Okay! Somewhat of a reference to real data. Well, not the studies themselves but Cecil’s redux of the data which he straddles the fence in his conclusion, his hesitation to embrace the scientific consensus based on discomfort with meta-analysis as a technique and that a 19% increase in cancer rates with 90% confidence interval is just not impressive enough to say that the case has been proven beyond any reasonable doubt. (parenthetically, he accepts, as do I, the that ETS is a substantial risk to particular segments “such as asthmatics, children, and the elderly”)
To be sure, these results leave open the possibilities that second-hand smoke has little to no effect or an effect much larger than that measured. Such is the nature of studying the health effects of pollutants. How do these results compare to the burden of proof required to justify the regulation of other pollutants? I’ll defer to any one posting who is expert on such matters but my understanding has been that such results would be considered robust for pollution emanating from a steel mill. The EPA’s defense of their conclusions (http://www.epa.gov/iaq/pubs/strsfs.html) makes that very point-
And it is that steel mill analogy that I’d suggest that we explore. A factory opens on your block. It is spewing off substances that are proven carcinogens and are proven causes of heart disease and stroke. You smell it. It stings your eyes. It makes you cough. Studies have been done that are, minimally, strongly suggestive that the levels that you are being exposed to increase your risk for these diseases. The EPA says it is a clear and present danger to your health. The factory has hired its own experts who tell you that the EPA is just stupid and/or is out to get the factory owner.
Is your appropriate response one of “tolerance” for the factory? Should you move away? (No one is forcing you to continue living on that block.)
That said, I have no problem with a private resturant or bar catering to adults who smoke. I do not have to patronize them and do not. I do have a problem with smoking being imposed upon me in situations that I have no choice about, or being allowed in areas in which children are exposed. I think that common sense courtesy would dictate that a smoker temporarily refrain if told that a person present is sensitive to smoke, but I wouldn’t make such law for those establishments. I’d vote with my patronage and would let the owner know why I won’t be a regular.
Wonderful post, gr8guy, and DSeid, I applaud your common sense in saying: “That said, I have no problem with a private resturant or bar catering to adults who smoke. I do not have to patronize them and do not.”
The little Thai cafe down my block is too tiny to have both a smoking and non-smoking section. The people who run it are very nice and the food is great, so I just get my order to go and take it home, where I can have a beer and a cigarette with my meal. Simple as that.
Yeah! Why have any employment safety law at all? Employers should be entitled to risk the lives of their employees which ever way they like and the Government should stay out of it. What the world economy needs now is a good dose of genuine fear for life and limb. Safety measures cost! Work ethics have been in severe decline since the Pyramids were built. Nothing like a few thousand deaths amongst the workforce to keep everyone in their place! If they don’t like it they can go starve.
The point is that you may not be aware of the risks (your employer may be concealing them from you, you may not know what you are doing is dangerous). You also may not have much choice in where you can find a job, and your employer may be taking advantage of this. So, yes, in the case of employment safety you do need Big Brother holding your hand.
See that night club in the news this week? Some idiot barman managed to set light to the building mucking around with flaming alcohol drinks. Ah yes, Here it is. I don’t understand what anyone’s problem with this is. People know barmen do this sort of thing at bars. They happily stood around in the bar and watched him do it. 25 died, but no-one forced them to be a customer or employee. If they didn’t want to risk it they should have gone to/worked at some other non-flaming bar.
No, I’m thinking with a mindset that I have held for my entire life, all 32 years of it. Is it so inconceivable to you that someone just might have a legitimate objection to breathing tobacco smoke, independent of any SHS studies, EPA reports, or anything else?
You appear to be able to want to smoke when you want, where you want, without anyone objecting for any reason. Is this the case, and if so, where you derive this right from?
g8rguy:
Good question. Probably not.
