Should FDA Control Nicotine?

Is it time for every American; immigrant (legal & illegal) or natural born, to take responsibility back from the government? Yes--Yes---Yes---Long past time. We have fallen into the trap that the world, Big Daddy, the government, the earner, the rich (whatever that means---maybe the harder, more courageous (risk taker) worker), owes us a living. We blame our problems on someone/everyone else, we expect someone/everyone to save us from the results of our own action or inaction. We've accepted the victim role, with relish. Wonder what a psychiatrist would say about our national physci.

Should we make nicotine a controlled substance; give the FDA what it wants? Why not? It gives us another ineffective, costly administrative, a boon to FDA employees; that won't make one iota of difference, except to create another group of Americans, ready to revolt against too much governmental control.

I don't believe the statistics on deaths; 400,000 deaths - 20% of all deaths, due to smoking. Thes kinds of stats are tossed around all the time by advocates and agencies; particularly agencies who want to increase their scope, which then raises their civil service grades, their power, and their salaries. I research death records for genealogy reports, all the time; I've yet to see a single death certificate that indicated the cause of death was smoking. We see bulletins every day that xyz is bad for your health, a killer, in some way or another; next week the bulletin reverses that finding and indicates it's not xyz, it's mnop. How can you put any faith in either the statistics or the health bulletins?

Nettie Kunz, Boise, Idaho Send e-mail to nkunz@cyberhighway.net