PREVENT ALCOHOLISM
Here's How

Researchers provide much data on a key underlying factor in alcoholism. If adhered to, this would prevent much tragedy including drunk driving. What is it that medical analysts and doctors have found?

"Nearly all alcoholics, recovered or otherwise, are heavy smokers," observed Arthur Cain, M.D., in The Cigarette Habit: An Easy Cure (NY: Dolphin Books, 1964), p 4.

Dr. Forest S. Tennant, Jr., "pointed out that in almost every case adults who have problems with alcohol are cigarette smokers." 27 Smoke Signals (#1) 1 (Jan 1981).

"Smoking prevalence among active alcoholics approaches 90%."—J. T. Hayes, K. P. Offord, I. T. Croghan, D. R. Schroeder, R. D. Hurt (ASAM), D. E. Jorenby, "Alcoholism and Nicotine Dependence Treatment," 15 Journal of Addictive Diseases 135 (1996); conclusion supported by L. C. Sobell, M. B. Sobell, L. T. Kozloski, and T. Toneatto, et al., "Alcohol or Tobacco Research vs Alcohol and Tobacco Research," 85 Brit J Addict (#2) 263-269 (Feb 1990); and J. Istvan and J. D. Matarazzo, "Tobacco, Alcohol and Caffeine Use: A Review of Their Interrelationships, 95 Psychol Bull (#2) 310-326 (March 1984).

Smoking “leads to intemperance,” says Matthew Woods, M.D., in JAMA, Vol. XXXII(13), p. 685, 1 April 1899, to such an extent that “It is a rare circumstance to meet a dry smoker,” says Anthony Smythe, in The Lancet, Vol. 1 for 1857, p. 128, 31 January 1857. Thus, there is a “well-established association between smoking and drinking,” data from Dr. Joseph Stokes III, in The New Engl. J. of Med., Vol. 308(7), p. 393, 17 February 1983.

"Smoking Interferes With Brain's Recovery From Alcoholism" say Prof. Dieter Meyerhoff, Stefan Gazdzinski, PhD, Johannes C. Rothlind, PhD, and Peter Banys, MD, in Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research (March 2006).

This is ancient data, long known:

  • "[T]he antidotal effect of tobacco makes drinking of stimulating liquors the natural consequence of smoking."—Dr. Albert L. Gihon, in The Surgeon General's Report (1881).

  • "[Tobacco] is unquestionably the greatest obstacle existing to the progress of temperance; and never will this cause [Temperance] triumph; never will alcoholic drinks be discarded as a beverage, until tobacco ceases to be used . . ."—The Mysteries of Tobacco, by Rev. Benjamin I. Lane (New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1845), p 87.

  • "It is my conviction that while the use of tobacco continues, intemperance will continue to curse the world; the use of tobacco leads to the use of intoxicating drinks. They are all of one family." Lane, supra, p 145.

  • "[S]moking, even in what is called a moderate degree . . . acts as an inducement to drinking—thus becoming the source of intemperance, and all its accompanying evils. It is notorious that the practices are, almost without exception, inseparably associated. The remark has become a maxim: 'Smoking induces drinking, drinking jaundice, and jaundice death.'"—The Use and Abuse of Tobacco, by Surgeon John Lizars (Edinburgh, Scotland: 1859), pages 50-51. Wherefore Dr. Lizars in 1859 recommended a total ban on tobacco sales, to both adults and youth, see p 49. (His book was reprinted in 1883 here in America.)

  • "Smoking is also said to induce an inclination to strong drinks. The ill effects of the tobacco seem to be momentarily counteracted by the alcohol, and the stimulating effects of the intoxicating liquors are moderated by the tobacco. Thus it happens that drinkers are always smokers, and thus it is also that smoking often leads to drinking."—Dr. John Hinds, The Use of Tobacco (Nashville, Tenn: Cumberland Presbyterian Publishing House, 1882), pp 125-126.

  • "In my experience non-smokers hardly ever become drunkards, while nearly all drunkards are smokers."—Herbert H. Tidswell, M.D., The Tobacco Problem (London: J. & A. Churchill, 1912), p 41.

  • The well-established connection of smoking behavior and alcohol use behavior is evident in the medical literature. For example, in The Lancet, Vol. 2(7105): 725-727, 31 October 1959, at 726, “men who took alcohol regularly–i.e., at least once a week–were much more likely to be heavy smokers.” Moreover, as is foreseeable from data on smoking and alcoholism as diseases, “nearly 90% of those who had smoked regularly had taken up the habit among friends most of whom were smokers.” While “‘dangerousness’ . . . may affect third persons in much the same sense as a disease may be communicable,” McIntosh v. Milano, 168 N J Super 466; 403 A.2d 500, 512 (1979), “disease” as disease in the case of smoking is clearly communicable. As it is a disease, avoidance (tantamount to quarantine) behavior includes not getting the disease, or other disease that the first disease “leads to.” Smoking “leads to” alcoholism. Foreseeably, “non-smoking tended to be associated with abstention from alcohol.”

  • The article, “Smoking and alcoholism,” by B. M. Maletzky, M.D., and J. Klotter, M.D., in the Am. J. of Psychiatry, Vol. 131(4), pp. 445-447, April 1974, notes a “high correlation between smoking and drinking behaviors. . . . once these addictions are established, they evidently operate independently of each other (although they can be behaviorally associated . . .).” In that study, “Alcoholic subjects were selected from . . . Lyster Army Hospital, Fort Rucker, Ala.” Also, “the analysis revealed no subjects who significantly decreased their cigarette consumption while abstaining from drinking.” Even when there was “a decrease in the amount of alcohol they were consuming, the number of cigarettes they smoked was essentially the same as . . . before, underscoring the apparent autonomy of these two addictive behaviors.” At 446, such “data confirm previous reports of a positive association between smoking and drinking behavior.”

  • The article, “Smoking and Alcoholism: A Brief Report,” by R. G. Walton, M.D., in the Am. J. of Psychiatry, Vol. 128(11), pp. 1455-1456, May 1972, provides like [similar] data. That study covered persons admitted to hospitals “for withdrawal from alcohol” “Over a two-month period.” “Out of the group of 130 patients admitted for withdrawal from alcohol, 126 answered 'yes' to the question ‘Do you smoke?’ In response to the question ‘How much do you smoke?’ 123 patients stated that they smoked one pack a day or more.” Dr. Walton was a supervisor in a “Mental Health Hygiene Consultation Service” at a “U.S. Army Health Clinic.” It was his “clinical impression that almost all hospitalized alcoholics are heavy smokers.”

  • In The Medical Journal of Australia, Vol. 1, pp. 1271-1274, 30 June 1973, D. Ferguson discusses such “forms of drug abuse, in the sense of drug as ‘a substance used to stupefy or poison or for self-indulgence’ (Chambers Dictionary, 1959). In this sense all use is abuse . . . .” At 1272, “The association with drinking is well recognized. Smoking was therefore associated with major sources of mental and physical ill health . . . .” At 1273, “The associations between smoking, drinking, neurosis . . . suggest some causal interrelationship.” See the data from Dr. Matthew Woods, in J.A.M.A., Vol. XXXII(13), pp. 683-687, 1 April 1899, smoking “to repeat again familiar facts, weakens the memory . . . leads to intemperance . . . causes insanity . . . .”

  • Smoking "tends to produce a huskiness of the mouth, which calls for some liquid. Water is too insipid, as the nerves of taste are in a half-palsied state, from the influence of tobacco-smoke; hence, in order to be tasted, an article of a pungent or stimulating character is resorted to, and hence the kindred habits of smoking and drinking."—Reuben D. Mussey, M.D., LL.D., Health: Its Friends and Its Foes (Boston: Gould & Lincoln, 1862), p 104.

