MICHEL DELVING — According to the Gaffer, medical professionals published a paper linking the high rate of cancer among Hobbits to the smoking of pipeweed, a correlation he called "queer."
"I read a paper about it, I did, and they say it's all the pipeweed that's killing us," the Gaffer told a crowd of Hobbits on Sunday afternoon. "But correlation does not equal causation, Mr. Frodo."
Local herbalists are reportedly trying to discredit the document, claiming it's nothing but Big People talk. "Bah, the Big Folk think everything causes cancer. They dismiss the many medicinal benefits of the leaf," said Bambroge Wilfree, a herbalist from the South Farthing. "If anything, we should be smoking even more. To kill the cancer."
Hobbit doctors, of which there are very few, issued an official statement regarding their findings following the amount of gossip filtering through the community. "We have determined within a reasonable degree of certainty that heavy use of the leaf causes cancer," Dr. Elbo Riverleaf said in a statement. "In fact, the only reason many of us are so rotund is because of the massive tumors growing in our midsections."
At publishing time, Gandalf the Grey was detained for the illegal dealing of pipeweed in the vicinity of Hobbiton.
Congress is preparing to make some big changes!
