If you smoke, it is necessary to quit in order to control environment chemical pollution. Making extensive changes in the home environment makes little sense if the individual insists on polluting himself and his living space with tobacco fumes. Nonsmokers and ex-smokers must get used to demanding breathing space in their own houses and in public places.
In uncooperative environments, the chemically susceptible person must stake a claim to part of the house as an off-limit, no-smoking oasis. The reason for this is that smoking is not only a major source of cancer, heart disease, and lung disease, but also an ecological disaster for the susceptible person.
Cigarette smoke is no simple thing: it contains hundreds of different chemicals, not all of which have been thoroughly analyzed. For example, tobacco, like other crops, is intensively sprayed with pesticides, and these are incompletely removed from the leaf before curing and packaging. When you breathe in someone else’s tobacco smoke, you have the privilege of breathing in stale pesticide residues as well. Tobacco is frequently kept warm, while being cured in large bams, by kerosene-fueled heaters.3 This kerosene, in trace amounts, then gets into the leaf and cannot be removed: it is present in the smoke as well. Each manufacturer adds flavor and taste additives which are composed of synthetic chemicals. These too are breathed in by the susceptible person, often perpetuating reactions to other common pollutants. The exact nature of these additives is guarded as a trade secret.
The cigarette smoker thus contaminates his own body and that of everyone around him.
There is still much to be learned about the hazards of cigarette consumption, hazards the $18 billion tobacco industry is not about to reveal. For example, in certain cases, cigarette smoke alone has been sufficient to cause schizophrenic-type reactions. One schizophrenic patient was able to control her symptoms with comprehensive food and chemical control. She then suddenly, and unexpectedly, suffered a relapse. Her bewildered parents finally discovered that when their daughter suffered such an attack, their son was in the room across the hall smoking a forbidden cigarette. In a comprehensive study conducted at the Fuller Memorial Sanitarium, South Attleboro, Massachusetts, Dr. William H. Philpott, director of research, and Dr. Marshall Mandell, showed that 75 percent of the patients who were classified as schizophrenics suffered mental symptoms from cigarette smoke. In fact, says Mandell, “tobacco smoke caused psychotic behavior in one out of ten.”4
Since one food or chemical addiction feeds and supports another, bringing the total environment under control is the best way to beat the smoking habit.
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