To Smoke, or Not to Smoke (1 Viewer)

[Jack Fanning]

I was thinking the same thing.

Would you advocates of "smoker's rights" in restaurants like to see smoking ordinances repealed in other places of business; such as professional offices, medical offices and retail establishments?

And if not, what would be the difference?

 

[Scott Merryfield]

When a person's choice to exercise his/her "individual freedoms" impacts the health and well being of the public, that is when laws are enacted to help protect the public from such behavior. This comes in the form of traffic laws, building codes, and health codes. I may want to "exercise my individual freedom" by driving 100mph through a school zone, but there are laws against doing so. I may feel the need to urinate on the sidewalk, but there are laws preventing me from doing so.

Just because a person has a desire to engage in an activity that is harmful to his/her health, does not give that person the right to expose others to harmful fumes and permeate their hair and clothing with a vile, disgusting odor.

 

[Steve Kuester]

For those of you who are in favor of banning smoking in public places, why are you not in favor of completely banning smoking altogether if it is so harmful and vile to other people? I don't understand the idea of trying to fix a problem without actually trying to fix the problem.

Some of you say that it is okay for people to smoke in their own home, but what about the children living in that household? Shouldn't smoking be banned altogether? How is that not the logical conclusion to your point of view?

If an establishment has a notice that anyone who enters will be exposed to second hand smoke, people can choose not to go in that place. I guess it's just that simple to me.

 

[Jack Fanning]

That's quite a leap to presume that folks who want to eat a meal, ride in an airplane, work in an office, or shop in a retail facility without having to breath someone's cigarette smoke is in favor of completely banning smoking and regulating folks who want to smoke in their home.

I certainly don't

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

Not really, I would love it if smoking were to completely disappear. But, it probably never will so it's just wishful thinking on my part.

 

[Jason Pancake]

Jack,
I think a few of us have made it clear that this is a property rights issue not a "smoker's rights" issue. I personally hate cigarette smoke and make a point to visit smoke-free restaurants. What I won't do is enlist the power of the Government to sacrifice another person's liberty for my own self-serving interests.

To answer your question, yes, I would like to see smoking ordinances repealed in other places of business. I think the business owners can make their own decisions regarding which activities will be allowed on the premises. With today's attitudes toward smoking I believe that most bans would remain in place voluntarily.


Scott,
Your entire argument rests on the premise that second-hand smoke causes ill health. There is still no conclusive, quantitative data linking public second-hand smoke to ill health of any kind.

Just because a person has a desire to engage in an activity that is harmful to his/her health, does not give that person the right to expose others to harmful fumes and permeate their hair and clothing with a vile, disgusting odor.

I've already proposed a very simple solution to this problem. If you want to allow smoking on your property, fine. If you want to ban smoking on your property, fine. You're free to choose either establishment. If you don't like smoke... walk away. It's as simple as that.

 

[Jack Fanning]

Sez you...

http://www.lungusa.org/site/pp.asp?c=dvLUK9O0E&b=35422
Secondhand Smoke Fact Sheet
November 2004

Secondhand smoke, also know as environmental tobacco smoke, is a mixture of the smoke given off by the burning end of a cigarette, pipe or cigar and the smoke exhaled from the lungs of smokers. It is involuntarily inhaled by nonsmokers, lingers in the air hours after cigarettes have been extinguished and can cause or exacerbates a wide range of adverse health effects, including cancer, respiratory infections, and asthma.1

Secondhand smoke has been classified by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as a known cause of cancer in humans (Group A carcinogen).2
Secondhand smoke causes approximately 3,000 lung cancer deaths and 35,000 heart disease deaths in adult nonsmokers in the United States each year.3
A study found that nonsmokers exposed to environmental smoke were 25 percent more likely to have coronary heart diseases compared to nonsmokers not exposed to smoke.4
Nonsmokers exposed to secondhand smoke at work are at increased risk for adverse health effects. Levels of ETS in restaurants and bars were found to be 2 to 5 times higher than in residences with smokers and 2 to 6 times higher than in office workplaces.5
Since 1999, 70 percent of the U.S. workforce worked under a smoke-free policy, ranging from 83.9 percent in Utah to 48.7 percent in Nevada.6 Workplace productivity was increased and absenteeism was decreased among former smokers compared with current smokers.7
Secondhand smoke is especially harmful to young children. Secondhand smoke is responsible for between 150,000 and 300,000 lower respiratory tract infections in infants and children under 18 months of age, resulting in between 7,500 and 15,000 hospitalizations each year, and causes 1,900 to 2,700 sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) deaths in the United States annually.8
Secondhand smoke exposure may cause buildup of fluid in the middle ear, resulting in 700,000 to 1.6 million physician office visits per year. Secondhand smoke can also aggravate symptoms in 200,000 to 1,000,000 children with asthma.10
In the United States, 21 million, or 35 percent of, children live in homes where residents or visitors smoke in the home on a regular basis.11 Approximately 50-75 percent of children in the United States have detectable levels of cotinine, the breakdown product of nicotine in the blood.12
New research indicates that secret research conducted by cigarette company Philip Morris in the 1980s showed that secondhand smoke was highly toxic, yet the company suppressed the finding during the next two decades.13
For more information on secondhand smoke, please review the Tobacco Morbidity and Mortality Trend Report as well as our Lung Disease Data publication in the Data and Statistics section of our website, or call the American Lung Association at 1-800-LUNG-USA (1-800-586-4872).
Sources:

California Environmental Protection Agency. Health Effects of Exposure to Environmental Tobacco Smoke. September 1997.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Respiratory Health Effects of Passive Smoking: Lung Cancer and Other Disorders. December 1992.
California Environmental Protection Agency. Health Effects of Exposure to Environmental Tobacco Smoke. September 1997.
He, J.; Vupputuri, S.; Allen, K.; et al. Passive Smoking and the Risk of Coronary Heart Disease-A Meta-Analysis of Epidemiologic Studies. New England Journal of Medicine 1999; 340: 920-6.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Report on Carcinogens, Tenth Edition 2002. National Toxicology Program.
Shopland, D. Smoke-Free Workplace Coverage. Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. 2001; 43(8): 680-686.
Halpern, M.T.; Shikiar, R.; Rentz, A.M.; Khan, Z.M. Impact of Smoking Status on Workplace Absenteeism and Productivity. Tobacco Control 2001; 10: 233-238.
California Environmental Protection Agency. Health Effects of Exposure to Environmental Tobacco Smoke. September 1997.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Schuster, MA, Franke T, Pham CB. Smoking Patterns of Household Members and Visitors in Homes with Children in United States. Archives of Pediatric Adolescent Medicine. Vol. 156, 2002: 1094-1100.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. America's Children and the Environment: Measures of Contaminants, Body Burdens, and Illnesses. Second Edition. February 2003
Diethelm PA, Rielle JC, McKee M. The Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth? The Research Philip Morris Did Not Want You to See. Lancet. Vol.

 

[Jason Pancake]

So as long as the property owner makes it clear that his place of business, be it a pediatric clinic, daycare center, etc., is a smoking establishment, then the local government should not interfere and regulate, even in a small backward town where there aren't many/any other choices? Improbable, but not impossible scenario.

Yes. Property rights are absolute. I'm glad we have that straightened out.

These extreme hypotheticals are getting a bit silly. Do you honestly believe that if these bans were lifted that pediatricians and daycare centers would allow smoking in their facilities? Feel free to name a single pediatrician that would do this. I know none at all.

Sez you...

Checkmate:
http://www.davehitt.com/facts/

 

[Jack Fanning]

Thanks, but I'm gonna go ahead and keep the opinion that secondhand smoke is harmful to your health, especially to children.

 

[RobertR]

Just because states ignore property rights doesn't mean they don't exist.

 

[Joe D]

When will it all end?

First smoking bans in restaurants, but what next?



This would work way better for me than having the government telling people they can't smoke.

I'm a non-smoker btw.

 

[JeremyErwin]

Secondhand smoke exposure in adulthood and risk of lung cancer among never smokers: A pooled analysis of two large studies


sigh
"Cite This! Cite That!" You skeptics never stop!

 

[Carl Miller]

This is nice, in principle, but where do you draw the line Scott? There comes a point where such principles can go from reasonable to absurd, depending on how they're applied.

For example...I ride the NYC subway to work everyday, and since I started doing that, I've gotten sick more often than I used to when I drove to work everyday.

This has happened because I'm getting sneezed and coughed on daily by people who do not cover their mouths when they cough or sneeze. Such ill mannered people, exercising their right not to cover their mouths when sneezing and coughing are making me sick, literally.

No joke Scott, this is serious stuff. I can get the flu from these people, and that could turn into pneumonia and that could potentially kill me.

Medical facts are medical facts, and there is a plethora of scientific evidence that clearly and unequivocably proves that the spread of contagious airborne germs can be signficantly reduced if people would just cover their damn mouths in public when they cough or sneeze.

But they don't. These ill mannered people are everywhere, and I believe there should be a law requiring that if you're in public, whether inside or outside and you sneeze or cough, you must cover your mouth. Further, I believe all violators of this law should be ticketed for each offense in an amount no less than the average cost of a doctors visit.

