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Wednesday, February 28, 2007

http://www.edmontonsun.com/Comment/2007/02/28/3676131-sun.html
February 28, 2007
A READER SAYS ...
The claim that smoking bans are being pushed in order to protect workers and non-smokers' 'health' is false. The unstated reasoning behind the bans is simply to make smoking as uncomfortable and unenjoyable as possible.
- T. Laprade

http://calsun.canoe.ca/Comment/Letters/ February 28, 2007
STEAMED ABOUT SMOKING
That's it. I am sick of all the non-smokers saying I am killing them. We know it is not good for us. But some aldermen want to tell me I can't light up during ball season because we have to play on fields rented by the city?
Get a bylaw officer to my ball field then, because I will be fined or jailed before I am going to let them tell me I can not light up outside.
SHANE COVELL
(OK, but the motion failed in city council.)

Sunday, February 25, 2007

The Bogus 'Science' of Secondhand Smoke
Gio Batta GoriSpecial to washingtonpost.comTuesday, January 30, 2007; 12:00 AM
Smoking cigarettes is a clear health risk, as most everyone knows. But lately, people have begun to worry about the health risks of secondhand smoke. Some policymakers and activists are even claiming that the government should crack down on secondhand smoke exposure, given what "the science" indicates about such exposure.
Last July, introducing his office's latest report on secondhand smoke, then-U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona asserted that "there is no risk-free level of secondhand smoke exposure," that "breathing secondhand smoke for even a short time can damage cells and set the cancer process in motion," and that children exposed to secondhand smoke will "eventually . . . develop cardiovascular disease and cancers over time."
,'Creating secondhand smoke polices based on deceptive, though widely accepted, studies sets an ominous precedent in political ethics.','Gio Batta Gori') ;
Such claims are certainly alarming. But do the studies Carmona references support his claims, and are their findings as sound as he suggests?
Lung cancer and cardiovascular diseases develop at advancing ages. Estimating the risk of those diseases posed by secondhand smoke requires knowing the sum of momentary secondhand smoke doses that nonsmokers have internalized over their lifetimes. Such lifetime summations of instant doses are obviously impossible, because concentrations of secondhand smoke in the air, individual rates of inhalation, and metabolic transformations vary from moment to moment, year after year, location to location.
In an effort to circumvent this capital obstacle, all secondhand smoke studies have estimated risk using a misleading marker of "lifetime exposure." Yet, instant exposures also vary uncontrollably over time, so lifetime summations of exposure could not be, and were not, measured.
Typically, the studies asked 60--70 year-old self-declared nonsmokers to recall how many cigarettes, cigars or pipes might have been smoked in their presence during their lifetimes, how thick the smoke might have been in the rooms, whether the windows were open, and similar vagaries. Obtained mostly during brief phone interviews, answers were then recorded as precise measures of lifetime individual exposures.
In reality, it is impossible to summarize accurately from momentary and vague recalls, and with an absurd expectation of precision, the total exposure to secondhand smoke over more than a half-century of a person's lifetime. No measure of cumulative lifetime secondhand smoke exposure was ever possible, so the epidemiologic studies estimated risk based not only on an improper marker of exposure, but also on exposure data that are illusory.
Adding confusion, people with lung cancer or cardiovascular disease are prone to amplify their recall of secondhand smoke exposure. Others will fib about being nonsmokers and will contaminate the results. More than two dozen causes of lung cancer are reported in the professional literature, and over 200 for cardiovascular diseases; their likely intrusions have never been credibly measured and controlled in secondhand smoke studies. Thus, the claimed risks are doubly deceptive because of interferences that could not be calculated and corrected.
In addition, results are not consistently reproducible. The majority of studies do not report a statistically significant change in risk from secondhand smoke exposure, some studies show an increase in risk, and ¿ astoundingly ¿ some show a reduction of risk.
Some prominent anti-smokers have been quietly forthcoming on what "the science" does and does not show. Asked to quantify secondhand smoke risks at a 2006 hearing at the UK House of Lords, Oxford epidemiologist Sir Richard Peto ¿ a leader of the secondhand smoke crusade ¿ replied, "I am sorry not to be more helpful; you want numbers and I could give you numbers..., but what does one make of them? ...These hazards cannot be directly measured."
It has been fashionable to ignore the weakness of "the science" on secondhand smoke, perhaps in the belief that claiming "the science is settled" will lead to policies and public attitudes that will reduce the prevalence of smoking. But such a Faustian bargain is an ominous precedent in public health and political ethics. Consider how minimally such policies as smoking bans in bars and restaurants really reduce the prevalence of smoking, and yet how odious and socially unfair such prohibitions are.
By any sensible account, the anachronism of tobacco use should eventually vanish in an advancing civilization. Why must we promote this process under the tyranny of deception?
Presumably, we are grown-up people, with a civilized sense of fair play, and dedicated to disciplined and rational discourse. We are fortunate enough to live in a free country that is respectful of individual choices and rights, including the right to honest public policies. Still, while much is voiced about the merits of forceful advocacy, not enough is said about the fundamental requisite of advancing public health with sustainable evidence, rather than by dangerous, wanton conjectures.
A frank discussion is needed to restore straight thinking in the legitimate uses of "the science" of epidemiology -- uses that go well beyond secondhand smoke issues. Today, health rights command high priority on many agendas, as they should. It is not admissible to presume that people expect those rights to be served less than truthfully.
Gio Batta Gori, an epidemiologist and toxicologist, is a fellow of the Health Policy Center in Bethesda. He is a former deputy director of the National Cancer Institute's Division of Cancer Cause and Prevention, and he received the U.S. Public Health Service Superior Service Award in 1976 for his efforts to define less hazardous cigarettes. Gori's article "The Surgeon General's Doctored Opinion" will appear in the spring issue of the Cato Institute's Regulation Magazine.

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

“Your Favorite Supper Club/Restaurant”
January 1, 2017
EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY
Whereas, it has been determined as law in this state that it is a crime to knowingly emit any airborne carcinogens in any private business establishment that invites the public to enter, we have established these mandatory procedures to comply with required health standards, and no exceptions will be made.
No Smoking will be allowed within 500 feet of this establishment!
Upon entering, guests will be required to completely disrobe and check all clothing articles, shoes and personal effects which will be retained in our “clean room” holding area during their dining experience. Items will be returned to our guests’ upon departure. (All clothing emits carcinogens from new textile chemicals, dry cleaning and fabric softeners.)
Guests will also be required to pass though our disinfectant showers to remove any carcinogenic traces of perfume, after shave lotion, skin cream, hairspray or other chemicals.
Guests will find that we have now removed all carpeting and upholstery in our dining and bar areas to eliminate dust mite threats. You will now be dining in plastic protected splendor. (Note: We will no longer be decorating you table with candles.)
Whereas it has been determined by law that coffee, butter, salad dressing and desserts are unhealthy and unnecessary for a balanced diet; these items will no longer be available on our menu. (Guests will also be required to sign a waiver before they will be served any water, to protect this establishment from any future prosecution, as it has also been determined that water contains a vast number of carcinogens. We cannot be responsible for the health of those guests still desiring to drink water).
Any and all alcoholic beverages will be pre-mixed in our special clean room before serving and hermetically sealed to eliminate any evaporation of ethyl alcohol into our sterile environment. Imbibing in alcoholic beverages will only be allowed by using the special self sealing straws we provide with our sealed containers.
WHEREAS the serving of undercooked meat is now illegal and current laws have abolished any open cooking or flame-required preparation (including grilling, frying or broiling), our entrees will now all be prepared by boiling or slow cooking and will be only served well done.
Whereas the only form of credit or payment currently allowed by law is your National Identification Card, our guests will have their dinner checks charged to their twenty-five (25) digit National I.D. upon leaving. (Please note: A disinfectant service charge of forty percent (40%) and a service tip of twenty percent (20%) will automatically be added to your check before its final total is determined.)
We hope you will enjoy your new dining experience and return soon. - The Management

