The Snowbird

2008-09-04T14:04:00.000-07:00

Citizens Freedom Alliance, Inc. The Smoker's Club Meeting Schedule - By Invitation Only
	September 6, 2008 Seattle, Washington
	September 13, 2008 Maui, Hawaii

2007-03-06T22:13:00.000-08:00

http://www.derbydailyrep.com/articles/2007/01/25/news/opinion/edit2.txt

Smoking bans do affect businesses

Elected officials of Derby, I know not what impact the opinion of a history professor from Georgia may have on your decision regarding a smoking ordinance, but my opinion was solicited and I shall give it. The evidence is clear smoking bans kill establishments. In Delaware, even supporters of the state’s smoking ban admit the ban drove some establishments into extinction. As for New York, an article that appeared in the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin on July 18, 2006 titled “N.Y., N.J. Businesses Say Smoking Ban” examined the effects of the smoking bans in New York and New Jersey. According to the article, Scott Wexler, executive director of the Empire State Restaurant and Tavern Association, stated, “There’s no question ... that the smoking bans have hurt the taverns and the bars.” He said a loss of about 20 percent of sales has been typical.“People have seen gains from the floor, closing the gap in the losses. But most of my members are still doing less business today than they were before the ban ... About 25 percent of our member establishments closed over the last three years.”Derby council members, ask yourselves, what if you ran one of these businesses that closed due to a smoking ban? How would you feel? As far as smoking in privately-owned businesses is concerned, leave it alone. Let the free market decide for itself. The free market has already been making the shift toward non-smoking establishments for years. The free market IS the “level playing field.”Anti-smokers speak of deaths from secondhand smoke. Yet, strangely, they never seem to produce the victims. Ask them for the bodies, the death certificates, the graves. They cannot produce them because there are none. Of course it is hard to find victims when even nonsmoking bartenders inhale the equivalent of 1/10th of a cigarette per shift.
Anti-smoking forces bring up the issue of the Surgeon General’s Report. Former Surgeon General Carmona is a tobacco prohibitionist whose statement that there was no safe level of tobacco smoke came from a press release, not his report. In addition, Carmona conveniently ignored the most extensive study on secondhand smoke ever done “Environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality in a prospective study of Californians, 1960-98” by James E. Enstrom and Geoffrey C. Kabat. Enstrom and Kabat concluded, “The results do not support a causal relation between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality, although they do not rule out a small effect. The association between exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and coronary heart disease and lung cancer may be considerably weaker than generally believed.” Should you pass a smoking ban for the workers? The federal agency OSHA certainly refuses to. OSHA has found all the components in secondhand smoke are present at safe levels in the vast majority of public places. This is why you are being pressured to pass this ban, the antismokers know OSHA has said NO! yet OSHA is the very agency which should be concerned with bans if the danger were real. If OSHA, a federal agency, will not advocate a smoking ban for businesses, then why should the Derby City Council pass one? At least one city council member feels the day is coming when the nation will be smoke free. Perhaps officially at some point the nation’s businesses might all become smoke free, but that outcome is not inevitable, nor desirable. And opposition to the smoke ban craze is not futile. Throughout history smoke bans rarely withstand the test of time. Already in California an estimated 50 percent of bars ignore the state’s smoke ban in order to stay in business. Rumors are also rampant of restaurants that have hidden rooms’ for special smoking guests and some that even have “patios” with four walls and a ceiling. Could the United States adequately enforce a national smoking ban? Right now we cannot stop millions of illegal aliens from crossing the border, nor can we win the drug war. In fact, according to one recent report, marijuana has become the largest cash crop in the United States-70 years after it was officially banned. My position against smoking bans may not be very politically correct right now. Much of the public is supporting bans as indicated by the fact that city council members, legislators and uninformed voters have passed bans in many parts of the country. The right thing to do is not always popular though. There was a time when the majority of Americans supported racial segregation for example, but did that make racial segregation right? This country might be headed for blanket smoking prohibition, but here is one historian who will not sit idly by and see that happen. I have chosen what I believe in my heart to be the right position, and I will not waver. I take my stand.

Jeremy Richards, Ph.D.,
Georgia

2007-03-02T18:23:00.000-08:00

Seven Questions for Mr. Smitherman -ON

February 21 , 2007 :

Health and Long Term Care Minister George Smitherman recently stated that the apparent death from hypothermia of a long-term care patient, who was made to go outside to smoke, had nothing to do with his smoking bans and regulations. He then gave an opinion which appeared to endorse the charging of a worker in connection with this tragic death.“Is it appropriate for a minister of the crown to make statements that may reflect prejudicially on a case before the courts, and which seem designed to deflect any questions about the impact his laws and regulations may be having on the residents of long-term care facilities and on those who try the care for them?” said Nancy Daigneault, president of the smokers’ rights group mychoice.ca.Ms. Daigneault said Mr. Smitherman’s statements raise questions about his regulations that deserve answers.
Question 1:
Will the minister provide a list of all the cases that have occurred involving injuries to smoking residents, since his regulations came into force last May 31? All such cases require by law that an incident report be filed with his ministry. This list should be made public.
Question 2:
Why did Mr. Smitherman make the regulations for special smoking rooms in these facilities so onerous that most cannot afford them?Question 3:
Why did he ignore submissions from homes and an association representing homes asking for reasonable accommodation and grandfathering of existing separate and ventilated rooms?
Question 4:
Why is Mr. Smitherman letting local health authorities ban even outdoor shelters at long term care and even psychiatric facilities and force elderly and ill residents off the grounds to smoke? In many cases there are employees who smoke, and family members who would gladly volunteer to assist residents who smoke to do so in a safe environment.
Question 5:
Why is his government refusing to provide any financial help to these homes to meet his extreme new rules, yet is giving millions to casinos for shelters for smokers who gamble?In a Global TV debate* last May 25, Health Promotion Minister Jim Watson responded to concerns about the impact of the law and refused to consider such funding for long term care homes. He stated: “We don't believe that we should be spending tax dollars to subsidize the construction of smoking lounges. That's not a good use of tax money.” Now that it has changed its mind and sees casino smoking shelters as a good use of tax dollars, will it change its mind and also help LTC facility residents?
Question 6:
Does the government really think that all of the measures it has imposed on LTC facilities are absolutely necessary and justify any risks they have created for these residents?
Question 7:
If the answer to question six is yes, can it provide independent, verified science that supports this belief and justifies actions that include imposing involuntary cessation on LTC residents or forcing them out of their homes and onto the streets in winter to smoke?
-30-
* Transcript of debate available on request.
http://www.mychoice.ca/en/news_room/news_releases/feb_21_07.aspx

2007-02-28T18:00:00.000-08:00

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.)

2007-02-25T22:39:00.000-08:00

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.

2007-02-20T23:21:00.000-08:00

“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

2007-02-18T23:26:00.000-08:00

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

2007-02-18T23:01:00.000-08:00

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

2007-02-18T08:21:00.000-08:00

2007-02-17T20:11:00.000-08:00

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).

2007-02-17T12:00:00.000-08:00

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

2007-02-16T21:44:00.000-08:00

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.

2007-02-09T17:51:00.000-08:00

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.

2007-02-09T17:37:00.000-08:00

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.

2007-02-06T22:56:00.000-08:00

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

2007-02-05T19:24:00.000-08:00

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.

2007-02-05T14:20:00.000-08:00

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.

2007-02-04T22:26:00.000-08:00

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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2007-02-02T19:56:00.000-08:00

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.

2007-02-02T18:04:00.000-08:00

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.

2007-01-31T00:08:00.000-08:00

2007-01-30T22:05:00.000-08:00

Smoking bans do affect businesses
Published: Thursday, January 25, 2007 10:33 PM CSTE-

Elected officials of Derby,I know not what impact the opinion of a history professor from Georgia may have on your decision regarding a smoking ordinance, but my opinion was solicited and I shall give it. The evidence is clear smoking bans kill establishments. In Delaware, even supporters of the state’s smoking ban admit the ban drove some establishments into extinction.
As for New York, an article that appeared in the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin on July 18, 2006 titled “N.Y., N.J. Businesses Say Smoking Ban” examined the effects of the smoking bans in New York and New Jersey. According to the article, Scott Wexler, executive director of the Empire State Restaurant and Tavern Association, stated, “There’s no question ... that the smoking bans have hurt the taverns and the bars.” He said a loss of about 20 percent of sales has been typical.“People have seen gains from the floor, closing the gap in the losses. But most of my members are still doing less business today than they were before the ban ... About 25 percent of our member establishments closed over the last three years.”Derby council members, ask yourselves, what if you ran one of these businesses that closed due to a smoking ban? How would you feel?
As far as smoking in privately-owned businesses is concerned, leave it alone. Let the free market decide for itself. The free market has already been making the shift toward non-smoking establishments for years. The free market IS the “level playing field.” Anti-smokers speak of deaths from secondhand smoke. Yet, strangely, they never seem to produce the victims. Ask them for the bodies, the death certificates, the graves. They cannot produce them because there are none. Of course it is hard to find victims when even nonsmoking bartenders inhale the equivalent of 1/10th of a cigarette per shift. Anti-smoking forces bring up the issue of the Surgeon General’s Report. Former Surgeon General Carmona is a tobacco prohibitionist whose statement that there was no safe level of tobacco smoke came from a press release, not his report.
In addition, Carmona conveniently ignored the most extensive study on secondhand smoke ever done “Environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality in a prospective study of Californians, 1960-98” by James E. Enstrom and Geoffrey C. Kabat. Enstrom and Kabat concluded, “The results do not support a causal relation between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality, although they do not rule out a small effect. The association between exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and coronary heart disease and lung cancer may be considerably weaker than generally believed.” Should you pass a smoking ban for the workers? The federal agency OSHA certainly refuses to. OSHA has found all the components in secondhand smoke are present at safe levels in the vast majority of public places. This is why you are being pressured to pass this ban, the antismokers know OSHA has said NO! yet OSHA is the very agency which should be concerned with bans if the danger were real. If OSHA, a federal agency, will not advocate a smoking ban for businesses, then why should the Derby City Council pass one?

At least one city council member feels the day is coming when the nation will be smoke free. Perhaps officially at some point the nation’s businesses might all become smoke free, but that outcome is not inevitable, nor desirable. And opposition to the smoke ban craze is not futile. Throughout history smoke bans rarely withstand the test of time. Already in California an estimated 50 percent of bars ignore the state’s smoke ban in order to stay in business. Rumors are also rampant of restaurants that have hidden rooms’ for special smoking guests and some that even have “patios” with four walls and a ceiling. Could the United States adequately enforce a national smoking ban? Right now we cannot stop millions of illegal aliens from crossing the border, nor can we win the drug war. In fact, according to one recent report, marijuana has become the largest cash crop in the United States-70 years after it was officially banned.
My position against smoking bans may not be very politically correct right now. Much of the public is supporting bans as indicated by the fact that city council members, legislators and uninformed voters have passed bans in many parts of the country. The right thing to do is not always popular though. There was a time when the majority of Americans supported racial segregation for example, but did that make racial segregation right? This country might be headed for blanket smoking prohibition, but here is one historian who will not sit idly by and see that happen. I have chosen what I believe in my heart to be the right position, and I will not waver. I take my stand.

Jeremy Richards, Ph.D.,
Georgia

2007-01-30T20:38:00.000-08:00

Government gone wild

Jan.26/07 www.tbsource.com

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 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? Loudly billed as measures that only affect "public places," they have actually targeted private places: restaurants, bars, and nightclubs, – whose customers are free to go elsewhere.

All decisions involve risks; some have harmful consequences; most are controversial and invite disapproval from the neighbours. But the individual must be free to make these decisions. Yet when it comes to smoking, this freedom is under attack. Smokers are a minority, practising a habit considered annoying and unpleasant to the majority. So the majority has simply commandeered the power of government and used it to dictate their behaviour.

Thomas Laprade
480 Rupert St.
Thunder Bay, Ont.

2007-01-28T21:42:00.000-08:00

Letter published in The Chronicle Journal Jan. 23/07

I'm a nonsmoker, not reformed smoker. I think for a person to start smoking today when so much is known what smoking will do to one's body is a death wish. I also realize that cigarettes are a legal product.

Years ago it was part of the culture to smoke; even some doctors smoked. It was
in this generation that the seniors of today lived. They started a habit when little was known of the effects of tobacco. Some of these seniors (some well into their 80s)
are living in seniors homes. It is with sadness that I see pictures in your paper of these seniors being forced out in the cold to have a cigarette which probably to them is one of life's last pleasures they can enjoy ("Smoking seniors left out in the cold," Jan. 14)

It is amazing how far the anti-smoking Taliban will push. To pass laws that force these people out of their homes without proper shelter from the elements to enjoy their right to a legal cigarette is ridiculous. I'm all for trying to get people to quit but with their advanced age they have already beaten all odds of dying young from smoking.
These are the people who have lived through The Depression, WW2 and are now in the twilight of their life. Cannot a simple gazebo-like structure be put up for them?
They can go out to smoke and no staff would have to be there so smokers would be by themselves.

All effort should be made to educate young people about smoking and prevent them
from starting. It seems crazy to me that old people who can legally buy cigarettes are almost having to jump through hoops to smoke them while you drive past any high school and young people who cannot legally buy smokes are out smoking with no repercussions. Sure makes one wonder.

Maryann Baarts-Matson
Neebing

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Letter published in The Chronicle Journal Jan. 24/07

I have read lots of letters from the public and the workers in senior homes, and lots about supporting our troops and honouring them as they leave and return.
They are fighting for our government and us. They deserve all of this and more.
I think they are doing a wonderful job of preserving our freedoms and that of others.

When they return and the fighting is done, do we just forget what they have been through, and when they get old dictate to them where they can smoke in the only place they have to live? Or do we recognize what they have done for us and allow them
the dignity to live out their lives in the peace they fought for without having to go outside in the wind and rain and snow and risk contracting colds and flu.

Have they not faced hardship enough? They faced death every day for our country and us. Now our government and the workers can't face a little smoke? Get a life!

By the way, I am a non-smoker and don't force my beliefs on anyone

John Elliott
Kaministiquia

2007-01-28T21:34:00.000-08:00

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

More non-smoking insanity
I am starting to wonder who is mentally ill in this city. No one was being bothered by the smoking rooms for the mentally ill patients. In fact, few probably knew about it at all. The medical staff on these wards do not want it removed as it may cause them harm from violent patients. It would seem we should value medical staff and their wants more than non-smokers who never set foot in those areas anyway. Maybe the CHR could supply some kung fu classes for nurses? The worst type of criminal is treated better than a smoker. Don't go in mental wards if it bothers you!

R. LLEWELLYN

2007-01-26T09:22:00.000-08:00

http://www.winnipegsun.com/Comment/Letters/2007/01/25/3444874.html

Quitting is a choice

In regard to Lou Spakowski's letter Just ban tobacco (Jan. 23): I am an ex smoker. I agree with him to a point that tobacco is an addiction just as heroin or cocaine are. But I disagree with his solution to ban smoking.
People have to be ready to quit, and it has to be their choice. Nobody should pressure them to quit if they are not ready. If you were to ban the selling of cigarettes as Mr. Spakowski suggests, not only will you have a lot of people going through withdrawal with not enough medical help or rehab spots available, but think of all the revenue that our government would lose.
Leave the smokers alone; they already have enough laws set against them. They will quit when they are ready and only then. Or not quit at all.
H. Nowak
Winnipeg
(Since we're banning stuff ...)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Outlaw booze, too
I agree with Lou Spakowski , but he doesn't go far enough in his thinking and reasoning.
Government should outlaw alcohol as well. The middle and lower classes will have "oodles" of money to spend on their families and they will live happily ever after. And governments will like that idea. Can you imagine the amount of money they'll save on "health" care?

Thomas Laprade
Thunder Bay, Ont.

(They tried that. It didn't take.)

A tongue in cheek letter:)_________________________________

2007-01-26T08:38:00.000-08:00

Send the ban up in smoke

Letter Published: Friday, January 26, 2007..The Windsor Star

The perpetrators of this draconian smoking ban knew that it would affect business. They also know that the effects will not just go away.
Does it really make sense to anyone reading this that if bars are struggling and go under that people will still want to invest in them? The more likely scenario is that once they are gone, they are gone.
The government hedged its own bets and is building fancy smoking areas in the casinos. Where is the hard line on the ban? They took steps to protect their bottom line -- too bad about all the other entertainment venues. The government should face the same kind of consequences as the rest of the entertainment industry. It didn't though -- probably the escape hatch already in place.
Actually, there was a leaked document showing an internal estimate of revenue losses at the casinos. So the scenario of the escape hatch does have some weight to it.
Underhandedness is a hallmark of this provincial government and the anti-smoking industry in general. The exceptions the government carved out for itself shows its own lack of faith in its own smoking ban. Why should anyone else have faith in it?
I would call for smoking-allowed and non-smoking venues and let the market decide. I think we see a good example already how that would go.
It should be obvious to even the most empty-headed anti-smoker that this solution doesn't work. It would be better if everyone went back to minding his own business.

