Judge declares smoking bans consitiutional

[manifold]

You're welcome.

 

[tigerbob]

Exactly. When one is on the 'correct side' of an issue, no proof is assumed needed. So slavery would have gone on and on, until the tide turned. Christians are the majority in this country, so they should 'rule'? Such is the new smoking police, 'we are offended, close the venues!'

Yep. I still find it amazing that people read the papers, watch the TV news, and swallow the whole lot without even chewing.

On the other hand, maybe she's just doing some hugely thorough research.

 

[acludem]

I'm opposed to smoking bans. My community has one for bars and restaurants and it has been devastating to our local economy (something like 20 businesses have closed costing hundreds of jobs) but the anti-smoking zealots don't care.

Smoking bans are bad public policy, they are a violation of the privacy rights of business owners, and they are big-brother government at it's worst.

Just because they might be constitutional doesn't mean they are good idea.

acludem

 

[manifold]

I'm opposed to smoking bans...

Just because they might be constitutional doesn't mean they are good idea.

Bingo!

 

[Anguille]

Oh, and btw, want and desire mean the same thing. AND, people that smoke have no problem smoking where it doesn't harm anyone that is against smoking. That's why they want bars that cater to them. Just like you are welcome to have bars that cater to you.

But for some reason, that's not good enough for you.

Oh, and Happy Easter.

Who is going to work in these bars? What part of the work force is going to be designated as exempt from labor laws?

Hope you had a Happy Easter too.

About "want" and "desire' it sounds like you're saying that because you don't "want" to harm people with your smoke, you shouldn't be held accountable for it. Like saying you didn't mean to run anyone over when you drove recklessly.

I can't remenber who originally asked for proof that second hand smoke is harmful, but surprise, surprise folks, here are some links.
http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=4521
http://quitsmoking.about.com/cs/secondhandsmoke/a/secondhandsmoke.htm
http://www.lungusa.org/site/pp.asp?c=dvLUK9O0E&b=39858
http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2006pres/20060627.html
http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/secondhand_smoke/index.htm

 

[Care4all]

Wow, that's a pretty stupid ruling, IMO. The workers and vendors have a choice. I would imagine this could also be applied to strip joints if taken far enough. What if the employees are exposed to naked people? Or gambling...isn't that an addiction now? How many innocent blackjack dealers might become gambling addicts?

yeah, you are right....next it will be, you can't smoke in your own home if you employ a maid? or employ a cook?

Geez....

This also could be used on other things like you said too...like employees at Casinos exposed to gambling daily....?

This may go all the way to the SC.....it should....

I do understand the argument though....IF IT HAS BEEN RULED already that smoking was allowed or constitutional- to be banned in the workplace for "the health of the worker", then what makes a private lodge any different? All those other workers could have, "Just gone out and found another job" too...? And "the Workplace" where it is legally banned already, is also owned, more than likely, by an individual(s), not by the government?

Soooo, the logic that the same ruling should stand for private lodges or clubs as with Private businesses, if BOTH are employing others does make sense....TO a DEGREE.....

This doesn't mean I agree with the ruling....but i don't agree that they should have been able to make the initial bans on smoking. Not because I am a smoker or anything like that, but more because I would take the "Libertarian" approach so to say....

Less government is better.

The market place can determine on their own in cases like this....

The Lodge could let employees know before they are hired that this is a smoking lodge when being interviewed for the job.....those that don't smoke or that are bothered by smoke has the choice at that point not to work in this lodge, or the Lodge may decide that they want to protect their employees and install an exhaust system- second to none, to take the smoke out of the Lodge....there are alternatives and choices that could have been made... by individuals, before making the government do the dirty work for you...by force, by law....imho.


There is a strong movement, by the majority of people I think....in this country, that are against smoking and the overplayed, ''second hand smoke gives you cancer''.....but the smell alone is enough reason in my opinion! hahahaha..... JUST KIDDING....

I just think that this smoking thing could have worked itself out...I think that employers on their own, with the huge "hate smoking movement" growing by the masses, would have banned smoking or made smoking rooms for their employees that did smoke all on their own.... or asked the smokers to simply step outside when smoking, put a bench out there or two for them....yahdeedah.... it COULD have been worked out, as said.
----------------------------------------
The alcohol going in to the man sitting on the same bar stool ...night after night, will kill him... before the lung cancer kills ANYONE from second hand smoke....or even the smokers themselves in my humble opinion!!!