Sunday, February 18, 2007

Speech Content: Delivered to Glenview Village Board Meeting - February 8, 2007
Thank you, Village President Cummings and the Glenview Board of Trustees for allowing me to speak this evening. Also, thank you to Glenview resident, Linda Casey, for sponsoring me. I have prepared a related packet of information for each of you.
My name is Garnet Scheuer and I am the Founding Director of Illinois Smokers Rights and I am speaking as a member of the Heartland Group on the Agenda. We are a relatively new organization that has developed on behalf of smokers and non-smokers who object to smoking bans and the unfair taxation of cigarettes. We promote pro-choice and free market solutions.
The health risks of second-hand smoke are vastly exaggerated. The poison is in the dose...and the dosage from SHS in a decently ventilated and filtrated establishment cannot pose health threats.
To date, no tobacco studies have been able prove the health risks from Environmental Tobacco Smoke. Smoking bans are not about health. They never have been. They are about power, money and control.
Our previous Surgeon General Carmona issued a massive study as one of his final accomplishments, stating that "The debate is over".
However, contrary to his media statements and Executive Summary, the report was simply a rehashing of the same studies that have already been circulated and are still inconclusive.
Since the Illinois Clean Indoor Act in 1989 banned smoking in public buildings, tobacco smoking has been eliminated from all indoor areas where the public may be required to go, and has greatly reduced any exposure to tobacco for people who find it objectionable.
Now, the remaining private businesses, particularly in the hospitality industry are being targeted by tobacco control activists.
A fact seemingly ignored is that approximately 70% of restaurants and bars have already elected to become smoke-free....and that should be their choice because they are still privately owned businesses and on personal property....even if the public is invited to enter. Business owners need to have their property rights defended, not removed.
More restrictive smoking bans in restaurants and bars will not save one single life. Smoking bans DO hurt small businesses.
Economic studies that bundle together revenue levels from large chain restaurants, previously smoke-free businesses and fast food operations with privately owned restaurants, bars and bowling alleys, do not reflect the true damage done to the individuals who have been brave enough to invest their futures, money and time into their businesses.
Smoking bans are promoted by massively wealthy Charitable Organizations, and government agencies.
The ACS spent $4 million dollars to promote passage of the Chicago smoking ban. The public is not crying out for smoking bans. What do you think would happen to public support if Tobacco Control funding to flood the media with anti-smoking/anti-smoker messages was stopped????
When smoking is completely banned in restaurants and bars, you don't just inconvenience smokers or strike a blow for public health. You violate my private property rights, and simultaneously violate my individual liberty, my right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness".
So, what about your neighboring communities and the way they are handling smoking ban ordinances? Arlington Heights, Wheeling and Prospect Heights have passed less restrictive bans than the one proposed by Cook County. In Highland Park and Deerfield, everyone just goes to Highwood.
Alsip, Antioch, Carbondale, Decatur, Fox Lake, Gurnee, Jacksonville, Joliet, Machesney Park, Mundelein, Orland Hills, Park City, Peoria, Rockton, Streator, and Towanda have refused bans.
Oak Forest, Orland Park and Tinley Park have temporarily rescinded their bans. (Oak Forest and Orland Hills decided to lift the ban until March 14, when Cook County's ban takes effect. Tinley Park lifted its ban until Feb. 21. Oak Forest officials said they might go even further and rescind the ban entirely.)
Regarding the Springfield smoking ban, I am quoting Steve Riedl, Executive Director of the ILBA, from a December news story in the Daily Herald: “The (smoking) ban enacted September 17th in Springfield...has cut bar business by an average of 50 percent.”
For anyone who has a doubt that smoking bans have an economically negative impact on private hospitality venues, I would like to have one major question answered by the Smoke Free ban proponents who continue to trumpet that smoking bans do not hurt business in the hospitality industry. Why is the “level playing field” issue always raised as a solution to any city, community or county already suffering under a draconian smoking ban? Why should a “level playing field” even be required? That logic is a contradiction.
Thank you
______________________________ Garnet Dawn - The Smoker's Club, Inc. - Midwest Regional Director The United Pro Choice Smokers Rights Newsletter - http://www.smokersclubinc.com Illinois Smokers Rights - http://www.illinoissmokersrights.com Illinois Smokers Forum - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/illinoissmokers/ mailto:garnetdawn@comcast.net - Respect Freedom of Choice!
Glenview Smoking Ban Information Packet - 02/08/07
"Why You Should Fight a Smoking Ban" - Michael J. McFadden(Revised October 2006, Special Edition for Illinois)Contact: Garnet Dawn for more information on this booklet
"How to lose your business in 8 days"http://www.dailysouthtown.com/news/206215,113NWS3.article
"The right to be risky and stupid"http://www.dailysouthtown.com/news/lang/221235,211LNG1.article
"Government will decide for you, if you let it"http://www.saukvalley.com/articles/2007/01/19/opinion/editorials/308803680612603.txt
"The Bogus 'Science' of Secondhand Smoke" - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/29/AR2007012901158.html
Gio Batta Gori, an epidemiologist and toxicologist, is a fellow of the Health Policy Center in Bethesda. He is a former deputy director of the National Cancer Institute's Division of Cancer Cause and Prevention, and he received the U.S. Public Health Service Superior Service Award in 1976 for his efforts to define less hazardous cigarettes. Gori's article "The Surgeon General's Doctored Opinion" will appear in the spring issue of the Cato Institute's Regulation Magazine.
"Bill Reverses Hawaii's Smoking Ban in Bars, Nightclubs and Restaurants"http://www.hawaiireporter.com/story.aspx?92e245cc-99d4-4cce-bbc7-c51c4e12cb9d
"Right and left agree: Ban freedom to choose"http://www.dailysouthtown.com/news/kadner/221221,211PKD1.article

http://dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007%5C02%5C16%5Cstory_16-2-2007_pg3_8

Smokers’ choice

Sir: The bandwagon of local smoking bans now steamrolling across the nation has nothing to do with protecting people from the supposed threat of ‘second-hand’ smoke. Indeed, the bans are symptoms of a far more grievous threat — decades of unlimited government power. The issue is not whether second-hand smoke is a real danger or a phantom menace, as a study published recently in the British Medical Journal indicates. The issue is: If it were harmful, what would be the proper reaction? Should anti-tobacco activists satisfy themselves with educating people about the potential danger and allowing them to make their own decisions, or should they seize the power of government and force people to make the ‘right’ decision? Supporters of local tobacco bans have made their choice. Rather than trying to protect people from an unwanted intrusion in their health, the bans are the unwanted intrusion. Loudly billed as measures that only affect ‘public places’, they have actually targeted private places: restaurants, bars, nightclubs, shops and offices — places whose owners are free to set anti-smoking rules or whose customers are free to go elsewhere if they don’t like the smoke. Some local bans even harass smokers in places where their effect on others is negligible, such as outdoor public parks. The decision to smoke, or to avoid ‘second-hand’ smoke, is a question to be answered by each individual based on his own values and his own assessment of the risks. This is the same kind of decision free people make regarding every aspect of their lives.

