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Friday, September 29, 2006

Re: Largest landlord forbids smoking (Sept. 19).

The news that Winnipeg's largest landlord is going to refuse to rent to smokers represents an alarming development. Globe General Agencies has thousands of suites in Winnipeg, representing a major portion of available rental suites. Denying smokers the right to rent any of these homes is a concern.
It doesn't make sense. Globe is going to turn down applicants with a good reference, good job, good credit, good manners and a clean record -- just because they smoke? Will it accept someone who doesn't have all those pluses just because they don't smoke?
If Globe is not stopped, there is no guarantee other rental agencies will not follow suit. They will be under increasing pressure to adopt such bans from anti-smoking groups, which have made no bones about the fact that they believe it is fair game to go after smokers in their homes.
NANCY DAIGNEAULT http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/subscriber/editorial/story/3706161p-4283855c.html

Killing the passive smoking debate
By Michael Fumento

Jun 29, 2006

"Secondhand smoke debate `over." That's the message from the Surgeon General's office, delivered by a sycophantic media. The claim is that the science has now overwhelmingly proved that smoke from others' cigarettes can kill you. Actually, "debate over" simply means: "If you have your doubts, shut up!"
But you definitely should have doubts over the new Surgeon General's report, a massive 727-page door stop. Like many massive reports on controversial issues, it's probably designed that way so nobody (especially reporters on deadline) will want to or have time to read beyond the executive summary. That includes me; if I had that much time I'd reread War and Peace. Twice. But the report admits it contains no new science so we can evaluate it based on research already available.
First consider the 1993 EPA study that began the passive smoking crusade. It declared such smoke a carcinogen based on a combined analysis (meta-analysis) of 11 mostly tiny studies. The media quickly fell into line, with headlines blaring: "Passive Smoking Kills Thousands" and editorials demanding: "Ban Hazardous Smoking; Report Shows It's a Killer."
But the EPA's report had more holes than a spaghetti strainer. Its greatest weakness was the agency's refusal to use the gold standard in epidemiology, the 95 percent confidence interval. This simply means there are only five chances in 100 that the conclusion came about just by chance, even if the study itself was done correctly.
Curiously, the EPA decided to use a 90 percent level, effectively doubling the likelihood of getting its result by sheer luck of the draw.
Why would it do such a strange thing? You guessed it. Its results weren't significant at the 95 percent level. Essentially, it moved the goal posts back because the football had fallen short. In scientific terminology this is know as "dishonesty."
Two much larger meta-analyses have appeared since the EPA's. One was conducted on behalf of the World Health Organization and covered seven countries over seven years. Published in 1998, it actually showed a statistically significant reduced risk for children of smokers, though we can assume that was a fluke. But it also showed no increase for spouses and co-workers of smokers.
The second meta-analysis, published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) in 2002, likewise found a statistical significance when 48 studies were combined. Looked at separately, though, only seven showed significant excesses of lung cancer. Thus 41 did not.
Meta-analysis, though, suffer from such problems as different studies having been conducted in different ways – the apples and oranges conundrum. What was really needed was one study involving a huge number of participants over a long period of time using the same evaluation.
We got that in the prestigious British Medical Journal in 2003. Research professor James Enstrom of UCLA and professor Geoffrey Kabat of the State University of New York, Stony Brook presented results of a 39-year study of 35,561 Californians, which dwarfed in size everything that came before. It found no "causal relationship between exposure to [passive smoke] and tobacco-related mortality," adding, however "a small effect" can't be ruled out.
The reason active tobacco smoking could be such a terrible killer while passive smoke may cause no deaths lies in the dictum "the dose makes the poison." We are constantly bombarded by carcinogens, but in tiny amounts the body usually easily fends them off.
A New England Journal of Medicine study found that even back in 1975 – when having smoke obnoxiously puffed into your face was ubiquitous in restaurants, cocktail lounges, and transportation lounges – the concentration was equal to merely 0.004 cigarettes an hour. That's not quite the same as smoking two packs a day, is it?
But none of this has the least impact on the various federal, state, and city agencies and organizations like the American Lung Association for a very good reason. They already know they're scientifically wrong. The purpose of the passive smoking campaign has never been to protect non-smokers, but rather to cow smokers into giving up the habit.
It's easy to agree with the ultimate goal, but inventing scientific outcomes and shutting down scientific debate as a means is as intolerable as it was when Nazi Germany "proved" the validity of eugenics.
Michael Fumento is a senior fellow at Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C., the author of BioEvolution.__._,_.___

Thursday, September 28, 2006

Sept. 27/06

As a follow up to the research article "Silencing Science"http://pus.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/14/1/5.pdf#search=%22silencing%20science%3A%20partisanship%22 I wrote a thank you note to the author found below the content may be useful to many of you.Hello Sheldon;I am writing to commend you on an excellent article. It is refreshing to see some independent thought still exists in the free world. During an extended illness I personally spent probably too much time researching many of the items you mentioned. My research was entirely consistent with your views and the dangers they pose in the rapid degradation of societal ethics. I for one am not comforted with the replacement of physical science with the political variety. There is another article at BMJ which proved to be almost as controversial as the Second hand smoke debate. The Helena study actually saw a more balanced debate in the BMJ however the popular media seemed to embrace only the seemingly incredible conclusions cited in the report. [http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/eletters/bmj.38055.715683.55v1#129369]I was similarly aghast when the popular media almost blacklisted the reporting of health effects of the six cities study [http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/press/releases/press03152006.html] apparently for no other good reason than to hide the deceptions being presented in anti smoking rhetoric. The American Lung Association advocated to lower permissible particulate levels this year they were met with so much opposition they removed all mention of the research from their website.I had a response published in connection with the acceptance of hatred as a valid tool of advocacy and the seemingly unchallenged validity of such a premise. The article can be found here [http://tc.bmjjournals.com/cgi/eletters/14/suppl_2/ii3#499] I more recently wrote the publisher of the BMJ [Found below] and was rewarded with threats and personal attacks as a reward for what I see as a valid observation.If you are interested there is a blog by a former anti tobacco advocate Michael Siegal, who was turfed from the group for simply asking the group to stay withing credible and ethical guidelines. Not a popular move obviously.[http://tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.com/]Thank you for producing an excellent well researched study It really is time all sides of the discussions were heard.Best regards; Kevin MulvinaSent to Simon Chapman, editor Tobacco Control at the British Medical Journal[simonchapman@health.usyd.edu.au]"Of all tyrannies a tyranny exercised for the good of its victim may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.- C.S. Lewis. "The support for smoking bans is derived of information which is entirely political in nature. The controversial nature of epidemiology and the information the studies provide is proof in itself of an expression of pure politics. The effective and deliberate exclusion of contravening voices who object to the validity, does not diminish the fact the proof is political. The comments attacking one of the most extensive studies ever done into the effects of second hand smoke, as published and posted in the British Medical Journal, in regards to research of Enstrom & Kabat is proof of those exclusions and the inability of public health to participate in a debate or discussion of their unilateralist theories. The study's conclusions were also found in the World Health Organizations extensive research found also published at the BMJ, the fact the dangers of second hand smoke are exaggerated and unsubstantiated in theory, in biological assay or in time line observation.Public health is a political movement with a deceptive name which seeks control in bypassing the electoral process, developed in American industry and sponsored by such groups as Planned Parenthood formerly of Eugenics fame, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation who are involved in smoking patch sales. Stakeholders gain control through coercive and extortive means and can not be ignored any longer. They have stated a long list of priorities of which the campaigns are already being planned and distributed, they plan to continue to undermine autonomy rights and free will, to achieve those ends. Undermining the democratic voice of the people is a matter of national security.A group which operates with stakeholders or partners in both the private and the public sector openly. NGOs and stakeholders also participate in UN agencies specifically the World Health Organization, who's predictions appear in many of the "News release" opinion pieces distributed as scientific research. More often than not the lead in to give credence to these opinions reads as; by the year 2020 the World health organization predicts...In a democracy the public sector or civil servants are obliged to remain politically neutral by law. Any expenditure to purchase politics with the public purse is entirely illegal.Mussolini described his brand of politics as industrial socialism which is an entirely accurate definition of the group we now know as Public Health.The article found here speaks volumeshttp://tc.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/14/suppl_2/ii3?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&minscore=5000&resourcetype=HWCITThe article found here describes the increased mortality risk which results of following the witch hunts.Punishing the users while ignoring the product which the CDC and the WHO know could be much safer.If they were really interested in reductions of mortality above the obvious stakeholders financial interests..http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=16085512&itool=iconabstr&query_hl=6&itool=pubmed_docsumPrior to the witch hunt other possibilities used to exist including this opinion piece. which incredibly suggests coal could be more dangerous than Tobacco smoke?http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/235/4785/217This from the authors one the largest second hand smoke research studies to date based totally in information provided by the American cancer society.http://www.journalsonline.tandf.co.uk/(d2j53lzm15q51545g2wbkcyt)/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,5,6;journal,9,124;linkingpublicationresults,1:100660,1>From the supreme court judge who evaluated the politics involvedhttp://www.junkscience.com/news2/zion.htm

