierris, p 346. Before tobacco, psychiatric illness was rare.

    In short, tobacco smoking due to the toxic chemicals, causes suicide by causing brain damage, impairing reasoning, the self-defense reflex, and ethical and impulse controls.

    "More than half of gun deaths are suicides" says Michael Stobbe, AP Medical Writer (1 July 2008). "Suicides accounted for 55 percent of the nation's nearly 31,000 firearm deaths in 2005, the most recent year for which statistics are available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There was nothing unique about that year — gun-related suicides have outnumbered firearm homicides and accidents for 20 of the last 25 years. In 2005, homicides accounted for 40 percent of gun deaths. Accidents accounted for 3 percent. The remaining 2 percent included legal killings, such as when police do the shooting, and cases that involve undetermined intent. Public-health researchers have concluded that in homes where guns are present, the likelihood that someone in the home will die from suicide or homicide is much greater."

    Explanation: Cigarettes are the gateway drug delivery agent. Smoking leads to drug abuse. Drug abusers disproportionately carry guns.

    "Both males and females who had taken drugs were more likely to carry weapons (63.5% of male drug users versus 20.5% of non-users and 22.8% of female drug users versus 3.7% of non-users; both P<0.0001)."—Neil McKeganey and John Norrie, "Association between illegal drugs and weapon carrying in young people in Scotland: schools' survey," 320 British Med Journal (#7240) 982-984 (8 April 2000).

    So to the question, 'who carries guns?,' answer: Smokers do. And they use them to disproportionately commit suicide.

    Examples of Tobacco-Related Bereavements
    Abortion and Miscarriage
    AIDS, A Severe Burden
    Alcoholism and Drunk Driving
    Alzheimers, A Real Burden on The Family
    Birth Defects Impacting
    People Sometimes For Life
    Breast Cancer Impairing Enthusiasm for Life
    Crime Including Murder, Rape, Robbery, Etc.
    Deafness Impairing the Joy of Life
    Divorce, A Severe Family
    Trauma To Spouse, Children, Etc.
    Drug Abuse Hurting Family,
    Neighbors, and Strangers
    Fires Killing Families and Strangers
    Heart Disease Impairing Joy of Life
    Lung Cancer and Its Lingering Suffering
    Macular Degeneration Impairing Joy of Life
    Seat Belt Belt Disuse and Arguments

    Due to tobacco's severe adverse effects on people, depressing them, bereaving them, naturally it is smokers, people with a high right of "affective disorders," who commit most, about 90% of suicide. A 1959 study had reported "the prevalence of affective disorders in people who commit suicide."—Eli Robins, M.D., G. Murphy, R. Wilkinson, S. Gassmer, and J. Kayes, "Some Clinical Considerations in the Prevention of Suicide Based on a Study of 134 Successful Suicides," 49 Am J Public Health (#7) 888-899 (July 1959).

    The tobacco-suicide link has long been reported. For example, see Professor (Botany, Miami University) Bruce Fink's book, Tobacco (Cincinnati: The Abingdon Press, 1915), page 61:

    "I believe cigarette-smoking is decidedly injurious to young persons, and I speak from professional experience. . . . Cases of suicide among subjects under 38 to 40 years of age, the direct results of chronic intoxication from tobacco in the form of cigarettes, are found to happen and not so very infrequently."

    Here is an 1882 analysis:

    "Three men, citizens of my native town, Greenboro, Vt., committed suicide in fits of hypochondria, induced by tobacco using. One cut his own throat; one hung himself with a chain to an apple tree, and the other, who was never known to expectorate, but swallowed the juice, shot himself." Reference: Meta Lander, The Tobacco Problem (Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1882), p 177.

    Here is an 1836 analysis:

    "could the causes of the many acts of suicide committed in the United States be investigated, it would be found that many instances were owing to the effects of tobacco upon the nervous system."—E. G. Moore, M.D., cited in Dr. Reuben D. Mussey, Health: Its Friends and Its Foes (Boston: Gould and Lincoln, 1862), p 123.

    See also Dr. Hippolyte A. Dépierris, Physiologie Sociale: Le Tabac (Paris: Dentu, 1876), pp 310-325, especially,

    "Et les statistiques nous montrent que le nombre des suicides, depuis 1830 jusqu'à nos jours, a suivi la progression toujours ascendante de la consommation du tabac" [p 310].
    Statistics 1830 to present show suicides as increasing with tobacco use.