Squish:
My doors and windows are closed when it happens, which is exactly why I have an objection. If I don’t smoke, and my doors and windows are closed, my apartment shouldn’t smell like tobacco smoke. That should be manifestly obvious. But so what if they aren’t closed? In either case, if I am opening the windows to my apartment, the expectation is that I am going to get some fresh air, not foul pollutants. I should also expect that these people would smoke in their apartments rather than outside mine. I don’t understand why, if the smoke is so awful that they don’t want it in their homes, they would want it in their lungs, for god’s sake. But I guess that just makes me a whiner.
Frankly, I think I should have the right to bludgeon unconscious anyone who, instead of just smoking in their own damned apartment, stands on the sidewalk outside my apartment and fills it with smoke. But I don’t have that right. And they don’t have the right to put tobacco smoke in my lungs, or my furniture, or my cats’ lungs, or my food or . . .
So you admit that your original statement, “Americans pay for their own health care” was false, after accusing another poster of dishonesty. Thank you.
The lobbies don’t have to exist at the state level; or, rather, my own friends in the lobbying business (I do work in the Washington, DC area) indicate that industries employ people at the national level who then do research and undertake efforts with the state legislatures.
In any case, it doesn’t take a lot to imagine the possible chain of events: Tobacco lobbyist >> State senator/representative >> County comissioner >> City councilman >> Liquour licensing board. Again, not that I’m saying it’s likely, just that it’s possible.
Cite, please.
Well, I don’t support a smoking ban, but I find it indescribably foul, and I hung out in bars, because I am a musician. My band was employed to play in them.
It should be manifestly obvious that someone who smokes in bars or anywhere else is not a “nonsmoker,” except in the most addled of brains. He or she may be a “casual smoker,” but he or she is not a “nonsmoker” any more than someone who only eats steak at restaurants is a “vegetarian.”
gr8guy, there’s several different points here that you don’t want to confuse:
Do bar workers care about protecting their safety from secondhand smoke? I can’t answer this question; I lack evidence
Is the ability to work somewhere else an adequate protection against workplace dangers? This is a settled question, legally speaking, in the US: NO. A company may not endanger its workers and, when they express their unease, say, “Fine, get a job somewhere else.” THanks to the labor movement, workplaces are safer now than they were in the nineteenth century, when the “get another job” logic prevailed.
Are there other options? I’m sure there are. The only point, however, that I was addressing was point #2.
Is secondhand smoke dangerous? I’m inclined to think it is, but my belief on the matter isn’t settled; I’m not enough of an epidemiologist to evaluate the conflicting data effectively.
To wit: IF secondhand smoke is dangerous, THEN employers have a duty to take reasonable steps to protect their workers from those dangers. That’s not my opinion – that’s the law.
Where I live, there are two nonsmoking bars (I assume they’re voluntarily nonsmoking, considering how many other bars are smoking). They’re the ones I patronize most often, despite the fact that one is pretentious and rude and overpriced, and the other is overly-TVed and has shitty beer. But it’s nice not to see gray when I blow my nose at the end of the evening.
And all your easy, drunk girls might be in the smoking area. But the fun, kissable girls, whose mouths don’t taste like three-day-old hell, will be in the nonsmoking section.
Finally, isn’t that the same Taggert who was, a week ago, posting loony right-wing stuff? I just wanna say that I’ve nothing to do with him.
Relevance? You keep bringing this up. What does this have to do with a bar’s smoking policy?
Forgive me for trying to oversimplify this, but let me try to break this down:
You, as a consumer, have the right to choose to patronize an establishment or to choose not to.
The owner of the establishment has the right to serve you or not, subject to proving that the refusal was not based on a protected status (ethnicity, etc).
The state (in the general sense) is under no obligation to provide a bar that you find satisfactory. This is left to the “free” market.
There is, to my knowledge, no municipality in the country which mandates that an establishment which serves alcohol must allow smoking.