Monday, September 25, 2006

The Big Smoke? Hardly

JAN WONG POSTED ON 23/09/06

Sean Penn's puffing made an issue of Ontario's no-smoking rule, but are Torontonians ready to shut the door on smokers? As JAN WONG learns, we may think it's a filthy habit -- but some of us aren't ready to say so
So I'm not Sean Penn. This week, I lit a cigarette in the lobby of the Sutton Place Hotel. I had taken one long drag when a concierge behind me shrieked, in a decidedly unconcierge-like tone, "Excuse me! There's no smoking in here! You need to go outside!"
"It's a criminal offence," another concierge chimed in. "We just got fined $600."
After I scooted outside, the second concierge said, "That's gross."
"It's smelly too," the first agreed. She phoned for emergency air freshener. (I know this last bit from debriefing a witness -- okay, our photographer -- who was still in the lobby.) After the Hollywood actor shocked le tout Toronto last week by puffing at a film-festival press conference at the Sutton Place Hotel, The Globe and Mail decided to test the new Smoke-Free Ontario Act. The law took effect on May 31 and bans smoking virtually everywhere but the great outdoors.
One in five adults smokes in the province, but Toronto has only eight staff dedicated to enforcing the new law. Police officers can also issue fines -- when they're not worrying about gang-related shootings. After that, enforcement is largely up to the private sector, under threat of fines if they don't.
I drew up a list of 10 promising scofflaw spots, ranging from The Globe's roof deck to the foyer of the Ontario Court of Appeal. Fernando Morales, a Globe photographer and my partner in crime, is a some-time smoker. I suggested that he smoke and I take photos. He declined.
Neither of us had any cigarettes. He's trying to quit, and I'm a semi-militant non-smoker who fervently hopes that my two teenaged sons never take up smoking. Fernando bummed our first cigarette from a photo editor. Then we headed up to The Globe's partly sheltered rooftop deck.
An unroofed section has green signs stapled to the fence: "Smoking is permitted in this area." A roofed section has red signs: "No smoking." I awkwardly lit up there. (I haven't had a cigarette since high school.) There were only two colleagues on the deck, both smokers, both guys, dutifully puffing away in the green zone. Neither came over to make a citizen's arrest.
In fact, we were all breaking the law, according to Rob Colvin, a municipal official with Toronto Public Health whose pleasant title is Manager, Healthy Environments. "If there's any covering of any size over the patio, the entire patio has to be smoke-free," he later told me.
Before I set out, I had read the new act on-line. It was hard to figure out, so the day of my crime spree, I dropped by an information booth at Dundas Square. "You can smoke outside, as long as you're nine metres from a public building," said the young man at the booth.
Like Bonnie and Clyde, Fernando and I chose our locales carefully. At a Coffee Time in Parkdale, the erstwhile glassed-in smoking room looked forlorn and smelled of stale urine. We bought coffee and headed into it, past a big "No Smoking" sign now properly posted on the door.
I lit up. Four nanoseconds later, the owner burst into the room. "What you're doing is not allowed," he shouted. "There's no smoking in all of Ontario. I will get a $5,000 fine."
In fact, he wasn't at risk. According to Mr. Colvin, if the proprietor has posted proper signage and made a reasonable effort to inform me, he's off the hook. I was the one risking a $305 fine for recalcitrant smokers.
I stupidly looked around for an ashtray. Of course, there was none. "Go outside," the owner said, looking quite stressed. "It's a big problem. We lost all our business to smoking."
He meant, of course, the anti-smoking legislation. Indeed, the smoking room took up one-third the floor area, but was empty except for a solitary man reading a Chinese newspaper. I went outside and put out my cigarette. I came back in and explained I was a Globe reporter working on a smoking story. I asked him his name. He walked away. A few minutes later, he returned.
"Are you a Canadian citizen?" he asked. I nodded. "I'm calling the police," he said.
I wanted to take it on the lam. Fernando suggested that we tough it out, in the interests of investigative reporting. Besides, my coffee was too hot to drink.
We waited about 15 minutes, but the police never showed up. Presumably, they were tied up with those gang shootings.
We drove along Bloor Street West until I spotted a sidewalk café with a fixed awning. Fernando ordered an espresso. I ordered a latte. Then I tried to light up.
"How do you light a cigarette in the wind?" I asked Fernando.
"I will do it for you," he said gallantly. I puffed away. I did the Bill Clinton thing, of course. I didn't inhale. But the bitter taste still ruined my latte. It was just noon. The Ristorante Roma was deserted, and the waitress didn't stop me.
We headed for Rosedale. If Parkdale was tough, would Rosedale be genteel -- especially if I dropped $47 on a burger, one tea and poutine? The Rosedale Diner was two-thirds full. Fernando ordered the burger. I had poutine, in homage to my current troubles in Quebec (see Prime Minister Stephen Harper's letter in Thursday's paper.) The poutine came with braised short ribs. Nicotine hadn't suppressed my appetite. I polished off the meat and potatoes and lit a cigarette. The sound system was playing Falling in Love With You. I looked at my watch. One minute and 12 seconds later, the manager loomed. "You can't smoke anywhere in Ontario," she said loudly. "We're going to get fined."
Smoking is in such disrepute these days that people don't lower their voices to tell you to butt out. They scold you like a Grade 5 teacher. And like a teacher sending a naughty student into the hall, the manager pointed to the door. "You have to go outside."
I came back in sheepishly, paid the bill, and headed for the Sutton Place Hotel.
After I lit up and was peremptorily ejected, I came back inside to talk to the two concierges. They were both pleasant young women with name tags that said "Mackenzie" and "Jennifer." When I explained my assignment, Jennifer ran to summon a manager and Mackenzie gave me some matches so I could complete the day's work.
"Have some breath mints," she added, her concierge ethos resurfacing. She popped open a tin of her own mints. Meanwhile, a houseman showed up with air freshener. He spritzed the chair where I had been sitting. For good measure, he spritzed a bouquet of fresh flowers on a side table. For the Penn incident, the hotel had been fined $240 for something called "signage failure" and $365 for "failure to inform."
Mackenzie said that, Sean Penn notwithstanding, the hotel's no-smoking policy had always been strict -- in spite of the guests. "You wouldn't believe the number of people in the past few months who light up cigars here."
Next, Fernando and I headed to a food court in the Eaton Centre. I lit up. The woman at the end of my table focused on her container of New York Fries. She ignored me. So did everyone else. I smoked the entire cigarette.
Then we walked to the bus terminal on Elizabeth Street. A sign at the entrance explicitly prohibited smoking everywhere, including the bus bay area where people have traditionally smoked. I got in line for the bus to Montreal and lit up. As I puffed, I counted six no-smoking signs. Surreally, the public-address system was broadcasting the new anti-smoking bylaw. Again, everyone avoided eye contact. I finished my cigarette, unchallenged.
Feeling slightly nauseous, I headed for the Court of Appeal at Osgoode Hall. I passed through the metal detector, which was manned by three armed police officers. This time, Fernando kept a safe distance.
Just past the security check, I sat down in a ceremonial leather chair, its oak frame carved with the Ontario coat of arms. My hands shaking, from nerves or nicotine, I lit up. After two puffs, one of the police officers stuck his head around the corner and said, in a scandalized tone, "Is that cigarette lit?" Like everyone else that day, he was shouting. "You can't smoke in here!"
Out of deference for the antique marble floor, I extinguished the cigarette on my sole. I didn't get arrested. I didn't get fined. But the police officer told another police officer, disbelievingly, "She's smoking in here!" The other officer shook his head.
We went to Queen's Park, where the Smoke-Free Ontario Act had passed. I smoked boldly inside the nine-metre forbidden zone. Nothing happened. I later found out from Mr. Colvin, the healthy environments manager, that the restriction applies only to health-care facilities.
My last stop was a bar, Woody's, near Church and Wellesley. We ordered drinks. I lit up. All the tables around me were filled. But no one said a thing.
At day's end, my scofflaw stats were five cigarettes smoked illegally; four aborted; and one that didn't count.
Still, we've come a long way, baby. In each place, it's not as though I joined a crowd of puffing law-breakers. I was the only one.
What struck me is how effortlessly the government has shifted the burden of enforcement onto the private sector. Private citizens, though, aren't jumping in to help. I couldn't believe fellow patrons said nothing in the food court or the bus station. Perhaps smoking has become such a deviant behaviour that they assumed I had to be a nutbar and kept their distance. But in the absence of authority, a determined nicotine addict can sometimes light up with impunity.
Mr. Colvin, the healthy environments manager, said about 10 per cent of the fines issued so far have been against individual smokers. "The first step would be to inform you. If you neglected to put it out, or you were standing beside a no-smoking sign and we pointed it out and you shrugged your shoulders, you would get a ticket," he said.
Although his staff is laughably outnumbered, reinforcements include about 75 public-health inspectors. Mr. Colvin agreed that it was unrealistic to expect any officer to respond to a call in time to fine someone who is smoking, so his staff sometimes resorts to undercover operations, mostly in the entertainment district. "Our officers will actually pose as customers. They will see if the proprietor is upholding their side of the act. We may have an officer inside the establishment. And we'll send a second officer to observe what's going on. Then the first officer leaves. You can imagine they think the coast is clear."
The next day, I called Christopher Ashby, a spokesman for Sutton Place. He said that during the film festival, the hotel had had no-smoking signs up, but "not the correct, official signage." Asked what that might be, he said carefully, "Ones with white background. Some of the gold ones are fine too."
Mr. Ashby was gratified to hear that the concierges had acted fast. And before I could ask, he posed my next question himself. "Was it because he was Sean Penn that he could smoke at the Sutton Place? No. We were not present. We could not have stopped him."
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20060923.SMOKING23/TPStory/National/columnists