  • "Naturally, one drug habit leads to another. It is rare to find an alcoholic who does not use tobacco in some form and often other drugs are used. There is a special reason for the association of the alcohol and tobacco habits; a physiologic reason: Alcohol is a drug antidote for tobacco. Tobacco contracts the small arteries. This is the reason for the pallor observed in young smokers and in old smokers who have smoked to excess. Alcohol produces the opposite effect. It dilates the small arteries. This is the reason for the flushed face of the beer drinker and the red nose of the whiskey toper. A man who has smoked until his arteries are contracted, feels tense, nervous, irritable, restless, in spite of the narcotic effects of the drug. His blood-pressure is high and his breath a little "short." Besides, his secretions are checked, his mouth is dry. Alcohol reverses these conditions. A cocktail or a toddy, a glass of champagne or a bottle of beer, relaxes the blood-vessels, relieves the nerve tension, restores comfort and so opens the way for more cigars."—John H. Kellogg, M.D., LL.D., F.A.C.S., Tobaccoism, or, How Tobacco Kills (Battle Creek, Michigan: Modern Medicine Pub Co, 1922), pp 125-126.

  • "Do you know of one drunkard that does not use tobacco? Do you know of one reformed drunkard who has apostatized [relapsed], whose apostacy [relapse] may not, in part, be attributed to tobacco? Do you know of one drunkard who did not use tobacco previously to becoming an inebriate on alcohol? . . . the one leads to the other [to] steadily maintain a copartnership of villany. The use of tobacco is among the deadly foes of temperance. . . ."—Rev. George Trask, Letters on Tobacco (Fitchburg, Mass: Trask Pub, 1860), pp 28-29.

  • And, "c'est tabac qui pousse aux liqueurs fortes, comme antidote de se effets toxiques."—Dr. Hippolyte A. Depierris, Physiologie Sociale: Le Tabac (Paris: Dentu, 1876), pp 367 and 304, respectively. (Tobacco leads to strong drink (as an antidote to tobacco's toxic effects), and leads to delirium tremens).

  • "Smoking creates an unnatural thirst, which may lead to drinking intoxicating liquors."—Joseph G. Richardson, M.D., Prof of Hygiene, Univ of Pennsylvania, Health and Longevity (New York: Home Health Society, 1909), pp 931 and 1236.

  • "Rum drinking will not cease, till tobacco chewing, and tobacco smoking, and snuff-taking, shall cease. Though all who are attached to the quid, the pipe, or the snuffbox, are not attached to the bottle; yet a vast multitude become attached to the bottle, and this attachment is continual and increased, through the poisonous, bewitching, and debasing influence of tobacco."—Rev. Orin S. Fowler, Disquisition on the Evils of Using Tobacco, and the Necessity of Immediate and Entire Reformation (Providence: S. R. Weeden, 1833), p 4.

  • "The first step toward addiction may be as innocent as a boy's puff on a cigarette in an alleyway," said the U.S. Supreme Court in Robinson v California, 370 US 660; 82 S Ct 1417; 8 L Ed 2d 758 (1962).

  • It is typical that cigarettes are the starting point. They are delivery agent for nicotine, the gateway (starter) drug for children. The average age of onset is 12. Next in sequence, alcohol follows, average age 12.6; then marijuana, average age 14. See Raymond Fleming, Howard Levanthal, Kathleen Glynn, and Joann Ershler, "The Role of Cigarettes in The Initiation And Progression Of Early Substance Use," 14 Addictive Behaviors (#3) 261-272 (1989). See also "The Cutting Edge" and "Alcohol Affects More People."

  • "One of the usual effects of smoking and chewing is thirst. This thirst cannot be allayed by water, for no sedative or even insipid liquor will be relished after the mouth and throat have been exposed to the stimulus of the smoke, or juice of Tobacco. A desire of course is excited for strong drink, and these when taken between meals soon lead to intemperance and drunkenness. One of the greatest sots I ever knew, acquired a love for ardent spirits by swallowing cuds of Tobacco, which he did, to escape detection in the use of it, for he had contracted the habit of chewing, contrary to the advice and commands of his father. He died of a Dropsy under my care in the year 1780."—Dr. Benjamin Rush, First U.S. Surgeon General, "Observations Upon the Influence of the Habitual Use of Tobacco Upon Health, Morals, and Property" (Philadelphia: T. & W. Bradford Pub, 1798), p 267.

    • Wherefore in view of such evidence, in the year 1892, WCTU members during the 1879-1898 term of WCTO President Francis Willard, M.S., M.A., LL.D. sent Congress thousands of petitions for banning cigarettes. Congress reacted by . . . doing nothing, having no sincere interest in preventing

  • alcoholism, the typical second step in the drug-use sequence!
  • drugs, per the normal verified sequence.
    • So the solution, to have genuine alcoholism-prevention, was left to the states.

    On the state level, various states (e.g., Iowa, Tennessee, Michigan) banned cigarette selling, in 1897, 1897, and 1909, respectively. (The already existing twin rights to pure air and to put out fires already precluded use.)

    In short, the alcoholism-prevention movement had more success at the state level. Congressional representatives prefer to yap about blood-level percentages, coercing states on that issue, via e.g., highway funding, but (tobacco-lobby dominated) NOT doing real prevention. This is another example of 'campaign finance' dollars impairing Congress, preventing genuine concern, obstructing genuine solution, precluding genuine prevention as per medical data. (Congress rejects the notion of 'eliminate the cause; the effect disappears.'   "Sublatâ causa, tollitur effectus: Otez la cause, l'effet disparaît."—Dr. Hippolyte Adéon Depierris, Physiologie Sociale (Paris: Dentu, 1876), p 328.)

    Smoke-free laws accordingly reduces the amount of drinking. When smokers are less in pain, they naturally drink less to self-medicate. Smoking bans, including having the bans at bars, are intended, by educated people, to reduce the amount of pain caused by tobacco effects, thus to cut the amount of self-medicating via alcoholism, and thus in turn to reduce the amount of drunk driving.

    The tobacco-effects-prevention movement had more success when it cited this "moral" aspect of the tobacco issue.

    Since then, with this "moral" aspect no longer being cited (instead, generally abandoned as an issue), there is less success.

    The underlying factor in alcoholism is the single most-studied health risk factor in the history of medicine, in the history of mankind.

    This site assists in dispelling ignorance and opposing alcoholism three ways, by
    • (a) avoiding (and refuting) lay notions disregarding the above facts,

    • (b) citing medical reference data on the role of cigarettes in the alcoholism process, and

    • (c) citing what may be styled in effect the Michigan Alcoholism Prevention Act of 1909 and urging action for enforcement.

    Here's the bottom line overview of cigarettes' role in causing alcoholism: (a) Cigarettes contain toxic chemicals with emissions above legal limits. (b) Many smokers suffer resultant effects including pain. (c) Then some self-medicate with alcohol.

    The pain and self-medicating process is described by
  • 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). "Pain is a prime example of the mind-body connection. . . . The sensation of pain is . . . a result of secretion of various neurotransmitters by the peripheral nerves and by the nerves in the brain," p 70.

  • Barton Goldsmith, Ph.D., in "Test whether you or your partner need help with drinking," The Detroit News (17 August 2005, p 7E). "Many people abuse alcohol because they cannot deal with the pain they are feeling or because they just want to shut down and escape. Doing this regularly is dependence. Alcohol may make you feel better for the moment but it doesn't last long, and it creates innumerable problems in your relationships and your life."

  • Benjamin I. Lane, in The Mysteries of Tobacco (New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1845), p 88. He notes smoker motive, to relieve his "wretched and miserable condition. Without any desire for ardent spirits, he first sipped a little gin and water, to allay the disagreeable sensation brought on by smoking, as water was altogether too insipid to answer the purpose. Thus he went on from year to year, increasing his stimulus from one degree to another until he lost all control over himself . . . ."

    • People don't generally favor continued pain!

    "The brain also has its own chemical system for dampening pain, the endorphins and enkephalins (another group of neurotransmitters) that are involved in pain reception." Check, supra, p 71. "Narcotics, such as morphine and its derivatives, are medically useful because they augment the actions of these natural pain-killing chemicals," p 72.

    When tobacco, the No. 1 cause of adverse effects, causes disease resulting in suffering, pain, the afflicted individual naturally wants relief from the pain. Pertinent medical "findings have led to the self-medication hypothesis . . . that using narcotics is an attempt to dampen . . . ." Check, supra, p 69.           