There are such things as dangerous jobs (race car driver, miner, fireman, policman, etc), people are free to apply for such jobs or not. The dangers must be clearly explained and the empoyer must take reasonable steps to ensure worker safety, but the employee can be asked to assume some risk as a condition of employment.
Given all of the above, let me offer a couple of radical suggestions:
It is unnecessary to mandate that all bars be non-smoking. It may be necessary to encourage non-smoking bars depending on your feelings about free-market efficiency in repsonding to consumer need.
A large part of the problem of second-hand smoke has to do with poor ventilation (standing smoke). It does seem perfectly acceptable to me that a bar which allows smoking could also be required to meet certain minimum standards for ventilation. In fact, even though I smoke, there are certain bars I avoid due to this issue (including the only one in town that offers horse-hair dart boards, dammit!).
This leads me to the following conclusions:
Given Suggestion 1, employees who wish to work in a non-smokeless environment would have a choice.
So would consumers.
Given Suggestion 2, many of the concerns of both employees and non-smoking consumers would be mitigated, if not eliminated.
Oh, for the love of Christ! Futile Gesture, it might help the debate remain rational and civil if all involved were to try to honestly address the opponent’s position. Waitstaff = slave labor on pyramids, my left buttock!
I find it highly unlikely that waitstaff is somehow unaware of the dangers of tobacco (the more so since many of them smoke themselves, if chula’s anecdotes and my experience to the same are meaningful, which is open to question, and of course it may be different in the UK).
More to the point, I suppose I fail to see why the solution to the potential ignorance of risk is to ban the risky behavior. Why can’t a waitress who smokes herself work for a proprietor who has saved up and started a bar in which he wishes to smoke? Especially if there’s a bar just down the road which permits no smoking at all (admittedly, there ought to be more of these).
And of course, most of these “Oh, the poor downtrodden exploited workers are at jeapordized by the evil barowners” types come across to me as hideously phony. That is, I would suspect that many of them actually just don’t like smoke and have hit upon this as a way of justifying banning it (NB: I am not accusing anyone in this thread of doing so). Why are they not agitating for the poor oppressed people who are forced to wash windows on the 85th floor of some skyscraper? Why are they not agitating for the poor oppressed loggers who are forced to use chainsaws? Or the poor oppressed whatever it is that you call people who hold those little “stop/slow” signs in construction zones? We accept all of these as valid jobs and they can still be risky; why is being a waitress any different?
Ah, so of course the solution in your eyes would be to ban serving flaming drinks? Why not ban fajitas? There’s fire involved there too. Hell, we should just ban hot food; you have to cook it, and cooking involves heat, and heat has a risk of fire. Oh, won’t someone think of the poor oppressed cooks of the world?
In other words, (a) mischaracterization of an opponent’s argument is fun, easy, and utterly unhelpful, and (b) accidents happen. This is an unfortunate fact of life that most of us learn to accept from an early age.
Nor can I answer this question; the only evidence we’ve been given in this thread is anecdotal and suggests that the answer is that they don’t.
A few things. First, a worker may still choose to voluntarily endanger himself, yes? I could choose to operate, say, heavy machinery, or to work with molten metal, both of which can be dangerous. Everything involves some level of risk; how much does there have to be before the government should step in? And to be honest, if the employees knowingly choose to engage in dangerous behavior despite the possibility of doing otherwise, it doesn’t matter to me a bit what the law says about it; my argument is that on principle they sould be able to make this choice.
Why is that no one is willing to address said other options? I’ve been continually puzzled by this.
Neither am I, and I would like to know (DSeid’s links are sure to be helpful in this regard). I would submit that banning something because you think it might possibly be dangerous when the people who are being protected quite possibly don’t want it to be banned is asinine.
Such as, say, proper ventilation, or non-smoking sections, or whatever else. There’s more than one way to skin a cat, and the thing that concerns me most of all about this is that almost no one has been willing to consider other possibilites.