The Big Smoke? Hardly

JAN WONG POSTED ON 23/09/06

Sean Penn's puffing made an issue of Ontario's no-smoking rule, but are Torontonians ready to shut the door on smokers? As JAN WONG learns, we may think it's a filthy habit -- but some of us aren't ready to say so
So I'm not Sean Penn. This week, I lit a cigarette in the lobby of the Sutton Place Hotel. I had taken one long drag when a concierge behind me shrieked, in a decidedly unconcierge-like tone, "Excuse me! There's no smoking in here! You need to go outside!"
"It's a criminal offence," another concierge chimed in. "We just got fined $600."
After I scooted outside, the second concierge said, "That's gross."
"It's smelly too," the first agreed. She phoned for emergency air freshener. (I know this last bit from debriefing a witness -- okay, our photographer -- who was still in the lobby.) After the Hollywood actor shocked le tout Toronto last week by puffing at a film-festival press conference at the Sutton Place Hotel, The Globe and Mail decided to test the new Smoke-Free Ontario Act. The law took effect on May 31 and bans smoking virtually everywhere but the great outdoors.
One in five adults smokes in the province, but Toronto has only eight staff dedicated to enforcing the new law. Police officers can also issue fines -- when they're not worrying about gang-related shootings. After that, enforcement is largely up to the private sector, under threat of fines if they don't.
I drew up a list of 10 promising scofflaw spots, ranging from The Globe's roof deck to the foyer of the Ontario Court of Appeal. Fernando Morales, a Globe photographer and my partner in crime, is a some-time smoker. I suggested that he smoke and I take photos. He declined.
Neither of us had any cigarettes. He's trying to quit, and I'm a semi-militant non-smoker who fervently hopes that my two teenaged sons never take up smoking. Fernando bummed our first cigarette from a photo editor. Then we headed up to The Globe's partly sheltered rooftop deck.
An unroofed section has green signs stapled to the fence: "Smoking is permitted in this area." A roofed section has red signs: "No smoking." I awkwardly lit up there. (I haven't had a cigarette since high school.) There were only two colleagues on the deck, both smokers, both guys, dutifully puffing away in the green zone. Neither came over to make a citizen's arrest.
In fact, we were all breaking the law, according to Rob Colvin, a municipal official with Toronto Public Health whose pleasant title is Manager, Healthy Environments. "If there's any covering of any size over the patio, the entire patio has to be smoke-free," he later told me.
Before I set out, I had read the new act on-line. It was hard to figure out, so the day of my crime spree, I dropped by an information booth at Dundas Square. "You can smoke outside, as long as you're nine metres from a public building," said the young man at the booth.
Like Bonnie and Clyde, Fernando and I chose our locales carefully. At a Coffee Time in Parkdale, the erstwhile glassed-in smoking room looked forlorn and smelled of stale urine. We bought coffee and headed into it, past a big "No Smoking" sign now properly posted on the door.
I lit up. Four nanoseconds later, the owner burst into the room. "What you're doing is not allowed," he shouted. "There's no smoking in all of Ontario. I will get a $5,000 fine."
In fact, he wasn't at risk. According to Mr. Colvin, if the proprietor has posted proper signage and made a reasonable effort to inform me, he's off the hook. I was the one risking a $305 fine for recalcitrant smokers.
I stupidly looked around for an ashtray. Of course, there was none. "Go outside," the owner said, looking quite stressed. "It's a big problem. We lost all our business to smoking."
He meant, of course, the anti-smoking legislation. Indeed, the smoking room took up one-third the floor area, but was empty except for a solitary man reading a Chinese newspaper. I went outside and put out my cigarette. I came back in and explained I was a Globe reporter working on a smoking story. I asked him his name. He walked away. A few minutes later, he returned.
"Are you a Canadian citizen?" he asked. I nodded. "I'm calling the police," he said.
I wanted to take it on the lam. Fernando suggested that we tough it out, in the interests of investigative reporting. Besides, my coffee was too hot to drink.
We waited about 15 minutes, but the police never showed up. Presumably, they were tied up with those gang shootings.
We drove along Bloor Street West until I spotted a sidewalk café with a fixed awning. Fernando ordered an espresso. I ordered a latte. Then I tried to light up.
"How do you light a cigarette in the wind?" I asked Fernando.
"I will do it for you," he said gallantly. I puffed away. I did the Bill Clinton thing, of course. I didn't inhale. But the bitter taste still ruined my latte. It was just noon. The Ristorante Roma was deserted, and the waitress didn't stop me.
We headed for Rosedale. If Parkdale was tough, would Rosedale be genteel -- especially if I dropped $47 on a burger, one tea and poutine? The Rosedale Diner was two-thirds full. Fernando ordered the burger. I had poutine, in homage to my current troubles in Quebec (see Prime Minister Stephen Harper's letter in Thursday's paper.) The poutine came with braised short ribs. Nicotine hadn't suppressed my appetite. I polished off the meat and potatoes and lit a cigarette. The sound system was playing Falling in Love With You. I looked at my watch. One minute and 12 seconds later, the manager loomed. "You can't smoke anywhere in Ontario," she said loudly. "We're going to get fined."
Smoking is in such disrepute these days that people don't lower their voices to tell you to butt out. They scold you like a Grade 5 teacher. And like a teacher sending a naughty student into the hall, the manager pointed to the door. "You have to go outside."
I came back in sheepishly, paid the bill, and headed for the Sutton Place Hotel.
After I lit up and was peremptorily ejected, I came back inside to talk to the two concierges. They were both pleasant young women with name tags that said "Mackenzie" and "Jennifer." When I explained my assignment, Jennifer ran to summon a manager and Mackenzie gave me some matches so I could complete the day's work.
"Have some breath mints," she added, her concierge ethos resurfacing. She popped open a tin of her own mints. Meanwhile, a houseman showed up with air freshener. He spritzed the chair where I had been sitting. For good measure, he spritzed a bouquet of fresh flowers on a side table. For the Penn incident, the hotel had been fined $240 for something called "signage failure" and $365 for "failure to inform."
Mackenzie said that, Sean Penn notwithstanding, the hotel's no-smoking policy had always been strict -- in spite of the guests. "You wouldn't believe the number of people in the past few months who light up cigars here."
Next, Fernando and I headed to a food court in the Eaton Centre. I lit up. The woman at the end of my table focused on her container of New York Fries. She ignored me. So did everyone else. I smoked the entire cigarette.
Then we walked to the bus terminal on Elizabeth Street. A sign at the entrance explicitly prohibited smoking everywhere, including the bus bay area where people have traditionally smoked. I got in line for the bus to Montreal and lit up. As I puffed, I counted six no-smoking signs. Surreally, the public-address system was broadcasting the new anti-smoking bylaw. Again, everyone avoided eye contact. I finished my cigarette, unchallenged.
Feeling slightly nauseous, I headed for the Court of Appeal at Osgoode Hall. I passed through the metal detector, which was manned by three armed police officers. This time, Fernando kept a safe distance.
Just past the security check, I sat down in a ceremonial leather chair, its oak frame carved with the Ontario coat of arms. My hands shaking, from nerves or nicotine, I lit up. After two puffs, one of the police officers stuck his head around the corner and said, in a scandalized tone, "Is that cigarette lit?" Like everyone else that day, he was shouting. "You can't smoke in here!"
Out of deference for the antique marble floor, I extinguished the cigarette on my sole. I didn't get arrested. I didn't get fined. But the police officer told another police officer, disbelievingly, "She's smoking in here!" The other officer shook his head.
We went to Queen's Park, where the Smoke-Free Ontario Act had passed. I smoked boldly inside the nine-metre forbidden zone. Nothing happened. I later found out from Mr. Colvin, the healthy environments manager, that the restriction applies only to health-care facilities.