    Smokers are suffering from tobacco effects (including memory impairment as detailed at our crime prevention site) thus attempting, even unconsciously, to self-medicate themselves with substances including alcohol. Smoking constricts blood vessels; alcohol is an antidote and dilates them. Unfortunately for smokers, the constricting effect of nicotine is much more powerful than the dilating effect of alcohol, according to Alton Ochsner, M.D., Smoking and Your Life (New York: Julian Messner Pub, 1954 rev 1964), p 58. Bottom line: We know who becomes alcoholic—smokers.

    "When we take a thorough drug history, we are forced to admit that nicotine—not alcohol or cannabis—is the drug of entry for most young people."—Emanuel Peluso and Lucy Silvay Peluso, "The Challenge of Treating Teenagers," 9 Alcoholism & Addiction (#2) 21 (December 1988). (See details at our drug-information site.)

    "The first step toward addiction may be as innocent as a boy's puff on a cigarette in an alleyway," said the U.S. Supreme Court in Robinson v California, 370 US 660; 82 S Ct 1417; 8 L Ed 2d 758 (1962).

    "The two co-founders of Alcoholics Anonymous (Bill Wilson and Bob Smith) both died of lung cancer at ages 75 and 71 respectively," says www.cardiovision2020.org/KickTobacco.htm. Significantly, as tobacco addicts, they omitted citing the tobacco cause and omitted citing ending tobacco as the 90% solution. Instead, they invented their own whimsical notions, their non-medical-science-based vaunted “Twelve Steps” -- blatant "junk science." Theirs was an omission guaranteed to fail, both for themselves and for others. And, according to Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Plunges into History, Again (2004), and its section, pages 398-400, on the founding of "Alcoholics Anonymous" and founder Bill Wilson, "My Name is Bill," there is more:

    "Bill's Other Vices

    "Though Bill Wilson's other [alleged] contributions to the understanding of alcoholism and recovery are legendary, he was not a saint. He was an unrepentant womanizer after A.A. became famous; many women were attracted to him because of his celebrity within the organization. He would troll A.A. meetings for young women and offer them private "counseling." His wife, Lois, mostly ignored his infidelities.

    "He was also blind to the ill effects that smoking had on his health - until it was too late. Near the end of his life, he was suffering from advanced emphysema. But he was so addicted to tobacco that he'd turn off the oxygen he needed to breathe so that he could have a cigarette. He died in Miami in 1971.

    [You won't find this information on AA's website!]

    On 7 September 2007, in a case, Ricky Inouye vs Kemna (Hawaii), a US federal appeals court rejected compulsory AA attendance. The reason was that AA is "religious in nature." Any reason to reject AA will do, but surely, its ineffectiveness as contrary to medical science fact and its avoidance of prevention would be better reasons to reject it!
    See also a 1999 decision, Warner v. Orange County Department of Probation, herein the 2nd Circuit held it unconstitutional to impose participation in AA/NA as a probation condition. Similarly, the 7th Circuit ruled in 1996 in Kerr v. Farrey that the state could not coerce inmates to participate in a religious program, such as NA. The Ninth circuit did likewise in an August 12013 decision likewise, Hazle v State (CA 9).

    “Youths who begin drinking alcohol early in life are significantly more likely to become dependent on alcohol later—many before they even reach the legal drinking age—according to a study of 43,000 U.S. adults,” according to results of a study by Ralph W. Hingson, ScD, MPH; Timothy Heeren, PhD; Michael R. Winter, MPH, “Age at Drinking Onset and Alcohol Dependence,” 160 Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine (#7) pp 739-746 (July 2006), cited by “Early Drinking Linked to Alcohol Dependence” (6 July 2006).

    "The smoking cessation drug varenicline significantly reduced alcohol consumption in a group of heavy-drinking smokers," says “Anti-Smoking Drug Decreases Alcohol Consumption in Heavy-Drinking Smokers" (3 May 2012).   (“Many heavy drinkers also smoke, and this study indicated that, in this group, varenicline was effective in reducing both the number of cigarettes smoked and the number of drinks consumed.”)

    The tobacco-alcoholism link has long been known. For example, see Professor (Botany, Miami University) Bruce Fink's book, Tobacco (Cincinnati: The Abingdon Press, 1915). On pages 63-64, Prof. Fink cites data showing
    “never . . . a case [of alcoholism] except occasionally with women, which did not have a history of excessive tobacco. A boy always starts smoking before he starts drinking. . . . From alcohol he goes to [other drugs, e.g., then] morphine. The nervous condition due to excessive drinking is allayed by morphine, just as the nervous condition due to excessive smoking is allayed by alcohol.”

    The professor cites (pp 63-64) this description of the sequence and the cause and effect (consequence) relationship:
    • "Morphine is the legitimate consequence [result] of alcohol, and alcohol is the legitimate consequence [result] of tobacco. Cigarettes, drink, opium is the logical and regular series [sequence]."

    • On page 61, "'Tobacco is the boy's easiest and most direct road to whisky.'"

    • On page 108, it says "With all the facts before us, no concluding words can adequately condemn tobacco. . . all must suffer more or less . . . whether user or non-user. . . . [legal term, a "universal malice"].

    • The conclusion, p 110, was that nobody can use, sell, or support it, but rather [each person] "must . . . use his influence in aiding those who are fighting" it.

    Example of the Medical Analysis Process
    We Learned in Grade School
    Remember that back then, we learned that, centuries ago, doctors discovered how to analyze data, by looking at WHO gets conditions. The grade school example we learned was scurvy.

    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.

    Since Dr. Lind had nothing to prove his link claim but statistics (who gets the scurvy, not, "why" they get it), the government refused to accept Lind's statistics for almost fifty years. Many people suffered as a result.

    Finally, belatedly, in 1795, the brass over the British Navy agreed not to wait for proof of why the statistics are true, but simply to respect them. The navy put limes on its ships, so many so that British sailors would sometimes be called "limeys." Scurvy ceased among them!

    Knowing who gets a problem and dealing with that, works, doctors knew—no need to wait centuries until some research doctor discovers why!

    Not until almost two centuries after Dr. Lind's discovery were vitamins discovered. Only in 1920 did chemist Jack C. Drummond call the mysterious statistical thing that was working—"Vitamin C." (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.)

    Many lives were saved beginning in 1795, by finally simply accepting the 1747 WHO statistics, and not waiting for that 1920 WHYdiscovery.

    Click Here For More Information
    on Medical Use of Statistics

             The same type "who gets it" statistical analysis is true on the cigarette-alcoholism link. Dr. Frank L. Wood has found the statistics. He deemed it a 100% factor, "all of those who become alcohol addicts, in the experience of this writer [Wood] were first tobacco addicts."—Frank L. Wood, M.D., What You Should Know About Tobacco (Wichita, KS: The Wichita Publishing Co, 1944), p 143.

    Prevention means dealing with the systemic aspects. Prevention is in essence like vaccination, solution on the wholesale basis. It means that people are not turned into alcoholics in the first place. Prevention means that drunk-driving incidents do not happen in the first place.

    Prevention is sharply distinct from after-the-fact punishment. The many years of the "punishment" approach, disregarding the 1909 Alcoholism Prevention Act, MCL § 750.27, MSA § 28.216, have given us vast numbers of incidents. It is about time we do what our great-grandparents knew to do, prevent the problem in the first place, via the prevention-oriented systemic approach.

    "Addiction to tobacco, like addiction to opium, is a specific disease . . . . Its protracted course, the enormous numbers affected, and spreading infection making smoking one of our most serious diseases."—Lennox Johnston, "Cure of Tobacco-Smoking," 263 The Lancet 480, 482 (6 Sep 1952) (See Excerpt).

    Like an infectious disease, the prevalence of smoker alcoholics later came to infect nonsmokers to a small extent (about 10% of alcoholics are nowadays nonsmokers). Dr. J. T. Hayes has found those statistics. "Smoking prevalence among active alcoholics approaches 90%."— J. T. Hayes, K. P. Offord, I. T. Croghan, D. R. Schroeder, R. D. Hurt (ASAM), D. E. Jorenby, "Alcoholism and Nicotine Dependence Treatment," 15 Journal of Addictive Diseases 135 (1996).

