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

Er, yes if it was avoidable.

Oh what the hell, I will copy and paste the WHO press release to the 1998 study Chip posted about:

http://www.who.int/inf-pr-1998/en/pr98-29.html

PASSIVE SMOKING DOES CAUSE LUNG CANCER, DO NOT LET THEM FOOL YOU

The World Health Organization (WHO) has been publicly accused of suppressing information. Its opponents say that WHO has withheld from publication its own report that was aimed at but supposedly failed to scientifically prove that there is an association between passive smoking, or environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), and a number of diseases, lung cancer in particular. Both statements are untrue.

The study in question is a case-control study on the effects of ETS on lung cancer risk in European populations, which has been carried out over the last seven years by 12 research centres in 7 European countries under the leadership of WHO's cancer research branch -- the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).

The results of this study, which have been completely misrepresented in recent news reports, are very much in line with the results of similar studies both in Europe and elsewhere: passive smoking causes lung cancer in non-smokers.

The study found that there was an estimated 16% increased risk of lung cancer among non-smoking 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. Although, the study points towards a decreasing risk after cessation of exposure.

In February 1998, according to usual scientific practice, a paper reporting the main study results was sent to a reputable scientific journal for consideration and peer review. That is why the full report is not yet publicly available. Under the circumstances, however, the authors of the study have agreed to make an abstract of the report available to the media.

"It is extremely important to note that the results of this study are consistent with the results of major scientific reviews of this question published during 1997 by the government of Australia, the US Environmental Protection Agency and the State of California", said Neil Collishaw, Acting Chief of WHO's Tobacco or Health Unit in Geneva. "A major meta-analysis of passive smoking and lung cancer was also published in the British Medical Journal in 1997. From these and other previous reviews of the scientific evidence emerges a clear global scientific consensus — passive smoking does cause lung cancer and other diseases", he concluded.

"IARC is proud of the careful scientific work done by the European scientific team responsible for this study", commented Dr Paul Kleihues, the Agency's director. "We are very concerned about the false and misleading statements recently published in the mass media. It is no coincidence that this misinformation originally appeared in the British press just before the No-Tobacco Day in the United Kingdom and the scheduled publication of the report of the British Scientific Committee on Tobacco and Health".

Further information on the health effects of passive smoking is available in WHO's Advisory Kit for World No-Tobacco Day 1998 on the World Wide Web at www.who.ch/ntday, as well as from WHO's Tobacco or Health Unit, Programme on Substance Abuse.

Uhhhh no, sorry there Cris. The two studies I'm talking about were not funded by Tobacco companies, unless you think the EPA and WHO are in the pocket of phillip morris. No one has ever forced you to be someplace full of smokers. If you find it so objectionable you can use your free will to choose not to go there. Instead you advocate taking away that freedom of choice from smokers. The evidence isn't strong enough to justify it. If you advocate taking away my freedom based on such scant evidence, it makes you far more of a demagogue than it makes me an apologist. Wear your garden variety holier than thou moralist badge with honor. You earned it

Now there's a fine example of apologetics, as has already been detailed in this thread. Their press release doesn't change their numbers, and their numbers do not support their claims.

Scant evidence?? You are seriously deluded if you think there is "scant evidence" on the effects of second hand smoke. You can label me all that you want - and I refer you to the WHO statement I posted. Oh, and here's the EPA you spoke of, on the subject:

http://www.epa.gov/smokefree/

Actually this link is more germaine, also from the EPA:

http://www.epa.gov/smokefree/healthrisks.html

Though it would be hurtful to the economy and heat will come my way for saying this, but; I think Tobacco Companies should be outlawed. And yes I smoke and I have a problem with it. It is a legal addiction that is detremental to my health. And yes I know, no one is forcing me to smoke. I would choose to be forced not to however.

