Peter Brimelow says "Thank You for Smoking." Smoking can be good for you? Apparently in some limited cases, yes.

But consider this theoretical possibility: Should 60-year-olds take up smoking because its protection against Alzheimer's is more immediate that its potential damage to the lungs, which won't show up for 30 years if at all?

A theoretical possibility and likely to remain theoretical. Research into possible benefits of tobacco and nicotine is widely reported to be stymied by the absolutist moral fervor of the antismoking campaign ...

Why don't tobacco companies point out the potential offsetting rewards of smoking? Besides the usual corporate cowardice and bureaucratic inertia, the answer may be another, typically American, disease: lawyers. Directing the companies' defense, they apparently veto any suggestion that smoking has benefits for fear of liability suits and of the possible regulatory implications if nicotine is seen as a drug.

Which leaves smokers defenseless against a second typically American disease: the epidemic of power hungry puritanical bigots.

That last bit, a nice Menckenesque touch.