    See also Dr. John Lizars' book, The Use and Abuse of Tobacco (Edinburgh, Scotland: 1859, reprinted, Philadelphia: P. Blakiston, Son & Co, 1883), p 29:

    "Mania is a fearful result of the excessive use of tobacco—two cases of which I have witnessed since the publication of this treatise. I have also to mention, that a gentleman called on me, and thanked me for the publication of my Observations on Tobacco, and related to me, with deep emotion, what had occurred in his own family from smoking tobacco. Two amiable younger brothers had gone deranged, and committed suicide. There is no hereditary predisposition to mania in the family."

    Due to tobacco-caused suffering, it is mostly smokers who are the alcoholics, about 90%. They are self-medicating. Re "suicide and alcoholism . . . both have established connections with smoking status," says Michael A. Smith, Ph.D., et al., 307 New Engl J Med (#9) 521 (26 August 1982).

    Smoking both "leads to intemperance" and "causes insanity," Matthew Woods, M.D., 32 J Am Med Assn (#13) 685 (1 April 1899). Wherefore, due to tobacco-caused disease, and suffering leading to suicide, in another study, it was found that

    "98 per cent of the suicides were clinically ill; 94 per cent of them psychiatrically ill," say Eli Robins M.D., et al, 49 Am J Public Health (#7) 899 (July 1959). The study also reported that "68 per cent of the total group were suffering from two diseases—manic-depressive depression or chronic alcoholism." "Those with manic-depressive disease were solely in the depressed phase at the time of their deaths. No person committed suicide while in the manic phase. . . ."

    Can we say that, due to the tobacco taboo, the media censoring tobacco news, only "29 percent of the manic-depressives and 11 per cent of the alcoholics had been examined by a psychiatrist," p 891?

    It has long been known that smoking, mental illness (affective disorder), and suicide are interlinked due to smoking's adverse "influence on the brain" and body, so smokers have "become deranged from smoking tobacco, and in that state committed suicide."—Samuel Solly, M.D., 1 The Lancet 176 (14 Feb 1857). Yes, 1857. This was noted in 1857.

    Adverse brain effects due to tobacco's toxic chemicals are clear.

    "Scientists have found specific abnormalities in brain chemicals in people who have attempted suicide. According to a survey of experts in the field, these biochemical deviations are one important element of suicidal behavior. . . . Dr. Ronald W. Maris, of the Center for the Study of Suicide at the University of South Carolina, carried out the survey. He summarized the results this way:

    "'The survey consensus was that biochemical indicators tend to identify subsets of populations containing those individuals who are at high risk for suicide, if personal, social, cultural, and other factors are also conducive to suicide.'"—William A. Check, The Mind-Body Connection in Dale C. Garrell, MD, The Encyclopedia of Health: Medical Disorders and Their Treatment (New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1990), pp 66-67.

    "The biochemical abnormality most often found in the brain of those who attempt suicide—particularly by violent means—is a low amount of serotonin. Several investigators have verified this finding. [In one study, every one] of those who attempted suicide had low serotonin levels." Check, supra, p 67.

    "Dr. Michael Stanley, director of neuroscience at the New York State Psychiatric Institute, has done similar research. He expresses the prevailing scientific view of suicide this way: 'Suicide occurs in people who have diagnoses of schizophrenia, personality disorder, depression, and alcoholism, and you find the same biochemical deficit [low serotonin] within these diagnostic groups. . . .'" Check, supra, pp 67-68.

    "Cigarette smoking is associated with worse treatment outcomes in acutely manic patients with bipolar disorder," says Andrew Czyzewski, "Smoking interferes with treatment for bipolar mania" (J Affect Disord 2008; 110: 126-134 (1 August 2008). "Studies have shown that lifetime history of smoking is significantly related to earlier onset of the first depressive or manic episode, greater symptomatic severity, poorer functioning, and a lifetime history ofsuicide attempt, comorbid anxiety disorders and substance dependence." Note that "smoking [is cited as] a comorbid condition requiring active intervention."

    Tobacco has long been known to have hallucinogenic properties.

