Politics and Secondhand Smoke

[PoliticalChic]

Carcinogens are carcinogens. Introducing them willfully into the air that someone else has to breathe is a matter of ethics. Something that 'Conservatives' seem not to understand.

Smoking is a question of ethics?

Glad to see your retreat from claiming any scientific basis for your objection....

...after all, that is the question that the OP was examining.

 

[edthecynic]

If you want to really understand how ridiculous the left's war on tobacco is, visit some of these liberal companies that maintain the health of their employees by banning tobacco use. One, they don't only ban tobacco use, they ban the patch, gum and electronic cigarettes too. Products which produce no second hand smoke at all.

They do not ban marijuana which can be smoked anywhere. The left is convinced that if they can move people who smoke from tobacco to pot, they will get drugs legalized.

It is amazing how many CON$ who support smoking tobacco are Nanny-Staters when it comes to smoking pot!

 

[Douger]

Meanwhile the people that own you and your DC hookers are filling the water sources with mercury, frickin fracking and Coca Cola is bottling Great lakes water and shipping it overseas.
But OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Cigarette smoke !!!

Thank gaWd they raised the acceptable nuclear limits for your slop or you'd be in trouble !

 

[CrusaderFrank]

I think I got exposed to third hand smoke by reading Wry "Freddo" Catcher

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Second hand smoke causes Global Warming

 

[CrusaderFrank]

My grandfather, a pioneering doctor 50 years ahead of his peers in cancer research, was a 2 pack a day unfiltered Camel smoker.

When asked why he smoked his response was "Mind your own damn aristocratic business"

 

[PoliticalChic]

My grandfather, a pioneering doctor 50 years ahead of his peers in cancer research, was a 2 pack a day unfiltered Camel smoker.

When asked why he smoked his response was "Mind your own damn aristocratic business"

I'm truly disappointed that I missed the opportunity to discuss science with granddad....
...I'm working on a groundbreaking theory that there is no gravity....rather, it is light that holds matter down on the Earth.

You have noted, I'm sure, how easy it is to stay up at night, and how difficult to get up in the morn...

...and, it is the reason that night flights are cheaper than day flights....
Working on measuring the distance of A-Rod homers during night games, vs. day games....

Very busy....

Thinking of enlisting Rocks in my work.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

My grandfather, a pioneering doctor 50 years ahead of his peers in cancer research, was a 2 pack a day unfiltered Camel smoker.

When asked why he smoked his response was "Mind your own damn aristocratic business"

I'm truly disappointed that I missed the opportunity to discuss science with granddad....
...I'm working on a groundbreaking theory that there is no gravity....rather, it is light that holds matter down on the Earth.

You have noted, I'm sure, how easy it is to stay up at night, and how difficult to get up in the morn...

...and, it is the reason that night flights are cheaper than day flights....
Working on measuring the distance of A-Rod homers during night games, vs. day games....

Very busy....

Thinking of enlisting Rocks in my work.

Don't leave out the odd effect lunar eclipses seem to have on some pendulums.

 

[Ariux]

Smokers smoke many thousands of cigarettes, sometimes hundreds of thousands, before they face serious health consequences. And, I'm suppose to be scared of occasional second-hand smoke when I'm not getting even 1 in 1000 as much smoke as the smoker, per cigarette?

 

[MuadDib]

If you want to really understand how ridiculous the left's war on tobacco is, visit some of these liberal companies that maintain the health of their employees by banning tobacco use. One, they don't only ban tobacco use, they ban the patch, gum and electronic cigarettes too. Products which produce no second hand smoke at all.

They do not ban marijuana which can be smoked anywhere. The left is convinced that if they can move people who smoke from tobacco to pot, they will get drugs legalized.

It is amazing how many CON$ who support smoking tobacco are Nanny-Staters when it comes to smoking pot!

I don't have a problem with either one. If you want smoke cigarettes or weed, smoke 'em.

