To Smoke Or Not To Smoke A Pipe

Richard Klein, a professor at Cornell University, noticed that there is a direct link between freedom and the right to smoke. He wrote: "Like other tyrants such as Louis XIV, Napoleon, Hitler, James I despised smoking and demonized tobacco. The relationship between tyranny and the repression of the right to grow, sell, use, or smoke tobacco can be seen most clearly in the way movements of liberation, revolutions both political and cultural, have always placed those rights at the center of their political demands. The history of the struggle against tyrants has been frequently linked to that of the struggle on behalf of the freedom to smoke"

Tobacco has been around for hundreds of years if not thousands, and there is no legislation that will be able to eradicate it. The Los Angeles Times made an interesting
Observation, mentioned by Rick Newcombe in 1994: "Russia once whipped smokers, Turkey beheaded them and India slit their noses. The Massachusetts colony outlawed public smoking in the 1630s, and Connecticut required smokers to have permits in the 1940s. In many instances between 1893 and 1921, cigarette sales were banned in North Dakota, South Dakota, Washington, Iowa, Tennessee, Arkansas, Illinois, Utah, Kansas and Minnesota." Despite such efforts, about a billion people around the world continue to smoke.

Its impossible to be a cigarette smoker on the fence or a moderate smoker. I know some, very rare, who smoke socially. But smoking a pipe is like have a glass of wine with dinner, instead of a case of beer every day.

Smoking a pipe is a hobby, and a fun one, say pipe smokers. Relaxing, tastes good, smells good, enhances objectivity and helps them cope with stress. David Kessler, head of the food and drug administration in 1994, when Rick Newcombe came out with these ideas, wanted to regulate tobacco as a drug. A reasoning that would also support a ban on abesity, a requirement that all Americans exercise, a ban on junk food, limits on alcohol and caffeine consumption, as if…., and so on. The amazing thing is that Waxman is rather chubby and Kessler used to be fat, says Newcombe.

Compare those two with Arnold Schwarzenegger, who not only is as healthy as a horse but dedicated to the cigar and occasional pipe smoker. Yet he is put on the defensive and trated as a pariah because he enjoys a cigar or pipe.

An interesting article came out, noted Newcombe, in an issue of the Complete Smoker, describing an interesting longevity study conducted in Pennsylvania during the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. An organization called "No Other World" performed the research with the assistance of the Northwestern Pennsylvania Lung Association and regional chapters of the American Cancer Society and the American Heart Association. The study reported that pipe smokers attained an average of 78—two years older than their smoking male counterparts." This may say something about the stress-reducing benefits of pipe smoking.

Rick Newcombe was a two-pack-a-day cigarette smoker. He couldn't run a mile without collapsing from wheezing. He decided that cigarettes were not his thing, but still wanted to enjoy smoking. He turned to the pipe. It took a while to find his way about the wooden contraption, but with patience and some tongue bites, a broken pipe, and a dozen other mistakes, he became familiar and enjoys his pipes and different tobaccos immensely. Today he runs 5 miles a day and is healthier that he was 25 years ago.

Who would you vote for Professor Einstein, a gentle pipe smoker? Or Hitler a fanatical hater of tobacco? Einstein would my choice….