This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Tuesday, May 13, 2014.

I'm Caleb Brown.

Smoking is bad for you, but what about for the guy standing next to you?

And what drives the repugnance toward e-cigarettes a likely far safer alternative to tobacco.

John Stadton is the James B Duke Professor of Psychology and Professor of Biology and Neurobiology

Emeritus at Duke University and author of the new book,

Unlucky Strike, we spoke today.

What do we know about smoking related deaths?

Well, we know the numbers are enormously exaggerated. I was just reading that

480,000 people a year die of smoking. Ten years ago it was 400,000. In the meantime, many people smoked than used to smoke so what's going on folks?

How are these numbers inflated to the extent that they are?

Well it's very hard to say but my guess is that if someone has smoked and dies of almost anything, you know,

liver cancer, pancreatic cancer, cancer,

including of course lung cancer,

the death will be attributed to smoking,

whereas in reality the heart evidence,

it's all correlational anyway, it's not causal.

But the hardest evidence, of course, is for lung cancer.

There's no question that kills people and it is increased.

The risk is increased by smoking.

But isn't tobacco consumption through via smoke? Isn't that a risk factor associated with all sorts of different deaths?

Well, be suspicious.

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