How tomorrows budget may produce a future epidemic of Parkinson's disease

The anti tobacco zealots have a champion in the Maori party.

And the Maori party tail has wagged the National party dog into a policy of a smoke free New Zealand by 2025.

If this is acheived young New Zealanders will live forever and ever and never ever die, we are led to believe. Tosh of course.

Now something that you have never been told - multiple studies have shown smokers are far less likely to get Parkinsons disease.

It was in the late 1950’s that studies reported a negative association between smoking and Parkinson’s disease. More recently, several epidemiological studies have found a significant negative association between cigarette smoking and PD.

That is, patients who smoke are 50% less likely to have PD when compared to their non-smoker counterparts. This suggests that cigarette smoking may have a “neuroprotective” effect on PD.

For some mysterious as yet unknown reason smoking is protective against developing this ailment. And the protection wears off if smokers forgo their habit.

Should you smoke, probably not a good idea but are  there any real benefits in the Governments obsession with ridding the country of the demon  tobacco. 

Absolutely not - this is all about people in Wellington making other peoples choices for them and filling the Governments coffers in the process.