For millennia, religious figures, politicians and scientists alike have proclaimed to the four winds the keys to a healthy life. They have pointed to everything else and dismissed it. That is the problem: we have accepted all of that as valid from the very first premise. We have seen the label “Smoking kills” and we have ignored the final part of the paragraph: “The relevant governmental authority approves its distribution.” That is to say, the State itself has been officially selling you something that “kills”, but it does so openly, because they are very clever. No: the government endorses the tobacco market, the one that appears respectable. It is the toll that the distributor must pay so that its product can be commercialised. The final price of the product -tobacco- increases by almost 80%, and that increase corresponds to the tax revenue that the State obtains from distributing the product within its territory -in 2018, tobacco was the fifth source of State income in Spain-. In this way, the commercial market is regulated and supervised by governments and their market laws. The tax that increases the price of tobacco corresponds to public health law, because smoking is not good for your health. Do you smoke? The money solves the problem, and everyone can access tobacco, always regulated. In other countries, the price of tobacco is sold almost at cost. It is very important to understand the role of the product within the economic market system which, in its time, was spread by Adam Smith, father of modern economics. And even more important is understanding the company that wishes to sell it. Just as we find products that are illegal in some countries and legal in others, always determined by the free market, in which everyone has the right to sell, under regulation -that is, by paying a tax-. The product can kill. We do not know what we eat or what we drink because, in truth, the recipe of the product is a private right that the selling company keeps. Therefore, you do not truly know what you eat or what you drink. In this situation: What is truly healthy? And for whom? For the economy of the State and/or the corporation that produces it, or for the health of people? Supermarkets will claim that they contain the best pasta, milk, meat, fish, vegetables… products. And you will have no choice but to buy them. Because behind that, for you to reach those supermarkets, the product has been advertised. Advertising is controlled by the media, also supervised by the State and large corporations. That is to say, the State will tell you to eat this meat, but also to follow that vegan diet. And not to smoke, but that nothing happens if you smoke a cigarette. The State will tell you not to kill or rape, yet they kill and rape in other countries; you can join them and kill and rape there. Thus, armies and police systems are filled with rapists, abusers, violent individuals and criminals in general. They have given the fool the measuring stick.
