Smoking ban...exactly what is a public place?

It's not the idea of smoking, it's the SMOKE.

I couldn't care less if you eat a cheeseburger or drink yourself stupid. I do care when what you're doing makes me cough, makes my eyes water, and it makes my clothes stink so they have to be washed.

Unlike other vices and unhealthy behaviors, smoking affects everyone sitting around you too.

THAT is the differentiating factor.

HOWEVER, I do support the right of a private business owner to set policies for their own bars.

LOL

Ahhhhh I see. So we should be able to pass laws to regulate people's behavior simply because we don't like something? I hate hearing crinkly plastic noises and chewing in movie theaters. I might even get sticky stuff on my shoes! Would a law banning candy in movie theaters be justified on that basis?

Never been to Los Angeles have you?

I did go to that site, Chip. I dont trust some wacko with an agenda to present me with a very carefully selected dose of "facts".
I trust the WHO instead

Actually, that's not true. AB 3037 has a few exemptions in it that allows for smoking in bars under certain circumstances.

For example, if the bar is 'owner-operated' and there are no paid employees, the bar is exempt from the law, and you can light up to your hearts desire.

You can also light up if you're an employee at a bar in the breakroom providing there is sufficient ventilation and employees are not required to enter the break room.

in other words "lalalalalala I can't hear you!"

500+ of those can be attributed to air toxins. Actually, about 40,000 premature deaths per year are caused by air pollution. So, while smoking is bad and second hand smoke may be bad for you... so is the ambient air in any city.

I said that I support a business owner's right to set policies in a private establishment

Please try to pay attention

The World Health Organization's study is a textbook example of the right way to conduct an epidemiological study. Unfortunately for them, it yielded unexpected results.

Fact: The World Health Organization conducted a study of Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS) and lung cancer in Europe.

Fact: ETS is commonly referred to as Second Hand Smoke (SHS). The two terms are interchangeable.

Fact: This was a case control study using a large sample size.

Fact: The purpose of the study was to provide a more precise estimate of risk, to discover any differences between different sources of ETS, and the effect of ETS exposure on different types of lung cancer.

Fact: The study was conducted from twelve centers in seven European countries over a period of seven years.

Fact: The participants consisted of 650 patients with lung cancer and 1542 control subjects. Patients with smoking related diseases were excluded from the control group. None of the subjects in either group had smoked more than 400 cigarettes in their lifetime.

Fact: Three of the study centers interviewed family members of the participants to confirm the subjects were not smokers.

Fact: The study found no statistically significant risk existed for non-smokers who either lived or worked with smokers.

Fact: The only statistically significant number was a decrease in the risk of lung cancer among the children of smokers.

Fact: The study found a Relative Risk (RR) for spousal exposure of 1.16, with a Confidence Interval (CI) of .93 - 1.44. In layman's terms, that means

• Exposure to the ETS from a spouse increases the risk of getting lung cancer by 16%.
• Where you'd normally find 100 cases of lung cancer, you'd find 116.

• The 1.16 number is not statistically significant.

Fact: The real RR can be any number within the CI. The CI includes 1.0, meaning that the real number could be no increase at all. It also includes numbers below 1.0, which would indicate a protective effect. This means that the number 1.16 is not statistically significant.

Fact: A RR of less than 2.0 is usually written off as an insignificant result, most likely to be due to error or bias. An RR of 3.0 or higher is considered desirable. (See Epidemiology 101 for more details.)

Fact: The study found no Dose/Response relationship for spousal ETS exposure. See Epidemiology 102 for more information.

Fact: The RR for workplace ETS was 1.17 with a CI of .94 - 1.45, well below the preferred 2.0 - 3.0, and with another CI that straddled 1.0.

Fact: The RR for exposure from both a smoking spouse and a smoky workplace was 1.14, with a CI of .88 - 1.47.

Fact: The RR for exposure during childhood was 0.78, with a CI of .64 - .96. This indicates a protective effect! Children exposed to ETS in the home during childhood are 22% less likely to get lung cancer, according to this study. Note that this was the only result in the study that did not include 1.0 in the CI.

The WHO quickly buried the report. The British press got wind of it and hounded them for weeks.

