While Keith Taylor's statistics (The Argus, November 10) regarding respiratory disease and air pollution are worrying, they are slight compared to the far greater danger of smoking, which kills more than 100,000 every year. More than traffic, drugs, alcohol, HIV and murders combined.

The pollutants in cigarette smoke include tar, nitrogen oxide, lead and carbon monoxide.

Over half of all children are exposed to smoking from an elder and smoking in cars is notoriously harmful. The harm caused by passive smoking has been known since King James' so called "counterblast to tobacco" in 1604.

And yet Green publications aren't exactly brimming with counterblasts to tobacco - on the contrary, the party supports the "rights" of smokers to force air pollution on others in the form of licensed cannabis cafes.

Why does motorist-counterblasting Coun Taylor not counterblast tobacco - is he afraid of offending young, fashionable, Brightonian smokers who might vote Green?

I recall once how certain environmentalists, planning "direct action"

against cars, met in appallingly smoky pubs. How can smokers honestly claim to be concerned about air pollution?

  • Colin Bailey, Norton Road, Hove