Christopher R. Williamson
Windsor
© The Windsor Star 2007

2007-01-25T14:38:00.000-08:00

http://www.canada.com/windsorstar/news/letters/index.html

Smoking ban little more than social engineering

Letter Published: Thursday, January 25, 2007

The claim that smoking bans are being pushed in order to protect workers' health is false. The unstated reasoning behind the ban is simply to make smoking as uncomfortable and unenjoyable as possible.
That's why you so rarely see pleasant accommodations made for smokers and their friends.

Well-ventilated situations where smokers and non-smokers can happily coexist would defeat the effectiveness of smoking bans as a tool of social engineering.

Thomas Laprade
Thunder Bay

2007-01-25T11:55:00.000-08:00

K-W Record
Elderly smokers Matter more than casinos
Ann Welch
(Jan 23, 2007)
So, the Ontario government is above its own law against smokers and is building luxurious, heated smoking shelters at casinos to stop falling revenues -- at a cost of $250,000 each.
Meanwhile, the government is refusing to offer one penny to long-term care homes to upgrade existing smoking rooms to their new over-the-top specifications.
The residents of these homes are well over the age of any so-called "premature death." They are in their 70s, 80s and 90s. They are our parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles. They have mobility problems, they use canes, wheelchairs and walkers. They have survived their tobacco habit, world wars, and the Great Depression.
These are the people that helped build Canada into the wonderful country it is today, and to thank them for their lifelong contribution they are now sent outside, like dogs to do their business, during the harsh Ontario winter.
Just because the government can't make a buck off them is no reason to show such disrespect and lack of compassion. The provincial government should do the right thing and grandfather the old rooms or provide funding for the new ones.

Nursing homes should have smoke shelters -ON
Published: Saturday, January 20, 2007

The Ottawa Citizen
It is wrong that the Ontario government will allow casinos to build shelters for smokers but won't allow Ontario long-term care facilities to have shelters or smoking rooms. Drive to any Ottawa nursing home and you'll find residents, many with limited mobility, outside smoking and socializing in sub-zero temperatures.
My husband, a smoker for most of his life, and other residents of his nursing home brave inclement weather because the Ministry of Health and Long-term Care won't permit smoking rooms or shelters. This is unfair. Until the Smoke-Free Ontario Act was enacted last year, his home had a proper smoking room.
I blame the politicians at Queen's Park in their never-ending battle to hit the little guys where it hurts.
Premier Dalton McGuinty's government has proved again that filling the provincial coffers through the gambling habits of smoking Ontarians and visitors is more important than the lives and comfort of seniors in nursing homes.
I believe Ontario should direct some gambling revenue toward building smoking shelters at nursing homes.

Betty Lortie, Ottawa

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/letters/story.html?id=3991d005-9a16-4119-98cf-ce1249c1836c -----------------------------------------------------------------------
Smoking rooms legal
Re: Nursing homes should have smoke shelters, Jan. 20.
All long- term care facilities in Ontario are in fact entitled to have not only an outdoor smoking shelter ( provided it is no more than two walls and a roof), but they are also entitled to have a controlled smoking area inside the homes.
When the Smoke Free Ontario passed into law last May, the only exception we included in the legislation for indoor smoking was that long- termcare homes could build a properly ventilated controlled smoking area. Some smoking rooms in long- term care facilities did not meet new provincial standards and had to close their rooms because they seriously jeopardized the health of residents and staff at the facility. But all of these facilities are legally able to upgrade them and build an indoor controlledsmoking area.
My ministry has no intention of watering down the legislation and allowing smoking rooms in casinos or bars or offices, as has been promoted by the big tobacco companies through their lobbyists.
The legislation has worked well, and the vast majority of the population appreciates going into a public workplace and not having to breathe second hand smoke. Like most residents of Ottawa, I enjoy going out to a restaurant and not being asked “ smoking or non- smoking” by the host or hostess.
Sadly, 16,000 people will die prematurely this year due to smoking and smoking related diseases. That is why Premier Dalton McGuinty and our government will respect the rights of those who live in long- termcare homes by allowing a controlled- smoking area, but under no circumstances will we ever turn back the clock and allow smoking indoors at casinos, or any other enclosed workplace.

JIM WATSON,
Ottawa,
Minister of Health Promotion

2007-01-25T10:47:00.000-08:00

Roseann Danese,
Windsor Star
Published: Thursday, January 25, 2007

Add legion halls to the list of places that are allowed to have outdoor smoking shelters.
Neil MacKenzie, manager of tobacco programs with the Windsor Essex County Health Unit, said legion halls are exempt from Ontario's tough smoke-free law because they're "social clubs" and not food and beverage establishments -- even though a good portion of their business involves selling food and beverages.
"A legion hall is defined as a headquarters for local legions," MacKenzie said. "They're not to be treated like a food and beverage establishment."
All of this is proof to Robert Troupe that the Smoke-Free Ontario Act is a joke. "Either the law is intact as written or throw it out."

Troupe, the owner of the Sandbar restaurant, has hired a lawyer and is fighting a fine he received last summer for allowing smoking on a patio that was partially covered.
"Everybody is interpreting in the whole province differently and that's not allowed," he said. "It's like the speed limit, you go 50 kilometres or you don't."
Smoking shelters with a roof and two sides are not allowed outside taverns and restaurants, but they are allowed at legions and might be allowed in private clubs like the Caboto or Riverside Sportsmen Club, said Julie Rosenberg, a spokeswoman with the Ministry of Health Promotion. Food and beverage sales must be ancillary to the main function of the club.
Rosenburg said if the primary reason for existing is cultural or recreational in nature, a smoking shelter is allowed, even if food and beverage sales are a big part of the business. But the smoking shelters cannot be located near a food and beverage operation.
MacKenzie said the health unit will provide direction on who can have smoking shelters. "We'll go out and consult with them.... When we have a grey area, we seek guidance."
That would be helpful for the manager of the Riverside Sportsmen Club, who was told he could not have customers smoking underneath the roof's overhang. "I had to put an extension on to the wall so people would not stand under the overhang of the roof," said president Frank Marcelloni. "I was told to put that there otherwise I'd get fined."

The allowance for legions and other clubs came on the heels of another revelation recently that surprised tavern operators like Liz Burns, the owner of the Highway Tavern, who was ordered to take down an outdoor shelter erected to keep smoking customers protected from the snow and rain.
Two weeks ago, Burns discovered that Casino Windsor and bingo halls are allowed to have the same type of smoking shelter that she was forced to dismantle. The reason? Their primary business is not food and beverage sales.
"It's making us crazy," Burns said Wednesday. "Nobody's arguing about smoking inside the club. It's just a shelter issue. We just want a roof over our lousy heads."

© The Windsor Star 2007

2007-01-25T10:31:00.000-08:00

The Ottawa CitizenPublished: Saturday, January 20, 2007
It is wrong that the Ontario government will allow casinos to build shelters for smokers but won't allow Ontario long-term care facilities to have shelters or smoking rooms. Drive to any Ottawa nursing home and you'll find residents, many with limited mobility, outside smoking and socializing in sub-zero temperatures.
My husband, a smoker for most of his life, and other residents of his nursing home brave inclement weather because the Ministry of Health and Long-term Care won't permit smoking rooms or shelters. This is unfair. Until the Smoke-Free Ontario Act was enacted last year, his home had a proper smoking room.
I blame the politicians at Queen's Park in their never-ending battle to hit the little guys where it hurts.
Premier Dalton McGuinty's government has proved again that filling the provincial coffers through the gambling habits of smoking Ontarians and visitors is more important than the lives and comfort of seniors in nursing homes.
I believe Ontario should direct some gambling revenue toward building smoking shelters at nursing homes.

Betty Lortie,
Ottawa

2007-01-23T09:00:00.000-08:00

The Windsor Star

Hypocrisy of province, health unit now evident

Letter
Monday, January 22, 2007

Two recent articles regarding the smoking legislation in The Windsor Star -- Jan. 5, Rules Bewilder Tavern Owners and Jan. 12, Smoke Police Can't Agree -- are nothing more than laughable.
I distinctly remember all the newspaper articles at the time of the ban's implementation stating absolutely no roofs on any smoking shelters anywhere. Now that the casino is building roofs and heated smoking shelters, the rules suddenly change. Neil MacKenzie, manager of the Windsor-Essex County Health Unit, now states that "the legislation allows them to have a roof and two walls because their primary business is gaming."
If there was any truth to this, why didn't the casino have these built and ready when the ban stated on June 1 before 300 people lost their jobs at the casino as a result of the smoking ban? Maybe their jobs could have been saved.
Why didn't they tell the bingo halls this at the beginning before half of them closed down and all the charities lost their money?
The truth of the matter is, and we all know it, that the provincial government does not care about the people who lost their jobs or the bingos and bars that have closed.
It wasn't until now, eight months after the smoking ban started, that the provincial government realized that their sacred cash cow, the casino, was going to continue losing millions. So they bend the rules to suit their own agenda in the hope of winning back American patrons.
There is absolutely no reason why bars and restaurants cannot have these shelters just because they serve food.

The casino serves food. The shelters are outside and have nothing to do with the food inside. The gaming issue was never mentioned in the beginning and is all smoke and mirrors now.
The provincial government are nothing but a bunch of hypocrites who cost a lot of people their jobs and or livelihood, and the Windsor-Essex County Health Unit is just a dumber version of the Keystone Cops.
Ed Falica
Tecumseh---------------------------

Casino smoking shelter proves allure of money

Letter
Monday, January 22, 2007

Re: Health Promotion Minister Jim Watson and smoking. You must be joking in rationalizing your decision to remove the total ban in smoking from casinos and racetracks. It will be nice if you and the Ontario government admit that you have become addicted to easy money from ownership of gambling joints. There are not too many countries in the world where governments operate gambling premises in order to obtain revenue. In fact, it is a sad story that the guardians of national and provincial welfare would stoop so low in their greed.
I wonder why we complain about gambling addicts in our country when our own government not only provides such venues, but also is trying to make it easy for its population to indulge in such self-destructive habits and compulsion.

Is there a difference between people addicted to gambling and the government addicted to revenues by facilitating such tragic behaviour?
Believe it or not, they both are addicted to gambling.

Raz Haque
Windsor

2007-01-21T11:49:00.000-08:00

http://www.thestar.com/Letters/article/172660

January 19, 2007
Critics angry as casinos build smoking shelters

Jan. 17.

It should come as no surprise that the Ontario government is bending the rules when it comes to the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. and its cash-cow casinos.
No private sector company is allowed to operate a casino. If they want to have a contest or operate a charity lottery, they must make public the "odds of winning." The OLGC does not have to publish their odds of winning at a slot machine; in fact, it's a closely guarded secret.
The OLGC says its primary business is not food and beverage so they can install a smoking shelter. What's that got to do with anything? Are employees being subjected to second-hand smoke, or not? According to the OLGC, since they offer no services in the smoking shelters, employees don't need to go in them. Really? Who empties the ashtrays and cleans the shelters? It's just another example of the government's "do as I say, not as I do" policies.

Jim Hart, Mississauga

2007-01-20T11:17:00.000-08:00

http://nebraska.statepaper.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2007/01/17/45ae81958a404

2007-01-19T23:07:00.000-08:00

http://www.torontosun.com/Comment/Letters/2007/01/19/3406034.html

Cough it up
Re "Won't give in to big tobacco" (Letter of the day, Jim Watson, Jan. 18): Let's see if we have this right. The Health Promotion Minister and his government have blatantly abused, if not outright broken, the very law they passed and forced everyone else to obey. They are spending millions of dollars to give its casinos a break in order to retain smokers as customers while denying anyone else the same choice. But he expects to get away with all this by claiming those who are pointing this out are part of a tobacco plot or an anti-Liberal campaign by the government's political rivals. Excuse me -- who has bent the rules to allow these shelters? Why, it is Watson, his government -- and the local anti smoking authorities who have been given the power and funding to enforce the smoke-free law. For the record, it is true the casino issue was first exposed this week by mychoice.ca, and yes we do exist on funding from the tobacco industry. But as Watson knows full well, we are a non-profit group with 41,000 individual citizens. If outdoor shelters for smokers are deemed necessary and acceptable at casinos, they should be acceptable everywhere. The desperate accusatory tone to Watson's letter is a sure sign he knows he is wrong, and the public knows it.
Nancy Daigneault,
President
Mychoice.ca
(Add it to the list of the Liberals' growing issues)

2007-01-19T19:18:00.000-08:00

http://www.thestar.com/Letters/article/172658

s.prop3=172658

TheStar.com - Letters - Government power real health hazard
Government power real health hazard

January 19, 2007
Critics angry as casinos build smoking shelters

Jan. 17.

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?
Supporters of local tobacco bans have made their choice. Rather than trying to protect people from an unwanted intrusion on 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: 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 neighbours. But the individual must be free to make these decisions. He must be free because his life belongs to him, not to his neighbours, and only his own judgment can guide him through it.
Yet when it comes to smoking, this freedom is under attack. Smokers are a numerical minority, practising a habit considered annoying and unpleasant to the majority. So the majority has simply commandeered the power of government and used it to dictate their behaviour.
That is why these bans are far more threatening than the prospect of inhaling a few stray whiffs of tobacco while waiting for a table at your favourite restaurant. The anti-tobacco crusaders point in exaggerated alarm at those wisps of smoke while they unleash the unlimited intrusion of government into our lives. We do not elect officials to control and manipulate our behaviour.

Thomas Laprade,

Thunder Bay, Ont.

2007-01-19T18:52:00.000-08:00

http://www.themonitor.com/SiteProcessor.cfm?Template=/GlobalTemplates/Details.cfm&StoryID=11139&Section=Letters&ToFriend=Yes

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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

January 18,2006 The Monitor

Second-hand smoke not harmful

To the editor:

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 a bridge I would like to sell them.
Thomas Laprade,
Thunder Bay,
Ontario, Canada

2007-01-19T08:56:00.000-08:00

The Chronicle Journal...Jan.19/07

Build shelters with tobacco tax

Re: "Smoking seniors left out in the cold"(Jan. 14): "Smoking law goes too far"
(letter Jan. 16): "Ontario defends Government-owned casinos building smoking shelters." (Jan. 17):

People attending casinos can go home where they can smoke all they want.
The seniors in seniors' homes are home, and are unfairly denied access to one of their few pleasures. The few "minor instances" reported by Dawson Court are going to lead to a mishap, or a full blown tragedy. Casinos can afford to build shelters, homes for the aged cannot. It's not fair. Divert some tobacco tax to allow these facilities to build safe and warm places for their smokers.

Elisabeth Harding
Thunder Bay

2007-01-19T08:34:00.000-08:00

http://www.torontosun.com/Comment/Letters/2007/01/19/3406034.html

Ban the butts

Re "Won't give in to big tobacco" (Letter of the day, Jim Watson, Jan. 18):
Ban it. It's the simple solution to the smoking kerfuffle brought on by on going sparring between Jim Watson and his conscience (he claims smokers and others cost our health system $1.7 billion) and various smokers rights groups. Ban tobacco sales in Ontario and put everyone on equal footing. Stop this stupidity of constant arguments and ad campaigns that cost us millions per year.

G. Daniels
Ajax

(Fine, except the government would really miss the taxes)
Cough it up

Re "Won't give in to big tobacco" (Letter of the day, Jim Watson, Jan. 18): Let's see if we have this right. The Health Promotion Minister and his government have blatantly abused, if not outright broken, the very law they passed and forced everyone else to obey. They are spending millions of dollars to give its casinos a break in order to retain smokers as customers while denying anyone else the same choice. But he expects to get away with all this by claiming those who are pointing this out are part of a tobacco plot or an anti-Liberal campaign by the government's political rivals. Excuse me -- who has bent the rules to allow these shelters? Why, it is Watson, his government -- and the local anti smoking authorities who have been given the power and funding to enforce the smoke-free law. For the record, it is true the casino issue was first exposed this week by mychoice.ca, and yes we do exist on funding from the tobacco industry. But as Watson knows full well, we are a non-profit group with 41,000 individual citizens. If outdoor shelters for smokers are deemed necessary and acceptable at casinos, they should be acceptable everywhere. The desperate accusatory tone to Watson's letter is a sure sign he knows he is wrong, and the public knows it.
Nancy Daigneault,
President
Mychoice.ca
(Add it to the list of the Liberals' growing issues)

2007-01-16T07:55:00.000-08:00

Your letter published in The Chronicle Journal.
.Thunder Bay,Jan 16/07

"Smoking seniors left out in the cold." Jan. 14. The tragedy our senior Ontario smokers are living with in the old age homes is a result of the zealotry of politicians and holier-than-thou anti-tobacco groups whose arrogance is only surpassed by their leaders' financial and political interests .The Ontario anti-tobacco legislation is the only one in the country that has reached such absurd proportions -- making it a living hell for the seniors, the most vulnerable members in our society, in their only remaining homes. We tried to raise public awareness and put pressure on the politicians by demonstrating in the streets, sending out press releases and participating on radio interviews, to no avail. A society's civility can only be measured by the way it treats the defenceless, and judging by what it does to its elderly, Ontario ranks somewhere between primitive and barbarian.

