Okay, in doing research in my quest to defeat Amendment 6 in Florida, I have been more and more disturbed by the lack of evidence on the dangers of secondhand smoke.
The EPA study that found ETS was a carcinogen? Vacated in 1998 due to faulty reasearch:
Rush Limbaugh reported this over a year ago and I’ve always suspected these studies were faulty.
Just think about it. Smokers weren’t responding to the call to stop smoking when told that it was killing them. Everyone else said “Well, I’m O.K. I don’t smoke. Let those nuts that do smoke die.” (Well, that is a bit much, but they weren’t interested). So what did the anti-smoking people do but come up with the idea that secondhand smoke was dangerous to non-smokers.
Those studies were made with government grants and the researchers knew before doing any research what kind of answer was expected. So they came up with the desired results and got another grant to run some more secondhand smoke tests. No one questioned the results because it was very “politically incorrect” to even think that smoke wasn’t harmful to non-smokers.
What I’ve always wondered is what effect secondhand smoke has on smokers.
Well, will one firsthand experience count? My mother has bronchial asthma from being married to a smoker and breathing his secondhand smoke; if she is anywhere in the vicinity of secondhand smoke today, she winds up in the emergency room.
I don’t think we can get a law passed “just because of Eve’s Mom,” but surely she can’t be too unusual a case.
Although I find it a bit knee jerk to blame your fathers smoking as her bronchail asthma. SHS (Second hand Smoke) could very well have been the case. Yet, she could also have Bronchail Asthma now even if your father had not smoked. Not every respatory illness suffered by passive smokers is directly caused by SHS. Respatory illnesses happen anyway.
It is beyond a doubt that SHS IS bad for her health now.
When my mother died of Lung cancer the the second thing out of everyone mouth was “how much did she smoke?”
She never did, was not even around smokers at home, work or the few times she went out in public places.
Ivylass have you looked in GD? There is always smoker threads in GD and I know I read one where someone linked WHO (World health Organization) reports saying the previous SHS reports were flawed. I would search it for you but the board is running slow enough.
IMHO inhaling any smoke, tobacco, Dope, wood fire and so on… is going to be bad for you. Smokers obviously effected more than Passive smokers.
With my personal logic (as stated above) SHS does contribute to health concerns. How much is the question.
How much it effects passive smokers is the great debate right now. Sorry I cannot be more helpful.
I never believed the 2nd hand smoke theory myself except for people who have to work in areas of near continous smoke (bartenders and such).
But being a nonsmoker all my life - never held a lit cigerette (or inhalled - that sounds familrer but this time it’s true) I have to say that cig. smoke is awlful and I don’t want to have to inhale some smokers exhaust - not because of long term health problems but because it stinks.
I have no problem w/ people smoking as long as I don’t have to smell it and if I do I should be compensated for my discomfort.
As a smoker I do not object to the way smoking has been banned in most cases. California banning smoking in bars was a bit much, but thank goodness it didn’t catch on in the rest of the country. SHS surely must have an effect and it is good that people have been made aware, but the fact is that the tests were rigged to come out with the “correct” conclusions.
I came across another study that showed that lumberjacks have the highest degree of risk, 140 deaths out of 100,00 employed, and waitress and bartenders have the lowest rate, 1.6 deaths. On top of that, ETS in the home is worse than ETS in the workplace. There’s another study (I’ll track down the cite if anyone needs it) that states that the air in a place that allows smoking is a better quality than a smoke-free place, due to the extra ventilation.
Oh, and kniz, they are trying to ban it in Florida. That’s what I’m fighting, even though I don’t smoke. Another aspect is in places where smoking bans were enacted, restaurants and bars have lost business. The more research I find the more I’m stunned at the lack of evidence. I have found nothing to indicate that incidental exposure to ETS causes an increased risk of anything.
I am sorry about your mother, and mean no disrespect. However, for the other side of the anecdotal coin:
My mother has suffered no noticeable effects from having lived with a smoker. My three siblings and I also seem to have no ill-effects from growing up with a 3-pack-a-day-er.
There was a law passed here too (Ohio, Lucas County) banning all smoking in any public place. It’s being held up in the courts now, but I won’t be surprised to see it go through. For the record, yes, I’m a smoker but I wouldn’t mind a ban in restaraunts or shops. But I think trying to ban smoking in bars is ridiculous. There are enough problems with vandalism and urination outside of bars, can you imagine how bad it would get with half the clientile heading outside once an hour all night? Stupid. :mad:
Here’s a study on ETS exposure to children leading to asthma in adulthood: Environmental Tobacco Smoke Exposure During Childhood Is Associated With Increased Prevalence of Asthma in Adults. From another paper in the same journal: “Based on > 40 epidemiologic studies, extensive data support a causal association between ETS exposure and induction of asthma in children.”
Of course, this has no relevance to the question of adult workplace exposure to environmental tobacco smoke, but it does show that ETS can be harmful under certain circumstances. And it’s certainly harmful to adults who have asthma when an attack can be triggered by cigarette smoke–though, again, this has limited relevance to workplace ETS because presumably people with athsma will avoid working in bars and restaurants where there will be smoke. (I guess the question is, should they have to? But in general, I think it’s weird to force a change in the habits of the populace at large to accomodate the health needs of a small fraction of people when the afflicted do have alternatives.)
Personal opinion: Screw the health risks. I don’t want to breathe tobacco smoke. I don’t want to work in a place where smoke has seeped into the carpet and the furniture so I have to smell it all day long. Whether the smoke is fresh, or stale, I don’t want the smell on my hair. I don’t want the smell on my clothes. I wish that we could argue this from the point of view of simple consideration for other human beings, rather than trumped-up medical claims.