    "Native use of tobacco parallels that of other hallucinogenic substances . . . The amounts of harman and norharman in cigarette smoke are about 10-20 mcg. per cigarette. This is about 40 to 100 times greater than that found in the tobacco leaf, indicating that pyrosynthesis occurs in the leaves during the burning . . . . harmine in relatively small doses crosses the blood-brain barrier and causes changes in the neural transmission in the visual system." See Oscar Janiger, M.D., and Marlene Dobkin De Rios, M.D., "Nicotiana an Hallucinogen?," 30 Econ Bot 149-151 (April-June 1976). Hallucinogens function on the brain, adversely impacting it, by impact on brain chemicals such as serotonin. See Jacobs, Barry L, "How Hallucinogenic Drugs Work," 75 American Scientist (#4) 386-392 (Jul-Aug 1987).

    All these factors combine ultra disproportionately in smokers. See also the study linking risk behaviors and suicide, Pediatrics (June 1997). And note "Suicide and Suicide Attempts in Adolescents," 105 Pediatrics (#4) 871-874 (April 2000), 'Suicide is the third leading cause of death for adolescents 15 to 19 years old,' meaning, smoker teens.

    "Since the much advertised cigarette is the principal cause of the unnecessary suffering, disability and death brought about by tobacco, and it is the malicious, false and misleading advertising of cigarettes which has been most responsible for the increased use of this drug in recent years . . . it is the effects of cigarette smoking . . . which are referred to . . . ." See Frank L. Wood, M.D., What You Should Know About Tobacco (Wichita, KS: The Wichita Publishing Co, 1944), p 8.
    See also Lennox M. Johnston, "Tobacco Smoking As A Form of Self-Destruction—Individual and Communal," 63 Med World (London) 14-16 (1945).

    Actually, there is an even earlier analysis:

    "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. . . . " Translated from Jakob Balde, Die Truckene Trunkenheit [Drunk without Drinking] (Nürnberg: Michael Endter Pub, 1658) from Satyra Contra Abusum Tabaci (Monaco, I. Wagneri Pub, 1657). Yes, 1657.

    In the movie, Imaginary Heroes (2004), with Sigourney Weaver and Emile Hirsch, she smokes, thereby drawing attention to the key dysfunctionality in the dysfunctional family whose son committed suicide.

    In short, the medical record reveals since about the 1830's to present, that one factor is the 90% common factor in leading to suicide. That common factor remaining constant notwithstanding any and all other variables over the many decades then and now is tobacco. Since the data had already by then been known and reported for so long, Michigan in 1909 banned cigarettes from being manufactured or sold in Michigan, law number MCL § 750.27, MSA § 28.216. Other states such as Iowa and Tennessee had already done likewise, with their leadership in 1897.

    Wherefore, to prevent suicide nationwide, Congress should pass a law like Iowa's comprehensive law, Tennessee's simple sales ban, or Michigan's deleterious cigarette ban. No extra funds are needed to do this. The subject has been amply researched since the 1850's, or can we say, since the 1650's, any further research would be a scam. TCPG opposes any funding for more research.

    Due to tobacco lobby influence leading to media censorship of such facts, too many people only hear media mythology on the subject. For example, the public hears about teen suicides, and those of prominent people. But no systematic medical-fact based presentation such as the above materials provide, appears in the mass media. The media typically do not print meaningful exposés of tobacco effects such as suicide.

    (If you only read the deceptive media, you'd perhaps conclude that Dr. Jack Kevorkian is the sole cause of suicide!)

    The media thus knowingly, maliciously, deprive the public of the facts and data known by researchers who have analyzed the issue specifically and with care and precision, via analytical processes developed over the centuries of medical research competence. Deprived of professional data, laymen thus fall prey to myths, including the 'Kevorkian is the cause' myth, the randomness myth (that suicide can happen to anybody), some other drug than nicotine, etc.

    No, the truth is that the typical suicide is not "anybody," but a specific defined subgroup in the population—people being tortured by sadists with centuries of torture experience, tobacco pushers and accessories.

    Remember the basic fact about media types: your tragedy is their job security. They know it. You should too.

    From a definition point of view, the intent of myth is to cause harm and more death, as intent is determined by objective fact, foreseeable "natural and probable consequences."  Wherefore suicide-related myths must be deemed malicious.

    Notice carefully the suicide-related myths; they generally fall into one or the other categories: the (a) randomness myth and the (b) post hoc, ergo propter hoc myth, focusing on the immediate preceding bereavements, not the common element (smoking). To the tobacco-dominated media, never mind that the two myths contradict!