Iro CyrVice-president,CAGE (Citizens Against Government Encroachment)Montreal-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Here is a letter that was published under your letter Iro

Surely the senior citizens pictured with your story must be actors hired by cigarette companies because these days, everyone knows that tobacco smoking kills people before they become senior citizens!

William P. Shantz
Thunder Bay

2007-01-12T13:49:00.000-08:00

Blowing smoke

By JOSE RODRIGUEZ

OK, OK, OK!
We give, we surrender.
You win, we lose.
I promise, promise, promise to leave my smokes in the truck and check my matches at the door the next time I go for a beer.
But please allow me one parting shot at the city's ridiculously-concocted, ill-executed smoking bylaw before they empty my ashtray for the last time.

First things first.
It's a sad day for freedom when business owners who cater to strictly adult clientele aren't allowed to dictate what legal activities can take place inside the closed doors of their establishments.
I'm sure somewhere in hell, Stalin is applauding.

Last time I checked, there were no reports of non-smokers being kidnapped from pub parking lots, tied to barstools and forced to suck in smoke rings. I assume they went to smoking bars of their own free will.
Then there's the hypocrisy of it all.

It's OK for Johnny (double rye and coke) Smith to get absolutely obliterated or Frankie (should have cashed out) Jones to feed his life savings into a VLT, as long as they keep their lighters holstered.
What a crock!
Bars aren't churches.
They cater to vices and anyone who thinks drinking and gambling don't have an effect on people other than those partaking in the sinful deeds, needs to pick up a newspaper more often.
Surely we're not moving to ban booze and gambling too, are we?

Non-smoking activists also argue second-hand smoke harms the workers who are forced to sling drinks and dumplings inside the fog-filled lounges.
Well, I don't know if anyone else noticed, but we're in the midst of a boom.
If you don't like your job, go get another one.
But the most distressing part of the new bylaw is the disgusting double-standard it sets.
The way it's being rolled out is about as fair as a game of Texas hold 'em with a team of blind monks.
Allowing bingo halls and casinos to cater to smokers punishes bar owners who will no doubt lose many of their clients to the gambling joints.
In the end, life is a funny and unpredictable thing.
Many a young man whose lips never touched a cancer stick died far too early and George Burns, who was seldom photographed without a cigar in his mouth, lived to be 100.

Taking away business owners' rights to run their business and smokers' rights to partake in the perfectly legal activity that has garnered the federal and provincial governments more than $150 billion in tobacco taxes since 1970, is hypocritical.

Bars are places where grown ups go to do grown up things.
Attendance is voluntary and those who don't like the smoke can frequent any of the fine non-smoking establishments that will no doubt thrive given the new-found zeal for drinking among non-smokers.
But until I'm pushing up daisies in some boneyard, I'll continue to argue there is a bigger chance of dying in a bar brawl at the fists of some drunken idiot than there is of dying from second-hand smoke contracted in some drinking establishment.

Anyway, thanks for letting me get that off my chest.
Now here's my white flag.
I reluctantly surrender.

2007-01-10T09:11:00.000-08:00

Letters..Edmonton Sun Jan. 10/07

http://www.edmontonsun.com/Comment/Letters/2007/01/10/3276370.html

RE: BANNING smoking from apartment buildings. I am getting fed up with this non-smoking nonsense. When someone tries to make me stop smoking in my own home they had better be prepared to pay my mortgage and taxes. I'd like to thank the Edmonton Sun for starting my day just right - with my newspaper, coffee and cigarette.

Sandi Martin

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

RE: "SMOKED out," editorial, Jan. 6. In your editorial there was some mention of letting the "free market" work. Where was the free market when bars and bingo halls were forced to ban smoking? It seems to me the only thing that works around here is when everybody bows down to the fanatical demands of unelected, self-appointed saviours like Les Hagen!

R. Anderson
(Government meddling isn't a free market.)

2007-01-10T00:19:00.000-08:00

Calgary Jan. 8/07
Non-smokers are no-shows

Where have all the non-smokers gone? Last year it was so important to them that bars should go smoke- free. This year, the 80% who don't smoke are staying at home while the 20% are patronizing the bars that flaunt the law. Come on people, you won so start acting like it. Ald. Diane Colley-Urquhart, why not go out to show support for those who support the law?

Don Taylor

2007-01-08T08:57:00.000-08:00

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

SMOKERS CUT HEALTH COSTS
I am sick of hearing the argument that smokers are a drain on our health-care dollars. This argument only works if non-smokers never got sick and died. (Remember, everyone dies eventually!) The opposite is actually true: A smoker who smokes a pack a day pays around $1,825 dollars more than the regular $528 for health care a non-smoker pays a year in taxes. Truth be told, it is much cheaper for society for someone to die in their 50s or 60s than to live past retirement. If you ask anyone in health care these days, an aging population is the cause of rising health-care costs, not smoking. If you look at the rising health-care costs over the last 25 years and compared them to the rate people have been quitting, they are in direct proportion. So if you want health-care costs to drop, everyone should light up! I challenge anyone to prove me wrong
Jeff Parsons
(Some folks are dying to find out if your theory is true.)

CITY PLAYING WITH LIVES

In the story "Smoking ban enforcement not top bylaw priority" (Jan. 5), bylaw manager Alvin Murray is quoted as saying: "Smoking is not a priority call." He goes on to say only calls that involve a risk to people's lives and safety are given top priority. Hello! Wasn't the ban on smoking implemented in the first place because of the risk to people's lives? They justify the implementation of this controversial bylaw by claiming people are becoming incapacitated, and even dying from, second-hand smoke and yet on the other hand they say it's not a top priority. There are only two things you could criticize about Alvin Murray. His face.

C. F. McKinnon

2007-01-04T23:32:00.000-08:00

Letter to the Calgary Sun Jan.4/07

Worse than before

Re: Thomas Laprade's notion (Letters, Jan. 4.) that "If you don't like the sight and smell of second-hand smoke, don't enter the venue." We tried this already and still smelled of smoke when we got home. We went out this week to Boston Pizza and even though it is now non-smoking in the lounge, there were a couple of young men in the washroom smoking and giggling like high school girls who got caught when my husband ventured in there. This is worse than it was before. At least in the lounge, it was ventilated! Any other bright ideas?

D. Galley

2007-01-04T12:22:00.000-08:00

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

Council was warned
Please, anti-tobacco extremists and city council, tell us again the benefits of pushing the legislation up "just" a year? Is it more legal costs, more resistance, more anger like you were warned? Are you glad "charity advisers" ignored some people's opinion when they talked to you? Business owners and their faithful patrons told you they were angry. Let's hope the public remembers the "advocates" on council who pushed for the year's advance of the legislation in the next election.
Lynda Duguay
(That's democracy.)

Non-smokers have choice
There is a simple solution to Daryl Makk's problem. (Letters, Jan. 3) If you don't like the sight and smell of second-hand smoke, don't enter the venue. Simple eh!
Thomas Laprade

2007-01-03T00:07:00.000-08:00

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

Smoking issue big deal
Re: "Smoking issue no big deal." (Letters, Dec. 31). I wonder if it would be a big deal if you could no longer wear perfume in public places because it's a health issue to people with allergies, and maybe people who are overweight or with deformities shouldn't be allowed in public bars and restaurants because they spoil other people's appetites, hence being a health issue? Last, but not least, anyone who drives a vehicle, should be ashamed. They are hypocrites, spewing all those unhealthy fumes into our fresh air. "Not a big deal" living in hypocrisy?
Barb Dinsdale

2007-01-02T08:44:00.000-08:00

PROOF FOR TOBACCO HARM DOESN'T EXIST Jan. 2/07

re: "Children can be harmed by more than second-hand smoke"

Cynthia Callard's reply("Try these sources"--letter Dec. 19) to a letter from Thomas Laprade
shows once again that her organization is not in possession of any proof that exposure to ambient tobacco smoke causes the health damage claimed by the prohibitionists. The simple and effective response would have been to present reference to studies from the medical and/or hard science communities, instead she provided a couple of references to sister anti tobacco agencies that also only present bloated rhetoric and fear mongering.

Come on Ms. Callard, present reference to just one un-arguable real science based study that supports your position, not statistical studies, not rhetoric, not utopian prevention theories.

Actually that's not a fair request so I'll apologise in advance, and tell her to save her empty words for another occasion, because such proof doesn't exist.

Fred Quarrie
Belleville, Ont.

2006-12-31T12:18:00.000-08:00

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

SMOKERS TRAUMATIZED

The government's anti-smoking agenda suggests they believe they will be creating a healthier society for all with their scare tactics and legislated force. ("CHR boss gets tough on smoking," Dec. 22.)
Exactly how can this be achieved when they betray the smoker's sense of trust, demoralize their self-confidence, disrupt their employer- employee relationships and alienate them from their own human nature?
This irrational mind/body dichotomy will subject smokers to long-term emotional disorders, thus leading to other physical ailments. In reality, our government is making them sick.
Governments choose only to look at their misleading approximation of the physical outcome of smoking and second-hand smoke, but totally avoid the deeper, more devastating effects of their interference.
A particularly foreboding feature is the suffocating, negative influence the government projects on society.
Considering government is aggressively determined to restrict young people from making their own decision about smoking, it may jeopardize each young person's struggle to form a sense of self-confidence.
This fragile process can often be a traumatic experience, especially when that negative influence is hidden under the misconception of government benevolence.
Our government has chosen to bow and curtsy to anti-smoking's history, instead of learning from past mistakes.

Ken Hill

2006-12-30T08:18:00.000-08:00

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

City forgets fundamentals

City council needs to give its collective head a shake. After capitulating to the anti-smoking lobby, rewriting and accelerating the anti-smoking bylaw it sits back on its collective behind and allows thousands of homeowners to continue to use and abuse unmetered water we don't have because they decided we have until 2012 to comply. We do not have water to squander and will be seriously short of it within a few years of the date set for compliance. It's time council focused on fundamentals instead of involving itself in the imposition of its subjective morality on private citizens and private businesses.

Brian Frank

2006-12-29T09:23:00.000-08:00

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

The recent anti-smoking movement is reminiscent of the Prohibition lobby during the 1920s.
Social engineers of the '20s rationalized that introducing restrictive legislation would prevent "freedom of choice."
People would then be healthy, crime would be reduced and society would save taxes in terms of jails, hospitals, poorhouses etc.
Prohibition turned out a miserable failure in terms of what it was originally intended to do. Although I believe a person should have a choice to choose a non-smoking establishment, smokers should also have a choice to go into a smoking-only establishment.
Hiding behind the rationale that smokers cost the rest of us money is a dangerous socialist ideal that although seemingly harmless, can lead to very serious and dark problems in our society.
What will you do when the nanny state comes to you and tells you something you are engaged in is hazardous and costs the health system too much?
Rock climbing, hang gliding, horse riding, wrestling, mountain biking, skiing, french fries, chocolate, beef? How long could the list become?
What about the eventual refusal of treatment in the public system to those who made bad choices and damaged their health?
Maybe someday soon, they will outlaw obesity as well? Far-fetched yes, but it is an important consideration.

R. Dean
(Smoking hasn't been outlawed.)

2006-12-28T09:55:00.000-08:00

http://66.244.236.251/article_10211.php

Dec. 28/06 The Chronicle Journal Thunder Bay, . letters@chroniclejournal.com

Where is the balance in smoking debate? Thomas Laprade does pose a very good question when he asks: "What would a trained physician have to gain by supporting inaccurate published health information...?"("Children can be harmed by more than second-hand smoke"--letter, Dec. 15). As I am equally sure of Dr. Slivchak's good intent and motivations(letter, Nov. 29), the problem stems from the fact that it is difficult to change ideas once they are in print. It is very popular to quote the results of the EPA '92 study on passive smoke and the lung function of bartenders. It took several years before other researchers found the folly to their experimental design. Yet their criticism does not receive the same attention as the first near-scandalous reports of passive smoke problems. As long as there are people convinced that passive smoke does cause harm, the experimental evidence will not be gathered, and the science not done correctly. Much rather, we will be left with the ambiguous "linked to" phrase, and the ignorance to which this phrase points. Siding on the side of caution is one thing, but compelling other people by legislation is quite a different situation.

Leo Oja

Thunder Bay
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dec. 28/06

The three letters about smoking and children in Dec. 18ths' Journal were scary. Antismoking lobbyists are laying the groundwork for the right to take children away from smoking parents on the basis of child abuse arguments. The damage done to families and to society by such actions would be incalculable, and far, far greater than any arguable damage done by normal levels of secondary smoke exposure .The writers seem to have absorbed the social prejudices and misinformation about secondary smoke to the fullest, even though much of it is false. For example, there are *not* "40 known carcinogens in tobacco smoke". If we're talking about human beings there are seven Class A carcinogens present in smoke, all of them in very, very small quantities. A cigarette emits slightly less than one half of one thousandth of a gram of those elements into the air. People don't realize that a standard martini emits over 2,000 times that amount of the vaporized Class A carcinogen ethyl alcohol into the air in the course of a single hour. If anyone suggested taking children away from parents simply because they drink alcoholic beverages in the same house as those children the idea would be ridiculed although scientifically the basis could be argued to be stronger. Mr. Laprade was quite correct, both socially and scientifically, in pointing out that the social danger posed by antismoking extremists in today's society is probably far greater than the health danger posed by smokers in a normal and decently ventilated environment, whether around adults or children.

Michael J. McFadden
Philadelphia, PA

2006-12-27T08:48:00.000-08:00

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/article/165306

Dying smoker left out in the cold ... Published in The Toronto StarDec. 21.Greg Flood, spokesman for the Ministry of Health Promotion, states, "it was more important to protect others from second-hand smoke." He must know that second-hand smoke in a decently ventilated room is an insignificant health risk.

Thomas Laprade,
Thunder Bay

2006-12-26T13:26:00.000-08:00

http://www.sctimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061226/OPINION/112260006/1006

Your turn: Statewide smoking ban is not a priority By Rep. Tom Emmer, Delano I don't smoke. I don't like smoke. But my distaste for the habit doesn't give me cause to have the state manage individual rights. The new junta of Democratic legislative leaders has declared a statewide smoking ban as the top priority on their thin agenda for the upcoming legislative session. That baffles me. How property taxes, education reform, health care reform and funding for roads and bridges do not top that list of priorities is, in a word, outrageous! Apparently promises made during recent campaigns can now be forgotten. A statewide smoking ban in Minnesota is a dangerous constitutional precedent. If the new regime wants the ban to pass, it very likely will pass. But we should at least call it what it is as we plummet further into the nanny-state formerly known as Minnesota. America was founded on principles of freedom and the right of the individual to self-determine. As a "free" society, the laws we enact must necessarily be directed toward protection of individual freedoms. A tension exists, however, between the right to self-determine and our predisposition to control. Simply stated, we all want to make decisions about our personal liberties, but some also want to make decisions for fellow citizens. Why? Is it because we believe only the uneducated would disagree with our enlightened position? We are all concerned with health. In fact, we are all responsible for making healthful choices. The first law on the DFL legislative agenda is a statewide smoking ban.The real issue is much larger. The real issue is how far we are willing to let government rules erode our freedom. What will stop the regulatory engineers from focusing their sights on the freedom to consume certain foods they consider unhealthful foods? What will stop them from outlawing certain expressions, like no one should be forced to sit in a public place next to someone spouting profanity or praying aloud? What will stop them from determining who can own and hold certain property like a farmer's right to decide how and what to farm? What will stop them from legislating who we can associate with by restricting procreation based on genetics? What will stop them from legislating our religious freedoms? I expect those who want to dictate our freedoms will cry out that the smoking ban is altogether different from the examples offered. Secondhand smoke obviously affects workers in bars and restaurants. Of course no one wants to suggest that employment is voluntary. Evidence of the negative health impact of secondhand smoke has been presented as indisputable. If this is such an indisputable truth, then why does the federal government rate secondhand smoke below cell phones as a carcinogen? I realize this train may be out of the station and that it seems to be picking up steam. I only ask that before we set this course we consider the impact on not only the many businesses that will be hurt, but also the dangerous precedent we set for liberty. This is the opinion of District 19B Rep. Tom Emmer, Delano. He can be reached at (651) 296-4336 or (800) 474-3425.
http://www.sctimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?

