Rep. Buyer: Smoke some lettuce!

Rep. Steve Buyer (R-Ind.) might have revealed a little too much about his youthful indiscretions during House debate on the FDA tobacco bill.

Arguing that it’s actually the smoke from a cigarette–not tobacco itself–that’s harmful, Buyer speculated about what else should be regulated if that criteria was taken into account.

“Do you realize if you were to take that lettuce, dry it, and roll it, and smoke it– and you go ahead and you smoke your lettuce,” Buyer said. ” Do you realize that you are going to end up with similar problems than if you were smoking tobacco? It’s not the nicotine that kills. It’s the smoke that kills. So It’s the inhalation of the smoke. That’s what causes and is responsible for the pandemic of cancers, of heart disease, respiratory disease, and other disease. It’s the smoke.”

Buyer didn’t specify whether he meant romaine or iceberg, however.

Here’s some video of Buyer’s remarks, courtesy of C-SPAN. (The lettuce remarks begin at 1:05).