DSeid, I’ll get back to you in a bit, although I think your steel mill analogy is a little off; in particular, for one, it’s not that the steel mill intruded on you and if you don’t like it you can move, it’s more that you decided to work in the steel mill and if you don’t like it you can work elsewhere. Also, of course, there is that despite all this, steel mills are still allowed to exist. Why should bars with smoking inside them be any different?
Since I introduced the quoted statement in the context of potential barriers to entry for new establishments that serve alcohol – I was real specific about it and everything – why would you even ask me this question? If you think it has some relevance to a bar’s smoking policy, you tell me what it is; I didn’t state it in that context, and don’t intend to waste my time speculating about it.
Well let’s get on the table what we can agree to. I think.
Tobacco contains many known carcinogens, and many nonsmokers considered ETS an environmental pollutant.
There is no evidence that a “threshold effect” exists under which tocacco is not dangerous. There is no conclusive evidence that it does not. There is an apparent linear relationship between amount of exposure and risk. Evidence is at the least highly suggestive that ETS imposes health risks.
ETS should not be imposed upon children in public places. Public areas where children are reasonably expected to be present should be mandated as smoke free.
A nonsmoker should not have ETS pollution imposed upon them in locations that have a reasonable expection of universal accessibility. Which areas meet that requirement is a matter of debate.
IMHO, a private establishment which caters to adults who are making an informed choice about patronizing has no need to provide a smoke-free zone. I do not see such establishments as meeting the requirement of an expectation of universal accessibility. Worker safety can be assured under the ageis of OSHA without the need for new laws. OSHA has the power to mandate smoke free environments if they so deem it appropriate for worker safety. Worker safety is not the EPA’s mandate.
And an aside … the court vacated a scientific opinion by the EPA? WTF? Sorry, but I trust the EPA’s scientists to evaluate the science more than a judge and a bunch of suited lawyers.
Yes, with the caveat that I’m not quite sure exactly what you mean with “many nonsmokers considered ETS an environmental pollutant.” If by this you simply mean that nonsmokers dislike the smell and find that it irritates them, yes that’s true, but I wouldn’t classify it as an environmental pollutant along the lines of, for instance, a heavy metal or something.
Okay, but I think we ought to work to clarify this (although doing so may be difficult or impossible). For instance: if there is a linear relationship between level of exposure and risk, there logically MUST be some level of exposure beneath which risk is negligible. What that level of exposure is and how it compares to typical levels of exposure in, for example, the nonsmoking area of a well-ventilated restaurant would be a key piece of information.
Yes and no. Children, after all, can reasonably be expected to play outdoors, but banning all outdoor smoking seems excessive. I guess I’m suggesting that “public areas where children are reasonably expected to be present” be clarified. At schools, day care centers, and the like? Absolutely. In a large public park? I’m not so sure, though of course when children are in fact present (i.e. sitting right next to you on a park bench) they shouldn’t be breathing the stuff.
This is in my opinion the core of the debate. Some people consider “a reasonable expectation of universal accessibility” to be, for instance, any restaurant, which would imply banning all smoking in restaurants. Other people don’t believe that restaurants meet said requirement. Others still may well find the entire premise faulty. I think it might be better to start with “nonsmokers should not have ETS imposed upon them in locations where they could reasonably expect to not have ETS imposed upon them.” What these locations are (ranging from everywhere to nowhere) is of course an open question.
Correction: tobacco contains one narrow class of known carcinogens, called tobacco-specific nitrosamines (TSNAs). And even then, TSNAs are only produced when using flue curing (i.e. curing the tobacco by exposing it to gas flames). Theoretically, air-cured or microwave-cured chewing and snuff tobacco should be carcinogen-free.
It’s tobacco smoke that contains a huge long litany of carcinogens (some considerably less potent than others).
I’m not a right wing nut, I’m a conservative, and there is a difference. But let’s not hijack the thread.