2006-12-24T21:14:00.000-08:00

http://calsun.canoe.ca/News/Alberta/2006/12/22/2931614-sun.html

Letter published in the Calgary Sun...Dec. 23/06

Dear Editor, Dec. 22/06

Why doesn't Jack Davis come clean and tell the public the 'real' reason for no-smoking legislation?

Ventilation doesn't work??

It is not about health and it never was about health.

It is all about quarantine/isolating the smoker.

By passing no smoking legislation the Department of Health is trying to de-normalize smoking.

Unfortunately, the hospitality industry is caught in the cross-fire.

Thomas Laprade
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Letter sent to the Calgary Sun Dec. 24/06

Dear Editor. Dec. 24/06

Jack Davis states, "We're at the stage going into 2007 where the evidence is overwhelming on the negative impacts of smoking to health."
What has smoking(health) got to do with passing no-smoking laws on the hospitality industry.?
Your statements is like comparing 'lightning' to the 'lightning bug.'
And by the way, every time I buy a pack of smokes, I not only pay for my health care(if I get sick) I partially pay the health care of the non-smokers too.

Thomas Laprade

2006-12-23T18:58:00.000-08:00

The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on a CBS SundayMorning Commentary.

Herewith a few confessions from my beating heart: I have no freaking clue who Nick and Jessica are. I see them on the cover of People and US constantly when I am buying my dog biscuits and kitty litter. I often ask the checkers at the grocery stores. They never know who Nick and Jessica are either. Who are they? Will it change my life if I know who they are and why they have broken up? Why are they so important? I don't know who Lindsay Lohan is either, and I do not care at all about Tom Cruise's wife. Am I going to be called before a Senate committee and asked if I am a subversive? Maybe, but I just have no clue who Nick and Jessica are. If this is what it means to be no longer young. It's not so bad.

Next confession: I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees Christmas trees. I don't feel threatened. I don't feel discriminated against. That's what they are: Christmas trees. It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, "MerryChristmas" to me. I don't think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto.
In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn't bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu . If people want a creche, it's just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away. I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can't find it in the Constitution, and I don't like it being shoved down my throat. Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship Nick and Jessica and wheren't allowed to worship God as we understand Him? I guess that's a sign that I'm getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where Nick and Jessica came from and where the America we knew went to. In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different: This is not intended to be a joke; it's not funny, it's intended to get you thinking.

Billy Graham's daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane C layson asked her "How could God let something like this Happen?" (regardingKatrina) Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response. She said, "I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we've been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?" In light of recent events.terrorists attack, school shootings, etc. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O'Hare (she was murdered, her body found recently) complained she didn't want prayer in our schools, and we said OK. Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school .. the Bible says thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself. And we said OK. Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our children when they misbehave because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr. Spock's son committed suicide). We said an expert should know what he's talking about. And we said OK. Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves. Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figureit out. I think it has a great deal to do with "WE REAP WHAT WE SOW." Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world's going to hell. Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says. Funny how you can send 'jokes' through e-mail and they spread like wildfire but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing. Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace. Are you laughing? Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you're not sure what they believe, or what they will think of you for sending it. Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us. Pass it on if you think it has merit. If not then just discard it... no one will know you did. But, if you discard this thought process, don't sit back and complain about what bad shape the world is in.

My Best Regards .. honestly and respectfully,

Ben Stein__________________________________________________

2006-12-21T14:35:00.000-08:00

Bingo Hall closure a blow to Charities

http://www.fftimes.com/index.php/1/2006-12-20/28820

2006-12-20T08:01:00.000-08:00

http://www.torontosun.com/Comment/Letters/2006/12/20/2894605.html

Smoke-free Ontario
Re "Let's start enforcing laws" (Letters, Dec. 18): You would think that if you could get the two references required to attend the Ontario Tobacco Control Conference in Niagara Falls that you would at least know what is covered by the Smoke-Free Ontario Act. I hate to break it to letter writer Kirbi Simpson, but there is no "smoke-free Ontario." I should know, I'm a smoker and as a law abiding citizen I know the smoke-free Ontario act very well. The closest I got to the conference was standing outside the hotel with a picket sign that read "Tobacco Control is out of Control" and I paid my own way. The nine-metre rule only applies to hospital doorways. Stores, casinos and office building doorways aren't covered and neither are patios. Regardless of what you were told at the conference, we can still smoke in our homes and cars.

Ann Welch
Kitchener

(Hopefully there's a nine-metre distance between Ann and Kirbi)

2006-12-16T12:09:00.000-08:00

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Render&inifile=futuretense.ini&c=Page&cid=968332188492&pubid=968163964505

Smokers must take blame for health
Dec. 15, 2006. 01:00 AM
Ontario unwilling to sue tobacco firms
Dec. 12.
Everyone alive today has known, virtually from childhood, that smoking is unhealthy and yet many people have taken it up of their own free will. Why then do we feel the tobacco industry is responsible for any health problems that arise? If you smoke or are around people who smoke, then any resulting health problem are your or their responsibility. Tobacco companies make a legal product we are free to use or not. Suing them because we make bad choices doesn't seem right. For once I agree with Dalton McGuinty.
Mike Mays, Barrie, Ont.

2006-12-15T09:01:00.000-08:00

http://66.244.236.251/article_10071.php

Children can be harmed by more than second-hand smokeBy Thomas Laprade, Thunder BayDec 15, 2006, 00:15

Re: Letter to the editor from Dr. Jane Slivchak, MD (Chronicle-Journal, Nov. 29)Thank you for advising the public to read the website at Physicians for Smoke-Free Canada. As the link clearly shows, all the childhood illnesses which have been associated with second-hand smoke are ubiquitous to childhood.The website clearly demonstrates that the majority of the incidences of all of these disease occur to children who live in non-smoking homes and are unassociated with tobacco in anyway with the sole exception of SIDS.Physicians for Smoke Free Canada have chosen to predict that 180-240 babies will die of SIDS due to maternal smoking because the last statistics available for the SIDS rate in Canada show that in 2003 out of more than 335,000 live births, only 62 babies actually died of SIDS.This website is a perfect example of the current hysterical and exaggerated claims of health risks related to second-hand smoke exposure.While I am confident that you are a fine physician, you seem to have a slight problem with the meaning of simple words. “Increased risk” does not have the same meaning as “harm.” If that were so, parents who allow children to use toboggans can be seen as abusive because there is certainly increased risk of harm.If smoking in the presence of children is to be considered the same as harming a child, then I am afraid that allowing children to undertake the risk of harm by a car accident by allowing them to get into a car must also be considered the same as harming a child.Studies have shown the level of fine particulate pollution inside a car that is idling at a red light behind a diesel truck can rise to as high as 7,000 parts per million. This far exceeds the fine particulate pollution inside a car that is supposedly caused by second-hand smoke in the mere hundreds of parts per million.While I appreciate your concern for our children, please be advised that children in fact belong to their parents and not the health community or the state.I would strongly suggest that instilling fear of accusations of child abuse would prevent parents from seeking your skills and knowledge and also increase risk of harm to children.Now what would a trained physician have to gain by supporting inaccurate publish health information and political agendas of social engineering?
© Copyright by Chronicle Journal.com

This letter was written by Michelle Gervais but was submitted under my name

Thomas Laprade

2006-12-15T08:09:00.000-08:00

A letter published in Thunder Bay Source Dec. 15/06

First of all smoking is not a serious risk to children. I'm 61 years old and grew up in a household with a smoking mother. Yes, I too smoke. But my brother and sister also grew up in the same household, and do not smoke and do not have any health problems.
Neither do I. And neither does my 82 year old mother, and she is still smoking.

As for seat belts, forget about it. None of us had seat belts growing up. Neither did my two children. Don't you just have to ask yourself how we all survived these negligent acts committed by our parents?
Use some common sense. Look around you, and ask yourself how did all these baby boomers survive?

Eliminating smoking, and your so-called second-hand syndrome isn't going to keep you from dying

Bonnie Duncan
Thunder Bay

2006-12-14T07:48:00.000-08:00

http://torontosun.com/Comment/Letters/2006/12/14/2787626.html

In defence of smokers
I have to admit that I am extremely concerned by the actions of Non-Smokers Rights Association (NSRA) in regard to banning smoking in private homes.
Smoking is the wedge by which the government may seek to intrude themselves in a space that the Supreme Court has ruled “is for the sole use and repose of the owner.” Smoking bans in private homes tears to shreds the concept that a man’s home is his castle and overturns 400 years of legal precedence.

Mike Strobel (Dec. 13) appears to support that concept.
I can understand the NSRA stand. After all, now that non-smokers can easily avoid exposure to second hand smoke, they are almost out of work and the funding gravy train is coming to an end. There is a concept in toxicology that “the dose makes the poison.”

If active smoking represents the greatest risk to health and environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) has roughly 1% of the concentration of mainstream smoke.
Any molecules of gas that may drift through a crack in the wall represents only a miniscule fraction of that 1%, then just what is the “significant risk to public health” that NSRA and Mike Strobel appear to be trying to sell us on?

Perhaps Mike would like to take a shot at explaining why ETS appears to be the only substance in the world that doesn’t follow the rules of toxicology?

Last I heard, ETS wasn’t nearly as risky as sarin gas or diesel exhaust.
And it isn’t nearly as risky as allowing the government to use a fraudulent health scare to overturn 400 years of legal precedence.

Michelle Gervais Director, Media Relations Citizens for Civil Liberties London, Ont.

(Why didn’t you just call Strobel and tell him to butt out)

2006-12-13T23:55:00.000-08:00

http://www.torontosun.com/News/TorontoAndGTA/2006/12/13/2770463-sun.html
Dear Editor. Dec. 18/06

Smoking bans in the past, present and the future has always been and always will be, is to quarantine/isolate the smoker.

It was never about 'Health' per say.

The next logical substance will be alcohol.

Politicians are not elected to office to control or manipulate our behaviour.

They are in office to serve us, not visa-versa.

Thomas Laprade

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Editor, Dec. 19/06

I find that the uninformed news reporter, Mike Strobel stated,"Ask any of the 425 Ontarians who die of its effects every year", is quite fascinating.

Did you know that no one has ever died, solely from second-hand smoke?

If you don't believe me, why should I believe you?

Thomas Laprade
480 Rupert St

2006-12-11T13:04:00.000-08:00

Let's put a ban on banning things

And that’s what we do in this country, over and over. Get so scared of some dread menace — of communism or crime or drugs or illegal aliens or terrorists — that we hurt ourselves. We think we can make ourselves safer by making ourselves less free. It never works. When we make ourselves less free, we’re not safer, we’re just less free.”

The quote above is from a book entitled “The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing George W. Bush from Office” (2006, Thomas Dunne Books) written by Dave Lindorff and Barbara Olshansky. Now, obviously that book is about things that need little explanation if you’re capable of reading and comprehending the title. But the quote is from a chapter on the loss of civil liberties, about the way we as Americans have been trained to feel good about giving up freedom in order to be protected. The simple fact is that if we give up all those freedoms we will at some point need someone to protect us from the people to whom we gave away our freedom. We could sit and talk about that all day long, I’d bet, but I’m not ready for that yet. There has been a lot of talk about this whole tobacco-free thing. There are lots of folks working the anti-tobacco effort these days and that’s fine with me. But there was an incident just the other day that kind of got on my nerves a bit. I heard a man talking about the fact that some people are breaking the law and need to be exposed. When asked what law these people were breaking, he explained they were smoking inside a business in town, in direct violation of the state law that took effect this year. He said there was so much smoke inside the building that he had to leave in order to continue breathing. Now, my immediate (and internal) response to that guy would be: Stay out of that store. They apparently don’t need your business.I mean, it’s not the kind of store where people take their children for free medical care or government subsidies, so stay away if you’re offended. The state law that bans smoking in workplaces basically states that smoking is illegal unless the business bans anyone under the age of 21 from entering at any time. I think there’s probably a good chance of someone challenging that part of the statute, especially because the legal age to buy tobacco is 18, but only time will tell. Now, I’m not advocating smoking or tobacco use of any kind. Personally, I do smoke, but I hadn’t done so in restaurants frequented by families for a long time before the new law took effect. But I believe there is a slippery slope of sorts when the state — or any other entity — starts to tell business owners what they can and can’t do as long as no laws are broken. Tobacco is legal, after all, even in a dry county. In fact, there might even be a chance that a business owner could challenge the law on the basis that a statute shouldn’t be passed and enforced retroactively. In other words, a business existing before the law was passed could asked to be grandfathered in and get around having to ban smoking. Again, I’m not advocating tobacco. I wish I’d never begun using it in any way, but that’s all water under the bridge. Now, just last week, the New York City Board of Health took a drastic step by voting to ban artificial trans fats from restaurants in the city. Trans fats are created when hydrogen is added to cooking oils and margarines, a process call hydrogenation. That gives the oil and other products a longer shelf life, among other things, but also is believed to clog arteries and increase bad cholesterol while diminishing good cholesterol. In reading about the topic, I’ve found that a lot of New Yorkers support the ban. One woman said New Yorkers eat out a lot and they sometimes don’t even know their consuming trans fats, which could lead to what one official called “a slow form of poisoning.”As one Manhattan resident said in support of the ban, “When it comes to health, we only have one life,” The Associated Press reported. No, it wasn’t Yogi Berra, but it could have been. Maybe the federal government should ban E. coli from restaurnats. That would really help. The New York ban took me by surprise, especially in the town that’s home to the Statue of Liberty, the very symbol of freedom in this country. The oft-quoted poem on the Statue of Liberty’s pedestal states, “Give me your tired, your poor/Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free/The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.”I looked it up, and the next line of that poem is NOT, “And I’ll tell them what to eat.”In the past several years, we as an American people have really come a long way in our ability to demonize other people and things we don’t like. It cuts across all political party lines and seems to feed some sort of entitlement mentality. I really hope something happens in the near future that reverses this trend of intolerance and fear. Remember, if we continue to ban things, there might not be anybody left to keep the powers that be from banning something that means something to you.
©Ozarks Newsstand 2006

2006-12-09T07:50:00.000-08:00

A letter from Gian Turci to the Vice Mayor(Belmont)

Dear Mrs. Feierbach,

You have replied to one of our readers incorrectly when you stated two separate issues: however, these paradises are becoming fewer and fewer as we speak - Italy, France, Ireland, Caribbean Islands, and so forth are all enacting laws dealing with smoking. Could we all be wrong? Please don't say "we", it is offensive. As I live in Italy, I can guarantee to you that, thank God, Italy does not even dream of banning smoking in one's own home, on one's own property outside or in the streets, thanks to its 25 centuries of civilization. And we have smoking sections in tens of thousands of restaurants and offices like a civilized place should have. Perhaps you are right, Italy is a paradise, as we went through fascism already once and not again, thank you. On the other hand, the States (and Belmont in particular) seem eager to try. And you already have found the way to feel better about it: rename oppression as freedom. Sweet illusion. By the way, many repeating a mistake do not make the mistake right. They make it bigger.

The second point concerns this:disregarding how this affects other people especially children. If you are referring to the passive smoke "dangers", I believe you need some education which, most likely, you are unwilling to get because you are set in your convictions ,obviously beyond reason. Be that as it may, it is not even demonstrated that passive smoke represents a risk for anybody ( http://www.forces.org/evidence/psaip.htm) because the studies are junk science and DO NOT say that passive smoke is dangerous. Finally, if we need the Constitution to specify any minimal liberty (for otherwise all unspecified liberties can be suppressed at will by people like you) constitutions would be bigger than the Library of Congress. Do not give in to hatred. You are implying that smokers should move to the "paradises" you mentioned. Belmont smokers belong to Belmont - and yes, with their habits - not to Italy or to Thunder Bay. And they have the SAME RIGHTS as you have to live their lives as they see fit - inside and outside their homes, as (differently than what you choose to believe) they do not harm anyone.