    "The smoking cessation drug varenicline significantly reduced alcohol consumption in a group of heavy-drinking smokers," says "Anti-Smoking Drug Decreases Alcohol Consumption in Heavy Drinking Smokers" (Psychopharmacology, 1 May 2012, cited at Newswise (3 May 2012).

    Statistics show the cigarette-alcoholism link. Statistics shows how to "nip it in the bud," how to do "the stitch in time that saves nine." 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 systemic aspect concept, the evidence for the statistics on the cigarette-alcoholism link. We already know why the cigarettes-alcoholism link exists. We already know that smoking is the No. 1 cause of disease, suffering, and premature death. Many suffering smokers are self-medicating with alcohol to mask their suffering.

    In fact, that was known a century ago. The term used is "gateway drug." Cigarettes are the starter drug delivery agent. Cigarettes deliver the drug nicotine, and many toxic chemicals that cause severe suffering. Children become hooked on cigarettes at an early age. In 1909, the Michigan government passed a law forbidding cigarettes for these reasons. That law, number 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 . . . ."

              By attacking the 90% factor in alcoholism, the idea is to reduce use of alcohol significantly. Then drunk driving, typically done by smokers, will be reduced. The intent is to reduce it enough that a number of suppliers and sellers will cease operation, reducing availability, thus potentially reducing the remaining 10% of the alcoholism problem, thus even further reducing drunk driving.

    On average someone is killed by a drunk driver every 40 minutes. In 2007, an estimated 12,998 people died in drunk driving related crashes--a decline of 3.7 percent from the 13,491 drunk driving related fatalities of 2006. This decline is due to the carry-over effect of 1993-2001 anti-smoking activism supported at the highest levels.

    Tennessee and Iowa had led the way in 1897.

    This was shortly after WCTU action in 1892. That year, WCTU members sent Congress thousands of petitions for banning cigarettes. Had Congress complied, that would have eliminated most alcoholism. But Congress refused; fortunately states such as Iowa and Tennessee, and later Michigan, got the message.

    "When we take a thorough drug history, we are forced to admit that nicotine—not alcohol or cannabis—is the drug of entry for most young people."—Emanuel Peluso and Lucy Silvay Peluso, "The Challenge of Treating Teenagers," 9 Alcoholism & Addiction (#2) 21 (Dec 1988). This is not new information. The tobacco-alcoholism link was reported over two centuries ago.

    The Surgeon General under George Washington was Benjamin Rush, M.D. Dr. Rush, who had signed the Declaration of Independence, opposed "the habitual use of tobacco, which he thought led to a desire for strong drink and was injurious both to health and morals."—Dr. Carl Binger, Revolutionary Doctor: Benjamin Rush (1746-1813) (New York: Norton, 1966), p 201.

    The tobacco-alcoholism link is cited in the book by Meta Lander, The Tobacco Problem, 6th ed. (Boston: Lee and Shepard Pub, 1885), pp 84-87, 152, 255, and 284-288. At 284 is the bottom line: "it is the prevailing testimony of medical authorities that tobacco-using leads naturally to liquor-drinking, that it is the 'facilis descensus Averni.'" P 87 says it thus: "the exceptions are very rare, when a user of tobacco in any of its forms is not ultimately led to use alcoholic liquors; and . . . the use of tobacco is the great [No. 1] cause of both moderate and excessive alcoholic drinking," quoting Dr. Cowan.

    "'The professors in the University and High School at Ann Arbor, Michigan, who have had a long experience among thousands of young men, regard tobacco as having a worse effect than even liquor, affirming that more young men break down in body and mind and finally go astray as a result of smoking than of drinking, while the former often leads to the latter.' In this view concur Dr. Parker, Dr. Rush, and a multitude of medical men," Lander, supra, pp 86-87.

    "It is the testimony of Jerry McAuley, who has rescued multitudes from drunkenness, that it is extremely rare to find a reformed man that continues a slave to tobacco who does not fall back into the gutter. This fact is so patent that it is coming more and more to be taken for granted that the [recovering alcholic] when giving up drink, will also give up [tobacco]. The case is related of one who, being persuaded to smoke a single cigar, relapsed into drunkenness," Lander, supra, p 286.

    "Smoking leads to drinking," quoting Dr. Chalmers, p 152. ". . . tobacco . . . is one of the things I most inveigh against, believing it to be the most important factor in inducing the liquor habit," quoting Dr. Pennoyer, Pennoyer Sanitarium, Kenosha, Wisconsin, p 152.

    "The rapid increase of nervous people, nerve pain, neuralgia, and obscure nervous disease is seen by the physician every day, and it is my belief that tobacco . . . is the most prominent cause. It is from this class [of people] that drunkards are mostly recruited," quoting Dr. L. G. Alexander, p 144. P. 150 linked tobacco and delirium tremens.

    "The tendency of . . . tobacco . . . is to undermine both the health and morals of the young. It is the direct road to intemperance in the drinking habit," quoting Principal Sheldon, Normal and Training School, Oswego, New York, Lander, supra, p 153.

    "Nicotine is one of the most powerful of the 'nerve poisons' known. Its virulence is compared to that of prussic acid. . . . . It seems to destroy life not by attacking a few but all of the functions essential to it. . . . A significant indication of this is that there is no substance which can counteract its effects. . . . the use of tobacco in even the smallest amount impairs the functional action of the liver on the blood passing through it, and that the abnormal state of the blood thus caused will manifest itself by disturbance in the brain." "Thus the nerves are under the constant influence of the drug and much injury to the system results." Wherefore, "A desire, often a craving, for liquor or some other stimulant is experienced."—C. W. Lyman, 48 New York Medical Journal 262-265 (8 Sep 1888).

    Dr. Anthony Smythe in 1857 had said likewise. This fact of "the well-established association between smoking and drinking" was recited anew by Dr. Joseph Stokes III in 308 New Engl J Med (#7) 393 (17 Feb 1983). See also W. Moodie, "Smoking, Drinking, and Nervousness," 2 Lancet 188-189 (1957).

    "Heavy drinking dulls the mind even after you sober up, new study finds," says Randy Dotinga, HealthDay, The Detroit News, 24 November 2004, p 5H. The study shows that alcohol use leading to "hangovers contribute to memory problems and delayed reaction time," thus "even after blood-alcohol levels had returned to zero, study participants still had trouble with basic tasks." Source: Aaron White, Asst. Research Prof. of Psychology, Duke University, Alcohol and Alcoholism (November/December 2004). "Alcohol simply isn't good for the body." Prof. White says of alcohol, "It's a poison, and it just happens to be a poison that gives us a nice buzz. But you pay for it. The body must devote energy to processing and removing it."Says Dotinga, "Even when no alcohol is left in the body, people are plagued by after-effects such as fatigue, nausea, and dehydration. 'All of that is going to make it harder for you to pay attention, to feel like learning and stay awake,' he adds."

    "And . . . cigarette addiction undoubtedly leads to the use of . . . other habit-forming drugs."—Daniel H. Kress, M.D., The Cigarette As A Physician Sees It (Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press Publishing Ass'n, 1931), p 68. "The two [smoking and drinking] are very intimately associated. The one leads to the other. They are Siamese twins, inseparably joined together . . ." (p 72).

    Let's repeat the introduction: "Nearly all alcoholics, recovered or otherwise, are heavy smokers."—Arthur Cain, M.D., The Cigarette Habit: An Easy Cure (1964) p 4. Dr. Forest S. Tennant, Jr., "pointed out that in almost every case adults who have problems with alcohol are cigarette smokers." 27 Smoke Signals (#1) 1 (Jan 1981).

    This is so important it bears repeating. Smokers are suffering from tobacco effects, thus attempting, even unconsciously, to self-medicate themselves with substances including alcohol. Smoking constricts blood vessels; alcohol is an antidote and dilates them. Unfortunately for smokers, the constricting effect of nicotine is much more powerful than the dilating effect of alcohol, says Alton Ochsner, M.D., Smoking and Your Life (New York: Julian Messner Pub, 1954 rev 1964), p 58. So for those smokers engaged in the desperate effort at self-medicating, the systemic aspect of the process leads to increasing useage ending in alcoholism, i.e., the 90% factor herein noted.