It's your body, you own it, and everybody else needs to STFU and mind their own business.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

If you want to really understand how ridiculous the left's war on tobacco is, visit some of these liberal companies that maintain the health of their employees by banning tobacco use. One, they don't only ban tobacco use, they ban the patch, gum and electronic cigarettes too. Products which produce no second hand smoke at all.

They do not ban marijuana which can be smoked anywhere. The left is convinced that if they can move people who smoke from tobacco to pot, they will get drugs legalized.

It is amazing how many CON$ who support smoking tobacco are Nanny-Staters when it comes to smoking pot!

I don't have a problem with either one. If you want smoke cigarettes or weed, smoke 'em.

It's your body, you own it, and everybody else needs to STFU and mind their own business.

cheers!

 

[PoliticalChic]

Hey....you guys sound.....

...CONSERVATIVE!!

 

[MuadDib]

Hey....you guys sound.....

...CONSERVATIVE!!

I consider myself more of a "Goldwater Conservative" or a fiscal conservative-social libertarian, but yeah.

 

[Bfgrn]

If you want to really understand how ridiculous the left's war on tobacco is, visit some of these liberal companies that maintain the health of their employees by banning tobacco use. One, they don't only ban tobacco use, they ban the patch, gum and electronic cigarettes too. Products which produce no second hand smoke at all.

They do not ban marijuana which can be smoked anywhere. The left is convinced that if they can move people who smoke from tobacco to pot, they will get drugs legalized.

It is amazing how many CON$ who support smoking tobacco are Nanny-Staters when it comes to smoking pot!

I don't have a problem with either one. If you want smoke cigarettes or weed, smoke 'em.

It's your body, you own it, and everybody else needs to STFU and mind their own business.

I agree, it is your body. If you want to smoke, go for it. BUT...do the people in the room with you have the same right? OR, do YOU alone have the right to breath in smoke, and the rest of the people have to forfeit their right to breath clean air?

Isn't it a right ONLY if it doesn't infringe on the rights of others?

 

[MuadDib]

It is amazing how many CON$ who support smoking tobacco are Nanny-Staters when it comes to smoking pot!

I don't have a problem with either one. If you want smoke cigarettes or weed, smoke 'em.

It's your body, you own it, and everybody else needs to STFU and mind their own business.

I agree, it is your body. If you want to smoke, go for it. BUT...do the people in the room with you have the same right? OR, do YOU alone have the right to breath in smoke, and the rest of the people have to forfeit their right to breath clean air?

Isn't it a right ONLY if it doesn't infringe on the rights of others?

What was wrong with the way restaurants and other public places used to be when there were smoking and non-smoking sections? Nothing.

 

[tigerbob]

Well, smoking may affect people differently, but I know my health improved greatly when I quit almost 24 years ago. I can't believe it's been that long! When I quit, cigarettes were about 36 cents a pack at the Base Exchange.

I can't believe people spend as much as they do nowadays (5-10 bucks a pack?) to support their habit. And all those taxes are really unfair to the average smoker who is statistically less educated and poorer.

Sorry about the rant PC, didn't mean to hijack your thread!

Tobacco kills. Both of my parents smoked so our home was always filled by tobacco smoke. I suppose I was 'addicted' before I ever smoked on my own. I quit years ago too but it was most difficult. I never smoked in our the home for fear I would addict my two sons.

Tobacco farmers are evil; they know what they produce kills. Yes I will vote for prop. 29 and that I suppose is PC's hidden agenda to prevent a tax increase in any shape or form no matter the consequences.

I don't think anyone was debating that primary smoke is harmful. I believe it was the issue of whether a statistically significant causative link between secondhand smoke an disease had been genuinely established that was the question. It was a fairly long OP though so I could have missed something.

