Once again our governor is asking the Legislature to increase the amercement on those of us who enjoy smoking. We smokers have been incessantly vilified in the media, banned from places of public gathering, even from the grounds surrounding hospitals, and we can no longer enjoy a cigarette with our coffee in any part of a restaurant after our meal.

Since two-thirds of Mainers do not smoke and the majority opinion usually prevails in our country (except for presidential elections), undoubtedly we tobacco users, being an unpopular minority, will be further punished for our disfavored indulgence. The increased taxes are deemed essential to balance the budget and to deter juveniles from using tobacco. The teens cannot buy cigarettes until of a legal age to do so and before that age, that should be the purview of parental authority, and not the state bureaucracy.

The anti-smoking rhetoric often matches the impassioned exhortations of tent show revivalists or the fervid zealotry of the prohibitionists. Their puritanical hyperbole frequently does not distinguish tobacco usage, a legal substance, from mind-altering intoxicants that are illegal. They solemnly claim that they are only doing this for our own good, out of their concern for our nation’s health. Or is this paternalism just a sneaky way to push a tax burden off onto an unpopular minority? We have been told that smoking causes 400,000 deaths annually. Surely, if this is true, tobacco should be outlawed, not taxed.

However, there seems to be an aberration in their morbidity statistics. The United States has one of the lowest populations of smokers of any modern nation: Only about 23 percent of us smoke. According to statistics gathered by the American Medical Association, the United States ranks 12th of 13 countries in health. The healthiest nation of all, according to the AMA, is Japan where according to the Wall Street Journal Almanac, and acknowledged by the AMA, 60 percent of the men smoke. Of the 10 nations healthier than us, besides Japan, is Spain where 48 percent smoke and France where 40 percent smoke, Australia where 29 percent smoke, the United Kingdom where 28 percent smoke, and Sweden, the second healthiest nation, where 24 percent smoke.

The WSJ Almanac did not give the smoking statistics for Canada, the third healthiest nation, but I suspect they equal ours, and considering Quebec is probably higher than us, but the Canadians are much healthier than we are. The AMA also cited studies that showed that as many as 20 percent to 30 percent of patients receive “contraindicated care.” As many as 98,000 die each year as a result of medical errors; 80,000 die from infections picked up in hospitals; and 106,000 die from adverse effects of medication. Could it be that many of the 400,000 deaths attributed to smoking may have actually been diagnosed wrongly to conceal medical errors?

Although this commentary is not intended to encourage anyone to take up smoking – it has become very expensive – I cannot help but notice that the caliber of our politicians has diminished since the days when they were chosen in those smoke-filled back rooms: as have our freedoms and benefits also diminished.

Homere A. Dansereau lives in Addison.