    As Dr. Hudgens pointed out, bereavements and adverse life situations eventually happen to everybody. In addition, smoking is linked to many bereavement causes, so there is a disproportionate aspect.

    There is a solution, to direct focus onto the common preventable factor, the 90% factor, the tobacco-induced suffering. If done by law, it could be called a "Suicide Prevention Act."

    Actually, laws that are essentially "Suicide Prevention Acts" have already been passed. This was

    In 1897, Tennessee passed what was in essence a 'suicide prevention act,' in the form of a law banning manufacture and sale of cigarettes. (Tennessee was a Southern state, so was well aware of tobacco farmers' skill in devising torture techniques via toxic chemicals including coumarin. Tennessee had switched sides during the Civil War, and desired to protect its people.)

    The tobacco lobby sued to have the Tennessee law struck down as supposedly unconstitutional. However, the courts upheld the law—all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Austin v State of Tennessee, 101 Tenn 563; 48 SW 305; 70 Am St Rep 703 (1898) aff'd 179 US 343; 21 S Ct 132; 45 L Ed 224 (Tenn, 19 Nov 1900).

    Iowa banned cigarettes too, by a well-written, comprehensive law.

    Soon Michigan followed Iowa's and Tennessee's lead. In 1909, during the administration of three-term activist Governor Fred Warner, the Michigan legislature passed a law forbidding manufacture, giveaway, and sale of cigarettes. That law, MCL § 750.27, MSA § 28.216, bans

    "any person within the state" from action that "manufactures, sells or gives to anyone, any cigarette containing any ingredient deleterious to health or foreign to tobacco . . . ."

    This law bans suffering-causing chemicals in tobacco. By attacking the 90% factor in suffering, the idea is to reduce the resultant suicide significantly. The goal is to eliminate cigarette availability, thus cigarettes' suffering-causing effects detailed at this site and its various sections.

    As a nationwide matter, Congress should pass a law like Iowa's or Michigan's. No funds are needed to do this. The subject has been amply researched and reported since the 1850's. Politicians, especially the corrupt ones, typically want to pass off the issue onto "more research." Such diversionary, delaying tactic is malicious, intended to prevent prevention. Any further research is a scam (on the order of researching whether the earth is round!). TCPG opposes funding for more research. Prevention, e.g., enforcing the already existing law is free; the police are already on the payroll!

    A study (beginning 1986) of health professionals, with a smaller percentage of smokers than in the general population, used data from 51,529 male dentists, pharmacists, and other professionals in the United States to evaluate the influence of lifestyle on heart disease and cancer. An incidental finding (by Matthew Miller; David Hemenway; and Eric Rimm, "Cigarettes and Suicide: A Prospective Study of 50,000 Men," 90 Am J Public Health (#5) 768-773 [May 2000]) was a dose-related effect of smoking on suicide: heavy smokers were 4.5 times as likely to kill themselves as non-smokers.

    Due to the tobacco-alcoholism connection, as smokers drink disproportionately, thus acquiring additional disorders due to their alcoholism, there is also a suicide connection in that regard. See "Suicide Tied to Alcohol Intake" (News, 11 September 2006) citing "Suicide Prevention Day: New Study Links Suicide Mortality Rates to Alcohol-related Factors" (8 September 2006).

    If this information is new to you, be aware of the rampant pro-tobacco media censorship. The media's wide-spread censorship of tobacco-facts, to the extreme of printing of gross disinformation, has been cited since at least 1930, see

    • Charles M. Fillmore, Tobacco Taboo (Indianapolis: Meigs Pub Co, 1930), pp 88-89;

    • Lennox Johnston, "Cure of Tobacco-Smoking," 263 The Lancet 480, 482 (6 Sep 1952); and

    • George Seldes, Never Tire of Protesting, (New York: Lyle Stuart Inc, 1968), Chapters 7-10, pp 61-99. (Seldes founded www.infact.org).

    Tragically, "the press has suppressed or withheld the facts concerning tobacco toxicity from the American people." But, when rarely, something is published about smoking, the material often goes unread as the tobacco taboo goes to the extreme of widespread refusal "even to read any book or article which refers to the harmfulness of tobacco . . . or in any other way exposes the evils of the drug." See Frank L. Wood, M.D., What You Should Know About Tobacco (Wichita, KS: The Wichita Publishing Co, 1944), pp 33 and 63. Our tobacco taboo website opposing pro-tobacco censorship has more details.


