Opinion: Ban on Public Smoking Rears its Head…Again

This is really a shame. Polls show the majority of the public want the ban, and just a few politicians with too much influence are preventing a vote on the issue. Why do they not even want to allow the smoking ban to be voted on? I guess this shows that at least some politicians are putting big tobacco influence ahead of the public's wishes.

There has never been a single study showing that exposure to the low levels
of smoke found in bars and restaurants with decent modern ventilation and
filtration systems kills or harms anyone.

As to the annoyance of smoking, a compromise between smokers and non-smokers
can be reached, through setting a quality standard and the use of modern
ventilation technology.

Air ventilation can easily create a comfortable environment that removes not
just passive smoke, but also and especially the potentially serious
contaminants that are independent from smoking.
No one on this planet ever died or got cancer 'solely' from second-hand smoke.

http://pasan.thetruthisalie.com

Thomas Laprade
Thunder Bay, Ont.
Ph. 807 3457258

A truer 'poll'should be between the owners, workers and customers, since they are the ones who have a vested interest in the smoking issue.
The vast majority of the adults do not or very seldom patronize the hospitality industry on any given day

The bandwagon of local smoking bans now steamrolling across the nation -
from sea to sea- has nothing to do with protecting people from the supposed
threat of "second-hand" smoke.

Indeed, the bans themselves are symptoms of a far more grievous threat; a
cancer that has been spreading for decades and has now metastasized
throughout the body politic, spreading even to the tiniest organs of local
government. This cancer is the only real hazard involved - the cancer of
unlimited government power.

The issue is not whether second-hand smoke is a real danger or a phantom
menace, as a study published recently in the British Medical Journal
indicates. The issue is: if it were harmful, what would be the proper
reaction? Should anti-tobacco activists satisfy themselves with educating
people about the potential danger and allowing them to make
their own decisions, or should they seize the power of government and force
people to make the "right" decision?

Supporters of local tobacco bans have made their choice. Rather than
attempting to protect people from an unwanted intrusion on their health, the
tobacco bans are the unwanted intrusion.

Loudly billed as measures that only affect "public places," they have
actually targeted private places: restaurants, bars, nightclubs, shops, and
offices - places whose owners are free to set anti-smoking rules or whose
customers are free to go elsewhere if they don't like the smoke. Some local
bans even harass smokers in places where their effect on others is obviously
negligible, such as outdoor public parks.

The decision to smoke, or to avoid "second-hand" smoke, is a question to be
answered by each individual based on his own values and his own assessment
of the risks. This is the same kind of decision free people make regarding
every aspect of their lives: how much to spend or invest, whom to befriend
or sleep with, whether to go to college or get a job, whether to get married
or divorced, and so on.

All of these decisions involve risks; some have demonstrably harmful
consequences; most are controversial and invite disapproval from the
neighbours. But the individual must be free to make these decisions. He must
be free, because his life belongs to him, not to his neighbours, and only
his
own judgment can guide him through it.

Yet when it comes to smoking, this freedom is under attack. Cigarette
smokers are a numerical minority, practicing a habit considered annoying and
unpleasant to the majority. So the majority has simply commandeered the
power of government and used it to dictate their behaviour.

That is why these bans are far more threatening than the prospect of
inhaling a few stray whiffs of tobacco while waiting for a table at your
favourite restaurant. The anti-tobacco crusaders point in exaggerated alarm
at those wisps of smoke while they unleash the systematic and unlimited
intrusion of government into our lives.

We do not elect officials to control and manipulate our behaviour.

http://smokersclubinc.com
www.forces.org

Pete, do a majority of bar patrons want a smoking ban? if they did, thee would already be nonsmoking bars. How many of thsoe currently exist in Virginia?

"It’s known that second-hand smoke is responsible for 1,700 deaths in the state each year."

No, it's not. That's an estimate generated by the CDC's SAMMEC computer code, as are all the similar estimates touted anywhere in the country. It is not a body count, nor is it derived from death certificates - not even "contributing factors." It simply sets proportions for a given set of demographics. And those proportions are defined by people with an agenda.

"The reality of the situation is that no one needs to smoke inside a restaurant or any public place."

No one "needs" to drink alcohol or have a dessert in those places, either. Different people enjoy different things, and they're not all "needed." I'd be careful about basing a ban on the perception of "need," because that covers a far wider area than you intend.
The real complaint is annoyance, with a small chance of triggering a reaction in someone who already has a respiratory condition (which begs the question of why they'd be in a smoking venue in the first place). The rest is camouflage.
The solution is to let the market decide. Most venues will be nonsmoking by choice, some will be all-smoking by choice. How does this deprive anyone of anything? Everyone will still have choices. To force a universal ban is arrogant, selfish and spiteful.
If you don't like, say, German food or noisy kids or loud music in a restaurant, do you mount a campaign to force it to change to something more to your liking? No, you simply cross it off your list of possibilities. You accept the fact that other folks have different preferences. So why should a smoking venue be any different?

Let it come to a vote. Up or down. Why are the pro-smokers so keen to avoid a vote? It may not kill me...but the smoke in restaurants in VA is disgusting. All my clothes reek, my sinuses get worse, my eyes burn. Those do not need a CDC study to prove. Why should the "right" of smokers trump my right to clean air? A person drinking in a bar doesn't pour a certain percentage of his drink down my throat...but a smoker does. That is where I draw the line on personal "rights".

Dear non-smokers,

Those who want to make cigarettes illegal -- do you realize if cigarettes were illegal the tax on your alcohol would go up?