Smoking is not a legal activity in places where it isn’t legal. And in my state, it is illegal in all places of buisness. When done in those places, it is illegal, against the law, etc. No amount of begging the question will make it legal in those places. As a conservative non-smoker, I love it.
25% of the population smokes, the other 75% don’t. If you want your filthy lil’ habit, do it in the privacy of your own smoke smelling house.
Can people choose to be around smoke if they want to? Absolutely. They can move to a state where smoking everywhere is legal, like Nevada. But the state I live in, California, makes it illegal, and the people have chosen to make it illegal. So the nicotine addicts would like to force people to choose to work around smoke or be unemployed. So what. I’ve no sympathy for nicotine addicts. I suppose you’d like to discriminate in hiring and hire smokers only, or people who won’t complain. Not a chance. A human being’s right to work, and in a safe environment, is far more important than a smoker’s next fix.
How I do love it when a smoker is aching to get the next fix and can’t because of the law. It is a sweet sight to see a self-destructive loser suffering because of their own stupidity.
“Oh, I like it for the taste.” Trust me, you have no taste.
Which was, however, a remark that really belonged somewhere else, I think. I apologize; a momentary fit of pique and by then it was too late.
To actually address your points, however:
Of course smoking is illegal in places where it isn’t legal. What has that to do with this debate?
What percentage of the population drinks? If they want to engage in their filthy little habit, they should do it in the privacy of their own boozy smelling house. In other words, the mere fact that it is unpopular is no reason to ban it.
California. I should have known.
A human being’s right to work in a safe environment is more important that a smoker’s next fix. A human being’s right to choose to work in a dangerous environment is more important than a non-smoker’s “right” to not be exposed to the consequences of his own actions in entering said dangerous environment.
I don’t want to discriminate in hiring only smokers or people who won’t complain, I want to allow people to hire whomsoever they please, providing they don’t discriminate on racial/religious/etc grounds. If they choose to hire smokers, that should be their right, as they’re the ones who are taking all the risk and expense in starting the business to begin with.
I’ll be back to propose a few more thoughts after I finish dinner, but I wanted to get my apology up before things got too heated.
Perhaps they live with people who don’t smoke. Perhaps they are just visitors and are not allowed to smoke in their hosts’ apartments. Frankly, if tobacco smoke is seeping into your apartment when the doors and windows are closed, they’re not properly sealed.
That is not what I said, and you know it very well. I would pay for my own health care, if I could afford it. Your insurance premiums (with your employer’s copayments), presumably, pay for your health care. If you honestly feel that the major burden of medical care is paid for by taxes, then I have a right to ban red meat, butter and all other fats. :rolleyes:
Perhaps the point is that if so many nonsmokers object to smoking in bars, then why aren’t there more nonsmoking bars? Obviously, there isn’t a market for them.
The fact that you can’t grasp what I’m saying makes it clear you are thinking with the mind set of today’s non-smoker. I lived in both eras, you were just a kid when the anti-smoking campaigns began. I am well aware their are those who are super sensitive to tobacco smoke and other substances like perfume or car exhaust. They have always been around regardless of the time period. You are certainly one of them since smoke from outdoors bothers you in a closed apartment. Believe me, I sympathize with you but you must admit people who are as sensitive as you are the exception. Back when smoking was socially acceptable, oversensitive people must have found other ways of socializing because as I said, I never ran into one. As for other non-smokers back then, they must have been accustomed to the smell, same as we no longer smell the pollution in the air like car exhaust. Everyone has heard the comment made when city people visit the country, “mmmm the air smells so fresh out here.” That’s when they realize what they have been breathing isn’t so fresh.
