Anti-smoking brigade are not finished yet
Dear Michael Bloomberg,
As Mayor of New York you have certainly earned a reputation for high-profile initiatives on crime, education and a host of other areas. With your re-election campaign underway, you have decided to concentrate on New York’s legendary smoking ban – and extend it. Instead of merely supporting anti-smoking campaigns, you plan to ban smoking in parks and outside spaces.
Having already driven smokers outside their workplaces and enclosed public places such as restaurants, city authorities are considering limiting the options for smokers even further. The possibility of extending smokefree legislation was outlined in a public health policy document. However, you appeared to qualify the extent of the restrictions by saying that you wanted “to see if smoking in parks has a negative impact on people’s health”, the New York Times reported yesterday, suggesting it “might not be logistically possible to enforce a ban across thousands of acres”. Cigarette makers Phillip Morris USA did not like the idea at all. “We believe that smoking should be permitted outdoors except in very particular circumstances, such as outdoor areas primarily designated for children,” a company spokesman said. But the ban plan from the city’s health commissioner, Thomas Farley, won some backing from the council’s speaker, Christine Quinn. Fines should be modest, she said, but “conceptually, that’s an idea I’m very, very interested in and open to”. Such bans remain rare but are increasing, with California prohibiting smoking in all state parks and on parts of beaches, two years after Los Angeles extended its existing ban on playgrounds and beaches to parks. Chicago still allows smoking in parks, but bans it at beaches and playgrounds. New York banned smoking in most restaurants in 1995, followed by prohibition in workplaces and indoor public places in 2003, three years before bans came into force in Scotland and four years before they were introduced in England and Wales.
Geeesh. I hate smoking, I really do. I think it is appalling that other people used to make my clothes stink, my hair stink and even make me smell like I’ve been smoking. I actually consider this to be an infringement of my liberty, in the same way that society wouldn’t accept me going around spraying other people with some disgusting odours. However, despite my dislike of smoking, I think you’re going about this completely the wrong way. Inside an enclosed public space or in an office, there is obviously nowhere to escape smoke produced by cigarettes, meaning that smokers are having an adverse effect on those around them. The evidence on passive smoking causing health problems for others is by no means conclusive. Even so, the fact that smoke is thoroughly unpleasant and objectionable to others within enclosed spaces is sufficient reason to ban it because no-one should be allowed to knowingly and actively make my life less pleasant and infringe on my liberty. Unfortunately for you, when it comes to open spaces and parks, this argument falls apart in an instant. Aside from the enormous logistical barriers to making such a policy work, the health effects in terms of reducing passive smoking are unquestionably zero and no-one can really argue that their liberty in an open space is being infringed by someone smoking 500 yards away.
Mercifully, the Department of Health in England said today it had no plans to extend smokefree areas, although they qualified this by saying such moves were up to local authorities instead. I fear that your nutty scheme might make its way over to the UK if it comes into force in New York, but – even as a non-smoker – I can see that you’re going way beyond the boundaries of common sense and rational policymaking.
Yours sincerely,
A.Tory
I think it is appalling that other people used to make my clothes stink, my hair stink and even make me smell like I’ve been smoking. I actually consider this to be an infringement of my liberty, in the same way that society wouldn’t accept me going around spraying other people with some disgusting odours.
Then it is the duty of the state to protect you from smells you dislike? Really? Not a health issue then. Just, you don’t like the smell, so your “liberty” is being infringed. And to hell with the ten million fellow citizens whose real liberty needs to be infringed because your don’t like a smell. Sigh.
You refer to “enclosed public spaces”. Do you mean a pub? That is a private space, not a public space. Do you mean a restaurant? That is a private space, not a public space. A shop? A private space. An office? A private space. The fact that you may choose to enter a building with its owner’s permission does not make it a “public space”.
Even so, the fact that smoke is thoroughly unpleasant and objectionable to others within enclosed spaces is sufficient reason to ban it because no-one should be allowed to knowingly and actively make my life less pleasant and infringe on my liberty.
Nobody should be allowed to “knowingly make your life less pleasant”? Really? And yet you have the right to make the lives of smokers and non-smoke haters less pleasant? You have the right to ruin the businesses that relied on smokers as customers? How does that work?
“Having already driven smokers outside their workplaces and enclosed public places such as restaurants, city authorities are considering limiting the options for smokers even further.”
There’s a good reason to beware of slippery slopes…
And as you rightly surmise, no matter what the Department of Health says now, this will come here. In fact, I’d be surprised if nothing raises its head before the New Year.
“Unfortunately for you, when it comes to open spaces and parks, this argument falls apart in an instant.”
But LfaT, that argument has been shown, time and again, to be based on nothing more scientific than those alcohol limits that everyone knows they pulled out of thin air!
If they can get away with these sorts of things – and they can, because the credulous media lap them up – why should they need to worry about whether the arguments for this will hold up?
If not, they’ll simply lie again.
Ian, “And yet you have the right to make the lives of smokers and non-smoke haters less pleasant?” I am not making smokers’ lives less pleasant at all. I am merely asking them not to infringe on my liberty when they smoke. There are plenty of places for people to smoke without infringeing on this, such as their homes and indeed open spaces such as parks. However, choosing to smoke in a place where other people are adversely affected is unacceptable.
