Quote Originally Posted by A.Saturnus
700% is not low it's almost astronomically high. If any substance has a 700% increase of causing cancer, it will be outlawed immediately. Unless it's pushed by the tabacco industry. Add to that that the base level chance includes passive smokers. Yes, there are behaviours that involve a greater risk. Shooting through your head with a gun for example (which is also outlawed in public places BTW). But on society level, no other behaviour has so much negative impact. 5 million people a year. It's a bigger problem than AIDS. If you consider weighted mortality (that is young deaths weight more than old ones - also called Years Lost to Life), which is a measure for the societal impact of a disease, lung cancer scores number one.
Well I think all comes down to a matter of evaluation (though I didn't see any references on statistics, I'll just buy your words for now). I consider 7% difference to be low, you consider %700 more to be high. Anyway have you read any part of the link I posted, I assure you it's worth it, even more to those that think that smoking is bad for your health. I was one of those, my father smoked and I blamed every single thing on that fact, even his death, until I discovered it was totally unrelated (it was SAMSCom). Now after you read the actual sources and see what's happening maybe it might turn your mind completely or not, I can't force anybody, I'm just recommending. I'll still consider 8% in a life time to be low, even more with a biased source, let's say that I don't find any reason to restrict freedom in any way.