Did I mention that I don't want this to be one of those silly unenforceable laws? Like speed limits? No no, I want Sneezing Cops and Coughing Cops out there in force, doling out the tickets to the people making me sick.

I'm not comparing sneezing to smoking, or coughing to cancer. I'm simply taking the principle you stated and running with it.

My point is simply this. Banning indoor smoking, fine. Banning outdoor smoking in stadiums and other public gathering places where people are in close quarters, fine. Banning smoking within 20 feet of places of employment so non smoking employees don't have to walk past and thru a cloud of smoke created by 10 thoughtless smokers to get inside their place of work, fine.

But banning smoking anywhere outdoors? Not fine. It's not reasonable as long as the product itself is legal to consume, and it's the ultimate of intolerence in a world that must be shared...Where everyone must coexist and tolerate eachother to some degree, so that human beings remain at least somewhat civil. And so absurd and ridiculous laws are not created because one absurd law begets another and sooner or later, everyone is effected adversely by it.

If some guy wants to walk his dog on the street, and light up a cigarette, it should not be illegal for him to do so simply because a non-smoker
may step outside his front door onto the street.

Such a law would be beyond ridiculous as it shows absolutely zero tolerance, and demonstrates no recognition of the fact that the non-smoker could wait 30 seconds for the smoker to pass. Or for the non-smoker to walk further behind, or speed up to get in front of the smoker....Or, better yet, the non-smoker could actually say to the smoker, please put that out. Better still, that the smoker and non-smoker in just this one instance, could actually coexist with eachother without one or both behaving as if they are the sole owners of the planet everyone lives on.

 

[Rob Gardiner]

Jason,


Washington's Clean Indoor Air Act (aka the "public smoking ban") was passed by a popular vote, winning 63% to 37%, after lengthy public debate. On the federal level, workplace safety regulations are the domain of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, created by an act of (duly elected members of) Congress and signed into law by (also duly elected) President Nixon in 1970. This isn't totalitarianism, it's democracy, my friend.

 

[Rob Gardiner]

Steve,


I have tremendous respect for you and your opinions, but I'd like to point out that the debunked EPA study is cited only by opponents of smoking bans. Do you have any information that refutes the 1986 Surgeon General's study I linked to above?

Or let me put it another way: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. We know that first-hand smoking is hazardous to one's health, and increases one's risk for cancer. It is extraordinary to claim that second-hand smoke is not similarly hazardous. Why don't smoking ban opponents bear the burden of demonstrating how a smoke particle can differentiate between the lung tissue of a smoker and the lung tissue of a non-smoker?

 

[RobertR]

This ignores the issue of significance. When you take an airline flight, there is a nonzero chance that it will crash. Does this mean airline travel is "unsafe"?

Where I work we calculate the toxicological risk from exposure to toxic chemicals. We say a site is safe if the risk is less than or equal to 10E-6. This is an acknowledgement of the fact that trying to achieve zero risk is unrealistic.

 

[RyanAn]

Wow, when I first posted the question, I never would have thought it was going to be such a big debate, but I appreicate everyone's feedback. I am sorry for people's personal loses, and it just furthers me personal beliefs on smoking.

While not as to the point of what happeend, last year my grandmother was admitted to the hospital and it was found that she was very close to getting emphazema, but luckily it was caught and prevented in time. I do not know what I would do if something happened to her, and I hope some people's outlooks are widened in some way.


I personally would not be in a fit of rage if cigarettes and tobacco were completely banned, but I understand a person's right to choose. I just wish it could be even more obvious as to what the harmful effects can be.

Mandatory booklets and videos about the effects of smoking with tests taken before each carton is bought?

If someone wants to smoke in their home, that's fine for them. My whole reasoning for this thread was to hear other people's thoughts and to express mine. I don't want it in any public places that will remotely effect the people who do not want it around them.


Ryan

 

[Todd Hochard]

All the "Orwellian," "Totalitarian,' etc. hyperbole ignore the fact that many of these no-smoking bans were put into effect by popular vote.

 

[Chu Gai]

Saddam won his last election by something like 99% of the popular vote.

 

[Philip Hamm]

And I personally believe that the evidence for second hand smoking and lung cancer requires such evidence. I mean, smoking isn't the sole cause of lung cancer. I'm sure all the diesel particulates we inhale as we drive are causational. It's well established that Radon gas, which is basically everywhere, is a major cause as well. There are other environmental factors as well. I don't know that it's even possible to deal with all these factors in an epidemiogically valid way. We're not going to start raising people in bubbles. Maybe more rat tests are in order, that's how the original big smoking cancer links were made in the 50s. Probably I just have to read more.