 

[tigerbob]

1. Secondhand Smoke. Among the Left is a group of anti-smoking activists for whom abolishing tobacco use is a religious calling. When Americans did not respond as totally, nor as quickly, as the activists wished, they devised a new strategy: they told nonsmokers that the smokers were killing them! Since it was nearly impossible to point to people who died as a result of secondhand smoke, they use epidemiological studies, defined by the WHO as “the studey of the distribution and determinants of health-related states or events including disease” to “prove” their contention. 50,000 Americans a year, we are told, are killed by secondhand smoke. Hysteria masquerading as science.


2. Dr. James Enstrom, disputed the epidemiological studies on secondhand smoke in the British Medical Journal: “ 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…. Most epidemiological studies have found that environmental tobacco smoke has a positive but not statistically significant relation to coronary heart disease and lung cancer. ” Environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality in a prospective study of Californians, 1960-98 | BMJ

a. What happens when scientists disagree with the Left? “A longtime professor at UCLA, told that he would not be rehired because his "research is not aligned with the academic mission" of his department,… Enstrom, an epidemiologist at UCLA's School of Public Health, has a history of running against the grain. In 2003 he wrote a study, published in the British Medical Journal, in which he found no causal relationship between secondhand smoke and tobacco-related death – a conclusion that drew fire both because it was contrary to popular scientific belief and because it was funded by Philip Morris…. serious concerns not only about the diesel regulations but about academic freedom and scientific research as a whole.” Scientist's Firing After 36 Years Fuels 'PC' Debate at UCLA | Fox News



3. “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 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…. 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. … 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. “ Gio Batta Gori - The Bogus 'Science' of Secondhand Smoke



4. A real laugher is the outdoor smoking ban various nanny-state governments have instituted. “But no evidence demonstrates that the duration of outdoor exposure — in places where people can move freely about — is long enough to cause substantial health damage…. To make matters worse, in trying to convince people that even transient exposure to secondhand smoke is a potentially deadly hazard, smoking opponents risk losing scientific credibility.” http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/06/opinion/06siegel.html



5. Columbia University magazine included this in its “Letters” section, from Dr. Attila Mady: “The theatrics around the antismoking crusade not only discredit those who resort to fuzzy logic, but also compromise an overall laudable effort to improve public health. There are no prospective case-control studies of smokers. Nor will there ever be, since a properly designed study would require fifty years and millions of participants….Statistics ignore herd immunity and exposure to volatile and particulates since the onset of the industrial age and don’t translate into the real world.” Columbia Magazine, Spring 2012, p.4.


6. Hypothetically, as many individuals on the Right dislike smoking as do individuals on the Left…why, then, are those on the Left so much more likely to believe that secondhand smoke can seriously hurt their health, and, possibly, kill them? And why are Liberal cities, governed by Liberal, so much more likely to ban outdoor smoking….?

a. When Liberals hear the words ‘studies show,’ or ‘experts say,’ they cease to ‘question authority.’
Hence…Lock-Step Liberals

One that confounds good and evil is an enemy to good.
Edmund Burke

OMG, a scientist working for Philip Morris tobacco company disputed the epidemiological studies on secondhand smoke?

In 1999 the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) brought a massive lawsuit against the major U.S. cigarette manufacturers alleging that the companies had collaborated in an elaborate, decades-long conspiracy to deceive the American public about the health effects of active smoking and secondhand smoke. In August 2006, Judge Gladys Kessler of the U.S. District Court in Washington D.C. ruled against the companies. The court's Final Opinion contains a detailed timeline (starting in Section 5, paragraph #3781, on Page 1380) describing communication between Philip Morris and Enstrom to produce the 2003 BMJ study, and describes how the American Cancer Society had repeatedly warned Enstrom that using its CPS-I data in the manner he was using it would lead to unreliable results. The court's Final Opinion cites the 2003 Enstrom/Kabat study as a significant part of the companies' conspiratorial enterprise against the American public.

All of which is fascinating, and true, but does it address the issue?