Fact: On March 8, 1998, the British newspaper The Telegraph reported "The world's leading health organization has withheld from publication a study which shows that not only might there be no link between passive smoking and lung cancer but that it could have even a protective effect."

Finally, the WHO issued a press release. Although their study showed no statistically significant risk from ETS, their press release had the misleading headline "Passive Smoking Does Cause Lung Cancer - Do Not Let Them Fool You." (I say "misleading" because it would be impolite to call it an outright lie.)

Fact: In paragraph four they admitted the facts: "The study found that there was an estimated 16% increased risk of lung cancer among nonsmoking spouses of smokers. For workplace exposure the estimated increase in risk was 17%. However, due to small sample size, neither increased risk was statistically significant." (Emphasis added.)

Fact: The press release doesn't mention the one statistically significant result from the study, that children raised by smokers were 22% less likely to get lung cancer.

Fact: The WHO tried to blame the results on a small sample size. However, the in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, where the results were published, the researchers clearly state: "An important aspect of our study in relation to previous studies is its size, which allowed us to obtain risk estimates with good statistical precision..." It should also be noted that a larger sample size wouldn't have changed the numbers significantly, just narrowed the CI a bit.

Fact: The only statistically significant number was a decrease in the risk of lung cancer among the children of smokers.

Fact: The RR for exposure during childhood was 0.78, with a CI of .64 - .96. This indicates a protective effect! Children exposed to ETS in the home during childhood are 22% less likely to get lung cancer, according to this study. Note that this was the only result in the study that did not include 1.0 in the CI.

That is an interesting statistic. I have a good friend who was threatened with loss of custody of her son (by Florida Child Protective Services) because she was a smoker and so she quit because of it.

She is also gay so I kind of thought they threw smoking out there as an excuse because her ex-husband was so against her choice of a new partner. Since she is the biological mother, there was little he could do about the choice of partner so he droped the "smoking bomb".

That's really disturbing, Rose! This issue really infuriates me. I would definitely defend public smoking bans if there was concrete science proving unreasonable detriment to non-smokers. I don't want to screw up other people's health. The problem is that the science just isn't there. and these laws are all based on subjective tastes and bias. It's a slippery slope when we start letting laws get passed legislating taste. As Eggy demonstrated, anti-smoking proponents aren't especially interested in facts. I hate mythology that gets passed off as concrete fact. I hate it even more when it's used as a justification to limit my freedom.

Thing is, Chip, any reply I give you that does not agree with you will be instantly dismissed as "lalala i cant hear you".
I'm sorry Chip, I am a skeptic by nature and it takes a TAD more than a shoddily made site to move me from my positions. And even if it was GOOD for me, it still stinks
I have had to put up with my family's smoke on a daily basis and I know from experience how much it hurts me. Heck, when I was younger and lived with my grandparents there were three people throwing their smoke on me every day.
You have to realize that in Portugal the smoking situation is a lot worse than in America since a lot more people smoke here percentually, and the smoking culture is stuck in the 50s, nobody will bug you about smoking being a "filthy habit" or even say "those things will kill you".
Heck, when I was a kid, my MOTHER offered me a smoke more than once. Which I gladly refused.
She actively WANTED me to smoke. How much more braindead can you get?

I do not have children. I do not go to Chuckie Cheese or Playberry and light up in the ball corral. I do go to bars where every adult present made the choice to be present. That is my right. If I had children, I would not likely smoke in my home and when I go to other folks homes I don't just light up in the middle of their nursery. Legislating the rights away from business owners is not the answer and never will be.

Diets high in fat are believed to predispose humans to colorectal cancer. In countries with high colorectal cancer rates, the fat intake by the population is much higher than in countries with low cancer rates. It is believed that the breakdown products of fat metabolism lead to the formation of cancer-causing chemicals (carcinogens). Diets high in vegetables, and high-fiber foods such as whole-grain breads and cereals may rid the bowel of these carcinogens and help reduce the risk of cancer.