If we're going to make things that are bad for you illegal, why not do it ALL?!

Let's ALL live a boring life like the movie Demolition Man, and never consume or do anything that is unhealthy. No sugar, no salt, no fat, no cigarettes, no alcohol, no rock-n-roll, no ANYTHING!

Since so many people are against individuality, let's all just be alike!

How wonderful!

Yes, I'm being sarcastic, but I am so tired of reading about non-smokers rights and seeing smoker's discriminated against. And I don't even smoke!

"There has never been a single study showing..." Mr. Laprade, I'd like to introduce you to an interesting website that may help you increase your level of information, it's called Google. You might want to check that out on the interwebs.

You seem to like to qualify your statements: "No one on this planet... 'solely' from second-hand smoke."
"Solely" works well for you here. Of course, you could say it was something like the BHT in milk that hastened their death. I'd rather take my chances without the addition of a known carcinogen. (That would be the smoke Ms. Sweeney mentioned.)

"Air ventilation can easily create a comfortable environment that removes not just passive smoke..."
Yeah. After checking out Google, I'd like you to visit a crowded bar and check out that scene. Your modern ventilation system will evacuate the smoke that is two feet away from me before it reaches me? Yeah.

Let me see if I hear you correctly: You'll quote the "Pennsylvania Smokers Action Network," and give that equal or greater weight than the National Institute of Health?

Just to bring you up to speed, From the N.I.H. National Cancer Institute:
# Of the chemicals identified in secondhand smoke, more than 50 have been found to cause cancer.
# Secondhand smoke causes lung cancer in nonsmokers.
# Secondhand smoke causes heart disease in adults and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), ear infections, and asthma attacks in children.
# There is no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke.

(Next please...)

Ah, I should have known it would be you again, Mr. Laprade, with the weak arguments and that bizarre knack for finding out the "real" truth while we all suffer in ignorance.

"restaurants, bars, nightclubs, shops, and offices" - they are public spaces. Again, check out the Google. If you are feeling daring, I suggest moving up to WestLaw or LexisNexis for help defining public spaces.

"The decision to smoke, or to avoid "second-hand" smoke, is a question to be answered by each individual..."
If you are smoking right behind my head when my meal arrives, and I make the individual decision I don't want to breath that known carcinogen, how would you suggest I not breath your second hand smoke while I eat my burger?

If you could contain it, you could do it 24 hours a day. Knock yourself out. However, when you make the decision for me, that's when _you_ have encroached into _my_ rights. Like you said:
"But the individual must be free to make these decisions. He must be free, because his life belongs to him, not to his neighbours, and only his own judgment can guide him through it."

Let me have this right as well.

O.M.G., if you didn't have diarrhea of the keyboard, I wouldn't have so much to write. Here's another good one:
"This is the same kind of decision free people make regarding every aspect of their lives: how much to spend or invest, whom to befriend or sleep with, whether to go to college or get a job, whether to get married or divorced, and so on."
Don't forget, we are talking about second hand smoke here. I don't believe you are making those decisions (to spend or invest, whom to sleep with, etc.) for me, but you are when I am subjected to the exhaust waste you emit. I can't _not_ have you make that smoking decision for me. Also, this is know as a "straw man" fallacy - set up a weak, and not equivalent, example and then smack that one down. Very poor form, Tom.

(Next...)

Oh Argus, you make the same error in logic as your buddy Tom. You can drink alcohol or have a dessert in those places and not kill my brain cells or make me fat. When you can smoke in such a self-contained manor, I'll have you over for cocktails.

Man, Argus, I thought that was the only stumbling block you'd hit, but there you go in the next sentence. Get Tom to show you how to find that Google interwebs site, and look up "begs the question." I think you mean "raises the question." Begging the question is an error people make when they use a premise to support a position that assumes the conclusion is already true. It's an error that has cropped up in these comments, but not in this sentence. "Raises the question" is the phrase you're looking for.

You have a point with the whole "noisy kids or loud music in a restaurant" thing. I'll add loud cell phone talkers. The thing about these is they not only effect the producer of the irritant, but others around them. That's why conscientious folks take their crying baby out of the movie and there are ordinances to keep you from blasting your music beyond your home and waking up the neighbor who has to go to work at 05:00. These are all solutions for when people aren't containing their offensive effluent.

(Next please...)

Noelle. Noelle, Noelle, Noelle. Cigarettes illegal? Way to run right straight down that slippery slope. I think the intent is to keep a smoker from imposing her habit on the air someone else must breath. I truly believe that you should be able to sit on the floor, in the middle of your trailer, watching Jerry Springer, eating Cheetos, and smoke to your heart's content. Just don't make me participate.

OMG, the same mistake in the_very_next_sentence! "If we're going to make things that are bad for you illegal, why not do it ALL?!" A little stretch from the original suggestion re. secondhand smoke? At least make a variety of logical errors.

Oh, now I see you were being sarcastic. It was just so similar to your boys Tom and Argus, I thought y'all must all be Pennsylvania Smokers Action Network members. I take that thing back about the Cheetos.

In summary: These arguments are all so similar - deny the evidence or poison the well whence it came, and also claim an infringement of the arguer's' rights.
1. I'll take NIH, the Lancet, JAMA, etc. over Pennsylvania Smokers Action Network "research" any day.
2. You can smoke six cartons a day if you want, but remember I'd like to not have _others_ (especially those with such a limited understanding of health risk factors), making _my_ decisions for me.

Next.