    90% More Suicides

    What this site is asking is your help in

    • (a) getting the suffering (suicide) prevention law MCL § 750.27 (dealing with the 90% factor) enforced, and

    • (b) getting all other governments to pass the same type law in their areas.
    Please help us save lives, prevent premature deaths, by preventing a significant percentage of the suffering that leads to 90% of suicides.

    To do so, here are four sample letters. Sample "A" is to Governor Rick Snyder, M.B.A., J.D., asking him to have the State Police enforce the law. Sample "B" is to Attorney General William Schuette asking him to enforce the law. Each has the authority to help. As both the Governor and Attorney General are lawyers, the letters are written in "legalese." Sample letter "C" is to the Michigan State Police Director asking for enforcement. Sample letter "D" is different, and is for you to send where the government still ignores the cigarettes-suicide link. It is to be sent to the President, Congress, other Governors, and state legislators.

    * * * Sample Letter A * * *

    Honorable Rick Snyder
    Governor, State of Michigan
    P. O. Box 30013
    Lansing MI 48909-7513

    Dear Governor Snyder:

    This is a request that you assign the Michigan State Police to enforce the suicide prevention law, MCL § 750.27, MSA § 28.216.

    Cigarettes' deleterious chemicals are the No. 1 cause of premature death, thus of the preceding severe suffering. As a "natural and probable consequence,"

    "smokers have excesses of suicide: risks; thoughts; attempts; and deaths . . . Suicide [is] strongly . . . associated with smoking . . . independent of age, gender, exercise, cholesterol, race, low local income, diabetes, MI [myocardial infarction], etc. [variables]. Ex-smokers had lower suicide rates than current smokers. The pooled dose-response statistic [is] highly significant. . . . Suicide is prospectively, independently, consistently, strongly, and highly significantly dose-response associated with smoking." See Prof. Bruce Leistikow, M.D., et al., Analysis of Association Between Smoking and Suicide, 15 J Addictive Diseases 141 (1996).

    Cowell and Hirst, "Mortality Differences Between Smokers and Nonsmokers," 32 Transactions of the Society of Actuaries 185-261 (1980), Table 9, p 200, found a 9-1 smoker-nonsmoker suicide ratio, the same 90% ratio as lung cancer. The cigarette-suicide link occurs because many smokers are suffering, then some end that suffering via suicide, making smoking the 90% factor in suicide. The suicide prevention act, MCL § 750.27, MSA § 28.216, prevents the smoker suffering leading to 90% of suicide.

    The suicide prevention act, MCL § 750.27, MSA § 28.216, forbids "any person within the state" from action that "manufactures, sells or gives to anyone, any cigarette containing any ingredient deleterious to health or foreign to tobacco . . . ." Please assign the Michigan State Police to enforce it, and aid county sheriffs and local police departments to do likewise.

    All cigarettes are deleterious, their label admits they are, and most if not all are adulterated with additives. MCL § 750.27, MSA § 28.216, puts personal responsibility on those with most knowledge of the contraband substance (manufacturers and sellers), not on unwary consumers, often children.

    State Police enforcement action is a normal action that they do in other state-wide law violation situations. There are precedents as well. Austin v State, 101 Tenn 563; 48 SW 305; 70 Am St Rep 703 (1898) aff'd 179 US 343 (1898); Shimp v N J Bell Tele Co, 145 N J Super 516; 368 A2d 408 (1976); Commonwealth v Hughes, 468 Pa 502; 364 A2d 306 (1976); and Smith v Western Elec Co, 643 SW2d 10, 13 (Mo App, 1982).

    As a matter of law and compassion, all persons suffering from this deleterious and adulterated product need enforcement to occur. Please assign the State Police to protect abulic smokers, children, and nonsmokers, by enforcing the suffering/suicide prevention act, MCL § 750.27, MSA § 28.216. Please have them halt the rampant violations, and interdict deleterious and adulterated cigarettes.

    Respectfully,

    * * * Sample Letter B * * *

    Honorable William Schuette
    Attorney General, State of Michigan
    P. O. Box 30213
    Lansing MI 48909

    Dear Attorney General Schuette:

    This is a request that you take "cease and desist" action to stop violations of the suicide prevention law, MCL § 750.27, MSA § 28.216.