Shame on you and regards,
Gian Turci, Italy

Constitutionally smokers are not a protected class of people (in contrastto race, creed etc) You have sent us a comprehensive letter but because of time constraints I will be brief. There seems to be a common element from all the people who have written to> us against ANY SMOKING BAN: and that is fear. Fear of what? Fear of freedom? There are so many laws that restrict our freedoms that why focus on smoking bans? I believe that many people who want to smoke want that freedom anywhereand everywhere disregarding how this affects other people especially children. Perhaps Canada or specifically Thunder Bay is free from any smoking bans. Then that is the place for smokers to be free with their habits and I say, at least there is a smokers' paradise somewhere on this earth - however, these paradises are becoming fewer and fewer as we speak - Italy, France, Ireland, Caribbean Islands, and so forth are all enacting laws dealingwith> smoking. Could we all be wrong? Thank you,
Coralin

2006-12-05T18:08:00.000-08:00

http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2006612040302
December 4, 2006

Bans affront our rights:

The free market system is a wonderful thing. It allows us to seek out the products or services we want, at the best price and service level we desire.
Those businesses that meet our expectations thrive. Those that do not eventually fail to remain in business.
This system reliably provides the consumer with the highest quality, value, and assortment of products and services.
But the system is apparently failing! Some consumers now feel they have a right to change the rules used to deliver these products and services. They want to tweak it to exclude some consumers from the equation.
I remain concerned about the recent efforts to ban smoking. Since tobacco is a legal substance, I wonder if banning the use in privately-owned public businesses violates the First Amendment. Is the free choice of the consumer no longer a viable force?

Instead of forcing business to accommodate the customer, why can't the customer take his dollars where the business meets his needs?
Remember, these businesses have placed their capital at risk in the free market system now to be told they cannot serve a significant segment of the customer base.

What is next to be banned? Is it something you like? And no, I do not smoke, dip, or chew.

Barry Doolittle
Grenada

2006-12-02T10:31:00.000-08:00

C.A.G.E. press release as it appeared at : http://www.cnw.ca/en/releases/archive/December2006/01/c2721.html and already earned us an interview by a Toronto radio station.
For more information on the event, please visit : http://www.cagecanada.ca/index.php?pr=Events
C.A.G.E. supports the "Tobacco Control Out of Control" private citizens' initiative
OTTAWA, Dec. 1 /CNW Telbec/ - Two Canadian citizens, Ann Welch and Roy
Harold, have rallied friends and allies to denounce the extremes of
intolerance that the tobacco control organizations have reached. These
organizations, while pretending to speak on behalf of all Canadians, have
taken it upon themselves to determine Canadian public policy vis-a-vis tobacco
control. All decisions concerning the future and fate of Canadian smokers are
taken behind closed doors and are designed to prevent any input from those
most concerned, the smokers themselves.
These organizations will be holding their exclusive "Tobacco Control
Conference" at the Sheraton on the Falls in Niagara Falls December 4th to the
6th. Ms. Welch who is from Ontario and Mr. Harold who is from Alberta, have
chosen this event to organize a peaceful demonstration on December the 4th by
which they will protest against the manner in which the tobacco control agents
operate and to publicize the machinations of the very powerful and very
secretive tobacco control cabal.
One of the important issues being raised by the protesters regards the
fate of senior Ontario smokers who are being subjected to unfair and inhuman
conditions as a result of recent anti-tobacco legislation imposed upon them by
the McGuinty government. The smoking regulations in retirement homes are so
severe that residents are being effectively denied one of the few pleasures
remaining to them. Such legislated disregard for human dignity and personal
choice is but some of the evidence that the anti-tobacco campaign is no longer
so much about health, but rather has become a war against smokers themselves.
C.A.G.E. is sending delegates to Niagara Falls to assist the
demonstrators and invites all concerned citizens to show their support and
encouragement to those who would stand up to defend the most deserving members
of our society: our seniors.

C.A.G.E. (Citizens Against Government Encroachment) is a grassroots
organization that represents citizens who envision a society where the
dignity, sovereignty and liberty of all individuals are treated with the
utmost respect.
www.cagecanada.ca

2006-11-23T16:40:00.000-08:00

Smoke the fish....

My letter published in The Thunder Bay Source... Fri. Nov 24/06

www.tbsource.com

While I appreciate the desire to protect children from second-hand smoke
exposure in cars, I'm afraid that the suggestion to ban smoking in cars occupied
by children represents an unwarranted intrusion into the privacy and autonomy
of parenthood.
The autonomy to make one's own decision about what risks to subject a child
to is not to be interfered with lightly. It should only be done in cases where there
is a substantial threat of severe harm to the child.
Interfering with parental autonomy in a case where there is only minor risk involved is unwarranted.

Thomas Laprade
480 Rupert St.
Thunder Bay, Ont.

2006-11-23T09:34:00.000-08:00

My letter published in The Chronicle Journal Nov. 23/06

Re "Campaign aims to protect kids from smoking." Nov. 7/06

While I appreciate the desire to protect children from second-hand smoke
exposure in cars, I'm afraid that the suggestion to ban smoking in cars occupied
by children represents an unwarranted intrusion into the privacy and autonomy
of parenthood.
The autonomy to make one's own decision about what risks to subject a child
to is not to be interfered with lightly. It should only be done in cases where there
is a substantial threat of severe harm to the child.
Interfering with parental autonomy in a case where there is only minor risk involved is unwarranted.

Thomas Laprade
480 Rupert St.
Thunder Bay, Ont.

2006-11-21T22:39:00.000-08:00

Dear Editor, Nov. 22/06

Flory Doucas,a spokeswomen for the Non-Smokers Rights stated, 'One has to remember that people who work in bars also have lungs and they're entitled to
have the same health protection that other workers have.'

It is clear that separation of smokers and non-smokers combined with air exchange
technology is a complete solution to this largely artificial problem.

All it takes is regulating authorities setting the standards for indoor air quality
on passive smoke, and the technology does the rest.

Such air quality standards are common in industrial and environmental context.

But, to date, no country in the world has set them for smoking areas.

It seems clear that the reasons are not scientific, nor are they economic or technical;
they are political.

Thomas Laprade
Thunder Bay, Ont.

2006-11-21T20:01:00.000-08:00

http://www.sj-r.com/sections/opinion/stories/101145.asp
Logic says there should be exemptions to smoke ban
By STEVE RIEDL
Published Tuesday, November 21, 2006

How long can you and your family survive without a paycheck? A month, perhaps two months? This is what Springfield’s bar owners are experiencing because of the smoking ban. Their net business income is their paycheck - and scores of them have been without a paycheck for two months now. These people and their families are suffering immeasurably.
The anti-smoking advocacy groups are pushing the city council to give the current ban six months to a year to realize what the economic effects of the ban are. The people in our industry do not have the luxury of waiting six months to a year. They will be destitute by then. None of us can survive that long without a paycheck.

Logic. This is the litmus test that determines many of our thoughts, decisions and opinions. The hospitality business community respectfully asks our aldermen and each of you to employ logic and reasoning when considering a narrow exemption to Springfield’s smoking ban only for bars and fraternal clubs.

The majority of Springfield residents support permitting smoking in Springfield’s bars and fraternal clubs (more than 53 percent in a recent poll where approximately 3,500 registered voters responded to this question). Logically, our society accepts that persons will encounter smoke in a bar and accept bars as the appropriate venue for smokers to smoke.

The vast majority of people who oppose permitting this narrow exemption to the smoking ban do not patronize these businesses and their opinion should be weighed accordingly. Even within the nonsmoking demographic of Springfield, 42 percent of nonsmokers support an exemption for bars and fraternal clubs - including the nonsmokers who do not patronize our industry.

The reason most Springfield residents support a narrow exemption for bars and fraternal clubs is logic. People know that these entities cater to this segment of society and that, while smoking should be severely limited, society has to allow the use of a legally sanctioned product in a few limited venues. After all, our country is based on respecting and promoting diversity.

Our industry and this organization support a comprehensive smoking ban for Springfield. We have always maintained this position, despite being portrayed by anti-smoking groups and a few media outlets as the evil entity that would allow smoking anywhere. It is unfortunate that these folks resort to such tactics, rather than allowing society and the Springfield City Council to decide this issue on the merits alone.
The merits are economics, health and respecting that we live in a diverse society that strives to provide allowances for all sectors of society. The logical answer is to craft a proposal that recognizes each of these merits and balances all three.

Let’s look at the economic facet of this issue. My association knew that bars and fraternal clubs would be devastated by a smoking ban that included their businesses. We were open, honest and forthright with all parties that this would happen. The lung and cancer folks decreed that we were wrong and that commerce in these businesses would actually increase due to the great influx of non-smokers that would now patronize our industry.

Logically, this was difficult for any of us to swallow, but our council and most media outlets accepted this as fact because the information came from established health-care organizations. Now that the ban has been in effect for a few months, the evidence is clear - Springfield’s bars and fraternal clubs have been devastated by the smoking ban. Business is down anywhere from 20 percent to 60 percent in these businesses.
The bottom line is this: Some businesses have already permanently closed their doors due to the ban. Scores of others are on the brink of folding. This is not a prediction or an opinion. This is a fact and must be treated accordingly. Our city council was misled by these established health-care organizations about the economic impact on the hospitality business community.

Again, employing logic, we all really knew these businesses would suffer. Most people probably hoped that the suffering would not be as extreme as it has been. These businesses have been forced into a crisis situation solely to satisfy a minority of vocal Springfield residents who have an extremist viewpoint on the issue.

I find it ironic and hollow that these established health-care organizations refuse to admit they were wrong on the economics of the ban. To make matters worse, they now blame the smokers for not continuing to patronize Springfield’s bars and fraternal clubs. They claim these people are protesting the ban by boycotting these businesses. Have they bothered to ask the smokers (and nonsmokers who enjoyed these venues) why they no longer patronize these establishments?
The answer is no, or they simply don’t acknowledge what these folks are saying. This is not a protest or a boycott. These people enjoyed going to a venue that allowed them to enjoy a cigarette with the beverage of their choice. Now that they are no longer able to do so, they have little or no interest in going to these businesses. Again, employ logic and reasoning. Do not rely on the anti-smoking propaganda machine to make your decision for you.
On economics alone, the Springfield City Council should take action to grant narrow exemptions to Springfield’s smoking ban. Those aldermen that vote to provide narrow exemptions to Springfield’s smoking ban should be recognized by all of us as people of conviction who rightfully altered their opinion on the original ban proposal because they were misinformed on the economic fallout the ban would have on hospitality businesses in our community.

It’s that simple - and logically speaking, each of us knows this is the proper course of action for our elected officials to take on this issue. Forget all the rhetoric, the skewed data showing that bans have not hurt these businesses in other jurisdictions, and the other propaganda put out by both sides. Your instinctive logic tells you there must be relief provided for these businesses. Failure to do so will devastate hundreds of families in our community.

Aldermen, the ball is in your court. I join thousands of others in hoping and praying that each of you is the person of conviction we thought you were when we elected you to represent us in our community. Do the right thing. Logic is your beacon - follow it.

Steve Riedl is executive director of the Illinois Licensed Beverage Association.

2006-11-20T18:33:00.000-08:00

Smoking bans are getting out of hand Bloomington Nov.20/06

I am a woman or a man. I am young or old.I am a doctor, lawyer, factory worker. I am a construction worker. I am a politician and or a hairdresser. I am a street person who has fought for my country as a soldier. I am made up of all and every one that is a part of this land. And what makes us one and the same? We are smokers. Our choice to smoke has become a big issue. Now we are treated as if we are carrying a lethal weapon. Every time we light up, our smoke becomes a great health issue. But for us, we are aware of the risks we take. For the most part, we respect the fact that we know where to light up and where not to. We are always being reminded by others that we should quit this nasty habit. But I myself never say, ``Hey you need to smoke.'' Yes, it is my choice of habit. I feel this smoking ban has got out of hand. I understand respecting each other's space. But the holier-than-thou attitudes are becoming a pain in my backside. I can remove my smoking from public close quarters such as malls, restaurants. But I have a real problem with attaching bars and taverns to the list banning smoking. I deeply feel it should be up to the independent owner. I feel half the people squawking don't even step inside these type of establishments. So live and let live. Stop stepping on my toes. I have been judged, sentenced and treated as a criminal. A prisoner with a conviction of being a smoker. I ask myself who is my real keeper.

Judith D. Cook
Bloomington

2006-11-20T18:32:00.000-08:00

2006-11-20T10:19:00.000-08:00

A letter published in The Chronicle Journal ..Mon. Nov. 20/06

I don't understand the anti-smoking campaign can claim victory and be proud of the unfair negative impact this had had on our smoking seniors living in long term care.

My 83 -year- old father, a veteran, who uses a walker, lives in a seniors' home.
He was directed to smoke out back in a dark area out of sight of the doors(which occasionally don't unlock upon re-entry). On one occasion recently, while alone back there, he fell and broke his arm. He lay there in the cold and dark for over a half hour before someone in the building heard his pleas for help. Now he has been told he is not allowed to go out for a cigarette unless a family member(me) accompanies him.

Why can't there be a safe place for him and others to enjoy the occasional cigarette?
Why are seniors forced to take unnecessary risks to their fragile well being and suffer the cold as well?
Can you imagine the frustration, feelings of hopelessness and heartbreak he suffers on those days that I am unable to visit and push him into the cold for his one-small pleasures in life?

Terry Huneau
Thunder Bay

2006-11-19T23:59:00.000-08:00

http://www.azstarnet.com/allheadlines/154111

Guest opinion: Jeffrey Singer -- It's a secondhand smoke screen

Some public policy activists engage in "advocacy science," manipulating data to create the appearance of a scientific basis for the policies they advocate. Their allies in the scientific community attempt to make the findings of their research fit a predetermined conclusion.
Many public-policy debates have become immersed in advocacy science. Whether it's global warming, endangered species or silicone breast implants, either side of the debate has its own cadre of advocacy scientists to bolster its arguments. This makes it difficult for the discerning citizen to separate truth from half-truth. And when a particular viewpoint is politically correct, journalists tend to be less skeptical of the scientific claims supporting it.
A case in point is the argument against secondhand smoke. In 1993, the Environmental Protection Agency deemed secondhand smoke a cancer risk. But in 1998, a U.S. District Court ruling nullified the EPA report. It turns out the EPA cherry-picked its data and manipulated scientific procedure and scientific norms to rationalize the agency's predetermined position.
When asked by reporters for a response, an EPA spokesperson said the EPA had acted for a worthy cause. But lying is never acceptable, even for a worthy cause.
To this day we have heard scant mention of this incident in the press. Nor has there been much mention of the May 2003 British Medical Journal report by UCLA School of Public Health researchers Enstrom and Kabat, whose research "did not support a causal relation between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco-related mortality." It concluded, "The association between exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and coronary artery disease and lung cancer may be considerably weaker than generally believed."
Nor has the press mentioned that the latest U.S. Surgeon General's report, based on a review of existing literature, stated, "Although the data are sparse on specific elements linking secondhand-smoke exposure and tumor induction in humans via exposure to tobacco smoke carcinogens, substantial data from active smokers support this framework of biological steps towards cancer."
The fact is, either side in this debate can bring out its team of scientists to shoot holes in the other's data and bolster its own case. I'd like to get away from this and resort to common sense.
It is undisputed that risk of lung cancer and other smoking-related diseases is directly related to the amount of cigarettes smoked per year and the amount of years one smokes. The more smoke inhaled into the lungs, and the longer the sustained period of time this continues, the greater the risk. When it comes to lung cancer, there is a roughly 20-year lag time between the onset of smoking and the development of lung cancer.
Therefore, I reason, if high doses of smoke must be inhaled over a sustained period of several years to increase the risk of lung cancer, then occasional, partially inhaled smoke, say from a distant table in a restaurant, cannot possibly be considered a major health risk.
Thankfully, our political system is not a "scientocracy." Otherwise, we would have no freedom to make any choices other than those scientists deem good for us. When it comes to public policy, our constitutionally guaranteed rights should have final say in any debate.
Restaurants, bars, nightclubs, and offices are all privately owned entities whose owners seek to do business with the public. As such, the owners have the right to decide whether they want to allow or prohibit smoking on their premises. Naturally, the profit motive will make them strongly take their customers' desires into consideration. And no potential customer is forced to patronize any particular business.
Any law that prohibits smoking in privately owned places is a violation of the property rights of the owner. Regardless of any potential risk associated with secondhand smoke, the only place the public has a right to ban smoking is in a place the public owns.
It is a sad irony that many of the same people who rightly see the abuses of eminent domain laws by state and local governments as an assault on our property rights are happy to see their consistency go up in smoke when the subject turns to secondhand smoke.
As a doctor, I am very concerned about the harmful effects of tobacco. I counsel my patients to stay away from cigarettes. But as much as I care about their health, I respect their rights as adults to make their own personal choices. A statewide ban on smoking in privately owned places would continue the erosion of liberty that threatens the foundations on which our nation is based.
Research the Nov. 7 midterm election; watch videos from Star Editorial Board meetings with candidates and supporters and opponents of ballot initiatives. Also, read past Star articles and endorsements.
Go to guide
Jeffrey A. Singer is a Phoenix-area surgeon who writes and lectures on regional and national public policy. He is a Goldwater Institute board member and contributor to Arizona Medicine, the journal of the Arizona Medical Association