Julia, I agree that Labour will take an inch if you suggest that there might be a mile available. That said, even as a non-smoker I think Bloomberg would be an idiot to pursue this.
I am not making smokers’ lives less pleasant at all.
Yes you are. Why be shy about it? You know that smokers’ pleasure is seriously ruined by being forced to stand outside. It is impossible to deny that anti-smoking legislation makes smokers’ lives less pleasant.
I am merely asking them not to infringe on my liberty when they smoke.
No. You are not “asking” them anything. You are, via the force of law, ordering them to not smoke in places they wish to smoke in, and you are ordering the owners of those places to not let them smoke, even though those owners wish their venues to be smoking areas. There is no “asking” about it.
Neither is other people smoking in private places infringing your “liberty” at all. You are always free to choose where to socialise. It is infringing, at most, your personal taste. Just as, my personal dislike of jukeboxes does not mean my liberty is infringed by the presence of them in pubs.
There are plenty of places for people to smoke without infringeing on this, such as their homes and indeed open spaces such as parks.
Passing quickly over the slippery slope argument- why should nice people like you be forced to share parks with repellent stinking smokers?- you ignore the fact that smokers, like other citizens (which they are, believe it or not) may not want to be in the park. They may want to be in a warm pub, listening to a nice jazz combo, with a nice pint of ale. They cannot do that in the park.
Perhaps on public health grounds we should ban alcohol in restaurants. It’s time we denormalised the link between repulsive guzzling of this lethal drug with food. Have you ever smelled somebody drunk? Christ, the stink!. And they talk loudly, and they harrass waitresses, and then they vomit over good sober people. What kind of decent society tolerates such behaviour?!
Those who insist on drinking wine rather than sensibly becoming teetotal can still go outside and drink wine if they must. They are free to sit in the park with a bottle. What’s the problem?
What’s that? You like a glass of wine with your meal? Don’t be so selfish! You’re infringing everybody else’s rights!
Never be tempted to fend off the devil, however reasonable his request seems, with a treat. He only comes back and demands more until there is no more to give, and then you are in trouble.
Anti smokers will never give up until it is legally banned. even then they wont quite have had enough.
Smokers (I am not and never have been one), have been punished enough, and I suspect there will come time when these heavily taxed voters in considerable numbers will say ‘Enough no more. you have had your fill, go away and scream at the wind if you like’
Why do they not go the whole hog and ban smoking?
After all, if the EU can ban incandescent lightbulbs that cause no harm, why not ban cigerettes and cigars etc that are bad for your health??
Because they need the tobacco tax revenues…
Ian, what a pathetic straw man. If someone drinks alcohol near me, do my clothes smell? Do I cough? Do my eyes sometimes sting? Other people consuming alcohol (bar someone getting hammered and throwing up on me) does not reduce my liberty in any way and you know it – the comparison is completely false. Alcohol consumption has no effect on people around you, whereas smoking quite obviously does. Passive smoking probably won’t give me lung cancer but it still has tangible, detrimental effects on people nearby and to refute that is ridiculous. Smokers may well wish to smoke standing right next to me but they cannot do this without affecting me, which is why they should smoke in places that prevent any adverse effects on those nearby.
The EU might well get involved in this debate and go too far (wouldn’t be the first time….) but as always, it should be the UK’s decision – not theirs. I agree that smokers have been punished enough, but that doesn’t mean their ‘punishment’ of having to smoke where others will not suffer adverse consequences was incorrect because it wasn’t.
I’m the curious position of hating smoking, and disapproving of the smoking ban – it really ought to have been up to venue to decide to go smokeless or not.
That said, alternatives have sprung up, such as Leg Iron’s experiences with his electrofag. The smoking ban may have accelerated their development.
Electrofag’s going to allow smoking in pubs again, only this time without the stench or eye irritation. This time the law of unintended consequences may have been beneficial all round. So I’m sure someone will try and do something to ban it…
LFAT, it’s not a “pathetic straw man” at all. Besides all else, a “straw man” would be if I portrayed your argument falsely, which I haven’t done. You’ve got the wrong fallacy.
What you are doing is just choosing something specific to smoking which you don’t like, then presenting it as an objective criterion. The “passive” effects of drinking are different because it is a different substance. Drunks are annoying, abusive, violent. A drunk can quite easily ruin your evening. He may not make your eyes sting, but he may make your whole head sting when he attacks you.
The point is, many, many human behaviours- most in fact- affect the people around you. Some people may want a quiet chat, and have it ruined by noisy people shouting or singing or dancing near them.
If there is a situation which people cannot avoid, then there is room perhaps for some rules. Where you are voluntarily visiting a place where you are aware that people will smoke, or sing, or shout, or dance, then your “liberty” is not infringed. YOu have chosen to go there. Using the pubs example, a pub is not just a “drinking place”. It is a place with all kinds of facets- a place for talking, or a place for music, or a place for dancing, or for playing darts. The alchohol might be secondary or even irrelevant- sometimes I go to a place for the music or company and drink soft drinks. One of these facets of a pub is, at the landlord’s discretion, a place where people can smoke. That is as much a facility of the venue as music or a dart board. If you do not want to go to a smoky place, then go somewhere where the facilities are what you want. That is how free societies work.