===================added!
we can't ''save everyone from themselves'' or force government to do it.... that isn't liberty and that isn't freedom imho.
Care

 

[Annie]

Seems to me the owners of the property should be able to say, 'here will be smoking.' If someone feels it infringes with the quality of their air, they are free to not patronize said establishment. If more agree with the offended, that place will go out of business.

From what I can discern, more smokers are quietly retreating into their homes. They won't bring class action or single action lawsuits, they'll leave that up to the restraunts/bars. Time is ticking, lifestyle changes are occuring.

I know that it's only April, since January in 'home settings', we've had 'Hispanic Nights, Indian Nights, and Irish Nights'. It's become party/recipe times here, more fun than the restaurants we USED to frequent.

 

[Care4all]

Seems to me the owners of the property should be able to say, 'here will be smoking.' If someone feels it infringes with the quality of their air, they are free to not patronize said establishment. If more agree with the offended, that place will go out of business.

From what I can discern, more smokers are quietly retreating into their homes. They won't bring class action or single action lawsuits, they'll leave that up to the restraunts/bars. Time is ticking, lifestyle changes are occuring.

I know that it's only April, since January in 'home settings', we've had 'Hispanic Nights, Indian Nights, and Irish Nights'. It's become party/recipe times here, more fun than the restaurants we USED to frequent.

read this kathianne, just found this....sounds to me like everything has been OVER exagerated about secondhand smoke....(NOT about some smokers themselves....the risks are still high for cancer, high blood pressure etc...)

BUT the secondhand smoke health risk to employees HAS BEEN exagerated! At least according to this article??? read it....tell me what you think...

Care

March 14, 2005


Up In Secondhand Smoke: What Does Science Tell Us?


By Michael D. Shaw

[Introduction by Michael J. McCurdy, founder/publisher of HealthNewsDigest.com]

Few health issues are as controversial, emotional, and as subject to political correctness as environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) or passive smoking. So this week I invited Michael D. Shaw, an environmental scientist, to comment on the latest news released on Wednesday the 9th from the California Air Research Board, that second-hand smoke causes breast cancer in 20 - 90% of women and children. The American Cancer Society said that the study is "controversial''.

As a scientist who regularly writes about indoor air quality, I must approach this topic with an appropriate degree of objectivity: I do not have a vested interest in the politics of this matter, but I do have a responsibility - both as a biochemist and member of the scientific community - to dispel some commonly held myths about secondhand smoke and the risk of cancer.

Unfortunately, the entire subject of secondhand smoke resides in an area of discourse heavily laced with activists, who, passionate about their mission of improving public health, far too readily exaggerate the dangers. Moreover, the whole notion of ETS being listed as an indoor air pollutant started in the mid-1980's, as hapless tenants in overpriced windowless high-rise office buildings sought creative means of breaking their leases. No doubt, workers could be irritated by ETS, but then, they could also be irritated by perfume. Indeed, excessive perfume is considered an indoor air pollutant in some quarters, along with cooking odors.

As to the matter of someone being "allergic" to ETS, based on the traditional definition of an allergen being an agent that promotes an immunological response, ETS fails that test, and so far, at least, can only be classified as an irritant. Properly, people are "sensitive" to ETS. But, playing on the well known dangers of smoking, the doom-profiteers have worked many people into a frenzy, by conflating the bad habit of smoking with the much different matter of breathing in secondhand smoke.

Science, at its best, should never have an agenda, and should aid the quest for truth. In the days before big media and big research grants, bizarre claims could be subjected to the harsh light of objective science. Nowadays, though, it is sometimes the alleged "science" that promotes the bizarre claims.

Back in the 1960's, many health agencies proffered a set of two graphs. One tracked the increase in cigarette smoking from 1900-1930, and the other tracked the increased incidence in lung cancer from 1930-1960. That the two graphs could virtually be superimposed was as ringing an indictment of smoking as any gory autopsy picture of a smoker's cancer-ravaged lungs. Contrast this with the paradoxical claim by the Centers for Disease Control a few years ago that passive smoking could explain an increase in asthma over the last decade, even though as asthma was increasing, the number of smokers was decreasing.

So, how dangerous IS secondhand smoke? The most reliable data would indicate that it is nowhere near as serious a threat as elements of the media (and their supporters within academia) would have us believe. In fact, ETS is, at its most extreme, far less dangerous than numerous other indoor air pollutants such as carbon monoxide, toxic mold, and radon.

The biggest study on this topic, covering 39 years, and involving 118,094 adults, with particular focus on 35,561 who never smoked, and had a spouse in the study with known smoking habits, came to this conclusion:

"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."