THOMAS LAPRADE Via email

http://dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007%5C02%5C16%5Cstory_16-2-2007_pg3_8

Smokers’ choice

Sir: The bandwagon of local smoking bans now steamrolling across the nation has nothing to do with protecting people from the supposed threat of ‘second-hand’ smoke. Indeed, the bans are symptoms of a far more grievous threat — decades of unlimited government power. The issue is not whether second-hand smoke is a real danger or a phantom menace, as a study published recently in the British Medical Journal indicates. The issue is: If it were harmful, what would be the proper reaction? Should anti-tobacco activists satisfy themselves with educating people about the potential danger and allowing them to make their own decisions, or should they seize the power of government and force people to make the ‘right’ decision? Supporters of local tobacco bans have made their choice. Rather than trying to protect people from an unwanted intrusion in their health, the bans are the unwanted intrusion. Loudly billed as measures that only affect ‘public places’, they have actually targeted private places: restaurants, bars, nightclubs, shops and offices — places whose owners are free to set anti-smoking rules or whose customers are free to go elsewhere if they don’t like the smoke. Some local bans even harass smokers in places where their effect on others is negligible, such as outdoor public parks. The decision to smoke, or to avoid ‘second-hand’ smoke, is a question to be answered by each individual based on his own values and his own assessment of the risks. This is the same kind of decision free people make regarding every aspect of their lives.

THOMAS LAPRADE
Via email

Saturday, February 17, 2007

SMOKING BAN-EXPANSION SHOULD WORRY ALL

SAN FRANCISCO - The Bay Area is considered one of the most diverse, tolerant places on the planet. Its reputation as a stalwart defender of minority rights is unparalleled. “San Francisco values” is how Fox News Channel’s Bill O’Reilly likes to describe our uniqueness.
The region’s policy decisions on hot-button topics usually strike a careful balance between protecting private rights and public health. But there’s one group that we apparently see as nothing but a bunch of social pariahs: smokers.
Two years ago, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed what was, at the time, one of the most comprehensive outdoor smoking bans in the state, making it illegal to smoke in city-owned parks and squares.
Smoking has long been banned at outdoor restaurants and theaters in Berkeley, and similar outdoor smoking restrictions have recently been implemented in a half-dozen other Bay Area cities as well as in unincorporated Alameda, Contra Costa and Marin counties. An ordinance enacted last year in Dublin declared secondhand smoke a public nuisance and made it easier for residents there to sue each other.
In Belmont, it is already illegal to smoke in hallways and other common areas in apartment buildings and similar multi-unit housing complexes. But next month the Belmont City Council is expected to go even further by approving the nation’s most restrictive anti-smoking policy. It will soon be illegal to smoke anywhere in Belmont except in your detached, single-family home.
You won’t be able smoke outside. You won’t be able to smoke in your car or in your apartment. If you can come up with the $900,000 median price, you can buy a stand-alone house and smoke there — at least for now. This final refuge for smokers is surely the next target of the prohibitionist regulators.

In Belmont whatever you want to do in the privacy of your own apartment bedroom is OK — just as long as you don’t smoke when you do it. This creeping Bay Area nanny state should worry us all, not just smokers.

Smoking causes cancer. Smokers assume the risks. But proponents of the nanny state claim we have to stop them because smokers impose great costs on society through increased health care costs and other expenses. Reason magazine’s Jacob Sullum, author of “For Your Own Good: The Anti-Smoking Crusade” shows otherwise: Smokers don’t fleece us by bleeding Medicaid and Social Security because they die sooner than nonsmokers.

Fine, but we still have to ban smoking because secondhand smoke will kill innocent bystanders, according to ban proponents. But here the science is extremely murky.
Sullum writes, “The studies that link secondhand smoke to these illnesses [cancer, heart attacks] involve intense, long-term exposure, typically among people who have lived with smokers for decades. Even in these studies, it’s difficult to demonstrate an effect, precisely because the doses of toxins and carcinogens bystanders passively absorb are much smaller than the doses absorbed by smokers.”

In toxicology, the dose makes the poison. How much smoke are you getting sitting a quarter-mile away from a smoker in the same Belmont apartment complex? You’ll get struck by lightning before that level of smoke kills you.
We’ve gone from banning smoking in restaurants and bars to banning smoking everywhere.

What’s next? The food police will ban trans fat and then slink on to popular fast foods. Proposed restrictions on the use of cell phones and iPods are in the news nationally. The list goes on and on. You may not smoke, but sooner or later the nanny police will surely target something you do care about.

Does the Bay Area really want government to dictate what we can do in our own homes and apartments? You may think smoking is disgusting, but unless you think the same of personal freedom, we should all stand up against the prohibitionists on this one.
Skaidra Smith-Heisters lives in Santa Rosa and is a policy analyst at Reason Foundation (www.reason.org).

http://www.galvnews.com/letters.lasso

A ban on smoking in restaurants and other public places recently went into effect in League City.Smoking Ban’s Real Threat Is To Freedom

The bandwagon of local smoking bans now steamrolling across the nation has nothing to do with protecting people from the supposed threat of “second-hand” smoke. Indeed, the bans are symptoms of a far more grievous threat, a cancer that has been spreading for decades and has now metastasized throughout the body politic, spreading even to the tiniest organs of local government. This cancer is the only real hazard involved — the cancer of unlimited government power. The issue is not whether second-hand smoke is a real danger or a phantom menace, as a study published recently in the British Medical Journal indicates. The issue is: If it were harmful, what would be the proper reaction? Should anti-tobacco activists satisfy themselves with educating people about the potential danger and allowing them to make their own decisions, or should they seize the power of government and force people to make the “right” decision? The decision to smoke, or to avoid “second-hand” smoke, is a question to be answered by each individual based on his own values and his own assessment of the risks. This is the same kind of decision free people make regarding every aspect of their lives — how much to spend or invest, whom to befriend or sleep with, whether to go to college or get a job, whether to get married or divorced, and so on. All of these decisions involve risks; some have demonstrably harmful consequences; most are controversial and invite disapproval from the neighbors. But the individual must be free to make these decisions. He must be free because his life belongs to him, not to his neighbors, and only his own judgment can guide him through it.

Thomas Laprade
Thunder Bay,
Ontario, Canada

Friday, February 16, 2007

THE SMOKING ISSUE


Subject: The smoking issue
Posted On: February 6, 2007, 2:21 pm CST
Posted By: Kevin Mulvina
Comment:
Consensus can be a funny thing if the only voices you will hear are those who agree with you. The entire scientific community has agreed smoking is the largest danger to human health we know. As with almost everything we hear from the World Health Organization lately;Fears they promote always seem to find their way of stuffing public funds into someone's pockets. The fallacy resides in the numbers and the form in which they are delivered also a product of international consensus with a district smell of industrial profiteering in the air. What we hear is how smoking reduction strategies have reduced smoker prevalence from close to 60% of the population to now somewhere near 20% if we look at the real numbers the reality which destroys credibility is seen clearly.