Your “right” to visit anywhere in the country and be “free” of smoke is no more a right than I might have a “right” to be “free” of jukeboxes or drunkards. What is pathetic, frankly, is somebody so neurotic and prissy that they mither about a smell they don’t like and demand “freedom” from it. It is no better than going to a dance club then complaining that you keep getting jostled by people waving their arms about.
“I agree that smokers have been punished enough…”
Interesting choice of phrase.
What, exactly, have smokers done, other than indulge in a legal practice you don’t like, to deserve to be ‘punished’ in the first place?
Look at it this way, LFAT. Suppose I invite you to my birthday party. You know there will be some smokers present. Do you have a right to demand (with the backing of the state) a smoker-free environment? Are your rights being infringed if you choose to attend, and then your eyes sting or you don’t like the smell?
What changes, conceptually, if I write “The Dog And Ferret” on a piece of cardboard and stick it on my front door?
It’s about power. Whether it is tobacco, alcohol, food (ham sandwiches?!!) the root issue is the same – power.
Rob, it is indeed getting out of control.
Ob, wasn’t aware of that – sounds interesting!
Ian and Julia, you still seem to be under the impression that the only issue with smoking is that I don’t like it and therefore it shouldn’t happen. That is not my argument. My point is that smoking causes physical discomfort/harm – albeit not to the same degree as GBH – to other people, which means that it is worlds apart from noisy people talking nearby or people drinking alcohol or any of the other ridiculous comparisons that have been presented by Ian. If someone else’s actions cause me physical discomfort or pain, they are clearly infringeing on my liberty.
Ian, a house party is of course a private residence and I would be out of order to dictate that no smoking should take place. However, while an office is technically private, it is totally unacceptable to say to people ‘Well if you don’t like smoking then you can work somewhere else’ because everyone should be able to enter their place of work without suffering any adverse physical effects. If an employer caused harm to their employees, they’d be in serious trouble, and the same should go for fellow employees. Pubs are a different case, because people have no ‘need’ to go there, which is why I think the smoking ban in pubs was far too draconian. Having said that, they are ‘public houses’ after all, hence their name, meaning that I could still reasonably argue that smoking should be restricted to some degree.
I am not in any way demanding that I should be able to go about my life without ever sniffing a puff of smoke, but what I do expect is that other people should not cause me physical discomfort, harm, pain or any other similar symptoms – and that is why smoking should unquestionably be banned in some places.
Sounds like an opportunity for our Liebor overlords to arrange a trip to NY, see what learnings they can get from this exciting initiative and share synergies.
And it’s only fair that the taxpayer picks up the bill, after all, it’s for our own good…
Ian, a house party is of course a private residence and I would be out of order to dictate that no smoking should take place.
A pub is a private place too, as is a restaurant or an office. If they turn “public” because somebody is invited in, then the same must apply to my house too.
However, while an office is technically private,
“Technically”? What does this word mean? Isn’t it just a denial of an inconvenient fact. A burglar might say that, yes, technically this property belongs to somebody else, but…
it is totally unacceptable to say to people ‘Well if you don’t like smoking then you can work somewhere else’
Even in a work environment where the person was forewarned before accepting the job?
because everyone should be able to enter their place of work without suffering any adverse physical effects.
Boxers? Rugby players?
What of the many people, the majority, who do not suffer “stinging eyes” from others’ smoke? What if everybody is a smoker and wants to work in a smoking environment? What right has the law to deny every smoker their preference, for the benefit of the minority who object?
If an employer caused harm to their employees, they’d be in serious trouble, and the same should go for fellow employees.
Define harm. Is it really the job of the state to deny people the right to subject themselves to things that some others consider harmful? Where’s the limit on this?
The thing is, it seems to me, you’re smearing the boundary between harm and discomfort. There are numerous jobs that involve some degree of discomfort- which is what your complaint of stinging eyes or an unpleasant (to you) smell is. But that is not actual physical harm. Your stinging eyes reaction- which is only likely to occur anyway in poorly ventilated areas- is personal to you, just as my tinnitus from loud noises (at levels which are tolerable to most other people) is personal to me. These things are not harm, they are just unpleasantness, and that is an important distinction.
We have utterly now lost the idea of private property, as my party example was attempting to show. By following the reasoning you accept; that the state may arbitrarily intervene; there is now no principle which would restrain the state from banning smoking at parties, or in my living room or motor car. Indeed, the temperance movement are now demanding restrictions on those very things. It is no good you writing a blog post about what is “too far” in your personal opinion, because once you allow the goalposts to be arbitrarily moved, you don’t have a leg to stand on. The principle of the private space and the private person have been abandoned, and it is no use trying to claw them back when you think something has gone further than you would like. Unless we can return to a fundamental principle that there is such a thing as private property, and the private person, we are doomed to slide further and further down the slope. Once an office is a “public” space, then the pub becomes a public space, and the park, and your car and your living room.
We are all public property now. This is why I’ve no idea what conservatism thinks it believes in or stands for. The principles- or lack thereof- are indistinguishable from those of the supposedly different “left”, even if a few specific policies are different.
“Ian and Julia, you still seem to be under the impression that the only issue with smoking is that I don’t like it and therefore it shouldn’t happen. That is not my argument. My point is that smoking causes physical discomfort/harm…”
The ‘harm’ is still to be proven. As far as the physical discomfort goes, I find sharing a hot summer’s day on the Tube with people who don’t wash offends my nostrils far more than a cigarette.
