Have we been lied to about secondhand smoke?

Great Debates
41

Chula, let’s look at some of the annoying behaviors to which you compare smoking, suggesting that if they can’t be outlawed, neither can smoking:

Fish markets are zoned: I can’t open one up in a residential ara, generally. If I have too much garbage on my property, my neighbors can claim that it’s a public nuisance and get me to clean the place up. Same thing with animal excretion. Smog-filled cities ban outdoor BBQs sometimes (although it’s not exactly for olfactory reasons, I’ll grant).

Oh, how I wish car alarms were banned. I don’t know if they are in any jurisdiction, but there’s no legal reason why they couldn’t be. Certain loud kinds of brakes (jack-brakes?) are banned in certain communities. Speak too loudly, or play your music too loudly, or have a barking dog in the middle of the night, and your neighbors can call in a complaint on you for disturbing the peace. The other sounds aren’t usually incessant, or else (in the case of crying babies/movie coughing) aren’t really preventable, so outlawing them wouldnt’ do much good. And we should all be thankful the first amendment protects stupid people from being silenced.

These visuals aren’t illegal, but others are: shirtless women with fat, hairy bellies or no; signs that don’t conform to zoned standards; sexually explicit advertising; and several other kinds of visuals.

People who drive in the left-hand lane too slowly can be cited by the police (although it rarely happens). People hanging out on your front porch are trespassing. I don’t have a subway in my home town, so I don’t know how much space you’re allowed to take up; it wouldn’t surprise me at all, however, if you were limited to one seat per passenger.

I’m afraid I don’t get your point. Are you arguing that we, as a society, don’t get to criminalize certain repugnant behavior based on the degree to which it lowers the quality of life of everyone around it?

That certainly isn’t how things work now. Whether or not secondhand smoke is dangerous, there’s a perfectly reasonable, constitutional argument that states can make to outlaw public smoking, based on the repugnance of the habit to nonsmokers.

Daniel

42

Couple of points pldennison it’s okay to restrict the rights of the individual if he is a business owner? I need you to clarify that statement…I’m a little confused.

As far as the dangers of ETS…I have seen a lot of conflicting information, both pros and cons. I would agree that smoking is bad for the smoker. I would also agree that a nonsmoker living with a smoker is at a higher risk for disease. (YMMV) But incidental exposure to SHS while dining in a restaurant? I haven’t seen anything that would state unequivocally that you would be at an increased risk of getting anything.

From my OP: http://www.ornl.gov/divisions/casd/jenkins/16cities/sld041.htm

“The home appears to be a more important source than the workplace for ETS exposure, due to time spent in the environment.”

And if you want to puke on my shoes, I would be disgusted, but I don’t think I would catch any life threatening diseases :slight_smile:

I’m just very rattled at all the conflicting information, and I’m starting to wonder at the credibility of the anti-smoking crowd and their stacks of evidence…it’s kind of like finding out the earth is flat, after all.:slight_smile:

43

Here’s the bottom line as I see it. Without conclusive scientific evidence that SHS is harmful, it doesn’t matter what those in favor of bans think. It doesn’t matter how offensive you find tobacco smoke or whether you think it is piss in a pool, or whether you feel it is a matter of time before evidence is found that it is harmful. Until SHS is found to be undeniably a health hazard to others, it remains a property rights issue. Businesses have the right to choose if their establishment is to be smoking, non smoking or both and people have the right to choose which suites them best be they patron or employee.

The preamble to Florida’s amendment 6 states that SHS is without question a health hazard and a known human carcinogen. The fact that their are conflicting studies makes that declaration a lie. If you think it is OK to have people vote on an issue based on a lie just to suit your personal sensibilities, an issue that will amend Florida’s constitution, then you are helping pave the way for a direction this country has taken that is slowly eating away at the fabric of our freedoms.

44

Ask any member in the waitstaff of a restaurant that has a smoking and non-smoking section where they’d rather work.

You’d find the overwhelming majority prefer to wait tables in smoking sections.

Smokers, as a rule are more pleasant, less anal and tip a whole lot better.

IMO, states and localities should leave the smoking section decision up to the proprietor and let market forces decide.

Overturning all smoking restrictions in eating and drinking establishments would be one small step toward reversing the authoritarian gains made by the anti-tobacco facists.

Maybe The Truth.com should change their name to Ruthless Comrades Against Personal Freedoms.

45

*Podkayne: ** * 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.

Why don’t we argue it from the point of view of private property rights and individual liberties? Consideration shouldn’t be mandated and private property rights shouldn’t be encroached. If the free market were allowed to work, there would be some places that welcome smokers and the majority of places that would be smokefree. But it would be the owner’s own decision based on his/her customer base. That way everyone would be accommodated and would have a CHOICE of which business to patronize, where to work, etc. What on earth is wrong with that? Why does the government have to intrude? I now what the anti-smoker argument is–“it’s for the workers”–but that doesn’t wash. Even workers should have a CHOICE where they want to work.