Not surprisingly, considering the non-PC findings, the May, 2003 article detailing the study generated a good deal of hate e-mail on the journal's website.

Several other studies support these results, including one from the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, published back in 1975, when smoking was rampant in bars and other public places. The paper concluded that the concentration of ETS contaminants in these smoky confines was equal to the effects of smoking 0.004 cigarettes per hour. In other words, you would have to hang out for 250 hours to match the effects of smoking one cigarette.

But this issue is controversial, right? Just a few days ago, the trend-setting California Air Resources Board announced results of their draft report, "Proposed Identification of Environmental Tobacco Smoke as a Toxic Air Contaminant." The report concludes that women exposed to secondhand tobacco smoke have a 90 percent higher risk of breast cancer. The document also pegs the annual death toll of secondhand smoke at 73,400.

It should be noted that the World Health Organization and other groups that examined the same evidence found no link to breast cancer. Furthermore, the Air Resources Board gives more weight to animal studies, but much epidemiology of suspected human carcinogens indicates that animal data overstates the actual risk.

My gut tells me that the Air Resources Board is wrong, but we'll see how this all plays out.

 

[jillian]

Link your article please.

 

[Annie]

read this kathianne, just found this....sounds to me like everything has been OVER exagerated about secondhand smoke....(NOT about some smokers themselves....the risks are still high for cancer, high blood pressure etc...)

BUT the secondhand smoke health risk to employees HAS BEEN exagerated! At least according to this article??? read it....tell me what you think...

Care

Care, as Jillian is asking, where is the link? For my part I think that the second hand smoke argument has been used successfully by those that wish to ban smoking. They do NOT have science on their side, but they have opinion on their side and it's winning in the state houses.

So be it.

 

[Shogun]

Who is going to work in these bars? What part of the work force is going to be designated as exempt from labor laws?

Hope you had a Happy Easter too.

About "want" and "desire' it sounds like you're saying that because you don't "want" to harm people with your smoke, you shouldn't be held accountable for it. Like saying you didn't mean to run anyone over when you drove recklessly.

I can't remenber who originally asked for proof that second hand smoke is harmful, but surprise, surprise folks, here are some links.
http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=4521
http://quitsmoking.about.com/cs/secondhandsmoke/a/secondhandsmoke.htm
http://www.lungusa.org/site/pp.asp?c=dvLUK9O0E&b=39858
http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2006pres/20060627.html
http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/secondhand_smoke/index.htm

Now, did you want to quote the statistics and dive into the reaserch or does name dropping urls suffice? Let's see you quote your sources using concrete terms instead of words like "ESTIMATES" and "PROJECTED".

by the way, thanks for helping to create a larger drunk driving fatality stat. Your concern for the general public is amazing.

 

[Shogun]

Link your article please.

Have another instead...

The Bogus 'Science' of Secondhand Smoke

Tuesday, January 30, 2007; 12:00 AM

Smoking cigarettes is a clear health risk, as most everyone knows. But lately, people have begun to worry about the health risks of secondhand smoke. Some policymakers and activists are even claiming that the government should crack down on secondhand smoke exposure, given what "the science" indicates about such exposure.

Last July, introducing his office's latest report on secondhand smoke, then-U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona asserted that "there is no risk-free level of secondhand smoke exposure," that "breathing secondhand smoke for even a short time can damage cells and set the cancer process in motion," and that children exposed to secondhand smoke will "eventually . . . develop cardiovascular disease and cancers over time."

Such claims are certainly alarming. But do the studies Carmona references support his claims, and are their findings as sound as he suggests?

Lung cancer and cardiovascular diseases develop at advancing ages. Estimating the risk of those diseases posed by secondhand smoke requires knowing the sum of momentary secondhand smoke doses that nonsmokers have internalized over their lifetimes. Such lifetime summations of instant doses are obviously impossible, because concentrations of secondhand smoke in the air, individual rates of inhalation, and metabolic transformations vary from moment to moment, year after year, location to location.

In an effort to circumvent this capital obstacle, all secondhand smoke studies have estimated risk using a misleading marker of "lifetime exposure." Yet, instant exposures also vary uncontrollably over time, so lifetime summations of exposure could not be, and were not, measured.

Typically, the studies asked 60--70 year-old self-declared nonsmokers to recall how many cigarettes, cigars or pipes might have been smoked in their presence during their lifetimes, how thick the smoke might have been in the rooms, whether the windows were open, and similar vagaries. Obtained mostly during brief phone interviews, answers were then recorded as precise measures of lifetime individual exposures.