Can I therefore force stinky people to walk, or subject themselves to a shower first?
What on Earth do you mean? Tobacco can cause cancer when burned and inhaled or chewed. It contains carcinogens that dramatically increase the likelihood (a ‘causal’ role) of developing cancer. This isn’t global warming; the science here has been known and worked upon since the 1940s…
Or is it ‘passive’ smoking you feel has not be proven? And logically, if you accept the *science* that smoking tobacco increases your chance of getting a cancer when you inhale, then how can you deny that when that smoke is diluted into air in a confined space, adds at least some risk to everyone breathing in that room?
I oppose the ban as risk, I believe, is the flipside of free life. People should be able to freely choose whether or not to subject themselves to it. However, denying reality by disputing the well established, tested (scientifically and legally) evidence, you do the cause no favours.
And logically, if you accept the *science* that smoking tobacco increases your chance of getting a cancer when you inhale, then how can you deny that when that smoke is diluted into air in a confined space, adds at least some risk to everyone breathing in that room?
What you’re implying there is the “Linear No Threshold Hypothesis”; that is, that if a high dose of X causes Y harm, X/2 causes Y/2 harm, etc, without a lower limit. But we know that this is often not true. Chlorine is a deadly poison in high concentrations and a harmless disinfectant in low concentrations. Carbon dioxide is toxic at high doses and non-toxic at low doses. Bacteria and viruses need some particular number before they can cause infection- one cannot do it on its own in most cases. And so on. There is usually a threshold, which is that level beyond which the human body’s natural defensive mechanisms are overwhelmed. The human body has evolved these defense mechanisms precisely because it evolved in a dangerous, toxic environment full of poisons, pathogens and environmental insults such as smoke from all manner of sources. Cooking fires, for instance.
Tobacco is just burning vegetable matter. It is not some specially toxic plant. It just happens to be nice when deliberately smoked. The chemicals produced by burning it are much the same as any other plant, such as woodsmoke. When inhaled in high concentrations, we know that it is dangerous. But it does not follow that the tiny environmental concentrations when it is atmospheric cause any harm at all. If they do, people should be protected from all smoke- from wood camp fires, coal, motor exhausts, candles, joss sticks, church incense, everything, since they must be similarly dangerous.
But all we do know from an honest look at the statistics is that if atmospheric tobacco smoke is a carcinogen, its effects are too small to detect by any current statistical method. The danger is so tiny as to be lost in the noise of the data.
Every cancer ultimately is triggered by some specific cause; it may be a particle of smoke, it may be a virus, it may be some food you ate, it may be some other chemical. But there is no reason to single out tobacco smoke as a particular cause. It is trivial. Some people will get a cancer from eating a pork chop or a potato. That does not mean pork chops or potatoes are specifically carcinogenic.
I think that Ian and Julia have made a rather clear case here but I would like to add a couple of minor points. Prior to the ban most offices had already banned smoking, with a few having a smoking room set aside. Smoking wasn’t allowed in cinemas (with one small exception if I recall correctly), in shops (again with a few exceptions – my shop springs to mind) or in almost any privately owned enterprise, but that has always been the choice of the owner.
As an example I could point to two businesses of my family’s: one is retail and the other is a hair and beauty salon. It’s pretty obvious that we’d never allow smoking in the salon as it would be bad for business. But it is still our business to ruin if we like. As for retail, it makes not the blindest bit of difference and I’ve done some very good deals with a cigarette in my hand.
If it benefits a business to ban smoking, as I can appreciate in, for example, a clothing shop, then they should be free to do that or not. As Ian mentioned, you know when you take the job.
Libraries, council offices and other (actually) public buildings were all non-smoking as well and I find that reasonable enough. Public transport also barred smoking and again this is fair enough, although having a smoking carriage on a long distance journey surely shouldn’t be too much to ask.
Everything seemed to work fine before the ban with establishments able to designate for themselves as to whether to permit smoking or not and customers able to choose for themselves whether or not use them. If it’s too loud, too smoky, too busy or too quiet then the customer has the right not to spend their money there. Anyone who suggests otherwise has simply got the argument backwards.
“Having said that, they are ‘public houses’ after all, hence their name, meaning that I could still reasonably argue that smoking should be restricted to some degree.” – LFAT
Do you also expect free board and lodging at a ‘free house’..?
@Shaun Pilkington – “Or is it ‘passive’ smoking you feel has not be proven?”
Yes, jury’s still out on that one.
Yes, jury’s still out on that one.
I don’t think it is. Considering the vast amount of effort put into finding an effect, and no effect (in an honest reading of the evidence) having been forthcoming, I think one can fairly say that “the science is settled”. There comes a point in any search when one has to conclude that absence of evidence actually is evidence of absence.
As Ian B says, you’re calling yourself a tory?
You seem to have a problem understanding the concept of private vs public.
Let me spell it out for you: you have absolutely NO RIGHT to enter a pub, bar, restaurant, whatever. None, nada, zip. If you choose (big word that) to enter such place where there are smokers knowing full well you do not like it, suffer the consequences like an adult. By the same token, what stopped you to open a non smoking bar, pub, restaurant, whatever? You would have obviously been a roaring success.
If you understood the concept public vs private, you would argue in favour of the ban in PUBLIC spaces such as parks, beaches, etc…Funnily enough, I would not be so adverse to that for that precise reason, it is a public space.
