Banning menthol cigarettes

Great Debates
181

Well, that articles first two paragraphs indeed say exactly the opposite of what you are claiming.

The rest is paywalled. So, you are trying to match my five cites with one that does not say what you claim it does?

Ok, here is the American cancer soc:

and here is the British Medical Association:

## People at risk of coronary heart disease should avoid exposure to secondhand smoke

Even without future studies or replications of these findings1 the data are sufficient to warrant caution regarding exposure to secondhand smoke.2 23–24 Clinicians should be aware that such exposure can pose acute risks, and all patients at increased risk of coronary heart disease or with known coronary artery disease should be advised to avoid all indoor environments that permit smoking.3 5 16 Additionally, the families of such patients should be counselled not to smoke within the patient’s home or in a vehicle with the patient. In addition to its impact on heart disease, exposure to secondhand smoke causes lung cancer in non-smokers, respiratory infections and asthma in children, and even death in exposed infants.2 17 30 As the US Surgeon General and the US Community Preventive Service Task Force have noted,2 23 24 much of this important health risk is preventable by the implementation of comprehensive smoke-free policies similar to the policy that was implemented in Helena for six months

Exposure to secondhand smoke from burning tobacco products can cause sudden infant death syndrome, respiratory infections, ear infections, and asthma attacks in infants and children, and coronary heart disease, stroke, and lung cancer in adult nonsmokers ( 1 ). There is no risk-free level of secondhand smoke exposure ( 2 ). CDC analyzed questionnaire and laboratory data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) to assess patterns of secondhand smoke exposure among U.S. nonsmokers

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/198892
People at risk of heart disease should avoid secondhand smoke because it increases the risk of acute myocardial infarction (MI), the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warns in a commentary in the April 24 issue of the British Medical Journal ( BMJ . 2004;328:980-983).

The warning accompanied a study concluding that smoking bans at work and in public places may be associated with reducing morbidity from heart disease ( BMJ . 2004;328:977-983).

And hell, lets bring in Ireland too, which talks about Helena:

But if New York - as well as other cities and municipalities - is ever tempted to rescind its smoking ban, it should look at the goings-on in Helena, Montana. The citizens of Helena voted in June 2002 to ban smoking in all public buildings - including restaurants, bars and casinos. Soon after, doctors at the local hospital noticed that heart-attack admissions were dropping. So, in conjunction with the University of California, San Francisco, they did a study to measure the potential short-term effects of a smoking ban.

Helena is a perfect place for such a study: relatively isolated, with enough people in the region (66,000) for a meaningful population sample, and only one cardiac-care hospital within a 60-mile radius.

So it was easy to control the study sample and methodology: if you get a heart attack in Helena, there’s only one place to go for treatment.

The study showed two trends. First, there was no change in heart attack rates for patients who lived outside city limits.

But for city residents, the rates plummeted by 58 per cent in only six months.

“We know from longer-term studies that the effects of secondhand smoke occur within minutes, and that long-term exposure to secondhand smoke is associated with a 30 per cent increased risk in heart attack rates,” says Stanton Glantz, a professor of medicine who conducted the study’s statistical analysis.

“But it was quite stunning to document this large an effect so quickly.”

It was also stunning to witness what happened next.

The Montana State Legislature, under pressure from the Montana Tavern Association and tobacco lobbyists, rescinded the ban in December.

The result: heart-attack rates bounced back up almost as quickly as they dropped.

The bottom line of Helena’s plummeting, then soaring, heart attack rate is painfully obvious: secondhand smoke kills. Only 30 minutes of exposure to it causes platelets in the bloodstream to become stickier. When that happens, blood clots form more easily, which can block arteries and cause heart attacks.

So if that slate article has evidence, let us see the cites.

182

Thirdhand smoke consists of the tobacco residue from cigarettes, cigars, and other tobacco products that is left behind after smoking and builds up on surfaces and furnishings. Tobacco smoke is composed of numerous types of gasses and particulate matter, including carcinogens and heavy metals, like arsenic, lead, and cyanide. Sticky, highly toxic particulates, like nicotine, can cling to walls and ceilings. Gases can be absorbed into dust in a room, carpets, draperies, and other fabrics or upholsteries. A 2002 study found that these toxic brews can then re-emit back into the air and recombine to form harmful compounds that remain at high levels long after smoking has stopped occurring.