There were 50 million American smokers in 1950 and that number has been constant to this day although we have been successful in keeping the numbers in check the numbers reveal the larger picture. With a population growth tripling what it was we should expect to see a huge drop in the effects of smoking regardless of how long it takes for those diseases to develop Mirroring population growth. A stable cause should exhibit a stable effect of smoking related diseases proportional to population growth. With three times the population we should see one third the prevalence of disease what we did see was a growth of all smoking related diseases equal to the growth of the population proving absolutely the rise in smoking related diseases has nothing to do with smoking. The lowered prevalence numbers are a factor of growth and not of claimed anti smoker strategies Or the product of a deliberate fear mongering among the public. How many will die as a result of the medical and political communities barking up the wrong tree once again, for over 50 years? . In 1950 we saw, using the same 20% figure popular today 150,000 smoking related diseases which should be the same today allowing 300,000 mortalities annually ignored in the States and likely 30,000 in Canada by scale. Three times the population triples a lot of toxic elements in our lives. Smoking should be the least of our worries by comparison, second hand smoke even more so. Smoking is one of the few health risks which decreased significantly in that time frame.

Conclusions;
We are ignoring the cause of close to 90% of the mortalities claimed as caused by or related to smoking. We have expanded the nicotine addiction industry enormously with the addition of the new drug products. More abhorrently we are promoting hatred of an identifiable group in our community. If quitting smoking is a torturous event The perpetrator is now the state. If smokers are to quit they need our support not our ridicule.Surely more inclusive strategies could have been developed with a few less fanatical views at the table. The hypocrisy is clear; smokers were never allowed to participate, despite the effect denormalizing plans were to have on all of them.Perhaps A government agency dedicated to our health needs to take another look at the legitimate non political science involved and incorporate a protection of all in community and not strictly demands of the few who wish to tear our communities apart in service of their industrial masters.

Friday, February 09, 2007

http://www.thestar.com/News/article/179921

Burning mad in the cold

Elderly smokers must huddle outside nursing homes, Phinjo Gombu finds
Feb 09, 2007 04:30 AM
On a bitterly cold day this week, it takes Jim MacDonald 1 1/2 minutes to light a cigarette while sitting huddled in a wheelchair outside the Mississauga long-term care home where he lives.
The howling wind has pushed the wind chill factor to -20C. That, combined with the fact MacDonald, 74, is paralyzed on his right side and has use of only one hand, makes a routine task particularly frustrating.
"This is maddening, that's how it really feels," says MacDonald, a checkered blanket draped over his knees. The baseball hat on his head has just blown away.
"It's just maddening to feel this way, that's all," he says as he struggles to light his cigarette.
Like many other smokers in nursing homes across the province, MacDonald must tend to his pack-a-day habit outside the facility under the Smoke-Free Ontario Act, which became law last year.
They are the "unlucky" smokers. The "lucky" ones live in the few homes equipped with smoking rooms, or the veterans who stay in a special wing at Sunnybrook hospital
The law allows the province's 620 long-term care homes to install specially designed and ventilated smoking rooms for smokers who can't kick their habit.
But a combination of cost, funding and design restrictions has meant that only a handful – just 1.5 per cent – of them have had such rooms installed.
Surveys have shown that about 5 per cent of all seniors in such homes smoke, although in some places, the numbers are as high as 25 per cent of all residents.
Murray Miles Patterson, 65, was one of the "unlucky" smokers. The stroke victim stepped out of his Manitoulin Island nursing home in January for a cigarette with two other residents but didn't return, and was later found suffering from hypothermia. He died the next day in hospital.
A worker at the home has been charged with criminal negligence causing death.
A coroner's investigation is under way. If it finds that smoking outside contributed to Patterson's death, it could prompt an inquest that would scrutinize the Smoke-Free Ontario Act.
Health Minister George Smitherman has said it's a "copout" to blame the law for the death. He said nursing homes are obliged to ensure the safety of their residents.
Yet with no construction money from the province, which funds all long-term care homes, costs ranging up to $180,000 for a room have scared operators from constructing them.
MacDonald says he's torn.
He enjoys smoking, a habit acquired a lifetime ago when he travelled the province as a lumber salesman. But he says he would love to kick the habit if he could, to avoid the nuisance of going out.
Sometimes, on colder days, it's three times a day, when he smokes as many as he can. Other times, he can be found outside at least seven times a day.
It takes him at least 10 minutes to dress. He then must make the lonely trek to his spot near a window and roofless gazebo on the west side of the home, pulling his wheelchair forward one step at a time with his good foot.
From his vantage point, MacDonald stares at the cars that whiz by on the Gardiner Expressway, sometimes counting how many red cars or blue cars go by to kill time.
He speaks slowly in strong, clear sentences which trail off from time to time, the result of the stroke suffered seven or eight years ago.
When MacDonald is able to say what he wants, his thoughts come through loud and clear.
He still hasn't gotten over the closing of the smoking room on his floor because it did not meet the requirements under the stringent new law.
"We had it one day and not the next," MacDonald says.
Words like "bitter" and "awful" roll out slowly. He thinks it's a "terrible law" but you have to roll with the punches.
"They are a little much," he says.
MacDonald says he's sad that he is faced with the situation, at his advanced age, of having to be interviewed for no other reason than the fact he smokes.
He wishes he were back in the comfort of the old smoking rooms, that also had ventilation systems but didn't have as many strict conditions placed on them as the ones today.
"What else can I do but smoke," he says helplessly.
Asked if he wants to tell Premier Dalton McGuinty anything about his situation, he struggles and then says, "Tell him to mind his own business," before his voice fades away into the wind.

Canada

February 9 [02:00 GMT] - How to make a hero out of a con job (or: when governments lose their moral compass) - Not many words are needed to describe the exploitation of people and of false information. Sometimes all it takes is just a link. Now, here is the truth: read it, and then ask yourself how the first link is possible. Heather Crowe had cancer and died - but it could not have been passive smoke, even if she herself believed that. Simply, the Canadian Council for Tobacco Control lies to Canadians. Test them out, ask them - officially - if they can prove Crowe's death. They will refer you to other "authorities" and to junk science studies that they know quite well they are no good, but they will not give you an answer. Most likely, if they feel that you are challenging them, they'll simply give you no answer at all. Corruption and fanaticism push the buttons of power, today. Now, here is the question: when governments and authorities set out to con their own citizens, what's left?
This is the same government that, in 1999, welcomed Jeffrey Wingand, a person with a long history of violence, abuse and attempted extortions, who became Canadian "public health's" spokesperson against smoking and went around schools all over the country to give false information to children for big bucks. Indeed, the Canadian government cheered this person as a hero. This is the same government that, without any shame, signs itself "The Government of Canada" after commercials that show ghostly hands of passive smoke grabbing children and furniture - a government that knows perfectly well that the "dangers" of passive smoke are a fraud.
"Public health" and the governments behind it have become the symbol of moral inversion, praising and rewarding fraud and liars with pride. In the times of the Chicago gangsters an excellent resume was a murder, a good one a few years in jail and a poor one a car theft. Today you don't get to be prominent in "public health" unless you are a professional conman - and when you get caught you get good job in the antitobacco field and even win awards for "outstanding leadership", as in the case of Simon Chapman from Australia, convicted by an Australian court of scientific fraud for manipulating data that showed that passive smoke was not dangerous (click here to read the court decision), as we reported ten years ago. Not only does your crime get covered up, but it becomes one of the pillars of the World Health Organization rootless policy of false information on passive smoke. ...Have a criminal record? No problem, just go antismoking - they'll hire you, they'll tout you, they'll love you: they know their own.
February 9 [02:00 GMT] - Here is another Canadian "public health" hero: bilks over $600,000, should be considered for promotion (if the link is incomplete, click here)- The Edmonton Journal reports that "Mr. Lloyd Carr says he never had the authority to approve contracts between the Alberta Alcohol and Drug Abuse Commission and other groups. He also denies using any AADAC money for his own benefit. In a lawsuit filed last fall, AADAC alleged that Carr, the former head of its tobacco-reduction and problem gambling units, created four contracts with the Alberta Lung Association to defraud the agency of $624,500." Come- come, Mr. Carr, you are involved in "public health" against smoking, alcohol, drugs and gambling, right? While we understand that denial is part of the legal procedure, it is also common knowledge that there is no honour amongst thieves. And if you are indeed innocent, then your career is over - make your peace with it. On the other hand, if you are proven guilty you'll have a criminal record - and after serving a short time (none if you have a good lawyer) you can present your resume to the antismoking division of "public health" in Ottawa and get catapulted to stardom in a single jump! What you are accused of is not as good as falsifying data on smoking, but it ranks quite well. So, at any rate, if you are convicted you don't have to worry about your future: you've got it in the bag.
We wish you well.