My last stop was a bar, Woody's, near Church and Wellesley. We ordered drinks. I lit up. All the tables around me were filled. But no one said a thing.
At day's end, my scofflaw stats were five cigarettes smoked illegally; four aborted; and one that didn't count.
Still, we've come a long way, baby. In each place, it's not as though I joined a crowd of puffing law-breakers. I was the only one.
What struck me is how effortlessly the government has shifted the burden of enforcement onto the private sector. Private citizens, though, aren't jumping in to help. I couldn't believe fellow patrons said nothing in the food court or the bus station. Perhaps smoking has become such a deviant behaviour that they assumed I had to be a nutbar and kept their distance. But in the absence of authority, a determined nicotine addict can sometimes light up with impunity.
Mr. Colvin, the healthy environments manager, said about 10 per cent of the fines issued so far have been against individual smokers. "The first step would be to inform you. If you neglected to put it out, or you were standing beside a no-smoking sign and we pointed it out and you shrugged your shoulders, you would get a ticket," he said.
Although his staff is laughably outnumbered, reinforcements include about 75 public-health inspectors. Mr. Colvin agreed that it was unrealistic to expect any officer to respond to a call in time to fine someone who is smoking, so his staff sometimes resorts to undercover operations, mostly in the entertainment district. "Our officers will actually pose as customers. They will see if the proprietor is upholding their side of the act. We may have an officer inside the establishment. And we'll send a second officer to observe what's going on. Then the first officer leaves. You can imagine they think the coast is clear."
The next day, I called Christopher Ashby, a spokesman for Sutton Place. He said that during the film festival, the hotel had had no-smoking signs up, but "not the correct, official signage." Asked what that might be, he said carefully, "Ones with white background. Some of the gold ones are fine too."
Mr. Ashby was gratified to hear that the concierges had acted fast. And before I could ask, he posed my next question himself. "Was it because he was Sean Penn that he could smoke at the Sutton Place? No. We were not present. We could not have stopped him."
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20060923.SMOKING23/TPStory/National/columnists

Sunday, September 24, 2006

Fact or Fiction

September 22, 2006
Bans on Industry Research Grants Are Bad for Science By Gilbert Ross, M.D. There is a movement afoot to ban research grants with any ties to tobacco industry (TI) funding from the entire University of California (UC) system. The rationale for these efforts is not frivolous: it is based on the nefarious, duplicitous, and plain reprehensible behavior of the tobacco magnates over the fifty-year period running roughly from 1950 through the early years of this century. During this period, cigarette makers financed research whose primary aim was, contrary to the goals of public health, to obscure the true relationship between smoking and health and to prolong the "cigarettes and health controversy." In fact, the clear association between cigarettes and a wide spectrum of adverse health effects was well known to industry scientists and many in public health dating back to 1950 or earlier.So why not forbid researchers at UC, or elsewhere, from accepting grants from this rogue industry? Because research results should be judged by the validity of the data and analysis, not by the funding source or sources. Presumably, informed readers can form their own conclusions about published results that have been vetted by the peer review process. To help in this process, TI support should be clearly identified in the "disclosure" and "conflict of interest" statements now appended to virtually every scientific journal article. Transparency helps the reader to judge for him/herself the reliability of the researchers' conclusions.Some Slippery Slopes Are RealAnother factor to be considered before restricting academic freedom in this manner is the "slippery slope" argument. At UC, the Board of Regents is charged with making this decision. Many UC officials and the Academic Senate have expressed strong support for academic freedom and the notion that faculty members can conduct their research with any legitimate funding source. They warn that the University must not go down the road of trying to decide that an industry like the TI is guilty of misdeeds sufficient to bar it from the UC system. Soon enough calls for bans on other unpopular industries would follow, they assert.The campaign against TI funding is led by Dr. Stanton Glantz of UCSF, who says the slippery slope argument is specious. He has also stated that those who oppose him are inspired not by academic freedom, as they claim, but by money. "The whole slippery slope argument is fallacious. It says that intelligent people aren't capable of making decisions." But who is really trying to prevent "intelligent people" from "making their own decisions" here? In dismissing the slippery slope argument, Glantz ignores recent history: While the legal approaches to forcing the TI to help pay for the damage they inflicted with their deadly and addictive product were certainly justified, many wisely warned at the time that the means used (especially the government's Master Settlement Agreement with the TI in 1998) were a harbinger of less responsible litigation to come. Lo and behold, now we have broad attacks on the "evil" pharmaceutical industry for the "crime" of making large profits from drugs which are not 100% safe. And here come the obesity lawsuits, led by John Banzhaf, who not coincidentally cut his teeth on the tobacco litigation. The inspiration for these clearly unjustified campaigns was the successful and fact-based cigarette-company litigation. Will UC next seek proposals to ban grants from drug companies who are perceived to be overly greedy? And then perhaps from "junk food" companies, who will then give their largesse to off-shore researchers?Attacking ResearchersOne of the targets of the Glantz campaign is Dr. James Enstrom, a UC faculty member and ACSH Advisor, who (with co-author Dr. Geoffrey Kabat) published a major epidemiologic paper in the respected British Medical Journal (BMJ) on May 17, 2003. Enstrom utilized part of the vast epidemiologic database of the American Cancer Society (ACS) to evaluate the long-term relationship of secondhand smoke (SHS), assessed through spousal smoking, to tobacco-related disease deaths in a cohort of California never-smokers. The research showed that there was no significant relationship in this cohort, a result that Glantz claims was influenced by the TI funding used to complete the study. In fact, most of the funding for the study, which began in 1959, was provided by the ACS. Furthermore, the results obtained by Enstrom and Kabat were no different from the initial results obtained by the ACS itself in 1981. Enstrom accepted funding from the TI, without any strings attached and has asserted repeatedly that the TI had no influence on his research or his findings.The BMJ editor has stood by the paper despite attacks on it as an industry propaganda piece. Not a single error in the paper has been identified by anyone, including the ACS, which possesses the underlying data for the study. Yet Enstrom remains the primary target of the anti-TI funding campaign.Glantz and his allies claim that the Enstrom/Kabat study is flawed and tainted and has been used to help defeat smoking bans in some localities. But are the study's conclusions actually flawed or cooked to help the tobacco companies? Despite gargantuan efforts to smear the study and the authors, no one has yet shown that to be true.If scientific research is cut off at its roots by funding bans, where will it end? Some have noted that EPA-funded work always seems to bear out EPA policies of labeling various substances "carcinogens" or "toxins," while researchers whose work has shown that such substances are safe for humans never seem to get government support. A similar patterns holds for studies that are supported by well-known "environmental" organizations and foundations. Perhaps the UC system should ban these funders as well, given that they have become nothing short of anti-chemical propaganda mills. Am I serious? Maybe. It seems like the logical conclusion if we start down that slope.

