According to a report from the BBC, a new study says that cranking up your backyard grill could kill you with cancer. Specifically, they say:

A study by the French environmental campaigning group Robin des Bois found that a typical two-hour barbecue can release the same level of dioxins as up to 220,000 cigarettes. Dioxins are a group of chemicals known to increase the likelihood of cancer.

That's pretty scary, isn't it? The equivalent of 220,000 cigarettes! For all of you readers who have believed that second-hand smoke is dangerous, think about the secondary meaning of the statement above. If you have trouble believing that a barbeque is dangerous, how can smoke from a few cigarettes be of any significance at all? There certainly is no location on earth that has ever had the smoke from 220,000 cigarettes.

If we're to take the report as scientific, then the danger from one cigarette's second-hand smoke must be 1/220,000th as dangerous as a single barbeque. Actually, the report doesn't say they're referring to second-hand smoke. They could be saying that all the smoke from 220,000 cigarettes is equal to one barbeque. That would be first-hand smoke, the kind I've gleefully filled my lungs with for 40-some years.

So... for all of you who are convinced that cigarette smoke causes cancer, kills tens of thousands of people every year, reduces birth weight, and all the other nonsense that has been pumped toward us... you should REALLY get up in arms about barbeques!

If cigarettes are so dangerous that they've been doubled (or more) in price with taxes, and outlawed in many places, what would be the appropriate reaction to a FAR GREATER risk?

Rest easy for a moment... the article goes on to say:

"I'm sure that just the odd barbecue during the summer is not going to have any effect. "But if you have a barbecue once or twice a week through the summer, and all crowd round it and inhale the fumes then over 10 or 20 years maybe that would do something."

Now that's more believable, isn't it? Nevertheless, the author recommends putting warnings on grills.

People have been barbequing for a long time, and some people do it almost daily. Barbeques have become standard operating procedure for home get-togethers, and are in the news frequently as the Presidential candidates travel around campaigning... at barbeques. John Kerry recently held a big barbeque at his home (well... his wife's home).

Unfortunately for you barbeque fans, the fumes aren't the only danger you're facing. The "carbonizing" result of barbequing (that dark crustiness that's the main appeal of barbequed food) possibly causes cancer too.

If we were to take this report seriously (and I doubt that you will), we'd be justified in taking the following actions:

Banning TV advertising of grills, briquets, barbeque tools, barbeque sauces, etc., so that our children don't get corrupted into thinking that such things are OK.

Bringing class action lawsuits against the manufacturers of all those products (especially Kingsford Charcoal) since they must have (or should have) known that they were pushing cancerous products off on an unsuspecting public. Undoubtedly a major charcoal "settlement" should be forthcoming, with huge payments extracted from the violators, with the proceeds to be distributed to offset the additional medical costs from all those extra cancer cases.

Restrictions on barbequing in locations where the fumes might drift toward other people. We could certainly set distance limits like no barbequing within 1,000 feet of a school, church, or other public meeting place. Certainly, grills would have to be removed from all public parks.

To further protect our children, there must be a minimum age requirement for purchase of barbequing "paraphenalia", with serious fines for any merchant selling to minors.

Naturally, special taxes will have to applied to all barbeque-related products, to encourage the poor hapless victims of addicting crispies to QUIT their smelly, dangerous habit.

C'mon folks... it's only fair... all those things have been done, and are continuing to be done, by the anti-smoking campaigns, and it's clear how much more destructive barbeques are. If we're concerned about our health, can we do less for a danger that's WAY worse?

I hope this nonsense is really beginning to soak in. Is the lightbulb over your head starting to flicker?

The second-hand smoke issue was CREATED, from scratch, for political purposes, because nobody could make a solid case against FIRST-HAND smoke. Smokers didn't buy it, and wouldn't quit, so they invented the second-hand smoke issue to try to "guilt" smokers into quitting for the sake of "others".

All of the numbers you've heard about deaths from second-hand smoke are projections, based on faulty assumptions. Never, ever, has there been a real death attributed to second-hand smoke, and there are massive studies over many years that show NO effect from second-hand smoke.

But... so many people believed the lies that it has now become "common knowledge". If you repeat a lie enough times, it becomes the truth.

Smokers have warned for many years that the people profiting from the anti-tobacco campaigns would eventually turn their greed toward other areas. Attacks on fast food, and more, are well underway. Thousands of organizations have received funds diverted from the tobacco settlement. Thousand of attorneys have received truly gross fees from tobacco trials, and many other organizations have suckered hundreds of thousands into volunteering their time and money for "the cause".
 
The tactics of unscrupulous scare-mongers are gradually taking choices away from us and, frankly, taking a lot of fun out of life. Worse, they're gradually corrupting scientists with funds paid for producing the "correct" results. The result is that the public doesn't know what to believe any longer. Media will always report anything that is scary, especially if it sounds even a little bit scientific. That's how the lies get repeated.

Barbequers of the world... I doubt that you have to worry. Grilling is an American institution. Millions of men now pride themselves on their grilling, and their women are more than glad to get rid of some cooking. Having a good grill, your own set of unique grilling tools, and your own special techniques is part of the American male role now. Political shindigs are not likely to switch to serving sushi. Barbeque will likely "get a free pass", like the most destructive of our bad habits... liquor... does.

I love barbequed food, and liquor, and I also enjoy smoking cigarettes. Too bad so many of you have copped out on my favored "bad habit". Don't expect any support from me when "they" come after yours.