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/editorial/story/3870070p-4477079c.html

Edited edition

Smoke not the only smell

Re: Keep the smoking ban, Feb. 2.

Apparently, letter writer Tracey Reese is of the opinion that smokers have no rights simply because she doesn't like the smell. She leaves out the fact that she'll probably never notice the tobacco odour over the smell of cooking food, perfume, paint, etc., especially if she's not there to smell it. If we applied her logic, all rental properties would be empty because of smells that somebody didn't like. At least she spared us the bogus health hazard whine. This assault on smokers' employment, medical access, housing, child custody and other rights has gone more than far enough. It should never have been started in the first place.

VINCE HARDEN Winnipeg

Unedited edition

Revoke the smoking ban

Re:Keep the smoking ban,Feb.2

Apparently,Tracey Reese is of the opinion that smokers do not have anyrights simply because she doesn't like the smell.She leaves out the factthat she'll probably never notice the tobacco odour over the smell ofcookingfood,perfume,paint etc.,etc.Especially if she's not there to smell it.If weapplied her logic,all rental properties would be empty because of smellsthat somebody didn't like.At least she spared us the bogus health hazardwhine.This assault on the smokers' employment,medical access,housing,child custody and other rights has gone more than far enough.It should havenever been started in the first place.Remember the words of Sir Richard Doll,the man credited with proving thecausal link between active smoking and lung cancer."The effect of otherpeople smoking in my presence is so small it doesn't worry me."(2001)This is the letter I was replying to;Keep the smoking banRe: Smoke ban challenged, Jan. 31.Kudos to Globe General Agencies for imposing a no-smoking policy for newtenants who rent their suites. As a person who lived in apartments for 15years, I think it's a wonderful idea and it would have been welcomed by me.The complaint, brought on by Bev Reeves, is so ridiculous that I had towrite this letter. There is a lot of cosmetic wear and tear to a suite ifthe tenant is a smoker -- not to mention the lingering stench left behind. Ihope she doesn't win her case, and that Globe can continue with this policy.

TRACEY REESE

Monday, February 05, 2007

True confessions of my reason for battling the pro-smoking ban activists

Some Clearing the Air readers may know of my background and the financial crisis I face because of the anti-business smoking bans enacted in the Twin Cities, others may not. This post explains the why(s) and how(s) of my continued fight against the special interest agenda.My career of 15 years, selling Smokeeter air filtration equipment to bars and restaurants came to an abrupt end once the debate for smoking bans began. As an independent sales professional my unemployment came without benefits or insurance of any kind. Once bar and restaurant owners no longer needed my employer's air filtration equipment and services, I was relieved of my job and duties without so much as a thank you, back in 6/2005. It took 9 months before I finally became gainfully employed again.During that time period of being unemployed, without the ability to continue making car payments my vehicle quickly fell into repossession status, and eventually was surrendered. Without the ability to continue making child support payments a family court judge decided I was in contempt and ordered me to jail. Without the ability to continue making mortgage payments our home quickly fell into foreclosure status, the sheriff's sale ocurred on May 5, 2006, and as it currently stands we are to be evicted on November 1, 2006; unless I can come up with $290,000.00 before that deadline......not a likely scenario.We like our home and definitely do not want to leave, not only because we love the location and layout, but we also hate the thought of packing and the work involved in moving.A job loss is difficult enough I'm sure, when it's due to job performance, or some other reason related to personal responsiblity. But a job loss due to smoking bans based on lies and funded by a multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical industry......which stands to further increase their profits after the passage of those bans; is too frustrating and angering to comprehend happening to anyone else, let alone yourself. And what makes the situation even more angering is that these special interest groups -RWJF, and the Johnson & Johnson Company, stand to make considerable profits from the government action which eliminated my job......yet they are not (as of this writing) compelled to provide recompense to those of us harmed by their actions.So when I discovered the St. Louis Park, MN. Environmental Health Department air quality testing which proves secondhand smoke levels are up to 500 times SAFER than OSHA workplace air quality regulations, thus nullifying the argument that secondhand smoke is a health hazard, I knew I had to distribute that information far and wide....to expose the smoking ban movement for what it is..........A FRAUD. Then when I discovered the American Cancer Society air quality testing which proves secondhand smoke levels are up to 25,000 times SAFER than OSHA workplace air quality regulations, thus nullifying the argument that secondhand smoke is a health hazard, I knew I also had to distribute that information far and wide....to further expose the smoking ban movement for what it is..........AN ENORMOUS FRAUD.And when I discovered the billion dollar industry and oganizations (RWJF and J & J company), which perpetuate that enormous fraud, I knew I had to distribute that information far and wide....to expose the agenda of the smoking ban movement for what it is..........A $1 billion a year marketing scheme that is coercive, collusive and frankly, bordering on racketeering. Designed to increase the profits of the pharmaceutical interests which fund them, not for any purported health risks which have now been proven false.So I may very well have lost everything I worked for, but I also plan to expose the very same crooked organizations which put me in this situation, so that others don't have to experience the same losses......in the (false) name of "public health" that I have.

SMOKING LAW MISSES THE TARGET Jan. 27/07 Chronicle Journal

By CHRISTINA BLIZZARD

No matter how you cut it, the statistics are shocking.

Smoking among aboriginal people is as much as three times the national average. But it's the figures for young people that are chilling.

Among aboriginal youth aged 15-17, 61% of girls are smokers. That figure in the general population is 15%. Among aboriginal boys of that age, 47% are smokers, while the figure for the general population is 13%.

Clearly if any community needs the new Smoke Free Ontario Act, it's young people on reserves. There is a belief out there that reserves are exempt from the new law. Not so, says Health Promotions Minister Jim Watson.

Provincial lawyers have told him that the law has "general application" and it is up to the federal government -- which has jurisdiction over reserves -- and the aboriginal communities themselves to enforce the law.

So why is the smoking rate so high among aboriginal youth? Well, obviously price is a factor. And as long as reserves are manufacturing cheap cigarettes and selling them at bargain basement prices, they are putting at risk the health of the most vulnerable in their midst -- their young people.

"Clearly we still have a challenge with respect to tobacco leaving reserves and illegal tobacco products coming in to Ontario," Watson said yesterday. He has written to his federal counterpart, Tony Clement, asking for the feds to move on enforcing the law.