    There is also evidence that the nicotine in cigarettes creates a biochemical impulse, i.e., a "pharmacological basis," to drink more. See Anh Dzung Lê, W. A. Corrigall, J. Watchus, S. Harding, W. Juzytsch, and T.-K. Li, "Involvement of Nicotinic Receptors in Alcohol Self-Administration," 24 Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research (#2) 155-163 (Feb 2000). And see summary.

    Around 1901, Dr. Dabbs tried to treat alcoholics without first dealing with their smoking. He later admitted that that is malpractice. He admitted "the prohibition of tobacco by [professionals] was exactly the vital prohibition omitted by [himself]." So he conceded "that in vetoing alcohol we must also veto tobacco."

    And note Dr. "Thacher's suggestion that we made a mistake not to cut off tobacco first," before adopting Prohibition!—Pryns Hopkins, Ph.D., Gone Up in Smoke: An Analysis of Tobaccoism (Culver City, CA: The Highland Press, 1948), p 222. Indeed, "higher cigarette taxes and strict smoke-free policies not only curb smoking but also lower alcohol consumption," says Jim Dryden, "Americans drink less when cigarettes cost more" (6 October 2014)

    Accordingly, had America banned tobacco first, there would have been essentially no alcoholism problem, so there'd have been no pressure to do Alcohol Prohibition.

    See examples of pertinent writings:
  • Withington, William, An Address Delivered Before the Union Temperance Society, (Consisting Chiefly of Gentlemen of the Bar), of Oxford County, Me., in the Court House at Paris, June 10th, 1834 (Boston, W. Peirce, 1835)
  • Withington, William, Christian Radicalism (Boston: Perkins & Marvin, 1836)
  • Withington, William, Cutting to the Quick: An Address Delivered Before the Cambridge Temperance Society, at Springville, Lenawee Co. Michigan, January 15, 1838 (Adrian, Mich.: Cambridge Temperance Society, 1838)
  • Withington, William, The Potato Rot; or A Curse on Distilling Potatoes, Rye, and Other Eatables (1840, 1849)
  • Arthur, T. S. (1809-1885), Strong Drink: The Curse and the Cure (St. Louis: N.D. Thompson, 1877)
  • Cora Frances Stoddard (1872-1936), What Public Health Officials Can Do Toward the Prevention of Drunkenness: Suggestions Made at a Hearing Before the Massachusetts State Commission on Drunkenness in 1913 (Westerville, O.: American Issue Publishing Co, 1915)
  • Cora F. Stoddard, How Prohibition Came to the United States (Westerville, O.: American Issue Publishing Co., 1920). Reprinted by permission from Social Hygiene, vol. 6, Issue # 1 (Jan 1920)

    • As long ago as 1845, people were advised of the impossibility of ending alcoholism without first eliminating tobacco use, as tobacco
    "is unquestionably the greatest obstacle existing to the progress of temperance; and never will this cause triumph; never will alcoholic drinks be discarded as a beverage, until tobacco ceases to be used . . . ."—Benjamin I. Lane, The Mysteries of Tobacco (New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1845), p 87.

    George Trask said similarly in 1860: "Therefore I tell you plainly that [temperance advocates] who have talked loud and long against alcohol, but are this day the dupes [addicts] of tobacco, are, in my opinion, but half converted to temperance principles."—Rev. George Trask, Letters on Tobacco (Fitchburg, Mass: Trask Pub, 1860), p 29. "I add [that] if temperance men sometimes act a ridiculous part,—denounce one narcotic and get intoxicated on another, [they] strain at a gnat and swallow tobacco. . . ."—Trask, p 32.

    Dreher and Fraser showed that almost all smokers of two or more packs of cigarettes per day were alcoholic. Dreher, KF, Fraser, JG, "Smoking habits of alcoholic outpatients. I," 2 Int'l J Addict 259-270 (1967).

    Drivers "who smoke are arrested for drunken driving more than three times as often as nonsmokers."—DiFranza JR, Winters TH, "Smoking and Drunk Driving," 313 N Engl J Med 1421-1422 (1985), and DiFranza JR and Guerra MP, "Alcoholism and Smoking," 51 Journal of Studies on Alcohol (#2) 130-135 (1990).

    There is an additional corroboration of the link between smoking, drunk driving, and automobile accidents. That is the fact that cigarettes have a long record of being hallucinogenic.—Jan G. R. Elferink, "The Narcotic and Hallucinogenic Use of Tobacco in Pre-Columbian Central America," 7 Journal of Ethnopharmacology 111-122 (1983), and references therein. (Modern Americans think of drugs as, e.g., opium, cocaine, heroin, etc.) But Native Americans (Indians) were not so limited in their knowledge. There is a well-documented Native American Indian useage of tobacco for its hallucinogenic effect. The active ingredients causing tobacco's hallucinogenic effect are known. Modern medical science has identified them; they are "harman" and "norharman":

    "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."—Oscar Janiger, M.D., and Marlene Dobkin De Rios, M.D., "Nicotiana an Hallucinogen?," 30 Econ Bot 149-151 (April-June 1976).

    Re the smoking-accident link, you may wonder, 'How does smoking relate to accidents?' Here's part of the answer: "changes in the neural transmission in the visual system."

    Re alcoholics' children, how do they react? Here is one example from a child born in 1878: “In my home the father of the family was drinking himself to death; it was [politician-abetted] saloon-keepers who sold him the liquor; it was [said] politicians and . . . police force which guarded these saloons while they violated a dozen different laws. In that city, hundreds of thousands of children were wondering, just as I wondered, why all powers of the state [government] were used for their destruction, instead of for their aid. With the dope-rings and the bootleggers flourishing as they are today, there must be ten times as many children asking this question; and with exceptions so rare as to be hardly worth mentioning, all the power of the schools and the colleges, as well as of the pulpit and the press, is devoted to keeping these children from finding out. They kept me from finding out until [years later].”—Upton Sinclair, The Goslings: A Study of the American Schools, Chapter 13, p 60 (1924). See also his Profits (1917), §§ 2.10 - 2.11, pp 75-80.

    "The term 'narcotic' is broadly defined to encompass any substance, including . . . hallucinogens, which directly induces sleep, allays sensibility, or blunts the senses, and which, when taken in large quantities, produces narcotism or insensibility."—25 Am Jur 2d, Drugs, Narcotics, and Poisons § 2." Annot., 92 ALR3d 47 (1979).

    Alcoholics:

    90% Smokers

    "The close association of cigarette smoking and alcoholism has been well documented . . . pharmacologic interactions between alcohol and nicotine have been demonstrated."—J. R. DiFranza and M. P. Guerra, J Stud Alcohol, supra, p 130.

    “Drinkers in middle-class areas are more likely routinely to consume 'hazardous' amounts of alcohol than those in poorer areas, research published today shows,” says “Hazardous drinking, the middle-class vice” (The Times [England] 16 October 2007). “The figures [arithmetic statistics] will be used by the Government to target middle-class wine drinkers and to make drunkenness as socially unacceptable as smoking.”

    Interaction between nicotine and alcohol has been shown at the molecular and behavioral levels. There is a physiological connection, noted even in animals. More alcohol consumption occurred in rats implanted subcutaenously with nicotine pellets, say A. D. Pothoff, G. Ellison, and L. Nelson, "Ethanol Intake Increases During Continuous Adminstration of Amphetamine and Nicotine, But Not Several Other Drugs," 18 Pharmacology, Biochemistry, and Behavior (#4) 489-493 (April 1983).

    Providing rats 1 mg/kg of nicotine invcreased ethanol consumption in rats, say O. Blomqvist, M. Ericson, D. Johnson, J. A. Engel, and B Söderpalm, "Voluntary Alcohol Intake in the Rat: Effects of Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptor Blockade or Subchronic Nicotine Treatment," 314 Eur J Pharmacol (#3) 257-267 (Oct 1996).