 

[tigerbob]

1. Secondhand Smoke. Among the Left is a group of anti-smoking activists for whom abolishing tobacco use is a religious calling. When Americans did not respond as totally, nor as quickly, as the activists wished, they devised a new strategy: they told nonsmokers that the smokers were killing them! Since it was nearly impossible to point to people who died as a result of secondhand smoke, they use epidemiological studies, defined by the WHO as “the studey of the distribution and determinants of health-related states or events including disease” to “prove” their contention. 50,000 Americans a year, we are told, are killed by secondhand smoke. Hysteria masquerading as science.


2. Dr. James Enstrom, disputed the epidemiological studies on secondhand smoke in the British Medical Journal: “ 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…. Most epidemiological studies have found that environmental tobacco smoke has a positive but not statistically significant relation to coronary heart disease and lung cancer. ” Environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality in a prospective study of Californians, 1960-98 | BMJ

a. What happens when scientists disagree with the Left? “A longtime professor at UCLA, told that he would not be rehired because his "research is not aligned with the academic mission" of his department,… Enstrom, an epidemiologist at UCLA's School of Public Health, has a history of running against the grain. In 2003 he wrote a study, published in the British Medical Journal, in which he found no causal relationship between secondhand smoke and tobacco-related death – a conclusion that drew fire both because it was contrary to popular scientific belief and because it was funded by Philip Morris…. serious concerns not only about the diesel regulations but about academic freedom and scientific research as a whole.” Scientist's Firing After 36 Years Fuels 'PC' Debate at UCLA | Fox News



3. “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 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…. 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. … 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. “ Gio Batta Gori - The Bogus 'Science' of Secondhand Smoke



4. A real laugher is the outdoor smoking ban various nanny-state governments have instituted. “But no evidence demonstrates that the duration of outdoor exposure — in places where people can move freely about — is long enough to cause substantial health damage…. To make matters worse, in trying to convince people that even transient exposure to secondhand smoke is a potentially deadly hazard, smoking opponents risk losing scientific credibility.” http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/06/opinion/06siegel.html



5. Columbia University magazine included this in its “Letters” section, from Dr. Attila Mady: “The theatrics around the antismoking crusade not only discredit those who resort to fuzzy logic, but also compromise an overall laudable effort to improve public health. There are no prospective case-control studies of smokers. Nor will there ever be, since a properly designed study would require fifty years and millions of participants….Statistics ignore herd immunity and exposure to volatile and particulates since the onset of the industrial age and don’t translate into the real world.” Columbia Magazine, Spring 2012, p.4.


6. Hypothetically, as many individuals on the Right dislike smoking as do individuals on the Left…why, then, are those on the Left so much more likely to believe that secondhand smoke can seriously hurt their health, and, possibly, kill them? And why are Liberal cities, governed by Liberal, so much more likely to ban outdoor smoking….?

a. When Liberals hear the words ‘studies show,’ or ‘experts say,’ they cease to ‘question authority.’
Hence…Lock-Step Liberals

Ah yes. Second hand smoke is totally harmless. Light up in a closed room with someone with severe asthma. Something a 'Conservative' can truly enjoy.

Well, Rocks, no matter how much you believe it to be harmful, that's not really a basis for legislation is it?

 

[tigerbob]

Carcinogens are carcinogens. Introducing them willfully into the air that someone else has to breathe is a matter of ethics. Something that 'Conservatives' seem not to understand.

Let's ban fossil fuels.

 

[tigerbob]

Smokers smoke many thousands of cigarettes, sometimes hundreds of thousands, before they face serious health consequences. And, I'm suppose to be scared of occasional second-hand smoke when I'm not getting even 1 in 1000 as much smoke as the smoker, per cigarette?

Well, it depends. If there is a clear causative link between ETS and tobacco related disease, then yes, you should be sufficiently concerned to lobby for a ban on smoking in enclosed public places because you may be subjected to it. I don't think that would be an unreasonable position to take if a clear link existed.