The EPA study was found to be so shoddy in its methodolgy and its data so cherry picked that it was thrown out of court in 1998. It was a meta analasys of existing studies. They started with 30 studies. By the time they were done they had thrown out all but 11 of them and when that still didn't get them to the numbers they were after (that they had already announced in a press release before the study was completed) they doubled their margin of error! It was pure junk science. Although this study has been thoroughly debunked by science and thrown out by a federal judge, it's still regularly quoted by government agencies, charity organizations and the anti-smoking movement as if it were legitimate. It's not.

You neglected to mention that Federal Judge Osteen of the case against the EPA was previously a lobbyist for the tobacco industry, or that what was left intact in the EPA's report by the ruling:

http://www.tobacco.neu.edu/Extra/hotdocs/OsteenArticle.htm

Six years later the ruling has not been overturned.

The problem with the entire premise that secondhand smoke is dangerous is that the studies are controversial and frankly, hold no weight with me because of that.

However, even when I was a smoker, I was very aware that smoke irritated some people and I had respect enough not to smoke around them. Over the years I've kept my non-smoker friends as well as my smoking friends. It is a matter of respect. If someone nicely asked that I not smoke near them, then I found another place to smoke.

OTOH - if you are one of these people that gets righteously indignant just by seeing a pack of Marboro''s in someone's pocket book - keep your indignation to yourself. If you know that certain bars poorly ventilated and tend to be smokey and this bothers you, then go to different bars.

Truthfully, I think all the laws created to ban smoking from private places were the beginning of a special interest moralist political overtaking. When the big push to ban smoking worked, a lot of other special interest groups began to follow an identical model.

Not all of them were bad but most of them have gone too far in infringing on individual rights or have stood in the way of better solutions because they wanted to "punish" the individual for engaging in the activity instead of finding a solution for the real problem.

Most special interest groups that exist today are far more interested in the puniitive aspect of the issue than in the ability to eliminate or solve the problem. The ability to punish makes them feel powerful and significant.

Case in point: MADD. Did you know that as DUI laws stand now eating yeast bread or a pack of M&Ms can produce an Intoxilizer reading that results in a citizen being arrested for DUI?

If you want to look at some statistics on drunk driving laws here is an interesting article: http://www.michaelkeller.com/news/news627.htm

It started out looking like a good idea - and aspects of it were, but like everything else in this society, it was carried too far and is spinning out of control and now hundreds of thousands of American citizens are being criminalized each year for "drunk driving" even though they were not impaired at the time of their arrests.

Great post Rose. I agree with everything you said.

No, it was actually only four years - it was overturned by unanimous decision in 2002 on appeal by the United States District Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

http://pacer.ca4.uscourts.gov/opinion.pdf/982407.P.pdf

A little more on Judge Osteen:

The presiding judge was William Osteen, of the North Carolina Middle District Court. In 1974 Judge Osteen worked as an industry lobbyist for tobacco growers while a private attorney. He was hired by a tobacco grower organization in Guilford, Alamance and Rockingham counties, within the state of North Carolina, to lobby former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, Earl Butz, not to go ahead with a plan to eliminate the federal tobacco production quota program (AP press report, August 20, 1995; Repace Associates). Many judicial ethicists criticized Judge Osteen for not recusing himself from the EPA case

I need to borrow your hammer Rose...does it have a magnet for nail heads? Great post as always.

The appeals court didn't overturn Judge Osteen's findings that EPA had used deceptive science to support a policy on environmental tobacco smoke that it had adopted before it even began its study. It did not even address those issues. Instead the appeals court ruling focused only on whether the lower federal court had jurisdiction to review EPA actions in this matter and found that it did not. It contains no mention at all of Judge Osteen's findings on the EPA's fraudulent science. Judge Osteen's findings in this area were not challenged by the appeals court and remain intact.

I also get irritated with the propaganda stating that smokers have low birthweight babies with many of the problems that commonly accompany low birthweight. I've been a smoker for over forty years. I've successfully raised four children. None were low birthweight, and all four have above average IQ's. One is near genius and is graduating from law school in June. One is working on her Masters in education. Only one of the four has ever smoked, and has since quit (the one in law school).