No doubt you think it is unfair that supersensitive people are left out of some social gatherings, thus all smoking should be abolished everywhere or at least until you get to it on your list of priorities. But without conclusive evidence that ETS is hazardous, alone the with numerous studies that show long term exposure is so low as to be statistically ignored, there are no more grounds to ban SHS than there is to abolish perfume because a few find it irritating or even sickening. A few may think this example of perfume is humourous, but that’s exactly what has happened in Newfoundland. It is illegal to wear perfume or scented deodorants in public buildings. One older woman was arrested and fined for violating that law. If it has come to this, what’s next? How long will it take before we become just like China were chewing gum is illegal because a few kids put a wad on the doors of a subway train to prevent them from closing. How long will it be before the needs of society totally overshadow personal freedoms?
I am merely trying to point out there was a time when smoking was socially acceptable. Sure it didn’t please everyone, but on the whole people where a hell of a lot more friendly toward one another than they are today. The health Nazi’s put out a phony EPA report and suddenly everyone is at each others throats.
As I said in an earlier post, my time is almost over, people of your age group are now more in control of shaping the future. But be careful that what you pave for your children is based on integrity and not solely on immediate needs. The health Nazi’s have become too addicted to money and power to quit with just smoking and believe me they know how to work your needs to their benefit.
You are a perfect example of the health Nazi’s hate campaign meant to divide and conquer. The only thing you and you ilk lack is a marching band and some flags. Just a bit more indoctrination and you’ll just love the smell of oven smoke.
There are some real silly comments being made here posing as debate.
Oh, c’mon! You mean the time period during which blacks were being lynched and Jews exterminated? Or when kids were working in sweat shops? And workers chained to sewing machines? Or when riots were ravaging and kids were shot at college? Sure all damn friendly times. Ah, nostalgia. Ozzie and Harriette, Leave It To Beaver. (People weren’t “nice”, they were afraid to ask anyone to stop smoking) “Health Nazis”? Geez Louise. Dispute the EPAs findings if you want, based on a reasoned analysis of the data. (Although ETS met a higher standard of proof of risk than many other substances that they regulate tightly.) Provide some peer reviewed published data that shows that there is no health risk to ETS, if you can, and explain why they should be believed over the EPA’s analysis. The ad hominum attacks are not worthy of this board and the Nazi oven references insult the memory of my relatives who died in those very camps.
g8rguy,
So at least we can redefine the discussion. Dismiss the whole discussion that implies that nonsmokers have no right to be concerned about health risks being imposed on them or on those incapable of giving consent (eg children) and should just show some tolerence. Ignore the rants of those who portray a plethora of peer reviewed data as the work of a health fascism conspiricy. Focus on where a nonsmoker should have a reasonable expectation of access without having ETS imposed upon them. And where they should accept that no such expectation should exist.
My takes, and I’d be curious to read yours.
An open air park? Agreed, unless you are right on top of the kids, ventilation is adequate to make for minimal imposed exposure. (And if you are on top of the kid, then you’ve got other problems!)
My own apartment with the windows open? I’d politely ask the smoker to move down the street and expect polite compliance.
Resturants that cater to families? A reasonable expectation of children present exists and in a confined space. Nonsmoking unless truly seperate areas exists to keep a true nonsmoker area available with clean ventilation (not the table next to mine is the smoking section)
Malls, shopping areas … a reasonable expectation of universal access. Nonsmoking.
Strip joint. Smoke away. (And I don’t care about your handicapped accessibility either)
A bar clearly labelled as smoking allowed? Smoke away. A resturant that clearly discourages families with kids? Allow smoking if you want (and aren’t too proud of the taste of your food).
Again, the option is open for OSHA to step in at a federal level over the issue of worker safety. And for scientific panels of experts to decide on the strength of the data not judges who do not have any such expertise. Lord knows OSHA has me having my staff doing a lot of onerous things that they’d rather not do, in the name of worker safety.
tracer, I’ll take your word for it but that is not what I had been told in the past. An interesting aside. Thank you for the education.
You know, I think you’re going to find this horribly boring as I substantially agree with you…
Assuming I’m not misreading you, absolutely. If a person is in my home, I reserve the right to ask them not to smoke inside and like you expect them to comply. I may, of course, also choose to allow them to smoke inside, but that’s unlikely. Likewise, if I’m visiting their home, while I may tell them that I dislike smoke, if they choose to smoke indoors anyway, that’s their perogative.