Gilbert Ross, M.D., is Executive and Medical Director of the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH.org, HealthFactsAndFears.com).

Does Tobacco Money Taint Research?

The University of California receives more than $4 billion a year in grants and contracts for research. On Wednesday, the Board of Regents took the unusual move of focusing on the source of less than $2 million of that total — the tobacco industry.
Related stories
Fighting Back Against Extremists, Aug. 28
Sue Before You Graduate, Aug. 18
Free For All, July 25
Securing the Labs, July 24
The Post-Sputnik Era, Redux, Jan. 27
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One regent, Lieut. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, has called on his colleagues to consider barring the university system from accepting grants or contracts from the tobacco industry. Under the regents’ rules, the issue could only be discussed Wednesday, so there was no vote — and it’s unclear that one could take place any time soon. But with the backing of anti-smoking groups and many professors, Bustamante has focused additional attention on the issue.
The argument he is making isn’t that the smoking industry promotes harmful products (although he believes that), but that it uses university research to deceive the public to such an extent that the research harms the university system.
“The tobacco companies use academic research to promote misunderstanding and confusion,” said Stanton A. Glantz, director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of California at San Francisco, who has worked with Bustamante on the proposal. “The university is about the seeking and discovery of truth — and the protections of academic freedom are to protect that process,” he said, not the right to get tobacco money. “Academic freedom isn’t about money. It’s about free speech and free thought.”
On the other side, professors who receive tobacco money (and many who don’t) say that any blanket ban on support from the industry would violate their academic freedom and set the university on an impossible and unwise path of picking which sources of funds are acceptable and which aren’t.
“This is absolutely an academic freedom issue,” said James E. Enstrom, a University of California at Los Angeles cancer researcher who takes tobacco money and has questioned the health impact of second-hand smoke. “The whole purpose of a university is to provide an environment where people can pursue the truth. To dictate what research is done at a university destroys the objectivity of a university.”
The idea of rejecting tobacco money is not new. For several years, groups have encouraged universities to do so. And they have had the most success in medical schools and schools of public health. Harvard University’s medical school adopted a policy in 2004. Some University of California units have banned tobacco grants. Berkeley’s public health school, for example, has such a ban. Public health schools, of course, don’t necessarily attract many people who want tobacco money — and the push now is for a universitywide (or in the California case, for a systemwide) ban on tobacco funds.
In materials prepared for regents, Glantz outlined a series of reasons why he and others want a ban. Glantz, who has made a career of studying the history of the tobacco industry, traced the way companies have used research — and the way that research has been used to hurt anti-smoking efforts.
Glantz scoffed at the idea that academic freedom would be endangered by a ban on tobacco funds. “There’s a lot of talk on academic freedom, but this is about money. They are afraid that this could make it harder to get money from other unpopular sources,” he said. Glantz acknowledged that there are many groups that fund university research — most prominently the pharmaceutical industry — that are seen by their critics as engaging in efforts to promote certain agendas. But Glantz said that there should be “a high bar” for taking an action against an industry.
He also noted that the pharmaceutical example shows how universities can regulate sources of funds from one industry without necessarily going down “the slippery slope” that critics fear in the tobacco policy. The University of California has strict rules (like most research universities) barring stock ownership in drug companies paying for professors’ research. The university has been able to do that without applying the exact same rules to all research, he said, and it did so because of particular factors with testing the safety of new drugs.
“The whole slippery slope argument is fallacious. It says that intelligent people aren’t capable of making decisions,” he said.
The tobacco industry has not been very visible in the debate — and some of the more outspoken critics of Glantz and Bustamante have been professors who take tobacco money or administrators who balance university budgets, whose motives are in turn questioned.
But the American Association of University Professors, not exactly an arm of Philip Morris, agrees with the slippery slope argument. The AAUP’s committee on academic freedom has a policy on tobacco-financed research that says: “As a practical matter, the distinction between degrees of corporate misdeeds is too uncertain to sustain a clear, consistent and principled policy for determining which research funds to accept and which to reject. An institution which seeks to distinguish between and among different kinds of offensive corporate behavior presumes that it is competent to distinguish impermissible corporate wrongdoing from wrongful behavior that is acceptable. A university that starts down this path will find it difficult to resist demands that research bans should be imposed on other funding agencies that are seen as reckless or supportive of repellant programs.”
The policy goes on to say that in cases where the push for a ban on tobacco funds comes from professors, “our concerns about the restraints on academic freedom are not thereby lessened.”
Enstrom, the UCLA professor, said he was a perfect example of why a tobacco ban is a matter of academic freedom. He has never smoked in his life and would never advise a loved one to do so. Some of his research, he said, has exposed just how dangerous it is to smoke. For example, he has written that the benefits of quitting smoking aren’t as great as some have argued because so much damage is done while someone is smoking.
His research on second-hand smoke, however, has been much loved by the tobacco industry. Enstrom has written in the British Medical Journal that there is no documentation of increased mortality from smoking-related industries experienced by the non-smoking spouses of smokers. In his letter to fellow regents, Bustamante said that this study’s findings “conflict with respected state and national studies” and that the results “were already used in the defeat of an anti-smoking ordinance in Missouri.”
Enstrom said the question isn’t whether his results conflict, but whether they are accurate. He said that his tobacco funders at no time tried to influence his work (and that he wouldn’t have let them do so) and that the research in question had been going on for years prior to the tobacco industry providing funds. He said it was “absolutely unequivocally false” that he was influenced in any way by his funding source. Asked if he thinks the tobacco industry would have funded his work — or would continue to do so — if he started to find health issues associated with second-hand smoke, Enstrom said, “I like to think that they picked me because I’m an investigator willing to go into areas that are politically incorrect.”
After stating that the funds were legitimate since they promoted good science and had no strings attached, Enstrom raised his voice when asked if he would take money for good, no-strings-attached research, from the Medellin drug cartel. “No. No. Those drugs are illegal, entirely illegal,” he said. “Cigarettes are legal.”
University of California administrators have noted that faculty leaders have expressed reservations about a tobacco funding ban, and Robert C. Dynes, president of the university system, has said that faculty members have a “fundamental right” to accept research funding from companies. He has also questioned the right of university system units to on their own ban such funding.
In materials distributed to the regents in advance of Wednesday’s meeting, Dynes included a resolution passed last year by the Academic Senate. That resolution included much language that backs the right of faculty members to make their own decisions. “Restrictions on accepting research funding from particular sources on the basis of moral or political judgments about the fund source or the propriety of the research, or because of speculations about how the research results might be used,” the resolution said, “interfere with an individual faculty members’ freedom to define and carry out a research program.”
However, Glantz also noted that the conclusion of the resolution criticizes units of the university system that bar specific grants from being used, but has a clause that adds “except as directed by the UC Board of Regents.” So Glantz and supporters of a ban said that a ban approved by the regents would be entirely consistent with the resolution. Several regents on Wednesday said that they wanted more information on the research and faculty views. Glantz, Enstrom and others vow to provide plenty for the regents to review.
Scott Jaschik