In reality, it is impossible to summarize accurately from momentary and vague recalls, and with an absurd expectation of precision, the total exposure to secondhand smoke over more than a half-century of a person's lifetime. No measure of cumulative lifetime secondhand smoke exposure was ever possible, so the epidemiologic studies estimated risk based not only on an improper marker of exposure, but also on exposure data that are illusory.

Adding confusion, people with lung cancer or cardiovascular disease are prone to amplify their recall of secondhand smoke exposure. Others will fib about being nonsmokers and will contaminate the results. More than two dozen causes of lung cancer are reported in the professional literature, and over 200 for cardiovascular diseases; their likely intrusions have never been credibly measured and controlled in secondhand smoke studies. Thus, the claimed risks are doubly deceptive because of interferences that could not be calculated and corrected.

In addition, results are not consistently reproducible. The majority of studies do not report a statistically significant change in risk from secondhand smoke exposure, some studies show an increase in risk, and ¿ astoundingly ¿ some show a reduction of risk.

Some prominent anti-smokers have been quietly forthcoming on what "the science" does and does not show. Asked to quantify secondhand smoke risks at a 2006 hearing at the UK House of Lords, Oxford epidemiologist Sir Richard Peto ¿ a leader of the secondhand smoke crusade ¿ replied, "I am sorry not to be more helpful; you want numbers and I could give you numbers..., but what does one make of them? ...These hazards cannot be directly measured."

It has been fashionable to ignore the weakness of "the science" on secondhand smoke, perhaps in the belief that claiming "the science is settled" will lead to policies and public attitudes that will reduce the prevalence of smoking. But such a Faustian bargain is an ominous precedent in public health and political ethics. Consider how minimally such policies as smoking bans in bars and restaurants really reduce the prevalence of smoking, and yet how odious and socially unfair such prohibitions are.

By any sensible account, the anachronism of tobacco use should eventually vanish in an advancing civilization. Why must we promote this process under the tyranny of deception?

Presumably, we are grown-up people, with a civilized sense of fair play, and dedicated to disciplined and rational discourse. We are fortunate enough to live in a free country that is respectful of individual choices and rights, including the right to honest public policies. Still, while much is voiced about the merits of forceful advocacy, not enough is said about the fundamental requisite of advancing public health with sustainable evidence, rather than by dangerous, wanton conjectures.

A frank discussion is needed to restore straight thinking in the legitimate uses of "the science" of epidemiology -- uses that go well beyond secondhand smoke issues. Today, health rights command high priority on many agendas, as they should. It is not admissible to presume that people expect those rights to be served less than truthfully.

Gio Batta Gori, an epidemiologist and toxicologist, is a fellow of the Health Policy Center in Bethesda. He is a former deputy director of the National Cancer Institute's Division of Cancer Cause and Prevention, and he received the U.S. Public Health Service Superior Service Award in 1976 for his efforts to define less hazardous cigarettes. Gori's article "The Surgeon General's Doctored Opinion" will appear in the spring issue of the Cato Institute's Regulation Magazine.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/29/AR2007012901158.html

 

[Care4all]

Link your article please.

http://www.gasdetection.com/news2/health_news_digest6.html

 

[Care4all]

and there is this also from the UK....looks like second hand smoke as a killer IS A MYTH????

http://psyed.org/r/crit/crd/second_smoke.html

Second hand Smoke Study Raises Ire
Study Shows No Association Between Passive Smoke and Health Risks

May 15, 2003 -- A controversial new study that questions the health risks of being exposed to secondhand smoke -- a factor often said to contribute to some 50,000 American deaths each year -- has outraged some health officials.


The new study, to be published in the May 17 issue of the British Medical Journal, shows no measurable rates of heart disease or lung cancer among nonsmokers who ever lived with smokers, and reports only a slight increased risk of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Many health agencies, including the U.S. Surgeon General's Office, have long said that secondhand smoke boosts the risk of heart disease by about 30% and lung cancer risk by 25% in nonsmokers.

"We found no measurable effect from being exposed to secondhand smoke and an increased risk of heart disease or lung cancer in nonsmokers -- not at any time or at any level," lead researcher James Enstrom, PhD, MPH, of the UCLA School of Public Health, tells WebMD. "The only thing we did find, which was not reported in the study, is that nonsmokers who live with smokers have a increased risk of widowhood because their smoking spouses do die prematurely."