"The feds have indicated they are not willing to take action to enforce these kinds of laws," Watson said. Watson was at the native Anishinawbe Health Centre to launch a smoke-free information initiative aimed at the aboriginal community. With the rest of the world, you just bring in a law and smoking in all public places ceases. Yet we have to use gentle persuasion on reserves -- where the smoking problem is three times worse than anywhere else.

Talk about hypocrisy and selective blindness. We have a new, draconian law that forbids veterans from smoking in legion halls. Yet it does nothing to address this issue with children -- who can't even buy smokes until they are 19.

Watson said the aboriginal-run casinos have voluntarily said they will comply with the new bylaw. All the same, the government-run Casino Windsor is spending $2 million to circumvent the law and provide shelters for smokers.

Gamblers can smoke. Young native children can smoke. But when it comes to veterans who just want to spend a quiet evening with a beer and a smoke at the legion hall, and who are old enough and wise enough to be able to make a decision for themselves on their health risks, the government's all over it.

Talk about two tier justice.

And fair enough, the uneven application of the law is not Watson's fault. The feds are missing in action. This smoking law, while well-intentioned, is simply hitting the wrong people. Surely the people you'd like to see quit are young aboriginal kids. The last thing they need is a life tied to nicotine addiction. Yet they're exempt. And the people you don't mind having a quiet smoke are those who want to go to a sports bar for a beer.

While we're talking about gambling, a report released yesterday shows more than a third of teens aged 15-17 gamble, with 40% of those gamblers playing poker. The survey said 10% of them gamble online.

Need the money

These are not comforting figures. What is more disturbing is that 20% of teen bettors said they gambled because they needed the money. Guess no one's told them about that tried and true method of making dough. It's called getting a job. Still, bagging groceries just doesn't have that same glamorous allure as a smoke-filled den of gaming iniquity. Make that a smoke-free den of iniquity. Gambling is an addiction that can also ruin families. Then again, it's probably safer than the stock market -- which is probably what these teen poker players will graduate to.

Doesn't it make you wonder, though, about our priorities? Smoking? Fine for kids on reserves, bad for vets. Gambling? That's fine on reserves too. And in government-run casinos you can smoke and gamble to your heart's content. So long as the taxman gets a cut, there's no problem. No wonder our kids are getting the wrong message.

Sunday, February 04, 2007

FORCES - Norman Kjono's Corner Link to Norman Kjono's Corner Main Page Write to Norman Kjono
Some Legislators Get It About Smoking Ban's Negative ImpactBy Norman E. Kjono, February 4, 2007

From the Hawaii Reporter, January 30, 2007, “Bill Reverses Hawaii’s Smoking Ban In Bars, Nightclubs and Restaurants,” by Rep. Colleen Meyer (R-Kaaawa)”
“Honolulu – I drafted and introduced Bill H.B. No. 792 in the Hawaii State House of Representatives to exempt bars, nightclubs, and restaurants from the complete ban on smoking, provided that exterior signage adequately warns the public that smoking is allowed within. I'm very concerned with the calls my office is receiving about the loss of revenue that small business owners are experiencing across the state since the statewide smoking ban went into affect in November. Many long time business establishments have closed in other states due to the passage of smoking ban legislation and hundreds of others are limping along with revenues 30 to 50 percent of what they were before the ban. This is really a piece of common sense legislation that would allow a choice for both business owners and their patrons. I was joined by Representatives Rida Cabanilla, Karen Awana, Tom Brower, Cindy Evans and Gene Ward in the signing of this bill. . . . A U.S. Supreme court decision during the early 1970's ((Lloyd Corp v. Tanner, 407 U.S. 551 (1992)) said a place of business does not become public property because the public is invited in. So, by that same reasoning. A restaurant or bar is not public property. We need to support small business and stop regulating them out of business.”
Six legislators in Hawaii have introduced a bill that says they “get it” about the negative impact that statewide smoking bans have on independent small hospitality business owners. Their common sense, responsiveness to small business owner constituents, and recognition of basic legal supreme court decisions speaks well and clearly for itself. Further comment is therefore unnecessary, other than to say that legislators in other states would be well-advised to follow suit in this laudable effort by responsible legislators. I wish them well with the success of H.B. 792.
The common sense, fair approach by Hawaiian legislators is in marked—indeed, stark—contrast with that by some inveterate, knee-jerk supporters of tobacco control in Colorado. From the Rocky Mountain News, January 31, “Bills to Soften Smoking Ban Are Piling Up,” by April M. Washington:
“Sen. Brandon Shaffer, D-Longmont, had no answers during a recent townhall meeting at the VFW lodge in his hometown. That's why he introduced a bill Tuesday that would lift the statewide smoking ban on private membership clubs and lodges. ‘I believe in the smoking ban,’ Shaffer said. ‘But ultimately, I couldn't give the guy an answer when he stood up and said, 'Now, you're telling me I can't drink a beer and smoke with my buddies at our own club.' . . . ‘If my bill doesn't move forward, I'll support one that's trying to get casinos (included in the smoking ban),’ he said. ‘How do you justify that to veterans who put their lives on the line? We need to make sure we have a level playing field.’ Senate Bill 120 is one of four bills introduced this year to try to fix or dilute the smoking ban. One bill, by Sen. Lois Tochtrop, D-Thornton, would allow "mom-and-pop" bars to pay an extra $500 for their liquor licenses in exchange for letting patrons light up. Rep. Ellen Roberts, R-Durango, has introduced House Bill 1108, which would close cigar bar loopholes that are allowing some bar patrons to smoke. Denver Democrats Sen. Ken Gordon and Rep. Anne McGihon said they plan to introduce a measure today to require casinos to go smoke free.” (Underlines added.)
Contradictions and logic conflicts apparently abound in Colorado, defying the simple, straight-forward, fair-minded, common sense of legislative colleagues in Hawaii. For example, in Colorado:

1. It apparently has not occurred to Senator Shaffer that one cannot simultaneously claim to support a smoking ban and craft exemptions from it. If the tobacco control’s wildly-inflated claims about Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS) were true the only rational public health policy would be to prohibit the use of tobacco statewide. Artfully twisting with the political winds to craft exemptions for one business group and not another merely exposes the tobacco control agenda for the Social Marketing Junk Science agenda that it truly is. Perhaps tobacco control gurus such as Stanton Glantz with the University of California at San Francisco and “Secondhand Smoke Consultant” James Repace will next produce a “study on demand” about how ETS is deadly in bars but benign in VFW halls. Which should not be any stretch for Repace: he has previously testified that it takes 35,000 air exchanges to clear secondhand smoke in Toronto, Canada, 50,000 exchanges in Tacoma, Washington, and 100,000 exchanges in New York. Repace has also opined that smoky bars “have up to 50 times more cancer-causing particles in the air than highways and city streets clogged with diesel trucks,” and that “indoor air pollution virtually disappears once smoking is banned” (see Chief Engineer magazine, February 2005, “Smoky Story Lights A Fire.”) If 35,000 air exchanges per hour clearly does the job in Toronto then it should be transparent that the rates for Tacoma and New York are unnecessary and false. Equally transparent is the fact that if an exemption is warranted for the bar in a VFW hall then it is also warranted for a bar on private premises. Why not apply the same “study on demand” Junk Science to bars and VFW halls? Better yet, why not ignore tobacco control’s self-conflicting Junk Science about ETS altogether and do what makes sense: post a sign that smoking is allowed and let patrons sort it out form there?