It just shows how muddled you are that you argue exactly the reverse. A secondary effect from too much passive smoking?
I do not smoke and I am quite happy not to have to breathe smoke anymore, but unlike you, I am against the ban. Indeed, I’m very often on my own at restaurants when I wait for friends/collagues to return from their fag break. To the point that I often join them outside with my glass if its not too cold. For that I have to thank the likes of you.
I also second Ian B’s comments on the workplace.
If libertarians were true free marketeers then the smokers should pay for any damage done by their smoking to the non-smokers. i.e. washing of clothing and any ill effects caused by the smoke particles both in the immediate i.e. asthma sufferes or in the long term i.e. cancers.
I like the idea of extending the non-smoking rule to beaches as families often settle in an area with chairs, windbreaks etc. and it would be unfair to force them to move because a newcomer to the beach wants to chain smoke cigarettes next to them.
Smoking is well known to cause health problems and as LFAT points out it has a huge negative effect on other people for many reasons. So if you want to say that smokers have a right to smoke then what about the right for people to breathe clean air, avoid behaviour linked to getting cancer and be able to wear clothes more than once. I don’t want my liberty to breathe clean air ruined by someone addicted to inhaling burnt leaves.
Interesting form of words, that. ‘Often not true’ minimally implies ‘Often is true’. I do accept the basic premise, tho, and am aware of the discussion and the shonky evidence trotted out by the late Roy Castle in his desperate attempts to find someone or something to blame for developing cancer. That said, ‘often is not true’ would mean that in this specific case, research is still needed. But I mean proper scientific research not sociological studies that set out to validate their own hypothesis.
Does it not depend on what you are? e.g. low concentrations will kill bacteria but not animals… See how that works?
Agreed; the problem is that it’s not always about the level. For example you and I could spend the afternoon juggling radioactive isotopes. Unless either of us unlucky enough to be hit by some ‘hard’ radiation that destabilises cellular function at a genetic level, odds are we’ll be fine. Over and over again. However, when you look at the lifetime expose, eventually at least one of us is likely to succumb to the risk. Same levels, randomised outcomes based on exposure.
Indeed it has. What’s more, it has now be found that Tobacco, smoked, not chewed (interestingly) seems to have a direct bearing on the progression/pathology of MS, an autoimmune disease.
Not so – it *is* especially toxic in that it contains an unusually high number of carcinogens which promote the growth of cancer. Either you accept that smoking tobacco promotes the growth of cancer or you don’t. Sounds like you don’t – faith trumping fact, I suspect.
First of all, other smokes are not generally inhaled. Then, when we look at another plant people enjoy smoking, cannabis, we discover that pot has *more* tar but *fewer* carcinogens. So you’ll get the smoker’s cough but not have the same risks of developing a lung cancer.
Now we’re getting somewhere. Dunno about the rest of you but I like my health/science policies to be evidence based!
Subject to my calls above for specific, honest, research on this point, the answer to me would appear to be to discover what a ‘relatively’ safe level could be beyond which harm is significantly more probably. Over that level, premises should have to take steps to clear the air of smoke, either with open windows, aircon, ionisers or JuJu men. Air treatment is, after all, not beyond the wit of man.
Wood fires and all. Ah yes, the good old days before the Clean Air Act when people could suffocate in the London smog. Oh, I’m sorry, what were you implying about smoke being harmless per se?
But all we do know from an honest look at the statistics is that if atmospheric tobacco smoke is a carcinogen, its effects are too small to detect by any current statistical method. The danger is so tiny as to be lost in the noise of the data.
Indeed. And people who get sick, properly sick, often want someone or something to blame…
This is the thing. It’s not trivial. You have a baseline chance of around 33% of developing a cancer in your lifetime. Smoking dramatically increases the chances of that and directly promotes cancers of the lung, throat and mouth, two of which can be difficult to treat while the last may leave you reluctant to socially interact!
Yes non smoking, non drinking churgoers die too. Pork/bacon HAS in fact been directly linked to some cancers due to allegedly high levels of nitrosamines.
My point is that blurring or disputing the science simply plays the prohibitionist game. Can smoking cause cancer? Yes. But as Ian notes, so do many other things including cosmic radiation passing through the earth at near light speeds. The point is that people should be encouraged to appraise their own risks and take responsibility for the outcomes. So if you smoke 60 a day for 30 years and get cancer, don’t sue a ciggie company as really you should’ve known.
Equally, while public risks from passive smoking do not appear to have been quantified satisfactorily, surely a more *liberal* approach would be to enforce indoor versions of the Clean Air Act – air scrubbers in pubs and so on – rather than to ban a behaviour that not only do people enjoy but one that also handsomely funds the Treasury.
@IanB
The examples you use against LNT in the case of smoking are strawmen, as LNT is not applicable to them. Different pathways of toxicity.
Might as well prove apples aren’t oranges using melons as evidence!
There are questions about LNT at low-levels, but that’s with ionizing radiation rather than carcinogenic chemicals, and also fails to handle microparticles entering the lungs, which are also capable of causing cancer.
Smoking causes cancer, and whilst science is never a closed book, that fact is pretty definitive.
If libertarians were true free marketeers then the smokers should pay for any damage done by their smoking to the non-smokers. i.e. washing of clothing
I’d like to see you demonstrate in court that washing clothes after being near a smoker costs you more than washing clothes when you haven’t been near a smoker.