Friday, September 22, 2006

Sent this letter to the Edmonton Sun Sept. 22/06

Dear Editor, Sept.22/06

Politicians are elected to run the business of the city, not the cities businesses.
Politicians know that 80 per cent of the public don't smoke and they also know that is were the votes are.
Politicians would rather be popular than 'right'
The Health Department knows that it is not about health and it never was about health. It is all about de-normalizing smoking.
Passing no-smoking legislation is a big step in that direction. Unfortunately, the hospitality industry is caught in the cross-fire.
I hate to admit this but there a too many gutless wonders on council.
No one on this planet ever died or got cancer, solely from second-hand smoke.
And that is a fact!!
A small amount of smoke from a handful of crushed leaves and some paper that is mixed with the air of a decently ventilated venue is harmful to your health??
If any body believes that, then I have some ocean-front property in Saskatchewan I would like to sell them.

Thomas Laprade
Thunder Bay, Ont.

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Letter sent to WpgFreePress Sept. 18/06

The sad part of justice Clearwater's ruling is that it equally spreads Doer's injustice and poor health policy instead of the previous unequally spread of the same mushy law making. It's the last thing the First Nations need. Manitoba Association of Rural Hotel Owners have made an obvious, solid, documented case that smoking bans not only fail to reduce smoking and smoke exposure, but clearly increase drinking problems and police service calls, among other health, criminal and social problems. This is caused by taking away the drinking and partying from the safe environment of bars as the youth is now gathering elsewhere, including minors and illegal drugs, mixed in an all night ongoing party. And they are still smoking ! It would be a great thing if we could legislate tobacco out of our lives but it is not happening and it is not possible. We have just about hit bottom.Health being the concern here, let's rule this nonsense out with more respect for adults who choose to smoke and drink and for lawful bars allowing them to congregate publicly in a safe, attended environment. Whether people should drink or smoke is irrelevant, they do anyway. The only significant influence governments can have at this point is where it happens.Let us get rid of tobacco prohibitionists and get a realistic, healthy public policy instead. It could obviously include modern ventilation requirements to reduce smoke exposure as much as possible. Prohibition doesn't work. There always will be at least 17% smokers and the public health lobbyists know it, as well as tobacco manufacturers.(1) They both can keep their comfortable jobs as it is, fighting windmills forever, at taxpayers expense, on one side and making ever increasing profits on the other. Prohibition does not work; it's been tried for alcohol, remember ? It was a health mess and a mob nightmare. Even death penalty for smokers, in Turkey, never solved the problem ! We can not eradicate smoking but we can avoid worsening and even reduce the harm caused through many means including diet education for the remaining 20% of smokers to reduce cancer and heart disease for the real victims of tobacco. The non-smokers health concern is actually much, much smaller; according to the anti-smoking lobby's own figures, the death toll would be about 50 times smaller out of a group four times bigger. So let us stop spreading injustice and start to implement realistic public health policies to reduce the harm we can.

Joel Demers
C.A.G.E

http://www.edmontonsun.com/Comment/Letters/2006/09/21/1872105.html

SMOKING BANS are the cause of severe revenue shortfalls for charities, business closures, and job losses. It appears the time has come for us to force fanatical groups like ASH, and their bootlicking political puppets, to cough up compensation for the economic damage they cause. Of course, we could always go back to allowing people to run their private businesses in a manner they see fit. But apparently that would be un-Canadian in that it would give people choices. And we can't have that in this new, progressive Canada.

R. Anderson

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

To: john.yakabuski@pc.ola.org ; bill.murdoch@pc.ola.org ; frank.klees@pc.ola.org ; ernie hardeman ; tim.hudak@pc.ola.org ; toby barrett ; john.tory@pc.ola.org
Sent: Wednesday, January 18, 2006 12:16 PM
Subject: I admire your courage!
Dear Freedom of Choice members of the Ontario Legislature JAN. 18/06

I thank you from the bottom of my heart that you so courageously voted against Bill 164(smoke-free)

Politicians know that 80% of the public don't smoke and they also know that is where the votes are.

Politicians would rather be popular than 'right.'

If the public was honestly and truthfully informed about the harmful effects of second-hand smoke, there would be fewer no-smoking laws in this country. Smoke from a handful of crushed leaves and some paper that is mixed with the air of a decently ventilated venue is harmful to your health?? If anybody believes that, then I have some ocean-front property in Saskatchewan I would like to sell them.

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.

Thomas Laprade
Thunder Bay, Ont.
Ph. 807 3457258

Submitted a letter to..The Chronicle Journal..Thunder Bay, Ont.

Dear Editor, Jan 6/06

If the public was honestly and truthfully informed about the harmful effects of second-hand smoke, there would be fewer no-smoking laws in this country. Smoke from a handful of crushed leaves and some paper that is mixed with the air of a decently ventilated venue is harmful to your health?? If anybody believes that, then I have some ocean-front property in Saskatchewan I would like to sell them. 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 and 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.

Thomas Laprade

Thunder Bay, Ont.

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Letter sent to Wpg. Free Press Sept. 19/06

Dear editor,

I find it disgusting that in a picture of people running for their lives, the one thing that Dick Jones notices is a cigarette! It’s not the fear, the danger; it’s not feeling of disgust that this situation happened? It’s amazing that he doesn't realize that smoking a cigarette can take up to 15 minutes, not the seconds it takes to feel fear! I don't find it appropriate to use this situation for the denormalization campaign on smokers. Does it matter these people may have been doing their normal thing of enjoying the sun & a cigarette on the sidewalk? Does he think that everyone was inside with the gunman when it happened? Too bad the hate of a smoker shows through; not his empathy for ALL these people fearing for their lives. Why is a cigarette the thing that motivated him to write to the editor, and not the deaths? I guess the denormalization campaign has worked on Dick a little too well; when he has no empathy when it comes to a smoker. Next week will you be writing to say that this picture is going to make 15% of teens start smoking now too, Dick?
Lynda

Monday, September 18, 2006

Sun, September 17, 2006
Letters to the Editor




RE: "rights go up in smoke" (Sept. 14):

Jim Watson says what is politically correct for his own political survival with reference to the no smoking legislation. What a hypocrite. The last line that is quoted by him is: "That's not one of the principles or the fundamentals of a democratic society."
Well what is so democratic about looking after your political butt? There was no way that the issue of no smoking was a democratic fair vote. Jim Watson is nothing more than a political opportunist even when he was the mayor of Ottawa.
Just who does he think he is to impose what was looked over by a democratic left point of view? Everyone knows that the left controls the vote (controlling the vote is not the democratic way). Jim Watson does not support the democratic way because it is not politically advantageous to him.
So quit the bull and look after the rest of the people that live and spend money to entertain themselves in any way that they seem fit. The people who are in the entertainment business pay their taxes and pay large salaries to the people who refuse to take their interests into consideration.
Jim Watson, I suppose if I voted for you I would be taken seriously but as I will not vote for you I suppose this will be just another disgruntled person who is displeased with the so-called democratic system.