2. Senator Tochtrop apparently sees tobacco control as a cash cow, which is entirely consistent with how anti-tobacco activists have viewed it for more than nearly two decades. But that begs the material issue. Why should any private bar owner be coerced to pay an additional $500 fee to continue to do what they have every lawful right to do in the first place: accommodate patrons who choose to smoke as part of their hospitality experience?

3. The capper is Rep. Roberts’ bill. She appears to have such a fixated thing about cigarette smokers that she has sponsored a bill to exclude establishments that sell cigarette from the cigar bar exemption. Personal preference could not be more fixated than that. It appears Rep. Roberts would be content to sit in the pristine essence of a cigar smoke filled back room to cut exemption deals but—oh, my God!—don’t you dare light up one of those filthy, stinky cigarettes.

4. Final Honors for the who-can-produce-more-ban-exemptions political posturing in Colorado go to Sen. Ken Gordon and Rep. AnnMcGihon. Their solution in support of special-interest tobacco control advocates is to simply expand the economic devastation they already witness in bars to state casinos, too. Now there’s a few fiscally responsible brain-trust-children busily at play.

Perhaps, in a flashing moment of uncommon clarity, it will occur to Sen. Shaffer that the “level playing filed” he is so concerned about can be easily achieved with no fuss, no muss, and with utter simplicity. Hint: they’re already sponsoring a legislative bill in Hawaii to accomplish that.

The Denver Post chimed in on the smoking ban debate in Colorado, too, with its February2, 2007 editorial “Clarify Colorado Smoking Ban:
“Seven months after Colorado's statewide smoking ban took effect, a number of bar owners are convinced that their businesses will not survive if they cannot allow smoking. Some are flouting the law, allowing customers to smoke until someone tells them they can't. A few are mounting legal challenges in hopes of being able to skirt the ban. . . . That's why we're glad to see bills in the legislature aimed at clarifying and strengthening the law. One measure would eliminate the exemption given to casinos. Another clarifies that cigar bars exempted from the law cannot include cigarette sales to meet the income-from-tobacco requirement. . . . On Tuesday, a La Plata County judge ruled that a bar in Durango, Orio's Roadhouse, can count its cigarette receipts and does not have to have cigars or a humidor to qualify for the exemption. The ruling is only effective in that county, but if the law is unchanged, surely the La Plata interpretation will be adopted statewide. . . . One of the reasons the legislature passed the law in the first place was to avoid the patchwork of prohibitions that were cropping up in different jurisdictions around the state, creating an unfair playing field for some businesses. While we understand the difficulty of breaking a bad habit, good public health policy would provide a uniform prohibition for as many indoor enclosed areas as possible, including bars, casinos and racetracks.”
The Post’s thinking is more internally-conflicted than that of Sen. Shaffer:
1. The Post states that the purpose of the ban is to protect nonsmokers from secondhand smoke. The necessary assumption of the post is that secondhand smoke presents a health risk for nonsmokers. Then it describes a cigar bar exemption, with which it clearly agrees. If what The Post writes about secondhand smoke is true, one must therefore reach either of two contradictory conclusions: 1) cigars do not emit secondhand smoke, or 2) cigar secondhand smoke does not present health risks for nonsmokers. In addition, given anti-tobacco activists' whining about their hair "stinks" when they leave a bar that allows smoking, one must also conclude that cigar smoke does not leave an odor. One can only take The Post's position as credible if they make three false assumptions.
2. Further, the matter of the "level playing field" is not only contradictory but childishly foolish. Cigar bars clearly enjoy the benefits of a non-level playing field through their exemption. Without the exemption for tobacco use their business would be significantly hurt, as it is that of bars. We therefore conclude that The Post agrees with supporting the interests of cigar bars through a non-level playing field, but it cries aloud for a level playing field ban for bars that currently allow cigarettes to be smoked. Addressing this argument by saying that cigar bars are in the business of selling cigars is specious because the exemption merely requires that 5 percent of revenue be derived from cigar sales or humidor rentals. The level playing field argument necessarily assumes that The Post supports a competitive market advantage for distributors of non-cigarette tobacco products—in the name of anti-tobacco. If that is true, why not the same exemption for cigarette tobacco products as well? The cigar bar exemption arguments expose both tobacco control advocates and The Post for the purveyors of elitist crap that they truly are: the common man smokers can do without his cigarettes while enjoying a brew, however fat cats cutting exemption deals in back rooms are free to enjoy their choice of tobacco products. The obvious response is that there are vastly more cigarette smokers who vote than voters who smoke cigars.
It is extremely important to understand policy behind this conflicting policy, so-called reduced risk. I strongly recommend that everyone read the following study, the .PDF version is only six pages. Toward a Comprehensive Long-Term Nicotine Policy: Please note that the authors of the study are directly connected to tobacco control advocacy, and in many cases have personal financial ties to Nicotine Replacement Therapy manufacturers and distributors. The policy is intended to focus coercive policy on by far the largest tobacco user source consumer base—persons who smoke cigarettes—in order to sell Nicotine Replacement Therapy products such as Nicorette gum, NicoDerm CQ patches and Commit Lozenges, while letting the considerably smaller cigar and pipe smoker populations off the hook for discrimination.
Readers may find the following January 22, 2007 article from the Edmonton Journal "Anti-Smoking Groups Look to Drug Giants for Funding" to be of considerable interest. It turns out that the money behind fatally-flawed smoking ban regulations is from pharmaceutical nicotine peddlers. It bears mention that pharmaceutical-funded purveyors of smoking ban propaganda do so with the underhanded bludgeon on Junk Science. See, for example, “Politics & ETS Summary” of sixteen important points about Environmental Tobacco Smoke that thoroughly debunk the “Secondhand smoke kills, always, inevitably and with out fail” mantra sung by pharmaceutical-funded anti-tobacco activists.
Seen in its true light, The Post's fatally-conflicted editorial reasoning becomes yet another example of main-stream media's knee-jerk support for public policy that discriminates against the common many in order to accommodate the demands of a mercantile, elitist few. That may do wonders for media revenues from pharmaceutical advertising, however is a clear disservice to readers and the public.
Which raises another question for Senator Shaffer: "Why should any hospitality business owner in Colorado be forced to endure diminished business opportunity to accommodate policy crafted to increase multi-national pharmaceutical's sales of nicotine delivery device products?"

That question applies to all hospitality business owners, their employees, and suppliers of the trade nationwide.

It is encouraging that we observe uncommonly good sense emerging in Hawaii, to surface through the tobacco control compost heap. I suspect that this is just the beginning of common sense legislation about smoking bans. It will expand as more legislators conclude that, as the U.S. Supreme court reportedly concluded, private establishments do not become public property simply because the public is invited in. The next step is simple: as Rep. Meyer wrote: “to exempt bars, nightclubs, and restaurants from the complete ban on smoking, provided that exterior signage adequately warns the public that smoking is allowed within.”

Its amazing how a little liberty and freedom to choose can dramatically simplify coherent public policy. See “Liberty.” The only time that we get hopelessly conflicted and bound up in exemption snares is when we confuse special-interest tobacco control dogma with legitimate public health.

Norman E. Kjono
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Friday, February 02, 2007

Michael Siegel's blog
Washington Post Op-Ed Challenges the "Bogus" Science of Secondhand Smoke An op-ed column published Tuesday in the Washington Post challenges what it calls the "bogus" science behind claims of the extreme dangers of secondhand smoke.

