Thomas Novotny - The case for banning cigarette filters

Public health professor Thomas Novotny from San Diego State University's School of Public Health has just co-authored an editorial in The British Medical Journal calling for a ban on filtered cigarettes. He says some 6 trillion cigarettes are produced and smoked worldwide every year and that vast numbers of discarded butts end up in the natural environment and potentially eaten by animals. And filter cigarettes, he claims, have no discernible health benefits; in fact, they could be encouraging us to smoke more and inhale more deeply, causing more aggressive types of cancer.