Ernie Hunter
(Watson's trying to make sure the legislation is fair to everyone)

Sunday, September 17, 2006

Sean Penn's $600 smoke

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060914.wpenn14/CommentStory/

Saturday, September 16, 2006

Letter sent to The Ottawa Sun


Dear Editor, Sept. 16/06

If the Department of Health issued a ticket to Sean Penn and he refuses to pay the fine.
I can see the headlines now.

"Sean Penn is barred from entering Canada because he got caught smoking a cigarette"

Thomas Laprade
480 Rupert St.
Thunder Bay, Ont.

My letter published in the Globe and Mail

Globe and Mail
Sat.16/06

If Sean Penn ends up being fined for lighting up indoors and doesn't pay, he probably won't be able to enter Canada again.
Way to go, Ontario.

Thomas Laprade
Thunder Bay, Ont.

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

http://www.news-gazette.com/news/opinions/letters/2006/09/11/secondhand_smoke_is_not_a_health_threat

Secondhand Smoke is not a Health Threat - Letter to the Gazette
Monday September 11, 2006

As a concerned citizen, I am beginning to wonder if my letters are falling on deaf ears or if the truth is beginning to get to people.
I am very surprised that no one commented on my letter dealing with the U.S. Surgeon General's report on the effects of secondhand smoke. This leads me to believe that I have hit a nerve. I certainly hope so.
There is no conclusive evidence that secondhand smoke causes cancer, heart disease, asthma or any other disease, for that matter. Business owners' rights are being trampled in the name of public health when there are no grounds for doing so. The rights of smokers also are being trampled.
Did anyone bother to ask people how we felt about taking our rights away? Apparently no one did or they did not care.
Until tobacco products are illegal, there is no reason why they should be banned in private enterprises.
If this ban is not reversed, most bars and restaurants will see at the very least a 10 percent loss in revenue, which for most is their profit margin. Some businesses will close, and people will lose their jobs.
People in Champaign-Urbana should think about their pocketbooks. Do they really want their cities to lose tax revenues and spend less on public works?
JAMES EILBRACHT
Mahomet
http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/news/opinion/15489964.htm
Posted on Mon, Sep. 11, 2006
Letters WHY THE MAYOR SHOULD VETO THE SMOKING BAN
MAYOR STREET should veto the smoking ban. First, Michael Nutter rushed it through at the last minute with promises he'd support future amendments. But he probably knew he was resigning and that without him, those amendments couldn't pass. That alone should be sufficient to force a new vote.
Second, the ban ignores casino gaming. Will casinos be covered even if it results in them never being built? Or, if they're exempt, will they become the only indoor places where smokers can socialize while smoking, encouraging gambling problems?
Third, but not least, there should be a hearing where citizens and workers can be heard with equal time to debate a decision that will deeply affect all of our lives.
Remember, the ban affects more than just barflies. Nonsmokers will be forced to wade through crowds and clouds of smokers or take their chances with traffic in the street. Bar neighbors will find their nights beset by increased street noise and music from constantly opening and closing doors.
Michael J. McFadden, Author
"Dissecting Antismokers' Brains," Philadelphia
http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centredaily/news/opinion/14858275.htm
Posted on Tue, Jun. 20, 2006
Letters A smoking challenge
YOUR JUNE 16 editorial ("Clearing the Air") on the smoking ban quotes the CEO of the Chamber of Commerce as saying that the "facts" show that a smoking ban "will not adversely affect business."
If Mayor Street believes that and wants to sign the smoking ban, then how about showing a little good faith and guaranteeing that claim? If he and other supporters of the ban truly believe that bars will not suffer losses, then why not back that up with something more solid than mere words?
All the city or the anti-smoking lobby groups have to do in order to prove their honesty is to commit to covering any hospitality-business losses in the year after the ban takes effect.
After all, if they're telling the truth, they have nothing to lose, right?
Michael J. McFadden, Coordinator Pennsylvania Smokers' Action Network
Mid-Atlantic Regional Director
The Smokers Club Inc., Philadelphia

Monday, September 11, 2006

Sept 11/06

We Nazis understood that every German citizen must live for the state. And in the same way that wise farmers accept responsibility for the health of their herds, we used the power of government to keep our flocks healthy. We were disgusted by the addictive powers of cigarettes, since both mind and body were supposed to belong to the Führer. We succeeded in almost criminalizing the smoking of cigarettes. Our Ministry of Science and Education ordered elementary schools to discuss the dangers of tobacco. Government-sponsored cultural and educational events were declared “smoke-free.” In the late 1930s we called for increased taxes on cigarettes and later instituted bans on cigarette advertising. I am most proud of the legislation we introduced prohibiting sales of cigarettes to minors. We set up counseling centers for the psychological treatment of smokers, and we established smoke-free restaurants. We soon managed to prohibit smoking on Luftwaffe properties and followed that with prohibiting smoking in post offices, government buildings, and many workplaces. In 1940, S.S. Chief Heinrich Himmler announced a smoking ban for all on-duty police and S.S. officers. Our comrade, Hermann Goering, decreed soldiers may not smoke in public, and most cities banned smoking on public transport in order to protect the ticket takers from second-hand smoke. We can indeed be proud that today America has also come to realize the importance of central government taking the initiative in regulating what people do not have the good sense to do voluntarily.

Sunday, September 10, 2006

http://calsun.canoe.ca/Comment/Letters/

When parents smoked in their homes when their children were present, some doctors called it “child abuse.” Where are those doctors now, when child obesity is running rampant? Wouldn’t those same doctors call it “child abuse?”
Thomas Laprade
(Interesting question.)

Friday, September 08, 2006

http://www.montrealmirror.com/2006/072706/letters.html

Still smoking

Although Mr. Matt Skala agrees that it may be true that “second-hand smoke fails to meet some arbitrary risk ratio,” he puts the onus on smokers to prove that it is safe before they light up in his presence. What kind of reasoning is this?
Nothing in life is 100 per cent risk free. Should we be asking Mr. Skala to prove that pushing his shopping cart at the grocery store is totally safe for the other shoppers before he’s allowed to do so? Or perhaps he can prove without a doubt that his ball will not hit another player over the head before he’s admitted to the golf course? Come on, Mr. Skala, you can do better than to give the readers this totally silly argument. Why don’t you just admit straightforwardly that you dislike the smell of tobacco smoke? It’s quite alright if you do. Most smokers do not wish to inconvenience people intolerant of tobacco smoke. What they are asking for is the right to be able to congregate in some designated smoking establishments, while those who choose not to enter such venues can be catered to elsewhere. Obviously this is too much to ask for in a free society!

Iro

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

http://www.herald-dispatch.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060905/OPINION/609050301/1034 Second-hand smoke is not a proven killer Physician Max Wheeler states second-hand smoke kills 37,000 women a year. Dr. Wheeler gets those figures (37,000) from a theoretical computer risk called SAMMEC at http://apps.nccd.cdc.gov/sammec/intro.asp. In other words, there are no names, no bodies, no death certificates, no autopsy reports -- nothing! Nothing except some computer formulas designed to give the kind of numbers that people like Dr. Wheeler want. No one has ever probably died solely from second-hand smoke. Even in a case like Dana Reeve's, nonsmokers do get lung cancer without any exposure to secondhand smoke, and she might have been fated for it whether or not she ever sang in smoky night clubs.

Thomas Laprade
Thunder Bay, Ont., Canada

http://www.herald-dispatch.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060905/OPINION/609050301/1034

Second-hand smoke is not a proven killer Physician Max Wheeler states second-hand smoke kills 37,000 women a year. Dr. Wheeler gets those figures (37,000) from a theoretical computer risk called SAMMEC at http://apps.nccd.cdc.gov/sammec/intro.asp.