2006-11-19T23:39:00.000-08:00

New rules strip away choice

Nov 15 2006

There is a fine line between protecting people's health and encroaching upon the freedom of choice enjoyed by others, and I think Premier Gordon Campbell crossed that line when he announced his plans to make every indoor public area smoke-free.
Before I get too much further I feel it is only fair to give you, the reader, my personal experience with smoking. I don't smoke, I have never smoked a cigarette in my life and quite frankly I don't plan to smoke one anytime soon. The inclination to light up a smoke has never come to me and so I have chosen not to.
That being said, my dad is a smoker and has been for over 30 years now.
Under the current system, everybody had a choice. Smokers had the choice of sitting with their non-smoking friends and going into the smoking room as needed to get their fix. Non-smokers had the choice of enjoying the smoke-free environment or sitting in the smoking section to spend time with their friends.
Now smokers and non-smokers have no choice: Those who smoke have to physically remove themselves from the premises and pull themselves away from their environment to have a smoke.
I understand the reason for banning cigarettes from indoor establishments: protecting the health of those who work in the establishment. But that again has to do with choice. Anyone who applies for a position in a pub or bar knows that they may be exposed to second hand smoke, and they can choose to pursue the job or not.
This also removes the choice of the establishment owner about the type of establishment they wish to run and the clientele they wish to service, and it takes away their freedom of empire to a large extent.
Likewise, this is not something that people were clamouring for or knocking on the doors of the legislature to get. I think, for the most part, everyone was happy with the system we have in place, so why does Mr. Campbell feel the need to impose his will on the people of the province?
Smoking is a choice, as is not smoking. Whether or not to work in an establishment where you will be exposed to second hand smoke is a choice. Running an establishment that permits smoking is also a choice. These are all choices that we as adults can make, and I see absolutely no reason for the government of the day to step in and strip away our right to make these choices.
© Copyright 2006 The Northern View

2006-11-18T19:24:00.000-08:00

Village of Fox Lake
66 Thillen Drive
Fox Lake, Illinois 60020

Mayor Cindy Irwin, Irwinc@foxlake.org
Village Clerk Samantha Weeks, Clerk@foxlake.org
Trustee Ted Beskow, trustee.beskow@foxlake.org
Trustee Ed Bender, bendere@foxlake.org
Trustee Bill Borchers, borchersb@foxlake.org
Trustee Greg Murrey
Trustee Carol Ulasy, ulasyc@foxlake.org
Trustee Noel Working, workingn@foxlake.org
Fox Lake Chamber of Commerce, foxlakechamber@yahoo.com

RE: Fox Lake Embraces Smokers, http://www.dailyherald.com/story.asp?id=249106 - November 12, 2006

Dear Mayor Irwin and Fox Lake Village Trustees:
cc: Fox Lake Chamber of Commerce
This is simply a thank you letter for exhibiting rarely observed independence and determination by public officials in Illinois and across our country.

I am referencing your city council decision to refuse further intrusion and manipulation by tobacco control activists in Fox Lake. I sent the following Letter to the Editor in response to the Fox Lake news story, also below, though I was not surprised when it was not published. Prior to writing this story, Lee Filas had contacted me for an interview. I responded, but he must have changed his mind about desiring my input and did not speak with me.

Briefly, thank you again for defending private business owners' interests and supporting the public's right to legal personal life-style choices in Fox Lake. As you probably are aware, you have a multitude of supporters.

Respectfully submitted,

Garnet Dawn Scheuer
Lake Bluff, Illinois
______________________________Garnet Dawn - The Smoker's Club, Inc. - Midwest Regional DirectorThe United Pro Choice Smokers Rights Newsletter - http://www.smokersclubinc.comIllinois Smokers Rights - http://www.illinoissmokersrights.com/mailto:garnetdawn@comcast.net - Respect Freedom of Choice!

----- Original Message -----
From: Garnet Dawn
To: Daily Herald (Letters to the Editor) ; lfilas@dailyherald.com
Sent: Sunday, November 12, 2006 8:30 PM
Subject: Letter to the Editor - Fox Lake embraces smokers
RE: Fox Lake Embraces Smokers, http://www.dailyherald.com/story.asp?id=249106 - November 12, 2006

Letter to the Editor:
cc: Lee Filas

Congratulations to Fox Lake for stating it's position clearly and leaving no doubt that they are a community which still supports our US Constitution, Bill of Rights, personal life-style right-to-choice and for refusing to engage in negotiations with the tobacco control crusaders of Lake County and massive pressures from wealthy, charitable health organizations. One would have to be a hermit to escape the barrage of SHS propaganda distributed by the CDC, ACS, ALA, AHA and Smoke Free Lake County Partners. There is no doubt that the village's public officials have received their fair share of "Smoke Free" literature. Fox Lake residents should be proud of the position taken by Mayor Cindy Irwin for refusing to even consider an invasive government smoking ban ordinance. Hasn't the tobacco control industry wasted enough tax payer dollars through monopolizing public officials' attention and time upon smoking bans in Lake County?

During the May 9, 2006 televised Lake County Board Meeting, representatives Judy Martini (Fox Lake, Antioch) and Bonnie Thompson Carter (Wauconda, Fox Lake-S) both voted against the Board passing a resolution to support the Health Department's proposal to make Lake County smoke-free by the end of 2007. They also both clearly stated that smoking bans in those areas would be completely unrealistic, unenforceable and detrimental to the affected communities.

The Chain-of-Lakes is not an urban shopping mall/industrial park/chain restaurant atmosphere. These are the recreational towns where tourists and residents flock to enjoy their boats, campers, out-door activities, bars and restaurants, and freedom from the invasive restrictions of every day life. Hospitality smoking bans have never been about health. They are about power, money and control. Not one life will be saved through government enforced restaurant, bowling alley and bar smoking bans. Consumers have a choice in the establishments they patronize. The decision to allow smoking or become smoke free should remain with the individual business owner.

Upon attending the recent Senate Executive Committee Hearing in downtown Chicago, it became clear that officials of villages and cities in Lake and Cook counties who had already passed smoking bans were those strongly supporting legislation of a state-wide smoking ban in Illinois. These officials were suddenly concerned with a "level-economic-playing-field" for hospitality businesses in their communities. Perhaps they should have given those economic results more consideration, before passing their local smoking bans ordinances over the protests of private business owners and residents.

Kudos to Fox Lake village officials for refusing to join current “follow-the-leader” trendy government-imposed smoking bans, and also for stubbornly continuing to represent the interests of their constituents.

Sincerely,
______________________________Garnet Dawn - The Smoker's Club, Inc. - Midwest Regional DirectorThe United Pro Choice Smokers Rights Newsletter - http://www.smokersclubinc.comIllinois Smokers Rights - http://www.illinoissmokersrights.com/mailto:garnetdawn@comcast.net - Respect Freedom of Choice!

2006-11-17T16:02:00.000-08:00

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20061117.LETTERS17-14/TPStory/Comment

My letter published in The Globe and Mail

Fri Nov. 17/06

The politics of smoking
Re Northern Residents Fuming Over Smoking Ban(B.C. and online editions--Nov. 13)

It is clear that the separation of smokers and non-smokers combined with air- exchange technology is a complete solution to this largely artificial problem. All it takes is for regulating authorities to set the standards for indoor air quality on passive smoke, and the technology does the rest.
Such air quality standards are common in industrial and environmental context.But, to date, no country in the world has set them for smoking areas.
It seems clear that the reasons are not scientific, nor are they economic or technical;they are political.

THOMAS LAPRADE

Thunder Bay, Ont.

2006-11-17T08:59:00.000-08:00

Letter in The Chronicle Journal Nov. 17/06

Let seniors smoke

Praise for the words of Sheila Jackson.

"Smoking and seniors" (letter, Nov. 13/06).

"Where is the compassion?"

I am a senior non-smoking citizen, but my heart goes out to these senior smokers who have to go outside in the freezing cold for a puff. The non-smoking campaign has not considered the feelings and disposition of these smokers, especially seniors and the disabled in long-term care facilities.

Please reconsider and prepare an indoor space for folks who, after so many years and through no fault of their own are where they are and cannot give up the habit.
We must be allowed our individual spaces and choices, and not be dictated to by those who do not understand or care about those in very difficult situations.

Jackie Domineck
Thunder Bay, Ont.

2006-11-16T22:55:00.000-08:00

SURREALITY TIMES

http://surrealitytimes.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_surrealitytimes_archive.html

2006-11-16T08:37:00.000-08:00

http://www.azstarnet.com/allheadlines/154111

Guest opinion: Jeffrey Singer -- It's a secondhand smoke screen

Some public policy activists engage in "advocacy science," manipulating data to create the appearance of a scientific basis for the policies they advocate. Their allies in the scientific community attempt to make the findings of their research fit a predetermined conclusion.
Many public-policy debates have become immersed in advocacy science. Whether it's global warming, endangered species or silicone breast implants, either side of the debate has its own cadre of advocacy scientists to bolster its arguments. This makes it difficult for the discerning citizen to separate truth from half-truth. And when a particular viewpoint is politically correct, journalists tend to be less skeptical of the scientific claims supporting it.

A case in point is the argument against secondhand smoke.

In 1993, the Environmental Protection Agency deemed secondhand smoke a cancer risk.
But in 1998, a U.S. District Court ruling nullified the EPA report.
It turns out the EPA cherry-picked its data and manipulated scientific procedure and scientific norms to rationalize the agency's predetermined position.
When asked by reporters for a response, an EPA spokesperson said the EPA had acted for a worthy cause.
But lying is never acceptable, even for a worthy cause.

To this day we have heard scant mention of this incident in the press. Nor has there been much mention of the May 2003 British Medical Journal report by UCLA School of Public Health researchers Enstrom and Kabat, whose research "did not support a causal relation between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco-related mortality." It concluded, "The association between exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and coronary artery disease and lung cancer may be considerably weaker than generally believed."

Nor has the press mentioned that the latest U.S. Surgeon General's report, based on a review of existing literature, stated, "Although the data are sparse on specific elements linking secondhand-smoke exposure and tumor induction in humans via exposure to tobacco smoke carcinogens, substantial data from active smokers support this framework of biological steps towards cancer."

The fact is, either side in this debate can bring out its team of scientists to shoot holes in the other's data and bolster its own case. I'd like to get away from this and resort to common sense.

It is undisputed that risk of lung cancer and other smoking-related diseases is directly related to the amount of cigarettes smoked per year and the amount of years one smokes. The more smoke inhaled into the lungs, and the longer the sustained period of time this continues, the greater the risk. When it comes to lung cancer, there is a roughly 20-year lag time between the onset of smoking and the development of lung cancer.

Therefore, I reason, if high doses of smoke must be inhaled over a sustained period of several years to increase the risk of lung cancer, then occasional, partially inhaled smoke, say from a distant table in a restaurant, cannot possibly be considered a major health risk.

Thankfully, our political system is not a "scientocracy." Otherwise, we would have no freedom to make any choices other than those scientists deem good for us.

When it comes to public policy, our constitutionally guaranteed rights should have final say in any debate.

Restaurants, bars, nightclubs, and offices are all privately owned entities whose owners seek to do business with the public. As such, the owners have the right to decide whether they want to allow or prohibit smoking on their premises. Naturally, the profit motive will make them strongly take their customers' desires into consideration. And no potential customer is forced to patronize any particular business.

Any law that prohibits smoking in privately owned places is a violation of the property rights of the owner. Regardless of any potential risk associated with secondhand smoke, the only place the public has a right to ban smoking is in a place the public owns.

It is a sad irony that many of the same people who rightly see the abuses of eminent domain laws by state and local governments as an assault on our property rights are happy to see their consistency go up in smoke when the subject turns to secondhand smoke.

As a doctor, I am very concerned about the harmful effects of tobacco. I counsel my patients to stay away from cigarettes. But as much as I care about their health, I respect their rights as adults to make their own personal choices.

A statewide ban on smoking in privately owned places would continue the erosion of liberty that threatens the foundations on which our nation is based.
Research the Nov. 7 midterm election; watch videos from Star Editorial Board meetings with candidates and supporters and opponents of ballot initiatives. Also, read past Star articles and endorsements.
Go to guide
Jeffrey A. Singer is a Phoenix-area surgeon who writes and lectures on regional and national public policy. He is a Goldwater Institute board member and contributor to Arizona Medicine, the journal of the Arizona Medical Association

2006-11-12T22:34:00.000-08:00

Fox Lake Embraces Smokers, http://www.dailyherald.com/story.asp?id=249106 - November 12, 2006

Letter to the Editor:
cc: Lee Filas

Congratulations to Fox Lake for stating it's position clearly and leaving no doubt that they are a community which still supports our US Constitution, Bill of Rights, personal life-style right-to-choice and for refusing to engage in negotiations with the tobacco control crusaders of Lake County and massive pressures from wealthy, charitable health organizations. One would have to be a hermit to escape the barrage of SHS propaganda distributed by the CDC, ACS, ALA, AHA and Smoke Free Lake County Partners. There is no doubt that the village's public officials have received their fair share of "Smoke Free" literature. Fox Lake residents should be proud of the position taken by Mayor Cindy Irwin for refusing to even consider an invasive government smoking ban ordinance. Hasn't the tobacco control industry wasted enough tax payer dollars through monopolizing public officials' attention and time upon smoking bans in Lake County?

During the May 9, 2006 televised Lake County Board Meeting, representatives Judy Martini (Fox Lake, Antioch) and Bonnie Thompson Carter (Wauconda, Fox Lake-S) both voted against the Board passing a resolution to support the Health Department's proposal to make Lake County smoke-free by the end of 2007. They also both clearly stated that smoking bans in those areas would be completely unrealistic, unenforceable and detrimental to the affected communities.

The Chain-of-Lakes is not an urban shopping mall/industrial park/chain restaurant atmosphere. These are the recreational towns where tourists and residents flock to enjoy their boats, campers, out-door activities, bars and restaurants, and freedom from the invasive restrictions of every day life. Hospitality smoking bans have never been about health. They are about power, money and control. Not one life will be saved through government enforced restaurant, bowling alley and bar smoking bans. Consumers have a choice in the establishments they patronize. The decision to allow smoking or become smoke free should remain with the individual business owner.

Upon attending the recent Senate Executive Committee Hearing in downtown Chicago, it became clear that officials of villages and cities in Lake and Cook counties who had already passed smoking bans were those strongly supporting legislation of a state-wide smoking ban in Illinois. These officials were suddenly concerned with a "level-economic-playing-field" for hospitality businesses in their communities. Perhaps they should have given those economic results more consideration, before passing their local smoking bans ordinances over the protests of private business owners and residents.

Kudos to Fox Lake village officials for refusing to join current “follow-the-leader” trendy government-imposed smoking bans, and also for stubbornly continuing to represent the interests of their constituents.

Sincerely,

Garnet Dawn
______________________________
- The Smoker's Club, Inc. - Midwest Regional DirectorThe United Pro Choice Smokers Rights Newsletter - http://www.smokersclubinc.comIllinois Smokers Rights - http://www.illinoissmokersrights.com/mailto:garnetdawn@comcast.net - Respect Freedom of Choice!

2006-11-10T22:07:00.000-08:00

Dear Editor, Nov.9/06

The article in The Chronicle Journal(Nov. 7/06)
'Campaign aims to protect kids from smoke'

A recent experiment has proven that opening the driver's window and flicking on the intake-air button dissipates all the smoke that is generated by the smoker whether it is in a car or van.

Therefore, there is absolutely no danger whatsoever to the children in the vehicle.

Thomas Laprade
480 Rupert St.

2006-11-10T22:00:00.000-08:00

Campaign aims to protect kids from smoke

Excerpts from that article in the Chronicle Journal Thunder Bay. Nov. 7(Tue)/06

"This campaign is designed to present the facts in a matter that alerts (parents) to the issues without feeling criticized,"Simon Hoad said."We want parents to know that opening the car window isn't enough to make a difference." One 'study' says smoking in cars causes significant increases in suspended particles and carbon monoxide, even when windows are opened."When adults smoke in a car or van, very quickly the air becomes twice as thick as a smoky bar."Hoad said. "It's almost as it you are putting your children in an old-fashioned backyard smoker," he said Research has shown that children who are brought up in second-hand smoke suffer increased behavioural problems and have a higher rate of ear infections, tonsillectomies, asthma, lung infections and lower respiratory infections.