The column, written by Dr. Gio Gori, a former deputy director of the National Cancer Institute's Division of Cancer Cause and Prevention and former paid tobacco industry consultant,The Rest of the Story

It is with great misfortune that I find myself in a position where I must agree with two of the basic premises of this column (obviously I don't agree with the suggestion that all claims of the hazards of secondhand smoke are fallacious).

First, I agree that many of the claims being publicly disseminated by anti-smoking groups, including the Surgeon General's office, are based on bogus science.

Second, I agree that pubic policy should be based on an honest and accurate representation of the science, that health rights should be served truthfully, and that a frank discussion (particularly within the tobacco control movement) is needed to restore straight thinking regarding the way in which "science" is being used or misused to promote public policy. Dr. Gori is absolutely correct in suggesting that two of the major claims made by the Surgeon General regarding the effects of secondhand smoke are based on bogus science. First, there is no evidence that merely a brief exposure to secondhand smoke can cause lung cancer. All of the evidence upon which the conclusion that secondhand smoke causes lung cancer is based involve subjects with chronic exposure to secondhand smoke, usually at very high levels and for many, many years. Most of these studies involve people who lived with smokers for many years, or who worked in a workplace where they were exposed daily to secondhand smoke for many years.Simply put, there is no adequate basis to support the Surgeon General's statement that a brief exposure to secondhand smoke can cause lung cancer. Second, it is inaccurate to state that children exposed to secondhand smoke will eventually develop heart disease or cancer. The overwhelming majority of them will, of course, not develop heart disease or cancer due to their secondhand smoke exposure.As I noted previously, "by making secondhand smoke exposure sound so bad, such that even a tiny and brief exposure is hazardous and such that if you are exposed you are doomed to disease, aren't we taking away an incentive for people who cannot eliminate their exposure entirely to reduce it? Are we not taking away an incentive for smokers to quit smoking if they know that they will still hang out in the same smoky bars and be exposed to secondhand smoke? What's the point of their quitting smoking if the secondhand smoke in these bars is going to kill them anyway and there is no perceived benefit of reducing the level of their exposure? "Public policy should be based on accurate and well-documented science, not based on mere conjecture. It should be based on the truth, not on deceptive propaganda.Right now, there is a lot of deceptive propaganda that is being spewed forth by anti-smoking groups. It is not just isolated groups; there is a widespread effort to sensationalize the health effects of secondhand smoke and it pervades the movement, going all the way to the top - to the office of the Surgeon General.Anti-smoking groups can't stop every columnist from questioning the basis for the claims that there is any danger to secondhand smoke at all. But they should, at a minimum, not give opponents of smoke-free policies like Dr. Gori red-hot ammunition by making claims that really are bogus. Dr. Gori has always criticized the science behind secondhand smoke, but by actually making absurd and bogus claims, the Surgeon General's office and anti-smoking groups have given him the opportunity to have a field day.And that field day, on the pages of the highly-read and highly reputed Washington Post, comes at the expense of a blow to the credibility of the anti-smoking movement.As well it should.

The bogus 'Science' of secondhand smoke

The Bogus 'Science' of Secondhand Smoke
Gio Batta GoriSpecial to washingtonpost.comTuesday, January 30, 2007; 12:00 AM
Smoking cigarettes is a clear health risk, as most everyone knows. But lately, people have begun to worry about the health risks of secondhand smoke. Some policymakers and activists are even claiming that the government should crack down on secondhand smoke exposure, given what "the science" indicates about such exposure.
Last July, introducing his office's latest report on secondhand smoke, then-U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona asserted that "there is no risk-free level of secondhand smoke exposure," that "breathing secondhand smoke for even a short time can damage cells and set the cancer process in motion," and that children exposed to secondhand smoke will "eventually . . . develop cardiovascular disease and cancers over time."
Such claims are certainly alarming. But do the studies Carmona references support his claims, and are their findings as sound as he suggests?
Lung cancer and cardiovascular diseases develop at advancing ages. Estimating the risk of those diseases posed by secondhand smoke requires knowing the sum of momentary secondhand smoke doses that nonsmokers have internalized over their lifetimes. Such lifetime summations of instant doses are obviously impossible, because concentrations of secondhand smoke in the air, individual rates of inhalation, and metabolic transformations vary from moment to moment, year after year, location to location.
In an effort to circumvent this capital obstacle, all secondhand smoke studies have estimated risk using a misleading marker of "lifetime exposure." Yet, instant exposures also vary uncontrollably over time, so lifetime summations of exposure could not be, and were not, measured.
Typically, the studies asked 60--70 year-old self-declared nonsmokers to recall how many cigarettes, cigars or pipes might have been smoked in their presence during their lifetimes, how thick the smoke might have been in the rooms, whether the windows were open, and similar vagaries. Obtained mostly during brief phone interviews, answers were then recorded as precise measures of lifetime individual exposures.
In reality, it is impossible to summarize accurately from momentary and vague recalls, and with an absurd expectation of precision, the total exposure to secondhand smoke over more than a half-century of a person's lifetime. No measure of cumulative lifetime secondhand smoke exposure was ever possible, so the epidemiologic studies estimated risk based not only on an improper marker of exposure, but also on exposure data that are illusory.
Adding confusion, people with lung cancer or cardiovascular disease are prone to amplify their recall of secondhand smoke exposure. Others will fib about being nonsmokers and will contaminate the results. More than two dozen causes of lung cancer are reported in the professional literature, and over 200 for cardiovascular diseases; their likely intrusions have never been credibly measured and controlled in secondhand smoke studies. Thus, the claimed risks are doubly deceptive because of interferences that could not be calculated and corrected.
In addition, results are not consistently reproducible. The majority of studies do not report a statistically significant change in risk from secondhand smoke exposure, some studies show an increase in risk, and ¿ astoundingly ¿ some show a reduction of risk.
Some prominent anti-smokers have been quietly forthcoming on what "the science" does and does not show. Asked to quantify secondhand smoke risks at a 2006 hearing at the UK House of Lords, Oxford epidemiologist Sir Richard Peto ¿ a leader of the secondhand smoke crusade ¿ replied, "I am sorry not to be more helpful; you want numbers and I could give you numbers..., but what does one make of them? ...These hazards cannot be directly measured."
It has been fashionable to ignore the weakness of "the science" on secondhand smoke, perhaps in the belief that claiming "the science is settled" will lead to policies and public attitudes that will reduce the prevalence of smoking. But such a Faustian bargain is an ominous precedent in public health and political ethics. Consider how minimally such policies as smoking bans in bars and restaurants really reduce the prevalence of smoking, and yet how odious and socially unfair such prohibitions are.
By any sensible account, the anachronism of tobacco use should eventually vanish in an advancing civilization. Why must we promote this process under the tyranny of deception?
Presumably, we are grown-up people, with a civilized sense of fair play, and dedicated to disciplined and rational discourse. We are fortunate enough to live in a free country that is respectful of individual choices and rights, including the right to honest public policies. Still, while much is voiced about the merits of forceful advocacy, not enough is said about the fundamental requisite of advancing public health with sustainable evidence, rather than by dangerous, wanton conjectures.
A frank discussion is needed to restore straight thinking in the legitimate uses of "the science" of epidemiology ¿ uses that go well beyond secondhand smoke issues. Today, health rights command high priority on many agendas, as they should. It is not admissible to presume that people expect those rights to be served less than truthfully.

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

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