Eve: Stupid argument and it means nothing. If YOU want to install a pool and put up a sign saying “Pee-ers welcome,” why would I be FORCED to go to that pool? Particularly since there’s bound to be a “Pee-Free” pool on the same block? But for those who want to frequent your pool, why should they not be permitted to do so by mandate of the government?

Urban Ranger: You actually refer to FORCES stuff? … there is this article in The Lancet that details how big tobacco always tries to meddle with researches in tobacco-related health issues.

I suppose you believe in “stuff” put out by Stanton Glantz, et al? Those people are bought and paid for and Glantz even admits he doesn’t do “studies” that don’t confirm his preconceived conclusions. Yeah, that’s research, alright. Anti-smoker gurus like Michael Siegel tell their foot soldiers “Don’t argue the science…bring up the researcher’s ties to Big Tobacco.” And they do it every time, whether or not there ARE in fact any “ties to Big Tobacco.”

** Futile Gesture: ** *So you wouldn’t have a problem if 10 minutes in someone else’s company left you stinking of their BO? *

Unlike others here, I’m in control of my own life and don’t believe it would be possible to FORCE me into that stinking person’s company for 10 minutes or for 1.

There is no way whatsoever of smoking in any quantaties that does not negatively impact on your health. This includes other’s smoke.

Aside from the fact that your statement is ludicrous and not proven by ANY means, my question to you is: Compared to what? The American public has been misled for so long, they no longer even use their common sense.

Reality check: The study of statistical risk was never meant to do what it’s being used to do in this War on Smokers, but being “scientifically challenged,” Americans have swallowed the Big Lies hook, line and sinker.

Here are the relative risks published by the EPA (since you guys seem to have great faith in them) for several different items:

Drinking Chlorinated Water …rr 1.38
One Biscuit a day …rr 1.49
Two Glasses of Whole Milk daily…rr 1.62
One Pork Chop a week …rr 2.12
One Pork Sausage a week…rr 2.42
Diesel Emissions …rr 2.60
Keeping Pet Birds …**rr 6.70 **
Daily exposure to shs for 40 years…**rr 1.19 **

The “studies” you see bandied about in the popular press are seldom new; most are either a recycling of old “studies,” or they are a “meta-analysis” as the EPA report and the “new” WHO “study” were. Meta-analyses can be worthwhile, but they seldom are due to the ability of the publishing organization to cherry-pick the research they include AND because they parameters of the studies that make up the research are seldom equivalent.

In this issue, if you see a report based on a “meta-analysis” and published by a known anti-smoker organization–one whose very existence depends on demonizing tobacco use–you can bet that report is junk science.

46

**ivylass: ** it’s kind of like finding out the earth is flat, after all.

No, m’dear, remember the whole political “establishment” was on the side of the “flat earthers.” It’s more like finding out the earth is actually round and that the powers-that-be are really more interested in lining their own pockets than in the truth.

**jshore: ** Is that some industry that spends tens of billions of dollars a year selling antismoking products?

Bingo. Do you doubt it? Want some proof? Or is your mind made up and you don’t want to be confused by the facts?

**pldennison: ** *From where, exactly, do you derive the “liberty” for you to put tobacco smoke in my lungs? That’s an awfully curious definition of “liberty.” *

Ah, the problem now becomes clear. You people can’t READ! Not one smoker in the entire universe wants to “put tobacco smoke in [your] lungs.” No one said that, and no one believes it. Tell you what: Should I ever see anyone with a gun to your head FORCING you into a smoker-friendly place, I shall immediately dial 911. How’s that?

MY definition of “liberty” is the CHOICE to enter such a place or not, the CHOICE to put my hard-earned money, my blood, sweat and tears into such a place to cater to the customers that will keep me in business. Or not. The same definition of “liberty” held by those old dead white guys who founded this country.

47

I did not say that it was OK. I said that the proposed amendment is not an infringement on some alleged “right” to smoke. It is a rights conflict between the government and property owners, not between the government and smokers.

Smokers keep saying that banning smoking in restaurants is an infringement on “their right to smoke.” Nonsense and baloney. Your ability to smoke in a restaurant rests solely on the owner’s permission. Any attempt by the government to ban smoking in restaurants in general is an infringement of the restaurant owners’ rights, not the smokers. They don’t have a “right” to smoke anyplace except on their own property and on common property (and sometimes not even there if there is some other legitimate safety or health risk).

I fully support your right to fill your lungs with tobacco smoke and your bloodstream with nicotine or whatever the heck else you want. Tobacco, alcohol, heroin, pot – live it up! But that right ends at your lungs and your bloodstream; when it comes to my body, I decide what goes in it, not you. If the owner of a place where we are both at gives you permission to smoke, his right to make decisions about his property is paramount, since I can remove my body from his property.