Re: Campaign aims to protect kids from smoke -->

My letter to The Chronicle Journal.

The article in The Chronicle Journal(Nov. 7/06)
'Campaign aims to protect kids from smoke'

A recent experiment has proven that opening the driver's window and flicking on the intake-air button dissipates all the smoke that is generated by the smoker whether it is in a car or van.

Therefore, there is absolutely no danger whatsoever to the children in the vehicle.

Thomas Laprade
480 Rupert St.
Thunder Bay, Ont.

2006-11-09T20:21:00.000-08:00

The future.....

authorsden.com/shortstoryupload/21882.doc

2006-11-06T20:09:00.000-08:00

http://edmsun.canoe.ca/News/Edmonton/2006/11/03/2219493-sun.html

http://www.edmontonsun.com/Comment/Letters/2006/11/06/2252982.html
What did the City of Edmonton expect, smokers to carry their own ashtrays when they are forced to go outside to smoke?

Thomas Laprade

(Who knows?)

2006-11-06T11:08:00.000-08:00

Letter sent to The Mayor and Aldermen Nov. 6/06

Dear Mayor and Council Nov. 6/06

Here is something interesting as far as computor voting is concerned.

http://www.blackboxvoting.org

Thomas Laprade
Thunder Bay, Ont.

2006-11-04T08:31:00.000-08:00

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-11-02-smokers-election_x.htm
Smokers go back to ballot boxes in effort to light up again
Posted 11/2/2006 10:50 PM ET

By Emily Bazar, USA TODAY

A handful of communities from North Dakota to Pennsylvania are revisiting smoking bans and may provide more places to light up.
Voters in Mankato, Minn., and Appleton, Wis., will decide next week whether to repeal or weaken existing smoking bans.
Allegheny County, Pa., and Hennepin County, Minn., recently scaled back their ordinances, allowing smoking in more places. West Fargo, N.D., is about to do the same.
In most cases, restaurant and bar owners have lobbied local leaders, saying the bans have hurt business.
"We're seeing it come up more often as smoking bans take their economic toll on the hospitality industry," says Gary Nolan, spokesman for smoking rights group The Smoker's Club, Inc. "Bar owners and some restaurateurs are starting to rise up."
The backlash is small compared with the number of municipal and state governments adopting smoking bans. This year, 100 cities and counties — "a record number" — have enacted strong smoke-free ordinances, says Bronson Frick of the non-profit lobbying group Americans for Non-smokers' Rights. "The trend is very much going toward smoke-free," he says.
Frick says "economic doom and gloom" scenarios from businesses don't materialize.
Sharon Reader, owner of Emmett's Bar & Grill in Appleton, says her sales have tumbled since the city's workplace smoking ban went into effect in July 2005. She says she had to fire four employees because she could no longer afford them.
Bars in town report a 15% to 70% loss, Reader says. "Regulars who showed up four or five days a week don't come any more," she says.
She and others helped gather signatures to bring the issue before voters, who will decide Tuesday whether to exempt about 60 taverns from the ban. This is the second attempt to amend the ban at the ballot box, City Clerk Cindi Hesse says. The first, in April, failed.
Other recent moves:
•Allegheny County last month amended its ban, which was approved in September, to include exemptions for some small bars.
•Hennepin County adopted exemptions in December for some bars and establishments such as the Veterans of Foreign Wars. They expire next July, says Bill Belknap, spokesman for Hennepin County Public Health Protection.
•West Fargo commissioners have taken the first steps to amend the city's smoking ban, which was approved by voters in 2004. They are changing it to match the state's less restrictive ban, which allows for more exemptions, Mayor Rich Mattern says.

2006-11-03T21:16:00.000-08:00

Letters to the Baytown Sun concerning the smoking issue. Nov.3/06

Protect freedoms

The time is now. Please help us protect our freedoms and the Constitution of the United States which we and many other veterans have fought to protect and preserve.
Learn the facts!
The proposed smoking ban can be found in its entirety on the Baytown Sun’s website and at www.baytowncitizens.com.
If this ordinance passes:

1. No one will be allowed to smoke or allow smoking in their own place of business; even if they are the only person there.

2. This ordinance on its preface was supposedly designed to protect all citizens more especially those they claim to be affected by second-hand smoke —the elderly and the sick. However, page 7 exemption E of sec. 42-102 excludes hospitals (San Jacinto Methodist). Are these people less important to the authors of this ordinance? Or is this ordinance just a self-serving document to the authors of it?

3. The possession of ashtrays in any public place per this ordinance (page 7 sec. 42-104D). IE retail stores may not sell them, your vehicles or any public place cannot have them within.

4. The definition of a work place includes company, public and even personal vehicles when used in the course of employment. Vehicles are mentioned 4 different times in this ordinance (page 4 under place of employment, page 6 sec. 42-99A, page 7 sec. 42-102B). Therefore, based on their 15 foot rule, no one would be allowed to smoke in their own vehicle at any time within the city limits of Baytown.

5. Signage in this ordinance requires a 10-inch by 14-inch no smoking sign on every entrance of every public place or places of employment (page 7 sec. 42-104 ABC); for example your vehicle or every door to your business.

6. In certain cases your home could be a work place. If the lawn service man, sprinkler repair man, maintenance man, or anyone were to be working on your personal property, neither you or they would be allowed to smoke without being in violation of this ordinance and subject to a fine of up to two thousand dollars (page 9, sec. 5).The Baytown Citizens for Property Rights would certainly agree with the smoke-free coalition in so much as everyone has the right to quality of life, however, not at the expense of other individual’s basic rights. This ordinance, if passed, would trample on the very foundation that the Constitution of the Untied States was founded on, personal property rights. We the people often confuse personal preference with personal rights. No one has the right to be in another person’s place of business; that is a privilege afforded to us by the business owner. We as individuals have the right to choose which establishments that we prefer to support and which establishments we will not support. By doing so, the business owner will make a decision based upon economics whether to allow smoking or not. It was once said, that if you give up any of your rights in order to feel safe you will neither have rights nor be safe.

Zane Starr
Baytown

Educate yourselves I would like to address Dr. S. Jeffery Ackerman’s letter dated Oct. 26. Appreciating Dr. Ackerman’s freedom of speech and personal opinion, I would agree that cigarette smoke is offensive and nasty, however, I personally prefer honesty and facts not smoking mirrors. Dr. Ackerman, Dr. Ehlers and the Smoke-Free Baytown Coalition are certainly a very educated and well-financed group of people. That being said, his letter states that our Psychiatric Unit has a smoking room that is equipped with a negative air flow ventilation system. Yet in the preface of their proposed ordinance, they claim that no ventilation can protect you from secondhand smoke. This is based upon an opinion of the Surgeon General who is an appointee of our big government. When in fact this is an opinion, which should be stated by engineers not an appointed doctor. However, assuming these were true facts the Psychiatric Unit and the San Jacinto Methodist Hospital in general must have technology unavailable to the general public, otherwise they would be subjecting some of the very people they proclaim need to be protected the most; the sick, the elderly and the employees and would be subjecting all of these people to secondhand smoke.

Dr. Ackerman has stated that the claim of 4,400 deaths per year due to secondhand smoke is based upon probabilities that scientists would use in a computed generated model and have no factual data to support such a claim. He also claims to have exempted these people and retirement homes based upon compassion. However, the ordinance in fact gives no true exemption for anyone other than San Jacinto Hospital. Smoke Free Baytown also claims to not have intentionally taken over your personal vehicle, city street or in some cases your home, yet as highly educated and well financed organization came before council requesting an ordinance prohibiting smoking on all city esplanades as well as having Ignacio Ramirez, city attorney, review it and make 57 changes. In so all these infringements on your personal rights were kept. It is amazing that the only true exemption is to the San Jacinto Hospital Psychiatric Ward. These are the same group that again came before the council requesting an ordinance prohibiting any other hospital to be allowed in Baytown. All of this being said, in my opinion this is not about smoking, but about property rights. When anyone invests in your community or any place, for that fact, in order to better themselves and their families as long as their investment is legal, they should not be held to the desires of others except by their cash register. The basic grounds and principals of the Constitution, which created this great country, allow us the right of entrepreneurship. When we begin to give up these rights to the majorities preference one by one we lose them. I would ask you to think about the many decisions our government is now making for you. Things our fathers and forefathers were never questioned about. Have we become a nation unable to think for ourselves?
I would agree that we all have the right to breathe clean air and to be employed in a safe environment. I have no more right to request employment in an environment that I know to be possibly unhealthy and then require them to stop the process of such product that would be harmful. I knew this when applying for said position. As Baytonians we chose to live in a place we love even though we are surrounded by the petrochemical industry and their flare stacks. What do we prohibit next, donut shops, bakeries, car dealers, industry. We have the right to stay or go. I hope we all stay; this is a wonderful city in which we can all endeavor to prosper. It is my belief that industry and residential growth can be accomplished as long as we all work in unity with realistic regulation and not a dictatorship. The choice is clear on Nov. 7. Let’s not become a liberal state, which continues to allow our irresponsible government entities to regulate our lives. I choose to believe that we are very responsible in where we go and what we do without the regulation trying to be set upon us. I encourage all Baytonians to visit the Baytown Sun web site or www.baytowncitizens.com to become educated on the facts prior to voting.

Jeremy Sutton
Baytown

Baytown Smoking Ordinance PDFA proposed Baytown ordinance would ban smoking in public buildings and workplaces.

2006-11-03T09:37:00.000-08:00

Letter published in The Chronicle Journal Nov. 3/06

Dear Editor, Oct.30/06

Any politician who serves more than two terms in office tends to develop a dictatorial attitude rather than representing their constituents wishes.The President of The United States cannot run for a third term in office for exactly the same reason.
As a general rule our city would be better off if we voted almost everyone out of office after two terms.

Thomas Laprade
480 Rupert St.
Thunder Bay, Ont.

2006-10-27T16:24:00.000-07:00

My letter published in The Thunder Bay Source Oct. 27/06

http://www.tbsource.com/downloads.asp

Dear Editor, Oct. 16/06

Any politician who serves more than two terms in office tends to develop a dictatorial attitude rather than representing their constituents wishes.

The President of The United States cannot run for a third term in office for exactly the same reason. As a general rule our city would be better off if we voted almost everyone out of office after two terms.

Thomas Laprade
480 Rupert St.

2006-10-25T21:30:00.000-07:00

Roy Harrold's letter published in The Chronicle Journal Oct.25/06

Sirs,
Regarding; "Mother claims business did not train daughter to sell cigarettes" - the serious moral and ethical failings of the fifteen year old entrapment agent were not discussed. The Criminal Code of Canada defines criminal False Pretence as: "361. (1) A false pretence is a representation of a matter of fact either present or past, made by words or otherwise, that is known by the person who makes it to be false and that is made with a fraudulent intent to induce the person to whom it is made to act on it." Simply by requesting to buy a tobacco product, these underage entrapment agents falsely portray themselves as having a legal right to purchase them. They know that this is false and that they are intentionally inducing the store clerk to act upon this false pretence. The fact that governments pay children to commit such acts of fraud and deception is a disgrace.

Roy Harrold
Edmonton, AB

2006-10-25T21:27:00.000-07:00

Iro's letter published in The Chronicle Journal Oct. 25/06

To the editor in reference to your article in the object ( http://66.244.236.251/article_9243.php )

It is very disturbing to see the dangerous levels that the tobacco control movement has reached. When government pays minors to entrap their peers, it no longer has anything to do with health promotion. If not halted immediately, the day is not far when our youth will be turning in their parents and grandparents for smoking, overeating, not exercising, having that extra beer, or over a friendly poker game. What is even more disturbing is the fact that carefully orchestrated social marketing has brought society to the point that most people don't, or refuse to see the slippery slope that the ''for your own good'' public health policies have engaged us in. ''For all the right reasons'' of course.
Iro Cyr - Vice President - C.A.G.E. (Citizens Against Government Encroachment)
www.cagecanada.ca
Montreal, Qc
514-772-6233

2006-10-25T21:15:00.000-07:00

A Canadian and an American Oct. 25/06

You probably missed it in the rush of news last week, but there was actually a report that someone in Pakistan had published in a newspaper, offering a reward to anyone who killed a Canadian or an American, any Canadian or American.

So an Australian dentist wrote an editorial the following day to let everyone know what a Canadian or an American is, so they would know when they found one.

A Canadian is English, French, Italian, Irish, American, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, German, Spanish, Polish, Russian, Australian or Greek. An American may also be Canadian, Mexican, African, Indian, Chinese,Japanese, Korean, Australian, Iranian, Asian, or Arab, or Pakistani or Afghan.

A Canadian or an American may also be a Comanche, Cherokee, Osage, Blackfoot, Navaho, Apache, Seminole or one of the many other tribes known as native Canadians or Americans.

A Canadian or an American is Christian, or he could be Jewish, or Buddhist, or Muslim. In fact, there are more Muslims in Canada and America than in Afghanistan . The only difference is that in Canada and America they are free to worship as each of them chooses.

A Canadian or an American is also free to believe in no religion. For that he will answer only to God, not to the government, or to armed thugs claiming to speak for the government and for God.

A Canadian or an American lives in the most prosperous land in the history of the world. The root of that prosperity can be found in the Bill of Rights (or in America, Declaration of Independence) which recognizes the God given right of each person to the pursuit of happiness.

A Canadian or an American is generous. Canadians and Americans have helped out just about every other nation in the world in their time of need, never asking a thing in return.

When Afghanistan was over-run by the Soviet army 20 years ago, Canadians and Americans came with arms and supplies to enable the people to win back their country!

As of the morning of September 11, Americans had given more than any other nation to the poor in Afghanistan.

Canadians and Americans welcome the best of everything, the best products, the best books, the best music, the best food, the best services. But they also welcome the least. The national symbol of America, the Statue of Liberty, welcomes your tired and your poor, the wretched refuse of your teeming shores, the homeless, tempest tossed. These in fact are the people who built America .

Some of them were working in the Twin Towers the morning of September 11, 2001 earning a better life for their families. It's been told that the World Trade Center victims were from at least 30 different countries, cultures, and first languages, including those that aided and abetted the terrorists.

So you can try to kill a Canadian or an American if you must. Hitler did. So did General Tojo, and Stalin, and Mao Tse-Tung, and other blood-thirsty tyrants in the world. But, in doing so you would just be killing yourself. Because Canadians and
Americans are not a particular people from a particular place. They are the
embodiment of the human spirit of freedom. Everyone who holds to that spirit, everywhere, is a Canadian or an American.

2006-10-24T15:48:00.000-07:00

GARNET DAWN’S SPEECH TO ILLINOIS SENATE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE ON PROPOSED ILLINOIS STATE-WIDE SMOKING BAN BILL– 10-23-06

Chairman Silverstein, Senator Cullerton and members of the board.

Thank you for inviting me to speak today. My name is Garnet Scheuer and I am the president and chairman of Illinois Smokers Rights. We are a relatively new organization that has developed from the ground swell of smokers and non-smokers who object to wide spread discrimination and moral persecution of smokers. We promote pro-choice alternatives and share informational and educational materials. We are a grassroots organization devoted to the promotion of limited government, protection of personal property rights and preservation of personal life style choices..... We are truly grassroots, and are creating new alliances within Illinois communities, colleges, newspapers, and private businesses to build a network of informed citizens on personal freedom issues. We will continue to gain strength as more and more of the public becomes aware of the pro-choice issues at stake.

First and foremost, 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 establishment cannot pose health threats. To date, no tobacco studies have been able to conclusively 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 (727 page) study as one of his final accomplishments, stating that “The debate is over”. However, contrary to his media statements and the Executive Summary, the report was simply a rehashing of the same studies that have already been circulated and are still inconclusive. In response to his report, many written and verbal rebuttals by recognized and qualified professionals in the scientific and medical communities have also been published.

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, and the great out-doors 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. People are not stupid. They are not children. They can make their own choices and they can also see ashtrays on tables or smoking patrons. Individuals need to retain their right to choice without interference from government.
That is why this country was created as a Constitutional Republic with a Bill of Rights. The common belief that we are a “Democracy” is wrong. We are not governed by mob rule. We are all Americans, and smokers deserve respect too. Our Veterans, who are also being targeted with smoking bans in their own private clubs are also being persecuted. That is a very poor way to say “thank you” to the men who have fought to preserve OUR freedom.

Illinois has a population of over 12.7 million people. According to the United Health Foundation.org in 2005, smokers still represent 22.2% of that number in Illinois. That means over 2.8 million smokers are being targeted by Tobacco Control Activists in Illinois alone.

