To the editor:

Smoking ban proponents cite one in 3,000 people die each year from secondhand smoke. This statistic is based on a 1993 Environmental Protection Agency study that was found to be “fraudulent” by a U.S. federal court in 1998. This number is still cited today as being factual by some members of the Lawrence No Smoking Task Force. These individuals realize the study was found to be tainted but use the statistic anyway as a scare tactic.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Kansas had 1,470 people die from lung cancer in 1999 out of a population of 2,639,653 Kansans. If you use the bogus one in 3,000 statistic, Kansas supposedly had 880 people die from secondhand smoke in 1999. They expect us to believe that in 1999, 60 percent of lung cancer deaths in Kansas were caused by secondhand smoke? These so-called “do-gooders” want us to believe that more people died in 1999 from secondhand smoke than actual firsthand smoke? How ridiculous.

Why are individuals using false numbers and scare tactics? Just as pro-smoking is backed by big tobacco companies, anti-smoking lobbyists are backed by big pharmaceutical companies that sell products like nicotine patches and nicotine gum. This heated topic is not about public or worker safety, this is an issue about money and public gullibility.

Steve Gaudreau,

Lawrence