    Cigarettes' deleterious chemicals are the No. 1 cause of premature death, thus of the preceding severe suffering. As a "natural and probable consequence,"

    "smokers have excesses of suicide: risks; thoughts; attempts; and deaths . . . Suicide [is] strongly . . . associated with smoking . . . independent of age, gender, exercise, cholesterol, race, low local income, diabetes, MI [myocardial infarction], etc. [variables]. Ex-smokers had lower suicide rates than current smokers. The pooled dose-response statistic [is] highly significant. . . . Suicide is prospectively, independently, consistently, strongly, and highly significantly dose-response associated with smoking." See Prof. Bruce Leistikow, M.D., et al., Analysis of Association Between Smoking and Suicide, 15 J Addictive Diseases 141 (1996).

    Cowell and Hirst, "Mortality Differences Between Smokers and Nonsmokers," 32 Transactions of the Society of Actuaries 185-261 (1980), Table 9, p 200, found a 9-1 smoker-nonsmoker suicide ratio, the same ratio as lung cancer. The cigarette-suicide link occurs because many smokers are suffering, then some end that suffering via suicide, making smoking the 90% factor in suicide. The suicide prevention act, MCL § 750.27, MSA § 28.216, prevents that smoker suffering leading to 90% of suicide.

    The suicide prevention act, MCL § 750.27, MSA § 28.216, forbids "any person within the state" from action that "manufactures, sells or gives to anyone, any cigarette containing any ingredient deleterious to health or foreign to tobacco . . . ." "Cease and desist" action is an action you take in other state-wide law violation cases.

    All cigarettes are deleterious, their label admits they are, and most if not all are adulterated with additives. MCL § 750.27, MSA § 28.216, puts personal responsibility on those with most knowledge of the contraband substance (manufacturers and sellers), not on unwary consumers, often children.

    "Cease and desist" action is a normal action that you do in other state-wide law violation situations. There are precedents, for example, Austin v State, 101 Tenn 563; 48 SW 305; 70 Am St Rep 703 (1898) aff'd 179 US 343 (1898); Shimp v N J Bell Tele Co, 145 N J Super 516; 368 A2d 408 (1976); Commonwealth v Hughes, 468 Pa 502; 364 A2d 306 (1976); and Smith v Western Elec Co, 643 SW2d 10, 13 (Mo App, 1982).

    As a matter of law and compassion, all persons suffering from this deleterious and adulterated product need enforcement to occur. Please take "cease and desist" action to protect abulic smokers, children, and nonsmokers, by enforcing the cigarette control law, MCL § 750.27, MSA § 28.216. Please take "cease and desist" action to halt the rampant violations.

    Respectfully,

    * * * Sample Letter C * * *

    Col. Kristi Etue, Director
    Department of State Police
    333 S. Grand Ave.
    P.O. Box 30634
    Lansing, MI 48909-0634

    Dear Col. Etue:

    This is a request that you assign officers to enforce the suicide prevention law, MCL § 750.27, MSA § 28.216.

    Cigarettes' deleterious chemicals are the No. 1 cause of premature death, thus of the preceding severe suffering. As a "natural and probable consequence,"

    "smokers have excesses of suicide: risks; thoughts; attempts; and deaths . . . Suicide [is] strongly . . . associated with smoking . . . independent of age, gender, exercise, cholesterol, race, low local income, diabetes, MI [myocardial infarction], etc. [variables]. Ex-smokers had lower suicide rates than current smokers. The pooled dose-response statistic [is] highly significant. . . . Suicide is prospectively, independently, consistently, strongly, and highly significantly dose-response associated with smoking." See Prof. Bruce Leistikow, M.D., et al., Analysis of Association Between Smoking and Suicide, 15 J Addictive Diseases 141 (1996).

    Cowell and Hirst, "Mortality Differences Between Smokers and Nonsmokers," 32 Transactions of the Society of Actuaries 185-261 (1980), Table 9, p 200, found a 9-1 smoker-nonsmoker suicide ratio, the same ratio as lung cancer. The cigarette-suicide link occurs because many smokers are suffering, then some end that suffering via suicide, making smoking the 90% factor in suicide. The suicide prevention act, MCL § 750.27, MSA § 28.216, prevents the smoker suffering leading to 90% of suicide.

    The suicide prevention act, MCL § 750.27, MSA § 28.216, forbids "any person within the state" from action that "manufactures, sells or gives to anyone, any cigarette containing any ingredient deleterious to health or foreign to tobacco . . . ." Please work with prosecutors, assign officers to enforce the law, and aid county sheriffs and local police departments to do likewise.