Or do you just not wash your clothes normally? Are you a tramp?
asthma sufferes
Asthma sufferers are ill; the clue is in the specification of “asthma”. Their illness can be triggered by all manner of things which do not affect the healthy, such as pollen and cats. Being ill is unfortunate, but does not give a person the right to demand an environment suitable only for sufferers. The example I used above- I cannot always tolerate levels of noise that others can due to my hearing problems- does not give me the right to demand every environment be fitted to my needs rather than the needs of others. People with special sensitivities have to adapt their lives to suit, not everybody else’s.
Cancer I’ve already dealt with.
and be able to wear clothes more than once.
Frankly, the stench of your sweaty rags is disgusting. I shouldn’t have to sit next to people who stink like you. I think you’d better go outside in the fresh air with your drink, chum.
The examples you use against LNT in the case of smoking are strawmen, as LNT is not applicable to them.
Your assertion that the LNT “doesn’t apply to them” but, by implication, does apply to smoke- and only smoke, apparently- is just an assertion and nothing more. It is assumed by anti-smokers in order to justify the “there is no safe limit” dogma; uniquely apparently, only smoke has no safe limit, and only tobacco smoke at that. What a remarkable, miraculous plant it truly is!
Ian: I have a sneaking suspician that you shop at Primark as you can obviously afford to replace clothing after washing it so frequently and damaging the fibres. I’m assuming you also have no dry clean only items. Or if not then you must not be washing yourself!
The one thing that hasn’t been debated is the amount of litter produced by smokers who obviously do not seem to to see the similarity between dropping a mars bar wrapper and dropping a cigarette butt. The streets are littered with cigarette butts outside pubs, offices, hospitals etc. Not only do the butts take hundreds of years to degrade but can also be damaging to terrestrial and marine wildlife. Also on that score smoking supports an industry which is environmentally damaging, but having said that if people don’t care about themselves then they are unlikely to care about anyone else.
@IanB
Uh no, it’s a scientific fact. What is it with some people? You love science when it gives you goodies you like, the moment it throws up something inconvenient, then it’s all pitchforks and torches.
LNT deals with, primarily, ionizing radiation, and is also used occasionally for carcinogenic compounds.
You see how that may be different from asphyxiation? Or indeed metabolized toxins? Or even viral/bacterial particle density?
It doesn’t even entirely apply to smoke, merely the chemically carcinogenic aspects of it, there are other models for the other pathways.
Dear god, if you get so wound up when someone points a big hole in your argument that you switch from rational to rabid, it’s not cancer you need to worry about, it’s a coronary.
Obsidian, if you read my post again, you will see that I was pointing out that Shaun was implying an LNT model. Which he was. I didn’t bring up ionising radiation at all. The anti-smoking fanatics declare that smoking (pretty much uniquely) is LNT, not me.
Which part of this are you having trouble with?
You seem to be poking holes in an imaginary argument you’re having with yourself. Please let the rest of us know when we’re allowed back into your solitary conversation.
I was never a big fan of the smoking ban, mainly because of the business effects and the loss of liberty.
However, it has had an effect on my health and although I think it is too draconian in its implimentation, I think some form of restriction for smoking has some merits. I don’t smoke, but as a musician, I used to wake up with hangover type headaches after gigs without drinking anything stronger than coke, and I don’t anymore. I can only put this down to smoke. I no longer lose my voice either, (and it ain’t because I’m a better singer than I was two years ago either).
Despite this, I don’t see that banning smoking altogether was the correct move. Provision should have been made as in Holland for smoking and non smoking partitions in bars. Smokers should not be forced out into the rain to have a fag, it’s draconian and pointless. Banning smoking in public areas would be just as ludicrous. If fag butts are the issue, and I can see that that is a problem as I have young children and I do see a lot of this in childrens play areas and the like, INSTALL MORE RECEPTICLES, and fine people for littering.
@IanB
Read your response to my post, the one you did at 3:55, where you responded to me pointing out the hole in your argument. The one where you decided to respond like a stroppy teenager.
Then you’ll see where this veered off, and where you went from Mr Rational to Mr Snotty – I just respond in kind.
“The one thing that hasn’t been debated is the amount of litter produced by smokers who obviously do not seem to to see the similarity between dropping a mars bar wrapper and dropping a cigarette butt. The streets are littered with cigarette butts outside pubs, offices, hospitals etc.”
And why is this?
Because they aren’t allowed to smoke indoors and use the ashtrays formerly provided for this!
Sheesh!
@Candid – A free market would allow for both smoking and non-smoking venues which would in turn allow you to spend your hard-earned money where you like and in the environment of your choosing. If you like smoke then go to a smoke-tolerant pub and if not go to a non-smoking venue. And feel free to wash your clothes as often or as little as you wish as they will presumably be free of smoky stenches.
To accommodate everyone in comfort and without having to endure things they don’t like is a right. To enjoy a legal (highly taxed) product in comfort may or may not be considered a right by some, but a property and business owner should to have the right to say what is permissible on their premises.
As Ian pointed out earlier, if you go to a party you will generally know whether that person will be allowing smoking or not (or you could ask at least) and then make a decision as to whether you wish to attend. It’s perfectly fair and reasonable.