For his finding, Enstrom used data from an American Cancer Society (ACS) study -- the Cancer Prevention Study that began in 1959 as one of the first major smoking studies. It involved some 1 million Americans across the country; Enstrom focused on some 36,000 nonsmoking Californians whose spouses had smoked, part of the 118,000 state residents in the trial. Although the study ended in 1972, Enstrom traced the cause of death of some 7,000 of those participants until 1998.

In fact, researchers reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1998 that 75% of studies done between 1980 and 1995 found no link between secondhand smoke and health problems. In that review, researchers examined 106 studies conducted in those 15 years; two in three indicated secondhand smoke does contribute to lung and heart disease.

By Sid Kirchheimer
WebMD Medical News

 

[Shogun]

Sometimes, It's easier to toss out a url and a talking point rather than take the time to discover what these "studies" are really saying. Especially when they are conducted using standards that we would never apply to anything else just because assholes with opinions don't like smoking.

Again, you won't find a single pink lunger source that does not REQUIRE words like "estimate" and "projected"


meanwhile, public health gets to take on more drunk driving fatalities becuase some pink lunger bitch doesn't like a smoke smelling sweater after refusing to choose a smoke free bar.

 

[Anguille]

OK - sorry for the tardy response. I was out of the country last weekend and this week's been really busy at work. Anyhow, I have some observations which I've numbered for ease of response.



1. It was once common sense to assume that the earth was flat, so assumptions don't really amount to anything. If we are talking about laws being enacted that infringe upon liberties, then there has to be a quantifiable reason for it. Your next point moved in this direction....

That's just plain silly to compare believing that second hand smoke is harmful to thinking the earth is flat.
And what's this about liberties being infringed on? Why would you call poisoning people a liberty?

2. And do you recall where you saw these studies? Can you post a link? You did mention over a week ago that you would do this when you had time, as I recall. Maybe you've had a busy week as well. Can you clarify? Have you been or are you currently looking for these data? If you have been looking for a week and have been unable to find them then.....that's interesting.

Looking up data and jumping through hoops for you was not at the top of my to do list, however I did post several links to information on the dangers of exposure to secondhand smoke several days ago but you and the others have yet to fulfill your end of the bargain which was to answer my question as to why would anyone willingly expose another person to cigarette smoke, knowing that it is harmful to them. Even if you are not 100% convinced by the studies which show that it is harmful, I still don't understand why would anyone do it just knowing there is a possibility it is harmful and knowing that many people find the smell offensive. This is what I just don't get, why do people still think there is nothing wrong with exposing other people to their cigarette smoke?????



3. So if more than 50% of the population are offended by something it should be banned? Or is it 60%? Or 70%? Where do you think the line should be drawn?

And one follow up from another one of your posts....



4. That's really the crux of the issue, isn't it? Unfortunately, I'm afraid I am not able to answer the question because I have not seen proof that second hand smoke is harmful to 3rd parties.

You've never had anyone tell you your smoke was making them ill? ??!!!


To attempt to answer the question would therefore indicate that I believe the question has a basis in fact. I suspect Ravir may be of the same opinion. I suspect many others are of the same opinion. Like others, I am waiting for that all important "proof" that STS is harmful. If you can post a link to that proof, I suspect your critics would have little option but to agree with much or your argument.

If you can't support your hypothesis with facts, wouldn't it just be better to admit it? I'm not saying that that is the case, but you seem to be sparring with anyone who disagrees with you and falling back on the "when someone answers my question, I'll answer theirs" issue. They are not refusing to answer, as far as I can tell. What they are doing (and what I'm doing) is asking you to expand on the substance of your question so that it can be answered fully and correctly.

,

 

[Anguille]

and there is this also from the UK....looks like second hand smoke as a killer IS A MYTH????

It's truly impressive the lengths to which some smokers will go to distort scientific data to make it seem like their cigarette smoke isn't harmful to the people around them.

 

[Shogun]

no, whats truly impressive if that you STILL haven't posted anything that illustrates a viable threat from SHS outside of just saying so. Like I said, read the actual methodology of the shit you think is your evidence.


then again, you know how random forum users are probably in the pockets of phillip morris.

 

[Eleutherios]

Just more evidence that American's rights are deteriating to the majority's demands.

 

[Care4all]

It's truly impressive the lengths to which some smokers will go to distort scientific data to make it seem like their cigarette smoke isn't harmful to the people around them.

I'm not a smoker....just reading ALL the FACTS.....not just selective ones from one side or the other, but both... maybe you and others should do the same? Looks like there is an "over reaction" to some truth, going on here...from an outsider's point of view....!