    All cigarettes are deleterious, their label admits they are, and most if not all are adulterated with additives. MCL § 750.27, MSA § 28.216, puts personal responsibility on those with most knowledge of the contraband substance (manufacturers and sellers), not on unwary consumers, often children.

    State Police enforcement action is a normal action that officers do in other state-wide law violation situations. There are precedents as well. Austin v State, 101 Tenn 563; 48 SW 305; 70 Am St Rep 703 (1898) aff'd 179 US 343 (1898); Shimp v N J Bell Tele Co, 145 N J Super 516; 368 A2d 408 (1976); Commonwealth v Hughes, 468 Pa 502; 364 A2d 306 (1976); and Smith v Western Elec Co, 643 SW2d 10, 13 (Mo App, 1982).

    As a matter of law and compassion, all persons suffering from this deleterious and adulterated product need enforcement to occur. Please assign officers to protect abulic smokers, children, and nonsmokers, by enforcing the suffering/suicide prevention act, MCL § 750.27, MSA § 28.216. Please have them halt the rampant violations, and interdict deleterious and adulterated cigarettes.

    Respectfully,

    * * * Sample Letter D * * *

    President Barack H. 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

    This is a request that you take action to get a law passed that will serve as a suicide prevention law. Michigan already has such a law. It is law number MCL § 750.27, MSA § 28.216. It deals with the cigarette link to suicide.

    Cigarettes' deleterious chemicals are the No. 1 cause of premature death, thus of the preceding severe suffering. As a "natural and probable consequence,"
    "smokers have excesses of suicide: risks; thoughts; attempts; and deaths . . . Suicide [is] strongly . . . associated with smoking . . . independent of age, gender, exercise, cholesterol, race, low local income, diabetes, MI [myocardial infarction], etc. [variables]. Ex-smokers had lower suicide rates than current smokers. The pooled dose-response statistic [is] highly significant. . . . Suicide is prospectively, independently, consistently, strongly, and highly significantly dose-response associated with smoking." See Prof. Bruce Leistikow, M.D., et al., Analysis of Association Between Smoking and Suicide, 15 J Addictive Diseases 141 (1996).

    Cowell and Hirst, "Mortality Differences Between Smokers and Nonsmokers," 32 Transactions of the Society of Actuaries 185-261 (1980), Table 9, p 200, found a 9-1 smoker-nonsmoker suicide ratio, the same ratio as lung cancer. The cigarette-suicide link occurs because many smokers are suffering, then some end that suffering via suicide, making smoking the 90% factor in suicide. The suicide prevention act, MCL § 750.27, MSA § 28.216, prevents that smoker suffering leading to 90% of suicide.

    The Michigan suicide prevention act, MCL § 750.27, MSA § 28.216, prevents that smoker suffering leading to 90% of suicide. Please get a copy of that law, which in essence forbids "any person within the state" from action that "manufactures, sells or gives to anyone, any cigarette containing any ingredient deleterious to health or foreign to tobacco . . . ."

    All cigarettes are deleterious, their label admits they are, and most if not all are adulterated with additives. Michigan's well-written suicide prevention act deals with the cause of smokers' suffering, not with their understandable resultant suicidal behavior to try to relieve their suffering. Michigan's suicide prevention act puts personal responsibility on those with most knowledge of the contraband substance (manufacturers and sellers who know it leads to suffering and suicide), not on unwary consumers, often children.

    As a matter of compassion, all persons suffering from this deleterious and adulterated product need you to take action to get an suicide prevention act adopted. Please take action to copy the Michigan suicide prevention act, MCL § 750.27, MSA § 28.216, so all of us can benefit from its wise prevention-oriented approach.

    Respectfully,

    * * * * *

    Please re-type, add recipient addresses where unlisted,
    add your name and return address, sign, and mail the above letters.
    The person you save may be yourself or your friend.
    If you wish, you can use different wording.

    * * * * *

    The above type information was brought to court attention in a 1997 prosecutor case against Dr. Jack Kevorkian. Be advised, politicians like to talk against suicide, and other tobacco effects, but they don't like to do the meaningful thing, the Iowa-1897 thing, end the problem! So sadly, don't expect this problem to be solved. Politicians opposed solving the scurvy problem; and scurvy had no lobbyists! Tobacco does.

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