As for smoking on the beach, if you’re there first you could mention this politely and the majority will happily oblige and find a different spot. If you arrive after them however, then you make the choice of whether or not to sit whilst in full possession of the knowledge that you may be subjected to the smoke. But please also try to bear in mind that smoke outdoors diffuses so rapidly that you’d practically have to be snogging someone to get it anywhere near you.
and no-one can really argue that their liberty in an open space is being infringed by someone smoking 500 yards away
Unless there’s a very strong wind.
Obsidian wrote: Smoking causes cancer, and whilst science is never a closed book, that fact is pretty definitive.
No. It’s just a claim that’s been repeated over and over again.
The very first UK study, the London Hospitals study by Doll and Hill in 1950, 99% of lung cancer patients were smokers. Case closed? Not at all. 98% of all the patients in both the control and study group were smokers. In a population in which 98% of people are smokers, one can expect 98% of lung cancers (or any other disease) to be found among smokers.
The study proved nothing at all. But it convinced Richard Doll that smoking caused lung cancer. And it convinced many other doctors as well. All they could see was that 99% of lung cancer patients were smokers.
You should read the conclusions from Dr Kitty Little – the anti-smoking brigade has killed millions in its pursuit against a smell that they hate, when the real dangers are left poorly researched:
http://www.second-opinions.co.uk/diesel_lung_cancer.html
Also from Breast Cancer UK:
http://www.nomorebreastcancer.org.uk/news_4.12.08.html
And the EU:
http://www.nomorebreastcancer.org.uk/news_14.4.08.html
And from the US:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-08/acs-nda072308.php
Surely the smoker decides that and not you?
And I am merely asking you to respect the liberty of the person who owns the property you’re sitting in. Is it reasonable to expect them to be compelled by law to provide you with an environment you arbitrarily define as pleasant?
Why is it unacceptable? Why is this argument any different from me demanding specific types of music to be banned from being played in public? I don’t like it, it makes my evening less pleasant, thus infringing on my liberty, thus a ban is justified?
But it is the natural extension of your own logic. You even question the health benefits, leaving us purely with people’s whims. i.e. some people find it objectionable thus it’s reasonable to ban it from places where there’s people.
Why make any distinction between indoors and outdoors? Between the bar or the beer garden, or indeed the pub or the park? If people don’t like being near a smoker in the pub they’re not going to like being near him in the park either.
SECOND HAND SMOKE IS A JOKE
A cancer epidemiologist, who conducted the largest secondhand smoke study ever done, the UCLA Study, completed “too late” to be included Surgeon General Carmona’s 2006 report, wrote a letter, at the request of Keep St. Louis Free, to the St. Louis County Council, that ended with these two paragraphs:”I should say that, personally, I feel strongly that non-smokers should not have to be exposed to cigarette smoke. While the available evidence does not suggest that average exposure to environmental tobacco smoke is an important cause of heart disease or lung cancer in people who do not smoke, cigarette smoke is irritating, can trigger allergic reactions in some people, and can exacerbate asthma and other chronic respiratory conditions. Yet, since the available evidence suggests that the effects of environmental tobacco smoke, particularly for coronary heart disease, are considerably smaller than generally believed, lawmakers may therefore have greater latitude than generally believed to consider the segregation of smokers and nonsmokers and the use of air filtration as adequate and responsible ways to address the health concerns of ETS in workplaces such as bars and restaurants. If it is possible, through segregation of smokers and nonsmokers and the use of air filtration, to reduce all components of environmental tobacco smoke in establishments where smoking is permitted to the level of the air in non-smoking establishments, there is reason to believe that any risk would be undetectable.”
THE AIR ACCORDING TO OSHA
Though repetition has little to do with “the truth,” we’re repeatedly told that there’s “no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke.”
OSHA begs to differ.
OSHA has established PELs (Permissible Exposure Levels) for all the measurable chemicals, including the 40 alleged carcinogens, in secondhand smoke. PELs are levels of exposure for an 8-hour workday from which, according to OSHA, no harm will result.
Of course the idea of “thousands of chemicals” can itself sound spooky. Perhaps it would help to note that coffee contains over 1000 chemicals, 19 of which are known to be rat carcinogens.
-”Rodent Carcinogens: Setting Priorities” Gold Et Al., Science, 258: 261-65 (1992)
There. Feel better?
As for secondhand smoke in the air, OSHA has stated outright that:
“Field studies of environmental tobacco smoke indicate that under normal conditions, the components in tobacco smoke are diluted below existing Permissible Exposure Levels (PELS.) as referenced in the Air Contaminant Standard (29 CFR 1910.1000)…It would be very rare to find a workplace with so much smoking that any individual PEL would be exceeded.”
-Letter From Greg Watchman, Acting Sec’y, OSHA, To Leroy J Pletten, PHD, July 8, 1997
Indeed it would.
Independent health researchers have done the chemistry and the math to prove how very very rare that would be.
As you’re about to see in a moment.
In 1999, comments were solicited by the government from an independent Public and Health Policy Research group, Littlewood & Fennel of Austin, Tx, on the subject of secondhand smoke.
Using EPA figures on the emissions per cigarette of everything measurable in secondhand smoke, they compared them to OSHA’s PELs.
The following excerpt and chart are directly from their report and their Washington testimony:
CALCULATING THE NON-EXISTENT RISKS OF ETS
“We have taken the substances for which measurements have actually been obtained–very few, of course, because it’s difficult to even find these chemicals in diffuse and diluted ETS.