    And see the recent summary and verification of this recent research in the above-cited article by Lê, et al.

    In brief, alcoholism is essentially another of the many results of tobacco-induced brain damage.

    Also, "children who smoke were six times more likely to have been drunk than were other children and were five times morely likely to have always drunk alcohol without parental supervision."—J. Revill and C. G. Drury, "An assessment of the incidence of cigarette smoking in fourth year school children and the factors leading to its establishment," 94 Publ Hlth 243-260 (1980), cited in DiFranza and Guerra, supra.

    Re the starter drug, and enticing children into alcoholism, there have been many illegal tobacco sales to minors. Professional analysts recognize that adult smokers would typically not be smoking if they had not been illegally solicited or obtained while they were children. See the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) rule entitled "Regulations Restricting the Sale and Distribution of Cigarettes and Smokeless Tobacco to Protect Children and Adolescents." 61 Fed Reg 44,396 (28 Aug 1996) (resulting rule codified at 21 CFR § 801, et al.). The FDA found that "cigarette and smokeless tobacco use begins almost exclusively in childhood and adolescence." 61 Fed Reg 45239. Minors are particularly vulnerable to Madison Avenue's exhortations, plastered on racing cars and outfield fences, to be cool and smoke, be manly and chew, and the FDA found "compelling evidence that promotional campaigns can be extremely effective in attracting young people to tobacco products." Id. at 45247.

    Examples of Tobacco-Related
    Effects Being Self-Medicated
    Abortion and Miscarriage
    AIDS, A Severe Burden
    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

               Such effects are depressing! Naturally smokers are more depressed than nonsmokers. See

    • Glass, RM, "Blue Mood, Blackened Lungs," 264 J Am Med Assn 1583-1584 (1990);

    • Hall S, Munoz R, Reus V, and Sees K, "Nicotine, Negative Affect and Depression," 61 J Consulting and Clinical Psychology 761-767 (1993); and

    • Lerman C, Audrain J, Orleans T, et al., "Investigation of Mechanisms Linking Depressed Mood to Nicotine Dependence," 21 Addictive Behaviors (#1) 9-19 (1996) (study finding depression at a rate three times that among nonsmokers, with depression among 30-40% of smokers seeking smoking cessation aid.

    So is this hard to understand, smokers drink more? Not to our better educated 1909 ancestors. Back then, children were informed of cigarette hazards enough to write to the Legislature in 1889. Children were provided Edison's April 1914 anti-cigarette paper, and could understand it! The cigarette-cancer link was known.

    Back then, people even knew that the new century began in 1901!!— something many people in 2000, less educated than in 1909 on science and history, still didn't comprehend!! Wherefore the, 'is it 2000 or 2001?' question actually puzzled uneducated masses.

        Another way of saying some of this medical data is as follows, alcoholism generally arises from a preceding mental disorder. Smoking, due to the vast quantities of toxic chemicals, causes brain damage. It is now officially recognized as a mental disorder in authoritative references. Smoking impairs memory.
    This information, while thoroughly medically documented, is not reader friendly and may be upsetting. It will certainly be new to you. Please bear with us as you read those links, then return here. In order to properly explain this, a significant amount of background material must be presented.
    "Partem aliquam recte intelligere nemo potest, antequam totum, iterum atque iterum, periegerit." No one can rightly understand any part until he has read the whole again and again.

    If this medical information at this site is new to you, be aware of the rampant pro-tobacco media censorship, including of the systemic aspect. The media's wide-spread censorship of tobacco-facts, to the extreme of printing of gross disinformation, has been cited since at least 1836:

  • Rev. Beriah Green, What Northen Men Can Do (1836), p 11 (in slavery context)

  • Rev. John G. Fee, Anti-Slavery mnaual (New York: William Harned, 1851), p 122 (more slavery context)

  • Rev. J. B. Wight, Tobacco: Its Use and Abuse (1889), p 218

  • Cora F. Stoddard, "The Publishers and Tobacco," 22 Sci Temp Journal 93-94 (1913)

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

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

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

    • Your being hurt, or killed, by drunk driving is your tragedy, but to others, it's their bread and butter, their job security, a different perspective.

    The media know that "15 Percent of Americans Say They Drive Drunk," disproportionately smokers.

    Nonetheless, media types routinely emphasize individual sob-stories, pity parties, the whinier-voiced the better, with crocodile tears! and punitive notions—calculated to NOT prevent. Media carefully omit systemic data, such as the smoker disproportion among alcoholics, for the same job-security-for-self reason.

    You can observe media malice yourself. Note articles on alcoholism and drunk driving. Note that the media leave out, omit, don't mention, the tobacco-alcoholism connection.

    When rarely (as normally "the press has suppressed or withheld the facts concerning tobacco toxicity from the American people"), something is published (e.g., linking smoking and alcoholism), the material likely goes unread. Why? 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."—Frank L. Wood, M.D., What You Should Know About Tobacco, supra, pp 33 and 63. Our tobacco taboo website, our exposé of pro-tobacco disinformation website, and our 'prohibition was sabotaged' website, have more details.

    Alcoholism prevention by dealing with the 90% factor, smoking, moots issues such as the one in Commonwealth v Hartman, 179 Pa Super Ct 134; 115 A2d 820 (21 July 1955) reversed 383 Pa St 461; 119 A2d 211 (4 Jan 1956) (case where the officer detected the alcohol odor (amazing how they can't detect the 90%, the tobacco odor) so wanted a blood test done; there was a time lapse; the alcohol level reached peak about 15 minutes before the test, but 40 minutes after having stopped driving; explanation is that it takes some time to metabolize; wherefore the court found the test result inadmissible, as it only shows results at the time of the test, not at the time of driving, so remanded the case for venire facias de novo).

    See also the article by Kristie Foley of the Wake Forest University School of Medicine, in the Journal of Adolescent Health (2005), that concluded that "parents who provided alcohol to their adolescent children or drank with them were more likely to have children who neither regularly used nor abused alcohol." Foley also said, in subsequent interview, that "I cannot come out and say that we can teach responsible drinking -- I would be at major risk from an institutional perspective for saying that -- but what I can say is that there is at least some evidence that by providing alcohol in a protected environment within the context of a meal, perhaps, we can at least minimize the excitement of it. But you would never get funding for a project like that, not in our current political climate." For background, see "Teaching 'Responsible Drinking' at Home" (9 January 2006).

    In contrast, parents who set a bad example, typically by smoking, set the stage for their own children to later become alcoholics. See the article "Negative Childhood Experiences Could Precipitate Earlier Drinking" (12 August 2008). Note the evidence that

    "children who deal with hardships such as abuse, divorce or substance abuse in the home may be more likely to begin using alcohol at a young age.

    "Researchers for the study of 3,600 Americans ages 18 to 39 were able to link earlier onset of drinking to five specific childhood experiences: physical abuse, sexual abuse, living with a family member with mental illness, substance abuse in the home, and parents' divorce or separation.

    "Adults who reported having any of these experiences were more likely to have used alcohol before the age of 15 and also were more likely to have used alcohol in order to cope with their problems. . . . childhood abuse had the strongest association with early drinking.

    "The risk of starting drinking before age 15 was two to three times higher for children who had experienced abuse.

    "Having a family member with a mental illness or substance abuse problem was the factor causing the next highest level of risk for early drinking."

    Click on the links above in blue, and learn the connection of each such problematic behavior to tobacco use. And for the original article, see the scholarly paper by Emily Rothman, Sc.D., of the Boston University School of Public Health, et al., in the medical journal Pediatrics (August 2008).

    And ponder also an instructive 19th century analysis: "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 (1783-1862). He was Surgeon to British King George IV, William IV, and Queen Victoria. A comparable modern position is U.S. Surgeon General.

    Prevention of alcoholism via cigarette control is the medical-science-fact-based approach. It is a "free" approach, i..e, posting a "no-cigarettes-made-or-sold-in-this-jurisdiction" sign costs, let's say, $1. The prevention approach deals with the systemic aspect. Dealing with the system so as to prevent individual problems even being created is quite a different approach than dealing on the after-the-fact basis, with the individuals.