I have never said I support such an amendment to ban smoking. As I said in another thread on this same topic, if I am going to support market-based solutions to things, I have to expect that I’m going to lose on some of them. And that’s fine (although I think there has been somewhat of a market failure when it comes to this topic).

If it passes, it will be another of example of government perhaps overstepping its boundaries, and as a matter of principle I will be disappointed. But I ain’t gonna shed a tear for the poor, put-upon smokers who have deluded themselves into thinking that their “right” to smoke on other people’s property has somehow been infringed.

48

Well, of course they do, Max; or at the very least, the average smoker is manifestly unconcerned with who else they cause to inhale smoke. I don’t see very many smokers walking around outside with big fishbowl-style space helmets on their heads – do you? Whenever a smoker lights up in public, he or she intends to put smoke into his or her lungs as well as those of whoever might be standing by, whether they want it or not. That should be obvious to anyone but the hardheaded.

Do you suppose that force can only be accomplished with the use of a gun? How odd. I suppose we can sit here and play “more-libertarian-than-thou” with each other, but really, force can be accomplished in plenty of ways. When I’m stopped at a stoplight, and a smoker pulls up next to me with her cigarette hanging out the window, she is at best indifferent to where the smoke goes; but she obviously wants it to be somewhere besides in her car. Is that not force?

49

Aren’t these laws primarily for the employees of the establishments where smoking is being banned? I agree that the exposure of a diner in a restaurant with a smoking section would be marginal, but the server who works the smoking section? How about a bartender or even a patron in a smoky club?

It’s hard for me to understand how SHS could not be bad for non-smokers. I mean, it’s established that the smoke is bad for the smokers. What magical transformation occurs in the smoker’s lungs before exhalation that makes it safe, harmless secondhand smoke? Are 100% of the carcinogens retained in the lungs?

When I spend the evening in a club or bar, I absolutely reek of cigarettes, and if I blow my nose it’s pretty obvious I’ve inhaled tons of smoke. I’m not clear on how this cannot be the equivalent of smoking X number of cigarettes myself, and I’m not clear on how this number X wouldn’t be much higher for employees of the clubs and bars I go to.

My opinion isn’t set in stone, but it just seems like common sense that secondhand smoke is going to be bad for you if firsthand smoke is, because lungs aren’t perfect filters.

-fh

50

Hypocritical. If you’re already damaging your own health, you have no business throwing a hissy fit about the possibility of further damage. If you need a drink so bad and don’t want to be around smokers, set up a home bar.

BTW, I know asthmatics who have no ill effects at all from being around cigarette smoke.

51

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Futile Gesture *
Moderate drinking of alcohol is harmless and, some studies suggest, may even be beneficial . No-one has ever had their health damage by another’s alcohol intake, no matter how close they want to sit.
You might want to ask all the people killed or injured by drunk drivers and the families of alcoholics how they’ve been damaged by another’s alcohol intake.

The jury is still out on SHS. Lies, damned lies, and statistics.

Anyone who goes to a bar to drink and complains about smokers there is a hypocrite. Period.

Also, since many are questioning the reports on the effects of SHS, there’s been propaganda about how much money smokers cost in health care (never mind that in America you pay for your own health care). How much do alcoholics cost? Or the obese–I read recently that obesity is now considered the second gravest health risk in the US.

If you’re going to argue against smoking, at least do it honestly.

52

More specious nonsense. Would it be OK with you if someone walked up to you in a bar and, say, sprayed a can of Lysol into your face? If not, why not? Lysol is a perfectly legal substance, and maybe spraying it off happens to make that person feel really good. Surely you’d have no objection to a facefull of secondhand Lysol, right?

In fact, taken to its most ludicrous extreme, your claim would require that no smoker could ever take up an anti-pollution position. They’re already damaging their health, so they have no business protesting the possibility of further damage.

You know, dogmatic reassertion of something doesn’t make it true, despite your stubborn wish that it be so.

Why do you assume that because someone wants alcohol in their body, they want tobacco smoke as well? A bar is an establishment that serves alcoholic beverages. Many nonsmokers like to imbibe alcoholic beverages.

And you might want to ask the families of all the people who have died in car and house fires, or had their property destroyed by forest fires, how they’ve been damaged by another’s smoking. Here’s some now.

53

Until very recently, the tobscco companies and those that supported them denied that there was any harm from smoking. Finally the tobacco companies admit that smoking is harmful.

How long will it take before the court system convinces the tobacco companies that they should admit that second hand smoke is harmful?

54

:::snort::: You really believe that? You think that Americans don’t benefit heavily from subsidization, and pay their own way completely? How frightfully silly.

