Hempfest draws awareness for cigarette pollution...to me

AP Photo

NOTE: The following contains blatant commentary mixed with some facts.

It's April again, a time when most cities are throwing lilac galas and gardening shows. In typical Moscow fashion, artsy types from all over migrate to East City Park for the annual Moscow Hempfest to celebrate its many uses (hemp's uses, not marijuana) by singing, selling bongs and tie-die apparel and...smoking. It was a chilly afternoon, even by Moscow standards, so at six hours into the event I shrugged off the small white particulates falling outside my apartment a block from the park as a late-spring flurry. Turns out the weatherman was wrong and what was falling was not snow but ash. Now making the subjective jump of connecting a few chain-smoking legalize-marijuana advocates a block away seems, well, a jump, still it seemed like a good story to plug some interesting facts that people neglect when hatefully cursing an SUV and then burning through a pack of Camels by the end of the day.

First. Studies published in the European Journal of Health show that one joint (of marijuana) is the cancer-causing equivalent of 20 cigarettes (article). Ok, low blow to potheads and a little off topic. But informative nonetheless.

Second. Sidestream cigarette smoke (the smoke emitted from a lit cigarette, not including exhalation by a user) accounts for a strikingly high amount of toxic emissions hazards outside of just the talk about the effects of carbon monoxide, according to governmental studies in Canada. In toxins such as ammonia and acetone, cigarettes have a higher gross tonnage of emission then the entire refined petroleum and coal industry. In formaldehyde emissions, cigarettes rank higher than industries involving production of plastics, paper, wholesales, electrical and electronics, and transportation equipment. "But anything that produces anything gives off some negative substance," you say. "We want to hear about the carbon monoxide levels."

Third. According to a Cambridge University professor's Powerpoint slide, 73.3 cigarettes have the equivalent CO emission of driving the average car for one mile. Granted that seems like a weak set of data for my argument that smoking harms everything living. But it's amazing what crunching the numbers can do. Considering roughly, over, more than, about, around 52 billion cigarettes are smoked each year in Canada (Side note: isn't that like 300,000 per person?) that makes the number of miles-worth of auto emissions a whee bit higher, 709,413,296 miles higher (article). The average car is driven about 10,000 miles a year, which means the CO emissions from 52 billion cigarettes is the same as 70,941 people driving their cars for a year.

So, in conclusion, and with all the veritable data at hand: most Moscowites walk, ride their bikes, or take the transit wherever they go and thus are entitled to smoke two packs a day because they still won't ever come near to the automobile emissions given off by a douche-bag in Seattle who commutes three hours everyday in his Hummer.