Extremist antismokers in Japan attacking smoking while completely ignoring the Fukushima fallout (which ironically will give them lung cancer within a generation)
I've often thought that the antismokers made a political mistake when they started demonising smokers, because they created for themselves a highly numerous enemy which they didn't have before, when they were just battling the tobacco companies.
But perhaps it wasn't a mistake at all. Perhaps it was always an essential part of their strategy.
Antismoking organisations are essentially predatory in character. They survive by stealing from people. This theft is carried out largely through taxation of smokers and through things like the US Master Settlement Agreement, by which the tobacco companies pay out huge amounts of money. Those billions of dollars in pay-offs and taxes have funded the growth of the antismoking industry just like a rich diet of deer funds the growth of a wolf pack.
But if you're going to steal people's money off them in broad daylight, then it helps a lot if you can make it not seem like theft. And that's where the demonisation comes in. If you can make tobacco companies look like they're a menace to society, then it isn't theft to take huge amounts of money off them. It's money they don't deserve. And it's a noble thing to relieve them of it.
So the tobacco companies have been thoroughly demonised. And it was essential for the antismokers to demonise them in order to get away with their money, and win applause for doing so.