There are certain restaurants I avoid because the separation between the smoking and then non-smoking section is largely, uh, philosophical. In fact, I heavily patronize a restaurant that has no smoking section at all–and not just because they have the best Thai food in town (though I admit that is a contributing factor.) I wonder whether restaurants and bars that are voluntarily smoke free and aggressively advertise as such would attract nonsmoking customers at such a rate as to make that strategy pay off. (Presumably not, if businesses’ major objection to the amendment is fear of lost revenue.)
Sorry, Eve, that’s not the best analogy. Air in a room is constantly changed and circulated. A pool is emptied and the water changed what, once a year?
I would admit tobacco smoke is not the best smell in the world. But what if that’s all it is to non-smokers, a bad smell, no more dangerous than bad BO?
It basically says that the cleaner the environment, the more cases of asthma, since our bodies are not exposed to the allergens that allow us to build up antibodies.
There’s a lot of conflicting evidence out there. I also thought ETS was pure poison and that smokers were killing us all. But there doesn’t seem to be any clear cut evidence of this.
**Weird Al ** Amendment 6 will be on the ballot in Florida. It will amend the state constitution to ban smoking in all enclosed workplaces in the state. This includes restaurants and connected bars, (I’ve been told private clubs such as the VFW as well)
It would allow smoking in retail tobacco shops and stand alone bars, but it would ban smoking in private residences if they are used to provide commercial child care, health care, or adult care.
I don’t smoke. I think this ban is unnecessary, insulting, and intrusive. There was a whole debate about it in GD that I started a while ago when I started the website to educate people about the issue.
I would like to hope the ban would fail, but I think it’s going to pass. It sounds very good on the surface, “We need to protect the health of our children and elderly!” But when you think about it, it’s nothing but a violation of private property rights. And smokers are the current lepers of the day.
here in delaware we passed a no smoking law that takes effect nov. 27. what kills me is that it’s not really a law at all, it’s more like an experiment. they (the law makers) want to see if the law drasticly effects buisness. if delaware starts looses enough money because of the law, they’ll repell it. i’m a bartender, so on a personal level i love the new law, but i can simpathize with other buisness owners who are going to loose lots of money over a stuped experiment.
You know, all this anti-smoking legislation really goes overboard on occasion. I’m a smoker, but I can certainly understand the ban in some restaurants – heck, sometimes even I don’t want to sit in the smoking section!
About half the towns in MA have smoking bans (and yes, I’ll cite it in another post), including Boston. These include establishments which, for the longest time, had well-ventilated separate smoking areas. That’s what really makes me :mad: – I mean, it’s separate, so what the hell’s the big deal?
It’s also made an economic impact on quite a few towns, towns which aren’t that “rich” to begin with who depend on their commercial base for survival. Bars/pubs, in particular…I think some of them have shut down after being in business for a very long time because they’ve lost customers because of the damned smoking ban!
gets off her soapbox upon realizing that she inadvertently hijacked the thread…:eek:…
Futile, the point is that it’s ridiculous to make BO illegal. I think that it’s telling that two posters on this thread have supported banning smoking because the smell is offensive, even if there is no health risk. Do people really want to live in a world where annoying behavior is criminalized?
I’m worried that I might be confusing the EPA flap with an older, very similar thing that happened in around 1989 or so. If anyone can back me up on this, I’d appreciate it.
The only remnant evidence I can easily find is from www.congress.gov (or www.thomas.loc.gov ). Do a search on bills from the 101st Congress for the dead resolution H. Res. 418, which attempted to ban smoking in Congressional buildings except in certain designated areas, specifically because of SHS. That was in 1990, three years before the EPA got into the act.
As I (vaguely) recall, a Congressional subcommittee officially decided that second-hand smoke was bad when they examined the results of about four studies from the late 1980s. Two of the studies were inconclusive, one appeared to show that SHS reduced certain risks, and one, a preliminary report from Japan, clearly showed that SHS was bad. The Japanese team did not release its data by the time The Hill made its decision, and as far as I know, they never did.
Congress tossed out the other studies and used the conclusions from the Japanese study to make their decisions, and those decisions evolved into the Congressionally-accepted “fact” that SHS was bad.
However, my recollection, which I cannot verify, sounds a hell of a lot like Cecil’s description of the EPA fiasco. I’m sure I’m incorrect in some of the details, and I fear that I may be spreading some real fertilizer.
It’s worth pointing out that the second-hand-smoke question is one of those highly annoying debates where every last shred of common sense seems to be weighted on the side of the anti-smokers: cigarette smoke is bad, so cigarette smoke in a room should be bad for everyone in the room. The problem is that it has been extremely difficult to prove. That rings an alarm bell in my head.
It seems to me that it’s a little unfair to ask pro-smokers to demonstrate why second-hand smoke doesn’t cause as many health problems as it is perceived to cause, but until someone does that, I think the deck is always going to be stacked against smokers because it just seems to make sense that SHS can be bad for non-smokers. But it ain’t science.
Okay, so the line should be drawn at BO. What’s the problem? Secondhand smoke is ten times worse. BO is only offensive within a few feet of a person – smoke can travel across a room. BO is not usually a conscious choice, but lighting up a cigarette indoors is. Not only does the smoke smell awful, it makes people cough, gives them sore throats, and makes their eyes water. The smell insinuates itself into clothing and makes the carpet and furniture smell like dead skunk. It turns the walls yellow and makes the air cloudy.
If BO did that, we’d consider making it illegal too!