In other words, there are no names, no bodies, no death certificates, no autopsy reports -- nothing! except some computer formulas designed to give the kind of numbers that people like Dr. Wheeler want. No one has ever probably died solely from second-hand smoke. Even in a case like Dana Reeve's, nonsmokers do get lung cancer without any exposure to secondhand smoke, and she might have been fated for it whether or not she ever sang in smoky night clubs

Thomas Laprade
Thunder Bay, Ont., Canada

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

http://www.edmontonsun.com/Comment/Letters/2006/09/05/1802739.html

RE: THOMAS Laprade's Aug. 31 letter.

I find it unfortunate that there remains a persistent belief among some members of the general public that socialized medicine is in some way inferior to private or mixed health care. It has been shown in a number of studies that not only is private health care less universally accessible and less cost-effective but privatization has also been shown to increase poor outcomes such as disability and death. As a physician, I am committed to the health of my patients and to the well-being of my community. Allowing private health care, especially by allowing physicians to work simultaneously in private and public systems, will only erode our health-care system further.

Jarrod Anderson, MD
(Doctor's orders.)


RE: THOMAS Laprade's Aug. 31 letter on socialized medicine.

Regarding top-notch quality health care at a private clinic, should I trust someone whose sole purpose of starting a private practice is greed? I've tried and tried to see their side of things, and that is basically the bottom line. Greed.

C.C. Morin
(Everyone wants to make money.)

My letter http://www.herald-dispatch.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060905/OPINION/609050301/1034

Second-hand smoke is not a proven killer

Physician Max Wheeler states second-hand smoke kills 37,000 women a year. Dr. Wheeler gets those figures (37,000) from a theoretical computer risk called SAMMEC at http://apps.nccd.cdc.gov/sammec/intro.asp.

In other words, there are no names, no bodies, no death certificates, no autopsy reports -- nothing! Nothing except some computer formulas designed to give the kind of numbers that people like Dr. Wheeler want. No one has ever probably died solely from second-hand smoke. Even in a case like Dana Reeve's, nonsmokers do get lung cancer without any exposure to secondhand smoke, and she might have been fated for it whether or not she ever sang in smoky night clubs.

Thomas Laprade
Thunder Bay, Ont.
Canada

Monday, September 04, 2006

Letter:
Crusade against smoking goes too far
I'm sick and tired of columnists like DeWayne Wickham attempting to scare us by using lies - or at least distortions - regarding smoking and, especially, secondhand smoke. In his commentary printed in the Las Vegas Sun on July 2, he frequently quotes - or, rather, misquotes - Surgeon General Richard Carmona.

Even the learned Carmona plays loose with his conclusions from studies found in JAMA. The erroneous statements, which are then reported inexactly and incorrectly by writers like Wickham, cause, at a minimum, stress to even nonsmoking readers.
One fine example quotes Carmona as saying, "There is no risk-free level of secondhand smoke exposure." Wickham then quotes the surgeon general as saying, "There is no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke." The real coup is that neither statement is accurate! As pointed out by the senior editor at Reason magazine, Jacob Sullum, the JAMA "report itself makes clear there is no evidence that brief, transient exposure to secondhand smoke has any effect on your chance of developing heart disease or lung cancer."
Now as to the stupid statistic that's tossed around by folks like Wickham, that tobacco caused 435,000 deaths in 2000 ("leading cause of death in 2000"). Ask your doctor, a coroner or mortician how many times they have seen "tobacco" as the "cause" of death on the certificate. How about either none or almost none, period.
How democratic is it to deny a pleasure to a group of Americans whose number exceeded those who elected President Bush? Especially hurtful are the recently enforced bans on smoking in the workplace, on public beaches, and the latest insane idea that it should be banned in cars while transporting children. Next should we jail parents who allow their kids to use ketchup because of its high sugar content (thereby possibly affecting their health)?
James J. Bradach, Las Vegas

Saturday, September 02, 2006

http://www.edmontonsun.com/Comment/Letters/2006/09/02/1795104.html



RE: THOMAS Laprade's Aug. 31 letter.

If a doctor can get paid more by serving rich customers, wouldn't most of the quality doctors end up serving them rather than the people who can't afford health care? There is a similar situation now with quality doctors moving to the United States. But the situation would only escalate here with the privatization of health care. Why should someone who has more money get better access to health care? Illness does not discriminate by class.
Julie Rossignol
(The rich get better care already.)

http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/news/local/15407151.htmPosted on Thu, Aug. 31, A column by Kevin Leininger
With its attempt to protect us from ourselves, ban would stomp all over local businesses
A column by Kevin Leiningerkleininger@news-sentinel.com

After City Council passed a law requiring Fort Wayne restaurants to offer separate smoking and nonsmoking areas, the Applebee's restaurants on Lima Road and North Clinton Street spent $30,000 each to erect floor-to-ceiling glass walls. New restaurants, such as the Casa Grille on Stellhorn Road, were designed with the ordinance in mind - often with separate air-handling systems. And Hall's Restaurants closed four stores that were too small or expensive to convert. Those and other expenses, along with a little more of our freedom, are about to be sacrificed on the altar before which even supposedly conservative Republicans often genuflect: the altar of public health. "If they want to ban tobacco, ban it. But I just want to be left alone," said Bud Hall, whose family still operates 12 restaurants in Allen County - all of which would have to go smoke-free if the ordinance introduced Wednesday by county commissioners becomes law. Whatever its faults, the city's 1999 ordinance balanced the interests of smokers and nonsmokers. The county's proposal, on the other hand, doesn't care how much restaurant owners have spent to protect customers from smoke. It would ban smoking in restaurants, period - along with bars, bowling alleys and most other public places. Even incorporated cities and towns within the county would be affected unless they exempt themselves. Like his two fellow county commissioners, Nelson Peters is a Republican and said he understands why some will object to the county's proposal. But the public health must trump private interests, he said, especially when public opinion seems to be in favor of tougher anti-smoking laws. According to a study City Councilman and tobacco abolitionist Dr. John Crawford released in May, nicotine is present in 70 percent of nonsmoking sections in county restaurants, but nonexistent in no-smoking sections of city restaurants. And the county's recent non-scientific online poll showed 75 percent of respondents support restrictions on smoking in public places."In light of that, private interests must take a back seat," Peters said.In principle, restaurant and bar owners should establish their own smoking policy - and take the profit or loss their decision generates. That's what the Hall's Restaurants in New Haven and on Bluffton Road did a few months ago, when they voluntarily went smoke-free on Sunday morning.But principle seldom rules in politics, and the city ordinance at least offered a pragmatic compromise, exempting bars and accommodating smokers and non-smokers alike. In its zeal to abolish smoking and save lives, the county ordinance offers no compromise at all, unless you want to smoke in a tobacco store or private club. I'm all for saving lives, and I enjoy a smoke-free meal as much as anyone. But regulating smoking in restaurants is not like regulating cleanliness or the quality and purity of food. You can see and smell smoke for yourself and can choose to stay or leave, depending on your preference. Tainted food isn't always obvious - until it's too late. If government exists to protect us from ourselves, there's no stopping it. More than 27 percent of Hoosiers are too fat. Why shouldn't the county outlaw Big Macs, too? "Because I can choose not to eat one," Peters said, his voice trailing off as he realized the same could be said for people who choose not to be around smoke. You may have the right to breathe clean air, but that right doesn't extend to my house if I'm in the mood for a good cigar. It's still legal to smoke there, at least for now. Bud Hall thinks his corporate property rights should be no less sacred. "This is just going to hurt the local restaurants. The chains are big enough to survive," Bud Hall said. "No one makes anybody eat at any particular place. Why don't they just let the people decide?" A good question - one Hall plans to ask at a public meeting on the proposal scheduled for 6 p.m. Sept. 11 in Room 126 of the City-County Building. Perhaps he and others can help save the commissioners from themselves - or at least persuade City Council members to honor the very expensive deal they made with Hall and his peers just a few years ago.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------Talk Back What do you think of the proposed smoking ordinance? Sound off at www.news-sentinel.com.

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