    The systemic approach must be sharply distinguished from that latter, individual oriented approach, the money-maker or hate-group approach (hating the alcholic/drunk driver, demanding savage punishments).

    Systemic prevention means the problem does not arise, hence no need for individualized counseling @ $100 per hour, no lobbyist activities focused on the person, no prosecution activities focused on the individual, no crocodile-tears, no sad whiny media sob stories. (Your tragedy is these people's job security, never forget).

    Systemic prevention, as you can see, is a job-killer (fewer of the individual-oriented-occupations' staff needed), so is almost wholly disregarded.

    Activists long ago realized that solution cannot be left to a non-tobacco-related 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, prosecutions, rehabilitations, prison-constructions, $ and empire-building ad infinitum.
    The after-the-factism approach [criminalizing drunk driving] does not work. It is not intended by politicians (nor by phoney so-called 'anti-drunk driving' groups), to work, lest they lose their issue, and the money and contributions, that come from NOT solving the problem, from NOT preventing it.
    Such laws' purpose is to enable the 'adrenalin rush' of cops chasing down some perp! And for media sob stories! But it [the drunk-driving criminalization approach] is not intended or designed to work, meaning, is not intended to prevent such incidents.
    How many police, when they have a choice, refuse to enforce prevention laws [too boring]? How many of them, much prefer the adrenalin rush thrill of after-the-factism police chases? 'enforcing the law'?!!
    Better to repeal the after-the-factism laws, than allow them to stand on the books, a malicious fraud calculated, intended and designed to continue the drunk-driving problem.
    If you are hit by a drunk driver, those laws, and the advocates for such laws, have responsibility. Such advocates took the after-the-factism approach deliberately, intentionally, calculatedly. They chose to not take the pro-active, prevention approach.
    They make this anti-health anti-safety position despite the evidence that a "Smoke-free law helps bartender health" (LaCrosse Tribune, 18 March 2011).
    Note also this article, "Warren bars challenge no-smoking law" (22 November 2011), showing that the Michigan smoke free law led to closing 200 bars in not much over one year. Bar owners are well aware of the tobacco-alcoholism connection, it helps them make money.

    Pushers know the tobacco-alcoholism connection! They know where they can make money off others' suffering!Check the list of beer companies owned by Philip Morris Tobacco!
    Thus the tobacco-alcohol lobby alliance in fighting smoke-free laws. They know that smoke-free laws reduce smoking, thus in turn reduces alcoholism.

             Governor John Engler [1991-2002] and staff were paper supportive of cigarette control, for example, see

    Exec Order 1992-3Pro-Law Letter # 1 Cigarette Smuggling Memo Pro-Law Letter # 2 E-Mail Overview

             What this site is asking is your help in

    • (a) getting the 1909 alcoholism-prevention law MCL § 750.27 enforced, and

    • (b) getting all other governments to pass the same law in their areas.
    Please help us save lives, by preventing a significant percentage of alcoholism and thus much drunk driving.

    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-alcoholism 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                   [By Fax to (517) 335-6863]

    Dear Governor Snyder:

             This is a request that you assign the Michigan State Police to enforce the alcoholism prevention law, MCL § 750.27, MSA § 28.216, "Smoking prevalence among active alcoholics approaches 90%," according to Hayes, et al., Alcoholism and Nicotine Dependence Treatment, published in the Journal of Addictive Diseases, Vol 15, page 135 (1996). The cigarettes-alcoholism link occurs because many smokers are suffering, then self-medicating with alcohol. The alcoholism prevention act, MCL § 750.27, MSA § 28.216, prevents that smoker suffering leading to 90% of alcoholism.

             The alcoholism prevention act, MCL § 750.27, MSA § 28.216, if enforced, would prevent that. It 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, avoids the error of Prohibition, and 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).

             All Michigan residents endangered by alcoholics 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 alcoholism 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 alcoholism prevention law, MCL § 750.27, MSA § 28.216. "Smoking prevalence among active alcoholics approaches 90%," according to Hayes, et al., Alcoholism and Nicotine Dependence Treatment, published in the Journal of Addictive Diseases, Vol 15, page 135 (1996). The cigarettes-alcoholism link occurs because many smokers are suffering, then self-medicating with alcohol. The alcoholism prevention act, MCL § 750.27, MSA § 28.216, prevents that smoker suffering leading to 90% of alcoholism..

             The alcoholism prevention act, MCL § 750.27, MSA § 28.216, if enforced, would prevent that. It 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, avoids the error of Prohibition, and 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).

             All Michigan residents endangered by alcoholics 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. Kristie 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 alcoholism prevention law, MCL § 750.27, MSA § 28.216. "Smoking prevalence among active alcoholics approaches 90%," according to Hayes, et al., Alcoholism and Nicotine Dependence Treatment, published in the Journal of Addictive Diseases, Vol 15, page 135 (1996). The cigarettes-alcoholism link occurs because many smokers are suffering, then self-medicating with alcohol. The alcoholism prevention act, MCL § 750.27, MSA § 28.216, prevents that smoker suffering leading to 90% of alcoholism.

             The alcoholism prevention act, MCL § 750.27, MSA § 28.216, if enforced, would prevent that. It 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, avoids the error of Prohibition, and 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).

             All Michigan residents endangered by alcoholics suffering from this deleterious and adulterated product, need enforcement to occur. Please assign officers to protect abulic smokers, children, and nonsmokers, by enforcing the alcoholism 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 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 an alcoholism prevention law. Michigan already has such a law. It is law number MCL § 750.27, MSA § 28.216. It deals with the cigarettes-alcoholism link. "Smoking prevalence among active alcoholics approaches 90%," according to Drs. Hayes, et al., Alcoholism and Nicotine Dependence Treatment, published in the Journal of Addictive Diseases, Vol 15, page 135 (1996). The cigarettes-alcoholism link occurs because many smokers are suffering, then self-medicating with alcohol.

             The Michigan alcoholism prevention act, MCL § 750.27, MSA § 28.216, prevents that smoker suffering leading to 90% of alcoholism. 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 alcoholism prevention act avoids the error of Prohibition by dealing with the cause of smokers' suffering, not with their understandable self-medicating behavior to try to relieve their suffering. Michigan's alcoholism prevention act puts personal responsibility on those with most knowledge of the contraband substance (manufacturers and sellers who know it leads to alcoholism), not on unwary consumers, often children.

             All residents endangered by alcoholics suffering from this deleterious and adulterated product, need you to take action to get an alcoholism prevention act adopted. Please take action to copy the Michigan alcoholism 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.

    Residents of Tennessee and Iowa, which led the way in 1897, should ask their legislators to re-adopt those now-repealed 1897 laws.

    If you are interested in the issue of Corruption Undermining Alcohol Prohibition (as it was done in America under the Eighteenth Amendment), see two factual books on the subject by Ernest B. Gordon:

  • Brewers and "Billionaires" Conspire Against the Working Classes: The Secret of The Present Propaganda Against the Eighteenth Amendment (New York, N.Y.: Alcohol Information Committee, 1930)

  • The Wrecking of the Eighteenth Amendment (Francestown, NH: The Alcohol Information Press, 1943)

    The books help make the distinction between political prohibition (as managed, mismanaged, by politicians and undermined by corruption) and what would be medically valid (cigarette ban).

    Remember Dr. "Thacher's suggestion that [politicians] made a mistake not to cut off tobacco first," before adopting Prohibition!—Pryns Hopkins, Ph.D., Gone Up in Smoke: An Analysis of Tobaccoism (Culver City, CA: The Highland Press, 1948), p 222.

    In addition, you have the advantage of having available to you, the above-cited medical data and context, an advantage not available to the average reader at that time. Michigan in 1909 chose a medical-fact-based approach (pursuant to the Thacher-Hopkins viewpoint), to prevent alcoholism. But, as you see by the non-enforcement, it too is being deliberately politically mismanaged and sabotaged. To try to undo that, is why the above letter-writing campaign is in process.

