A provocative book worthy of a careful read.
Research studies of the effects of tougher U.S. anti-smoking policies.
While adult smoking has decreased by nearly half since 1965, many Americans continue to indulge, regardless of health risks or increased medical costs. This unique compilation of exhaustive, peer-reviewed research, funded by a grant from the American Legacy Foundation, measures the potential social and economic ramifications of a tobacco-free society created via stringent government policy. The authors employ the “SimSmoke” simulation model to project tobacco-control effects through four scenarios: the “baseline” or status quo, where policies do not change; the Institute of Medicine scenario, which, among other things, proposes a $2 per pack excise tax increase to discourage smoking; a “high impact scenario” to reduce smoking rates even more dramatically by mandates such as nicotine reduction in cigarettes; and a “100 percent” scenario, which assumes that smoking ceased in 2006. Readers without scientific inclinations will find the plethora of graphs, tables and equations cumbersome, but the accompanying discussions clearly cover issues such as the economic impact tougher policy will create on tobacco manufacturers and their employees and states like North Carolina, where the highest acreage of tobacco is grown. As with most scientific research, human suffering is reduced to neat statistics. Key findings conclude that, among others, a “small” number of stakeholders—57,000 tobacco farmers and employees, 16,600 cigarette manufacturing employees, 6,200 tobacco store owners and employees, and 29 tobacco dependent counties—could suffer significant losses, yet the authors suggest government assistance in lieu of economic independence. Despite its flaws, the study is noteworthy, as it urges careful thought before policy implementation and examines many social ramifications—inequity for the seriously mentally ill, who may not be able to quit, race and class disparities and stigmatization of smokers.
A provocative book worthy of a careful read.Pub Date: July 12, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-231-15777-3
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Columbia Univ.
Review Posted Online: June 6, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2011
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