I'm not suggesting that smoking is harmless, much less good for anyone. I do, however, believe the risks are highly exaggerated.

I think there are far more important environmental issues that need to be addressed by the government. The smoking issue is, in my opinion, a "smoke screen" directing the public's focus, at tremendous cost, to a lesser issue.

Excellent post Sophie. Nice to see some of the elloquent non-forum regulars come out to play...even if it takes downtime to drag you into the game

Indeed, welcome to the fray Sophie

Heh... I was afraid to jump in but couldn't help myself.

I think the larger question is, how many studies have been done regarding how the human organism is being affected by other more widespread environmental pollutants? Is the increase in lung cancer solely related to smoking (and/or second-hand smoke), or is the larger environment (with multiple interacting influences) the real culprit?

How many millions of vehicles travel the roads each day, all spewing exhaust? How many power plants daily release dangerous chemicals that have nowhere else to go except into the air, soil and water? What sort of chemical soup is produced by our landfills? How far away have those pesticides drifted from the agricultural lands where they were first applied, and how much of it do we consume every day of our lives through our diets?

I don't believe all the evidence is in yet; and it may never be. Regardless, there are too many unknowns to justify the currently popular conclusion that smoking is the main cause of certain cancers, and other diseases as well.

I'm just waiting for them to announce that smoking causes hangnails...

Nobody said you can't smoke out on the sidewalk. It's not like your cigarrette pools into a cloud of smoke that lingers in the air when you're outside. The laws are just saying to take it outside.

As for cars and such... I do think they should be cut back on their use out of respect. Don't drive to go pick up a pizza and a movie from the video store if you have the means to walk, bike, or take public transportation. Don't drive to work if you can walk, bike, or take public transportation. That's just simple respect for the environment and other people. However, people are lazy as heck and don't care much about the environment or other people.. so the likeliness of a mentality of respect is not easy to see in the future.

Sorry to get you all up in arms. That was a really impassioned speech. You have a lot of anger towards non-smokers I see. Let me just say that it doesn't matter how marginal you believe second hand smoke to be. It doesn't matter how marginal anyone thinks it is. It's just curteous to take it outside and not bother anyone with it. However, many smokers don't care and obviously get adamant about having to smoke outside. Which is why there is now legislation. Many non-smokers are tired of sitting in a purplish haze of carcinogenic chemicals.

And respect goes to anything that is annoying -- if your child screams and runs around spreading boogers, tell it off and train the sunnovagun.

If smokers would've just taken it outside in the first place, there wouldn't be legislation.

Like geez... smoking kills you. It's not the filter that's doing it to ya... is it hard to believe that it could be the smoke itself!? Smoking cigarrettes is known to kill you, it makes you unhealthy, and it lowers the effectiveness of your lungs.

Alcohol can kill you. It can make you intoxicated and do something stupid or harden your liver later in life after continuous excessive consumption. But not everyone in the room has to drink it.

Now I don't have a forked tongue, and I don't suppose your really all that violent about your smoking. But if you stop smoking cigarrettes in bars, I'll stop huffing kittens.

Would you support a law banning young children from privately owned restaurants?

Establishments should be allowed to *choose* whether to allow smoking or not. Surely there is sufficient demand for non-smoking bars, restaurants, etc., but there is also demand for those that allow for smoking.

I see no harm in letting business owners decide whether they should allow smoking or not. If you don't like smoke, don't patronize an establishment that allows it.

For the love of all that' is holy, yes... please... as soon as possible...

Your right and it is not anyones right to say that I cannot open a smoking bar where all are welcome to smoke if they choose....but that is neither here no there. Actually I would understand it a bit more on sidewalks as they are part of the public domain and are not ordinarily privately owned (the only exception I can think of would be a development or a courtyard where the outdoor seating area is a part of the property)

No, but like smoking, society ends up paying for it. Drunk driving arrests, accidents caused by drunk driving, lost work time for those addicted to drinking... etc.