183

The ANRF wouldn’t have any bias, would they? :roll_eyes:

184

I do not want to get us into a hijack, needless to say Secondhand smoke really is dangerous, and let us leave it at that.

185

No, it’s very different. Churches were very important in my white working-class neighborhood as well. They sponsored Scout troops, hosted potluck suppers, bingo nights, and youth group dances, and conducted baptisms, weddings, and funerals. Nobody’s saying churches in white communities haven’t been important, just that the roles of Black churches in Black communities has always been different in key ways.

Unlike white churches in white communities, Black churches were borne of struggle and oppression in the late 1700’s. White Christian churches segregated Blacks, refused to allow them a role in church leadership, and preached that slavery was sanctioned by God. Free Blacks established separate Black churches in the North, and eventually (and not without struggle), those churches sprang up in the South as well. Here Blacks held leadership positions they were generally refused elsewhere, and the churches were a safe sanctuary for Blacks to conduct political activities that were usually forbidden anywhere else. These churches played an important role in coordinating political activities in ways white churches never did and never needed to.

The unique and powerful role Black churches played in Black communities is a major reason they played a crucial and seminal role in the Civil Rights Movement. For all the issues have faced white working class communities, there’s simply been no parallel to the segregation and oppression Black communities faced and Black churches fought before and during the Civil Rights era. And there’s a reason that to date at least 64 Black churches have been bombed and burned: when white supremacists want to attack the heart of the Black community, there’s no more obvious target than Black churches.

I think it’s important to find commonalities between groups, but it’s just as important to understand the key differences.

186

Heaven forfend.

187

Thanks for the history refresher, although I don’t see why you started it with “no,” since nothing I posted contradicted anything in your lesson.

It doesn’t really change my thinking on this menthol ban.

188

This is not what “racist” means. Also, intent matters.

189

The slate article is basically a list of cites, if you refuse to read them that isn’t my issue. Most of what you’re posting are just broad guidelines and are actually specifically refuted by the cites.

The Helena MT study that DrDeth referenced to was specifically called out in the Slate article for being so poor quality because its data set was so small, and how every time indoor smoking bans were done in other locations with higher populations, the evidence failed to show similar results to what was found in Helena. When the United Kingdom became I think one of the first OECD countries to do a national indoor smoking ban, which gave us our first very large scale dataset, the effects found in the Montana study all but didn’t exist–the Helena, MT study is evidence of how America’s public health authorities and interest groups sometimes abuse science. The study was reported to the press with exaggerated results (60% reduction in heart attacks), by the time it had completed peer review it was actually 40%. Then as we got more data not from very small cities in Montana, we have found almost no ability to replicate those results. That is the definition of “unsubstantiated science”, but anti-smoking crusaders who are far more concerned with being against smoking than scientific fact, continue to trot it out more than a decade since it was debunked.

190

The reality is second hand smoke is not very dangerous in an acute sense at all. It slightly increases your chance of getting lung cancer baseline compared to not being exposed to second hand smoke at all. That’s what the quality studies really show. That is reason enough I am in favor of indoor smoking bans because people who work in restaurants, bars, hotels and who would be exposed to chronic secondhand smoke, shouldn’t have to accept that small increase in lung cancer risk just to do their jobs.

I am in favor of restaurants, bars and public accommodations disallowing smoking indoors, and I think almost all states have implemented such laws. With that caveat, I do not believe second hand smoking is a significant issue worthy of government intervention in the United States at this time.

191

I started my comment with “no” because your comment implied that the role of churches in white communities has been equivalent to the role of churches in black communities. It’s a little like if I’d said, “I understand how it feels to be Black and get pulled over by a white cop because I’ve been pulled over by a white cop.” Certain aspects of the experience will be the same for everyone, yes, but my experience as a white person would be different in some fundamental ways.

If you mean you’re still opposed to the ban, I’m fine with that. If you mean you refuse to believe the ban is the result of a years-long push by Black leaders and that those leaders are perceived differently in Black communities than in white communities, well, that’s a shame.

192

It is not 'refuse" is it can not.

Well, that articles first two paragraphs indeed say exactly the opposite of what you are claiming.

The rest is paywalled.

Can you link to the cites?

193

No such implication was intended (although, of course, there’s some overlap between the role of the church in white communities and the role of the church in Black communities).

No, it’s just not like that at all. I didn’t post anything like that, or anything at all that could reasonably be understood to mean anything remotely like that. It just didn’t happen.