So I suppose the fatburger should be outlawed as well huh? Or is the colon not of the same importance as the lungs? Think about these pics next time you see a kid in your local FatBurger chain gumming down a juicy double kiddie meal with a side of coronary heart disease sticks. Smokers are no more idiots than those who drink or those who eat junk steroid injected meats and processed cheese products. Trying to "save" folks from themselves by creating laws will only lead us down the slippery slope towards totaltarianism for the "benefit" of the children who will have no choice left when it is their turn to "run" the world. Is that what you want? Do you really want the govco and a few do gooders to have the right to take away your choice, to force you to eat only what is healthy (no more hoho's and dingdongs for you...they'll give ya colon cancer) to force you to drive a hybrid 10 miles per hour with speed bumps every 3 feet, to force you to get "fixed" because you are genetically inferior and may be harmful to the gene pool. I suppose so because "they" know what is best for me...right.

a) Your fat intake does not bother me or anyone else around you... save for the occasional flatus
b) Yes, as I have previously stated, I would like more governmental control on the food industry. I myself do not consume fast food and neither do I recommend it to anyone around me.
c) "Slippery slope" is the name of a well-known fallacy.

Mind if I site you on http://p212.ezboard.com/funofficialwbtforumfrm2.showMessage?topicID=6004.topic

But see I am American. Here we can decide whether or not we want to patronize an establishment that allows smoking. You just don't get it do you. Legislation and mandates are not the answer. These are privately owned businesses. Bottom line, if you don't like it go somewhere else but don't tell me how to run my business.

Ohh and the fatburger eaters do affect me. I have to pay for these obese f**kers to get that bypass and GI stapling with my tax dollars and high insurance premiums. So in effect it does have an effect on my wallet. Not to mention the fact that I have to look at their 13 year old girls in midriffs with their bellys hanging over their low rise jeans. But I leave it up to the consumer to decide whether or not they want to fill their bodies with gross steroid injected meat product and hormonally altered dairy products. Why because this is the US and if you want to die then you can pick your poison. I don't need some self righteous do gooder to decide what is best for me.

If you want a smoke free environment talk to your local business owners not your govco. Legislation is never the answer.

You said you put your faith in the WHO study, so I posted purely factual information from it that clearly shows that it doesn't prove a statisticaly significant increase in risk. It's not there for you to agree or disagree with. It's just cold hard facts. You're being the opposite of a skeptic Eggy. You're ignoring objective data due to personal bias...



...as I was saying... personal bias. There is insufficient proof to justify laws infringing on other people's freedom. Until that case is made legitimately, anti-smoking laws are no different than gay marriage bans. It's legislated morality and nothing more. If the standards set by the WHO study were applied to everything, resaurants wouldn't be allowed to serve food, and your bathtub would be illegal.

Isis, that's from this excellent site http://www.davehitt.com/facts/

THAT'S BECAUSE YOU SMOKE! MUTANT!

No no no! It's from the contaminated water supply I tell you!

This thread reminds me of a scene in The Sixth Day... when Arnold and his wife are sharing a cigar in their garage his wife reminds him that smoking is illegal.

Later on in the movie, his wife and daughter are kidnapped by thugs and held hostage, blindfolded in a room.

When Arnold comes and saves them, he takes the blindfold off his wife and she asks, "Honey, is this over the cigar?"

We don't allow smoking in bars, clubs, restaurants, or casinos here in Canada.

And I'm really happy about it.

Why?

Because I don't want to go to a club and have to breathe second-hand smoke if I don't want to. It's like we walk into a bar and have to drink eachothers' drink all night in order to live. If you wanna pollute the air with your filthy habit, take it outside. No harm taking 5 minutes to be polite.

New legislation is lining up to ban smoking from public places period and will become an offence if you smoke inside your home if you have children in your care... which goes a little further than most people are comfortable with right now, but I think it's fair. I bet it will pass in a couple years too.

People need to wise up, and keeping smoking away from the public will hopefully reduce the number of cancer-related deaths every year a little bit. Heck, it might even lower the number of smokers in the country.

Their "right" to run their business as they see fit does not extend to endangering the health of those whom they employ. Workers in restaurants and bars should not have to endure the health risks of second hand smoke. That point is a very large reason why the decision is out of the hands of private owners - its a workplace safety issue.

While that screaming 2 year old might cause you to want to rip your eardrums out, I imagine that you would choose hearing a child cry over developing lung cancer.