    • Other Organizations'
    Sites At Which You May
    Find Helpful Information
    www.alcoholism-directory.com/statisticsofalcoholism/
    Health Link USA
    The N I A A Site
    The W C T U Site

    Commentary
    Hangovers

    An Historical Background
    Site On Carrie Nation
    Though Written As A Tourist Atttraction Site, It, Starting about Halfway Down, References Official's Corruption Ignoring Laws on the Subject and Her Turn-of-The Century Temperance Actions in Reaction to Bribery

    A Foreseeable Defense in Drunk Driving Cases

    1. Alcoholism by suffering smokers is simply one of the many effects of TSC.

    "Over 37 million people (one of every six Americans alive today) will die from cigarette smoking years before they otherwise would."
    Source: Dept of Health, Education, and Welfare, Research on Smoking Behavior, Research Monograph 17, Publication ADM 78-581, page v (Dec 1977). Such deaths are "natural and probable consequences." As such, occurring so frequently as to be expected to happen again, they are intentional. Accordingly, to deal with the beam, not the mote, the underlying perpetrators, tobacco manufacturers and sellers, and their accessories, should be prosecuted. See pertinent case law.

    2. It is a "natural and probable consequence" that prosecutors' mass refusal to enforce the 1909 alcoholism prevention law, MCL § 750.27, MSA § 28.216, leads to alcoholism by smokers, hence, their being the 90% group, pursuant to the aforesaid studies, esp. by Hayes, et al., to commit alcoholism and, disproportionately, drunk-driving.

    3. Michigan tried to stop the alcoholism process from starting, by passing MCL § 750.27, MSA § 28.216, which serves as an "Alcoholism Prevention Act," but it is never enforced. Prosecutors of drunk drivers lack clean hands as they and accessories, fellow prosecutors, have done, and do, nothing to enforce it. Said prosecutors are thus "accessories during the fact," a legal concept defined on pages 14-15 of Black's Law Dictionary. They actually or impliedly consent to TSC deaths ("consent" is defined on page 305).

    4. It cannot be deemed other than "entrapment" (defined on page 532) when prosecutors en masse refuse for 91 years to enforce the alcoholism prevention law, when the "natural and probable consequence" (suffering) results, and they seek to divert attention off their own beam, personal, immoral, habitual misconduct of refusing to enforce the law, by their hypocritical finger-pointing at the mote (individual drunk driver).

    5. MCL § 750.27, MSA § 28.216, if enforced, would prevent most alcoholism and drunk driving. However, the Prosecutor never files any cases re violations of the law, which are rampant.

    6. Accordingly, the court should dismiss drunk driving charges as frivolous and moot; and/or, in the alternative, and preferably, enter an injunction directing prior mass enforcement of MCL § 750.27, MSA § 28.216, as a condition precedent to allowing prosecution of anyone other than the tobacco company perpetrators, with respect to smokers' alcoholism and drunk driving.

    7. The continuing pattern of prosecutorial misconduct, mass refusal to enforce the 1909 law, precludes prosecutions at the latter end of the cause and effect chain. By law, MCL § 750.478, MSA § 28.476, the government (prosecutors) must set an example of enforcing and obeying the laws. Case law to the same effect, e.g., Service v Dulles, 354 US 363; 77 S Ct 1152; 1 L Ed 2d 1403 (1957), and Glus v Eastern District Terminal, 359 US 231, 232; 79 S Ct 760, 762; 3 L Ed 2d 770, 772 (1959), makes clear that a plaintiff cannot rely on its own wrongdoing at the starting point of a process.

    8. The government (prosecutor) cannot have the benefit of the provisions favorable to its/his side, while ignoring its conditions which it/he is to perform, obey, or enforce. Precedents show that no court should aid such a misconduct-committing party, e.g., BTC v Norton CMC, 25 F Supp 968, 969 (1938); and Buckman v HMA, 190 Or 154; 223 P2d 172, 175 (1950). "No one may take advantage of his own wrong," Stephenson v Golden, 279 Mich 710, 737; 276 NW 848 (1938). When smokers are suffering, then seeking relief from alcohol, the wrong is prosecutors' pursuant to their 91 year pattern of refusal to enforce the alcoholism-prevention law, MCL § 750.27, MSA § 28.216.

    9. Somebody should indeed be prosecuted--prosecutors--pursuant to MCL § 750.478, MSA § 28.476, for their protracted, brazen knowing, refusal to enforce the alcoholism-prevention law, MCL § 750.27, MSA § 28.216.

    10. Such prosecutor conduct violating the rule of law, deprives the employer, the "People" in drunk driving cases, of "honest services." Federal laws, e.g., 18 USC §§ 1341, 1343, and 1346, make fraud defrauding employer of "honest services" illegal.

  • The term “‘honest services’ can include ‘honest and impartial government.’”--U.S. v Brumley, 116 F3d 728, 731 (CA 5, 1997) cert den 522 US 1028; 118 S Ct 625; 139 L Ed 2d 606.
  • “A defendant may be prosecuted for deprivation of honest services [even] if he [the offender, e.g., prosecutor never enforcing the cigarette law] has [not a single illegal intent but] a dual intent, i.e., if he is found to have intended both a lawful [as they may allege] and an unlawful purpose to some degree.”--U.S. v Woodward, 149 F3d 46, 71 (CA 1, 1998), cert den 525 US 1138; 119 S Ct 1026; 143 L Ed 2d 37.
  • The Dept of Justice is currently [2003] prosecuting an "honest services" case, U.S. v James J. Smith.
    For an example of how this concept was applied in a Macomb County case, though another context, as these precedents have general application, click here.
    11. In states without a cigarette control law, the Legislature itself is the accessory, by refusing to deal with the gateway drug, only the post-gateway drug alcohol. It is dealing not with the cause, but with effects.
    12. The Supreme Court in Robinson v California, 370 US 660; 82 S Ct 1417; 8 L Ed 2d 758 (1962) ruled that it is unconstitutional to criminalize a disease. Alcoholism is a recognized disease, as per the DHHS International Classification of Disease, 9th ed. (1980).
    13. Politicians circumvent Robinson by criminalizing drug disease symptoms! which include abulia (impulse and ethical controls impairment), hence the drug-transportation, drug-buying, drug-use, symptoms of the condition. This politician-approach is as unconstitutional as criminalizing, let's say, symptoms of lung cancer: coughing, vomiting, pallor, etc. Disregarding medical science is "junk science," itself unconstitutional. See line of case including but not limited to:
  • U.S. v Amaral, 488 F2d 1148 (CA 3, 1973)
  • Richardson v Richardson v Richardson-Merrill, Inc, 273 US App DC 32; 857 F2d 823 (1988)
  • Christophersen v Allied-Signal Corp, 939 F2d 1106 (CA 5, 1991)
  • Brock v Merrell J. Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc, 874 F2d 307 (CA 5, 1989)
  • eventually reaching the Supreme Court, Daubert v Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc, 509 US 579; 113 S Ct 2786; 125 L Ed 2d 469 (28 June 1993).
    • 14. Politicians also fail to take action to eliminate poverty, notwithstanding knowing the linkage. See, e.g., Shaila Khan, R. P. Murray, and G. E. Barnes, "A structural equation model of the effect of poverty and unemployment on alcohol abuse," Addictive Behavior, May-June 2002; Vol. 27 (# 3) pages 405-423, with study results as follows: "Results indicate that (a) increased poverty causes increased alcohol use and alcohol problems, and (b) recent unemployment decreases alcohol use while longer unemployment increases it." (Click here for more and moral-economic context.)
    15. Law enforcers also fail to enforce pertinent anti-poisoning and anti-murder laws. Such laws, if enforced, would prevent tobacco, thus prevent all its consequences, effects and correlatives.
    16. Message from California Attorney Ivan Morse (on approach to take in traffic stop situation, entitled "Stopped at a DUI Checkpoint? What to do.").


    • Summary Handout

    Discussion Group: More Participants Welcome

    The author (TA) and parents were hit by a drunk driver when TA was a youth. Once TA grew up and researched the underlying reasons for people becoming alcoholic, TA found information of the type cited herein. It is presented in the hope of saving lives.

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