If instead you mean a person standing on the street outside your open-windowed apartment, I would say that common courtesy would have the smoker move down the street but that I would object to making it illegal to be discourteous.
In general, I agree with you, but I waffle a tad. Certainly I think that if we’re going to discuss smoking and nonsmoking sections of the restaurant, there’s a reasonable expectation that in the nonsmoking section, there will not in fact be smoke. How this is to be accomplished is where I worry a bit. I guess, though, that I’m not too concerned about it, and if the proprietors wants to have both smoking and nonsmoking sections, it’s up to him to figure out how to effectively do so.
One possibility is having three sections: smoking, nonsmoking, and smokeless, so that there’s an area where smoking is prohibited but which may get some smoke drifting over from the smoking section, and another area where it is presumed that there will be essentially no smoke at all. Unfortunately, I would tend to suspect that no one would choose to sit in nonsmoking over smokeless unless they couldn’t get a table there without waiting a long bit.
Also, I note that at least here in Florida we have a lot of restaurants with outside seating; since this isn’t an enclosed place, I don’t mind when people light up.
Yes, although I have no problem with the idea of separate smoking lounges or areas in the mall like they have in airports. With regard to privately owned businesses (say, if I chose to open an antique shop), the same reasoning applies: if I open a business and want to have a room inside to smoke in, I don’t see why I shouldn’t be allowed to do so, provided that I don’t promptly dump my ETS into the business area. For that matter, if I’m running my own business catering to adults (in, for instance, the exceedingly remote contingency that I become a porn dealer), kids shouldn’t be there to begin with and as long as I make it clear that my place of business allows smoking inside I should be able to do so.
Yes, on all counts. Add yes to restaurants that clearly advertise themselves as allowing smoking. I think the default presumption should be that a restaurant has adequately separated smoking and nonsmoking sections so that if you want to find a seat where you’re not exposed to ETS, you should be able to. If, however, the restaurant clearly indicates that it has no nonsmoking section at all, I’ve no problem with it. The restaurant shoud at minimum be required to point out that ETS is known to be harmful to children and I wouldn’t have any objection to stating that if a restaurant wants to have only a smoking area children may not be served there.
To all of the above (bars, businesses, etc), also add that if the owner wants to permit no smoking whatsoever on his premises, he is well within his rights to do so.
I wouldn’t think this should be especially controversial stuff, but the last few threads on smoking have been eye-opening at best.
Although realistically this option is of course open, here I unsurprisingly disagree to some extent. I have no problem at all with OSHA stepping in and saying “this is the acceptable level of ETS in an area presumed to be nonsmoking,” but in an environment where the proprietor chooses to allow smoking (such as a bar as discussed above), where the employees make the fully informed choice to work there, and where the customers make the fully informed choice to do business there, I think OSHA ought not to be butting in. Realistically, they can and probably would, but I don’t think they should.
On a completely unrelated note, can anyone tell me why the EPA hasn’t (as far as I know) redone the 1993 study taking into account the claims of their detractors? (My bet: it would be time-consuming and costly.) I would find their rebuttals of said claims to be far more convincing if there was actually data there rather than simple dismissal of the objections. I’m not going to claim that the EPA is part of some vast intolerant anti-smoking conspiracy or anything, but they could more convincingly answer the objections raised against their work by addressing them squarely instead of dismissing them which is how it came across to me in the document that DSeid linked to.
Also, if someone out there wants to dig up something substantial about the original objections to the EPA’s work, I’d be interested. I don’t care enough to go do the research myself as I tend to suspect that the EPA is right and, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, this isn’t an unduly big issue to me, but it has struck me that we haven’t seen these objections yet and it would probably be worthwhile to get both sides of the story even if one side is inherently more trustworthy.