“We posit a sealed, unventilated enclosure that is 20 feet square with a 9 foot ceiling clearance.
“Taking the figures for ETS yields per cigarette directly from the EPA, we calculated the number of cigarettes that would be required to reach the lowest published “danger” threshold for each of these substances. The results are actually quite amusing. In fact, it is difficult to imagine a situation where these threshold limits could be realized.
“Our chart (Table 1) illustrates each of these substances, but let me report some notable examples.
“For Benzo[a]pyrene, 222,000 cigarettes would be required to reach the lowest published “danger” threshold.
“For Acetone, 118,000 cigarettes would be required.
“Toluene would require 50,000 packs of simultaneously smoldering cigarettes.
“At the lower end of the scale– in the case of Acetaldehyde or Hydrazine, more than 14,000 smokers would need to light up simultaneously in our little room to reach the threshold at which they might begin to pose a danger.
“For Hydroquinone, “only” 1250 cigarettes are required. Perhaps we could post a notice limiting this 20-foot square room to 300 rather tightly-packed people smoking no more than 62 packs per hour?
“Of course the moment we introduce real world factors to the room — a door, an open window or two, or a healthy level of mechanical air exchange (remember, the room we’ve been talking about is sealed) achieving these levels becomes even more implausible.
“It becomes increasingly clear to us that ETS is a political, rather than scientific, scapegoat.”
Chart (Table 1)
-”Toxic Toxicology” Littlewood & Fennel
Coming at OSHA from quite a different angle is litigator (and how!) John Banzhaf, founder and president of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH).
Banzhaf is on record as wanting to remove healthy children from intact homes if one of their family smokes. He also favors national smoking bans both indoors and out throughout America, and has litigation kits for sale on how to get your landlord to evict your smoking neighbors.
Banzhaf originally wanted OSHA to ban smoking in all American workplaces.
It’s not even that OSHA wasn’t happy to play along; it’s just that–darn it — they couldn’t find the real-world science to make it credible.
So Banzhaf sued them. Suing federal agencies to get them to do what you want is, alas, a new trick in the political deck of cards. But OSHA, at least apparently, hung tough.
In response to Banzhaf’s law suit they said the best they could do would be to set some official standards for permissible levels of smoking in the workplace.
Scaring Banzhaf, and Glantz and the rest of them to death.
Permissible levels? No, no. That would mean that OSHA, officially, said that smoking was permitted. That in fact, there were levels (hard to exceed, as we hope we’ve already shown) that were generally safe.
This so frightened Banzhaf that he dropped the case. Here are excerpts from his press release:
“ASH has agreed to dismiss its lawsuit against OSHA…to avoid serious harm to the non-smokers rights movement from adverse action OSHA had threatened to take if forced by the suit to do it….developing some hypothetical [ASH's characterization] measurement of smoke pollution that might be a better remedy than prohibiting smoking….[T]his could seriously hurt efforts to pass non-smokers’ rights legislation at the state and local level…
Another major threat was that, if the agency were forced by ASH’s suit to promulgate a rule regulating workplace smoking, [it] would be likely to pass a weak one…. This weak rule in turn could preempt future and possibly even existing non-smokers rights laws– a risk no one was willing to take.
As a result of ASH’s dismissal of the suit, OSHA will now withdraw its rule-making proceedings but will do so without using any of the damaging [to Anti activists] language they had threatened to include.”
-ASH Nixes OSHA Suit To Prevent Harm To Movement
Looking on the bright side, Banzhaf concludes:
“We might now be even more successful in persuading states and localities to ban smoking on their own, once they no longer have OSHA rule-making to hide behind.”
Once again, the Anti-Smoking Movement reveals that it’s true motive is basically Prohibition (stopping smokers from smoking; making them “social outcasts”) –not “safe air.”
And the attitude seems to be, as Stanton Glantz says, if the science doesn’t “help” you, don’t do the science.
I do appreciate the smelly clothes aspect but this could be solved with separate rooms or cigar clubs. Certainly it is no basis for passing laws.
I am sure you did not believe Tony Bliar on weapons of mass destruction, and may I ask you not to believe ZanuLabour on passive smoking. Zanu’s sexed up dossier is the 2004 Scientific Committee on Tobacco and Health (SCOTH). If you go to the back of document and look at the citations number 14 and 20. 14 is the World Health Organization’s (WHO) report and 20 is the Enstrom/Kabat report (EK). EK ran for 38 years from 1960 to 1998, involved 118,000 or who 34,000 were partners of smokers. It was peer reviewed by 2 professors of epidemiology and published in the British Medical Journal in 2003, the main conclusions were:
“Conclusions The results do not support a causal relation between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality, although they do not rule out a small effect. The association between exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and coronary heart disease and lung cancer may be considerably weaker than generally believed.” And.
“Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, primarily asthma, bronchitis, and emphysema, has been associated with exposure to environmental tobacco smoke, but the evidence for increased mortality is sparse.”
“UK Sunday Telegraph…
Passive Smoking Doesn’t Cause Cancer – Official
Headline: Passive Smoking Doesn’t Cause Cancer – Official
Byline: Victoria MacDonald, Health Correspondent”
Dateline: March 8, 1998
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/326/7398/1057
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/788186/posts