One member of the Green Party of Philadelphia has been campaigning around this question for a while. My own thinking is that, while some additives may indeed make cigarettes even deadlier, smoke inhalation in general is bad for the lungs, and the toxicity of nicotine is easily verified experimentally.
Here's his latest posting on the subject to gpopchat:
A new Weapon of War?
Smoke from the tobacco plant must be the most deadly substance on earth. Why it isn't used against U.S. enemies on the battle field is a mystery only explained by the humane, compassionate nature of the Pentagon.
Today's entry into the "[fill-in-the-blank] linked to smoking" miasma is this news item, about "smoking" being linked to HIV AIDS.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060921/hl_nm/aids_smoking_dc
This news report, the first I've seen so far, says that it's about "tobacco smoke". It does not say smoke from chlorine-contaminated, dioxin-delivering smoking products. (See:
http://www.ejnet.org/rachel/rehw414.htm
and/or a litany of search hits for "Dioxin Immune System".)
That point is vital and integral because dioxin is already known to damage one's immune system. That's just one reason the USA and over 100 other countries agreed to phase dioxin (a by-product of chlorine) off the earth. That this known carcinogen, immune suppressing, fetal damaging, pregnancy disrupting, nervous system damaging, diabetes causing, asthma causing etc etc etc substance is STILL permitted in smoke from most (not all) cigarettes is a crime of significant size. Is there any question about that? The crime is compounded by the fact that no one is warned about this, or compensated, but victims are, instead, burdened with laws, penalties, shunning and disparagement.
The article said that this "smoking" thing re/ AIDS is indeed about damaged immunity. That pathology is a glaring clue to the presence of dioxin, like a bullet wound is clue to presence of a gun. Did researchers look for a "gun". In obvious deference to the cigarette industry (to minimize liabilities) and it's pesticide and chlorine suppliers, and their insurers and investors, and allies in what is supposed to be Public Government, no, they did not.
The researchers seem to have not done what any one of us can do---simply Google up the term "Dioxin HIV AIDS" to find information galore about dioxin's effect on the Immune system and in exacerbating AIDS problems. The researchers didn't even bother to dismiss or even mention all the previous studies. Big Chlorine, destroyer of millions if not billions of lives, destroyer of the protective ozone layer, destoyer of wildlife, gets off the hook by blaming, when you get down to it, Mother Nature. Can't sue her or her insurers and investors.
This problem affects everyone, not just smokers and "secondhand smokers". As more and more diseases, specifically the ones caused by industrial chemicals and other things, are blamed on "smoking" and on tobacco plants and "personal habits" and "our genes" and "bad diet" and "lack of exercise", medical diagnoses of illnesses will be false... or at least suspect. Also, studies of chemical- etc caused illnesses will be put aside, tests for industrial chemical exposures of patients will be rare or non-existent, and prevention of exposures to industrial toxins and carcinogens will be minimized to the point of invisibililty. That is, our evidence of the harms of certain industrial things is being Covered Up with a giant tobacco leaf.
Every one of the claimed 400,000 a year (US alone) "smoking related" deaths is PROBABLY due in some way to exposures to industrial substances... but who checks? And, probably not ONE of them was caused, or shown to be caused, by Tobacco Smoke itself.
Big Chlorine (an unnecessary industry which would not exist if it had to pay for even a fraction of it's extensive damages), and the extensive cartel of related interests, has found the ideal "sinful" scapegoat...and a seemingly endless supply of gullible supporters. Stay tunned...soon we'll hear that "smoking" is "linked" to Global Warming, poverty, gun violence, and liberalism.
So, this is to ask for brainstorm ideas about how to get doctors and scientists and pesticide activists and other with forums and credentials to speak against this cruel, dishonest, liability-evading, homicidal charade.
John Jonik