I don’t pay for my own health care – my employer does, through insurance. Do you think that if he did not, he would simply give me that money in my paycheck? It is to laugh. Health insurance is something that employers pay for because it is competitive for them to do so.

You don’t pay for yours, either; you stated in a thread in IMHO that you are on disability. If anything, I pay for your healthcare, through my taxes, so perhaps I have some right to tell you how to use it.

All those uninsured people we hear about in the U.S.? They don’t pay for their care, either. Emergency care is usually written off as the cost of doing business. Any other care, say for a long-term, smoking-related illness, is paid for by – you guessed it – me! And the rest of the taxpayers.

Why on earth do you think all of those Attorneys General were pursuing the tobacco companies to recover healthcare costs for smoking-related illnesses? Because the states were the ones that paid the money for the care, either through welfare programs or Medicaid.

I think before you accuse someone else of arguing dishonestly, you’d better make sure your own arguments are grounded in honesty as well.

“Americans pay for their own health care.” Boy, that was funny.

55

Likewise, I don’t see fishbowls on trains, planes, and automobiles, nor do I see them on lawn mowers, barbecue grills, factories, or people wearing perfume or passing gas. I could go on and on, but if I really want to get picky, how do I know what’s coming out of anyone’s lungs is disease free whether they smoke or not. Maybe we should all wear fishbowls just to be on the safe side.

The point is we all contaminate one another’s air supply to one degree or another. It’s unavoidable. The question is, why are smokers being singled out even though no evidence exists that SHS is hazardous? Is it because some find the smell offensive? Is this the reason why it’s been so easy to propagandize people into thinking their air will finally be safe without smelly smokers?

We need to go back to a more peaceful time when we practiced tolerance toward one another. We need to put the health Nazi’s, who no longer suggest but dictate our lifestyle back in their place.

56

Actually, Peter, I would argue that smoking is eminently avoidable. I mean, it is optional, right? Nobody was born a smoker.

That’s a great mantra, but there is no reason why, as a nonsmoker, I should have to “tolerate” someone else’s smoke filling up the interior of my car. Or the people who stand outside my apartment’s entrance and cause my apartment to be filled with smoke. They’re on public property, so there’s certainly nothing I can legally do about it, but I’d submit that they are the rude ones, not me.

57

Of course, phil, that has nothing to do with the Florida ban, although I agree with you. Certainly it’s true that with the proposed Florida ban the only situations it will remedy are those in which nonsmokers such as (presumably) you and me go into a business place in which smoking is allowed, and equally certainly it’s true that no one is forcing us to do that; if I go into a smoky restaurant, it’s my own fault that I smell tobacco smoke.

58

So then by your reasoning, it’s ok for us to poison one another as long as it is not eminently avoidable. It doesn’t matter there is no evidence that SHS is hazardous. I think your sense of smell has prejudiced you against smoker’s only.

**That’s a great mantra, but there is no reason why, as a nonsmoker, I should have to “tolerate” someone else’s smoke filling up the interior of my car. Or the people who stand outside my apartment’s entrance and cause my apartment to be filled with smoke. They’re on public property, so there’s certainly nothing I can legally do about it, but I’d submit that they are the rude ones, not me. **
[/QUOTE]

I could also say people who barbecue or mow their lawn are rude for poisoning my air, but I don’t. I’m from a time when tolerance worked just fine.

59

I’ll thank you, Peter, to allow me to make up my mind as to whom I am prejudiced against, and for what reasons, rather than you deciding for me. If it’s all the same to you. And since I stated several posts ago that I would not in fact support this amendment, as a matter of principle, I’m not sure what you’re on about.

Do you submit that it is not rude to stand on the sidewalk and fill a nonsmoker’s apartment with smoke? It’s been bad enough at times that I cannot sit in my own living room and watch television or read because of the level of smoke seeping in. I’m not sure why I should have to “tolerate” than any more than you should have to “tolerate” me blasting Public Enemy through your bedroom window at 2:00 am. “Tolerance” goes both ways, and I see far too many smokers exhibit far too little of it.

When it comes to matters of principle, though, I’m going to pick my battles. And smokers are far down my list of “disenfranchised people on whom to spend political energy.”

60

There would be fewer smokers “walking around outside” or standing next to the entrance to your building if you and your ilk had left them inside. That should be obvious to anyone but the control freaks.

Of course not. If you think it is, call a cop and tell him you’ve been forcibly assaulted. When he stops laughing at your idiocy, if you’re lucky enough to avoid a mandatory mental exam, he’ll explain the difference between “force” and “happenstance.” I’m sorry to hear you have no windows in your own car to roll up.

MOST people can figure out ways to get along in society, even with those whose habits they don’t particularly like. Those who can’t fall squarely in the anti-smoker nico-Nazi camp, tight hairnets and all.