Glad I’ve got your okay.

Seriously? I don’t “refuse” to believe anything. I don’t doubt for a second that activists/leaders/what-have-you have been advocating for a menthol ban. I think that your average Black smoker might perceive the ban a bit differently than a Black anti-smoking activist.

Let me repeat a question I’ve asked above a couple of times:

What would you (and I mean you, standing right there, with that dude) say to the Black smoker trying to buy a pack of his favorite smokes and being told that, as of today, he’s not allowed to buy that brand, while his white buddy, standing right next to him, has no problem buying his favorite brand?

I mean, I appreciate the history lesson and everything, but that’s the question that has to be answered.

194

OK. I could go back and point out which remarks I was responding to, and that’s what I started to do, but it occurred to me that what you’re saying is simply that you don’t see that your remarks meant what they seemed so clearly to me to mean, so I’m going to respect that and leave it there. There’s zero snark intended in that sentence, by the way, and I’d appreciate it if you don’t read any into it.

That’s the snark I’d prefer we both avoid. I was not giving an OK. I was merely expressing my view. You read snark into it. None was there.

To be clear, we’re talking about several years from now because the FDA won’t even decide on a start date until next year, and the tobacco industry, that bastion of consumer advocacy, will fight the ban in court, just as they fought in 2018.

So in your scenario, it’s a few years from now, and I’m standing at a store counter next to two customers who are buying cigarettes. You’re assuming the Black smoker hasn’t heard about the ban (Or why would he ask for menthols?) and that he’ll immediately decide the ban is aimed at Black smokers and not white smokers–some of whom also smoke menthols–solely based on the fact that he’s Black and his nonmenthol friend is white? This imaginary Black smoker doesn’t represent all Black smokers because they’re not a monolith, but you’re not saying that, right?

Well, if he turned to me to express all this, I’d say sympathetically, “Yeah, the tobacco industry can’t make menthol cigarettes any more because they’re apparently a lot more dangerous.” Then I’d pay for my items, wish him good luck, and leave.

195

No, I’m not saying that, or anything remotely like that, as you well know, and I resent your implication.

Your not-so-subtle implications that I need a history lesson concerning the Black church in America, and its role in the civil rights movement, and that I’m unaware of the many church bombings in this country, and that I’m wrongly, as a white person, claiming some insight into how Black people feel, or that I refuse to believe that Black anti-smoking activists have long sought a menthol ban, make it impossible for me to discuss this further with you.

Your posts add up to (while still maintaining some degree of plausible deniability) pretty much calling me a racist.

It’s not possible to have a conversation on that basis. I won’t be responding to any more of your posts, unfortunately. They’re pretty well-written, and you seem capable of understanding the nuances involved in this ban, but you’re couching your approval of it, and your disagreement with me, in terms that necessitate me dropping out of this debate.

196

It has been. You just dont like the answer.

The same thing I’d say to that hipster who wanted to buy that pack of cloves.

However, to the the black man, I would find a leader of the black community that could explain how Big Tobacco has systematically used and abused him, tricked him into getting addicted by pushing a more addictive cig, since Big Tobacco is all run by White Southern Good Old boys who are racist assholes who are out to addict blacks.

197

I’m sorry but there’s no plausible deniability needed here. What you keep doing - inventing a blackface sock-puppet to parrot your own ideas - is quite racist, and offensively so.

It’s also transparently lame and stupid. So you’ve invented a petulant smoker aggrieved because he can’t get his chosen cigarette brand? Okay, then I invent his wife, who always wanted him to quit smoking for his health, and will be glad for the extra cash if he quits. I invent his mother who is well-aware of decades of predatory marketing of tobacco companies on the black population, and welcomes the intervention to protect her child. I invent his children, who have been begging their dad to stop smoking. All of them tell your hypothetical man to sit down and get over it. The sound of the argument draws a small crowd of onlookers who voice their approval encouraging the family persuading him to quit. He realizes he’s been foolish, and selfish, and apologizes. Everyone slowly begins to clap. It’s been a good day.

See how dumb this is? Let’s just not.

199

Modhat: This thread will reopen later today most likely. I will take the time and pour through it to see if we can get it back on track.

There will be no more personal attacks in this thread when it reopens, the attacks won’t be noted but get warnings.

200

Modhat: This post does cross the line. You are calling another poster effectively a racist in it. Please do not do this again …