Ross Sauer -> All wrote:
 RS> Oh this is going to go over REAL well. (sarcasm off)

The story says the ban will be phased in over 20 years. IOW, it won't go
into full effect until 2029. Do you even read these stories before you post
them?

 RS> WASHINGTON -- Pentagon health experts are urging Defense Secretary Robert
 RS> Gates to ban the use of tobacco by troops and end its sale on military
 RS> property, a change that could dramatically alter a culture intertwined with
 RS> smoking.

 RS> Jack Smith, head of the Pentagon's office of clinical and program policy,
 RS> says he will recommend that Gates adopt proposals by a federal study that
 RS> cites rising tobacco use and higher costs for the Pentagon and Department
 RS> of Veterans Affairs as reasons for the ban.

 RS> The study by the Institute of Medicine, requested by the VA and Pentagon,
 RS> calls for a phased-in ban over a period of years, perhaps up to 20.
"We'll
 RS> certainly be taking that recommendation forward," Smith says.

See right there where it says 20 years? ________________________^^^^

 RS> A tobacco ban would confront a military culture, the report says, in which
 RS> "the image of the battle-weary soldier in fatigues and helmet,
fighting for
 RS> his country, has frequently included his lit cigarette."

That's the traditional image put out during WWII, Korea and Vietnam.

 RS> Also, the report said, troops worn out by repeated deployments often rely

And here we have the typical editorializing of the media.

 RS> on cigarettes as a "stress reliever." The study found
that tobacco use in
 RS> the military increased after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan began.

Like most people who smoke, these young man and women don't understand that
smoking doesn't relieve stress in the least. In fact, nicotine intake
increases heart rate and reduces oxygen to the body which in turn increases
stress.

Maybe if the military found some other way for the troops to relieve their
nervous energy, they wouldn't turn to smoking.

Ed

-- 
"The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is
to fill the world with fools." --Herbert Spencer

"The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under
the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale."
 --Thomas Jefferson

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