Our organization is named Illinois Smokers Rights because smokers have rights too! Smokers may be in the minority, but their rights are no more and no less than non-smokers and tobacco control activists. All our rights are intended to be equal.

That means free trade should determine the preferences of business owners and individuals. 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. The carcinogens inhaled by a patron from alcohol evaporation originating from a martini in one hour are greater than the threat from second hand smoke from an evening in a smoky bar.

Small businesses account for two thirds of the jobs and sales revenue in our country. A great number of those small businesses are hospitality establishments. (According to 2002 Census stats and NIASC records, we have over 12,400 individual bars throughout Illinois!)
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 future, money and time into their businesses.

State-wide smoking bans do NOT create a level economic playing-field; they create a level economic basin. This is easily validated when financial growth levels in states with smoking bans are compared with the growth rates of other smoke-friendly states.

Smoking ban activists are highly paid professionals who need to continue to expand smoking bans to ensure continued funding for their agencies and organizations. These bans are promoted by massively wealthy Charitable Organizations, such as the American Cancer Society. As is common knowledge, the ACS spent $4 million dollars to promote passage of the Chicago smoking ban A minority of tobacco control representatives are promoting these bans. The public is not crying out for them. 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?

There is a lot more at stake here than just “smokers rights”. The attack on smokers and bars and restaurants is the tip of a dagger aimed at the heart of all our liberties. This is about our basic American values: Individual liberty, freedom to associate with others, the right to privacy and to private property. Wars have been fought over this...America’s War of Independence was fought for these rights. When smoking is banned at George’s Pub and Grill, 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”.

This is happening to ALL of us, and that is why we have almost as many non-smoking supporters as we do smoking supporters in Illinois Smokers Rights are why our numbers and determination will continue to grow.
Thank you for inviting me to testify on behalf of pro-choice advocates in Illinois.

2006-10-24T11:46:00.000-07:00

To: tbaysource
Sent: Tuesday, October 24, 2006 11:26 AM
Subject: Fines, Fired and Frustrated
Dear Editor, Oct. 26/06

I have a new job Mommy.

The government pays me to pretend I'm of legal age and sucker unsuspecting retailers into breaking the law by selling me smokes! Isn't that great, Mommy! I'm a professional fraudster and con-artist for Tobacco Control!

What a great thing to train teenagers to do.

Thomas Laprade
480 Rupert St.

2006-10-24T11:42:00.000-07:00

Sent this to your Chronicle-Journal:

cigarettes" - the serious moral and ethical failings of the fifteen year old entrapment agent were not discussed. The Criminal Code of Canada defines criminal False Pretenceas:"361. (1) A false pretence is a representation of a matterof fact either present or past, made by words or otherwise,that is known by the person who makes it to be false and that is made with a fraudulent intent to induce the person to whom it is made to act on it. "Simply by requesting to buy a tobacco product, these underage entrapment agents falsely portray themselves as having a legal right to purchase them. They know that this is false and that they are intentionally inducing the store clerk to act upon this false pretence. The fact that governments pay children to commit such acts of fraud and deception is a disgrace.

Roy HarroldEdmonton, AB

http://66.244.236.251/article_9243.php
letters@chroniclejournal.com

2006-10-23T13:42:00.000-07:00

*CIGARETTE SMOKERS. WHY DO WE NOT OFFER THEM PROTECTION ?*Much has been written about the evils of ‘passive smoking’, but the evidence for any deleterious effects of environmental tobacco smoke on non-smokers is misleading, exaggerated, or at worst contrived. It is not surprising therefore that a more careful examination of the deleterious effects of active smoking leads us to question the validity of the medical evidence. Is it the other lifestyle risks of the smoker which are responsible in some measure for the 120,000 deaths per year in the UK alleged to be due to smoking?The damage caused by smoking is due to the presence of extra ‘free radicals’ or ‘reactive oxygen species’ in tobacco smoke (in addition to those constantly produced within the body), which cause oxidative damage to tissues and exacerbate the cancer process and heart disease. These free radicals are neutralised by substances called enzyme antioxidants and chemical antioxidants, the former being produced within the body and the latter being largely present in vegetables and fruit.*Smokers have other lifestyle risk factors that accompany smoking. Many studies have demonstrated that they are more stressed and take less exercise than non-smokers. A recent analysis of more than 50 studies relating to diet, showed that smokers on average have an increased intake of total and saturated fat and a lower intake of polyunsaturated fat, fresh vegetables, fruit, folate and fibre compared to non-smokers. Statistically, on the weight of evidence, the probability of this being wrong is less than one chance in 100,000. All these dietary abnormalities are also important risk factors for cancer and heart disease, as indeed are the effects of stress and lack of exercise and it is extremely difficult to separate the effects of these from the effects due to smoking. Many studies have demonstrated that increased exercise is as valuable as smoking cessation in the promotion of good health. A recent study in males has shown that smokers of 1 pack a day who exercise live longer than sedentary non-smokers. Perhaps we should refer to ‘smokers’ related diseases rather than ‘smoking’ related diseases, to encompass all the other lifestyle risk factors of the smoker.*Lung cancerIt is now 50 years since the first reports showed that there was an association between cigarette smoking and an increased risk for lung cancer. This has been amply confirmed over the years, and although this risk varies widely in different parts of the world, it is roughly tenfold or 1000% compared to non-smokers.During the last twenty five years, a very large number of studies similar to those which attributed smoking to the risk of developing various diseases, have shown that the risks to smokers may be reduced. The risk of developing lung cancer is more than doubled for those smokers on a low intake of fruit and vegetables and doubled for smokers who have a high intake of saturated fat. The smoker thus suffers from a double defect, a decreased intake of fruit and vegetables to neutralise the higher free radical load and an increased instead of a decreased intake of saturated fat. Although it is frequently stated that it is better for a smoker to quit, a four to fivefold reduction in the risk for lung cancer by a healthier lifestyle in continuing heavy smokers cannot be ignored, and they should be advised of this.Bronchitis and emphysema are attributed to smoking, but there are also many other factors involved. In a large study in 31 different countries it was shown that geographically there is no simple correlation between cigarette smoking and bronchitis. Southern Mediterranean countries and Japan, which have the lowest incidence of bronchitis, also have a high incidence of smoking, and similar anomalies have been observed for both lung cancer and heart disease.Cancer of other sitesMany studies have shown a slightly increased risk for cancer of other sites apart from lung and throat amongst smokers, but these cancers are also strongly associated with reduced intakes of fruit and vegetables, exactly the situation which applies to smokers. As an example, smokers have a slightly increased risk of stomach cancer, but a large study in China in a region with a very high rate of gastric cancer showed that persons with low blood levels of vitamin C had 5 times the risk for gastric cancer compared to those with high levels. Smokers have low intakes and levels of vitamin C. Is it therefore smoking or low intakes and levels of vitamin C or other micronutrients which give them a slightly higher risk for gastric cancer? In view of the much greater risk associated with low fruit and vegetable intake compared with the risk for smoking it could be argued that smoking is protective against gastric cancer in those smokers with a high intake of fruit and vegetables. The risk for colon cancer is not increased amongst smokers although it is increased in persons with a low intake of fruit and vegetables, therefore why is the risk not increased amongst smokers? Ulcerative colitis is also largely a disease of non-smokers.*Heart* *disease *Of all diseases, more deaths from smoking are attributed to heart disease simply because there are more deaths in the general population from heart disease. In the UK, smokers on average have about 1.7 times the risk for heart disease compared to non-smokers, or a 70% increased risk. The evidence linking smoking to heart disease is therefore much weaker than that linking smoking with lung cancer. The problem with assigning risks to smokers, is that they have so many of the risk factors which contribute to heart disease (and there are alleged to be more than 200) that it becomes difficult to separate the effects of smoking from the other major risk factors of the smoker. The population studies that have ascribed this increased risk to smoking have failed lamentably to allow for other factors. This may mean that the risk is due to other lifestyle risks which accompany smoking and that the risk in continuing smokers may be reduced or eliminated by reducing these risks.Smokers who quit are a self-selected, usually health conscious group, and population studies have shown that apart from quitting they may modify other lifestyle risks, notably diet and exercise. Many studies have demonstrated that there is a smaller but continuing increased risk of heart disease after cessation of smoking and that this is dependent on number of years and packs per day of smoking. Other studies have shown that the increased risk is virtually eliminated after one to two years of quitting, which embarrassingly suggests that smoking does not cause any irreversible deleterious effect on either the arteries or the heart.Although the great majority of studies show an increased risk for heart disease with smoking, many of these have made no allowance for confounding factors, and there are many discrepancies. One of the corner stones of population studies on smoking and heart disease is an ongoing study of the population of Framingham in the US. Surprisingly, this showed that ex-smokers had a considerably lower risk of heart disease than never-smokers and smokers of 1 to 10 cigarettes per day had a lower risk than non-smokers. A very large self reported Australian National Health Survey also showed that the prevalence of heart diseases in continuing smokers over the age of 45 was marginally less than for non-smokers. In a British study of female doctors there was no increased risk for smokers of 1 to 14 cigarettes per day compared to non-smokers.There are also large geographical differences in smoking and the risk of heart disease. There is a high incidence of smoking in Japan and Southern Mediterranean countries, yet the Japanese and Southern Mediterranean populations have a lower incidence of heart disease than North Americans and Northern Europeans. An extreme example is found in one of the Melanesian islands in the South Pacific, where heart disease and stroke are ’unheard of’ and yet 80% of both men and women smoke black unfiltered tobacco. Their diet however consists of root tubers, fruit, fish and coconuts coupled with low salt and fat. This absence of heart disease and stroke is unlikely to be due to genetic factors because when the Melanesians are indigenous to New Zealand they have the same incidence of heart disease as the New Zealanders. Similarly, when the Japanese are indigenous to the US they have the same incidence of heart disease as the Americans.All these observations are irreconcilable with the simple statement that smoking causes heart disease. It would be more truthful to say that there is an increased risk of heart disease amongst smokers, which is due to smoking coupled with the other lifestyle risk factors of the smoker.Is it the poor diet of smokers in the main that contributes to the increased risk? There are two types of cholesterol, the good (HDL cholesterol) and the bad (LDL cholesterol). Population studies have shown that the diet of the smoker produces higher levels of bad cholesterol and lower levels of good cholesterol. This is bad enough in itself, but laboratory studies have demonstrated that when the bad cholesterol is oxidised by free radicals in tobacco smoke, this produces the deleterious effects on the arteries. In addition the smoker has a lower intake of antioxidants to neutralise this process. The health pages of the tabloids implore us to eat 5 to 7 helpings of fruit and vegetables daily and more than a hundred studies have demonstrated the protection afforded by a high intake of vegetables and fruit against the risk of heart disease. Quite extraordinarily, only seven of these have considered the effect separately for smokers and non-smokers. Five of these studies showed that the protection afforded against heart disease by a high intake of fruit and vegetables was only for smokers, and the remaining two showed that this was mainly for smokers. The increased protection against the risk of heart disease for smokers with high intakes compared to low intakes averaged approximately 150%. This degree of protection against heart disease must be weighed against the overall increased risk for the smoker of 70%. The benefit afforded to smokers by a high intake of fruit and vegetables also explains the low incidence of heart disease, where the incidence of smoking is high in southern Mediterranean countries such as France, Spain and Greece where a Mediterranean diet is followed, and in Japan where the traditional diet consists of rice, fish, fruit and vegetables. A large question mark therefore hangs over the statement that smoking /per se/ causes heart disease, until adequate allowance is made for these confounding factors. On the available evidence the figure of 70,000 to 80,000 excess deaths per year from heart disease in the UK amongst smokers may be true, but to attribute this to the simple act of smoking and not to consider other confounding factors is a blatant misinterpretation.Many contrived animal studies have been designed and the results where it has been convenient, extrapolated to humans, to demonstrate the deleterious effect of tobacco smoke on the arteries. One study which was the largest and most rigorously conducted, has conveniently been forgotten. This study was on 220 beagle dogs for 2 years, who were fed a 5% cholesterol diet and exposed via the trachea to mainstream smoke containing increasing amounts of nicotine and carbon monoxide. The unexpected result was that increasing levels of cigarette smoke, nicotine and carbon monoxide reduced the severity of lesions in the arteries. The final report concluded “these results appear more indicative of a possible protective effect from cigarette smoking and/or carbon monoxide inhalation than of an atherogenic (/fatty plaque forming within the arteries/) effect”.Other reports have shown that a small daily dose of aspirin which is used to reduce the risk of heart disease, benefits smokers to a greater degree than non-smokers.Drugs used to lower cholesterol levels in patients who are at high risk of, or have had a heart attack, have an equal benefit for smokers and non-smokers, yet they are prescribed less for smokers.The reduced coronary circulation which is found in smokers has also been shown to become normal after short term supplemental vitamin C. Peripheral artery disease which is due to constriction or obstruction of the arteries in the legs, and leads to pain on walking and ultimate immobilisation, affects smokers more than non-smokers Studies have shown that progression of this can also be reduced by supplemental vitamin C which is lacking in the smoker.Although smokers will benefit from supplemental vitamin C, the answer to smokers’ related diseases, is of course not a supplemental pill, but a healthier lifestyle and diet including a high intake of fruit and vegetables. The reason for this is that the latter contain many hundreds of antioxidants and the few that have been studied such as vitamin C and beta carotene may simply be markers for many others which have equal or greater benefit. The evidence from population studies for the benefit afforded to smokers by a change to a healthier diet is now overwhelming. But we hear very little if anything, about how smokers may protect themselves from heart and circulatory diseases as well as lung cancer. The only advice seems to be ‘quit smoking, or crawl away and die’. This is an appalling attitude on the part of the medical institutions.*Genetic implications for the smoker*Although the antioxidants in a healthy diet combat the cancer forming constituents in tobacco smoke which are a contributory cause of smokers related diseases, it would be over-simplistic to suggest that diet is the complete answer. Only 1 in 10 heavy smokers die of lung cancer and 1 in 10 cases of lung cancer are in non-smokers. If smoking causes lung cancer why do not all smokers die from lung cancer? Similarly, if smoking causes heart disease why do some smokers never develop heart disease and many non-smokers do? Part of the answer is to be found in the genetic composition of different individuals. There are many genetic abnormalities in which smoking may exacerbate the development of lung cancer. Two recent studies have shown that the presence of an abnormal gene called APOE _4 concerned in lipid metabolism renders the smoker three times more susceptible to heart disease. This of course does not increase the risk of heart disease amongst smokers generally, it simply pin points those who are at greater risk if they possess the abnormal gene, and smoking cessation propaganda might well be directed at this group, rather than all smokers. Smokers who possess this gene also benefit more from cholesterol lowering drugs. What these studies did not emphasise was that despite the increased risk of heart disease, possession of this gene by a smoker also bestowed a 13 fold protection against the development of early onset Alzheimer’s disease in those with a family history of dementia.More recently, an enzyme concerned in the repair of DNA lesions has been shown to be at very low levels in those who develop lung cancer, both in smokers and non-smokers. The study showed that smokers had an 18 fold increased risk for lung cancer compared to non-smokers. It also showed that smokers with low levels of the enzyme had a 34 fold increased risk, and smokers with very low levels had a 124 fold increased risk for lung cancer compared to non-smokers with normal levels of the enzyme. Even non-smokers with very low levels of the enzyme had a 7 fold increased risk for lung cancer compared to those with normal levels of the enzyme. It is clear that smoking cessation directed at smokers with low levels of this enzyme would lead to a substantial decrease in the incidence of lung cancer amongst smokers.It is becoming apparent from genetic studies that in the not too distant future it will be possible to identify individuals who by their genetic composition are at greater risk for smokers related diseases; they are the persons who will be targeted, not just by smoking cessation advice, but by the modification of other lifestyle risks.*Dose Effects *The greatest ill effects from smoking are for heavy smokers of two and three packs a day. Risks are much lower for light smokers. Studies on lung cancer and heart disease have shown that for those who smoke 10 a day or less, the risks are very much lower. In a study on female British doctors, there was no increased risk for heart disease or lung cancer in those smoking 1 to 14 cigarettes per day. In the Framingham study, for smokers of 1 to 10 cigarettes per day the risk for heart disease was lower than that for non-smokers.*Other effects of smoking*Apart from the protection which could be afforded to smokers by a healthier lifestyle, all is not doom and gloom. The vast majority of studies have shown unequivocally, that smokers have half the risk of developing Parkinson’s disease compared to non-smokers. They also have a lower risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. Several studies have attempted to show that the protection against Alzheimer’s disease for smokers is less than previously thought. In the ongoing study of 50,000 British doctors over 50 years it was shown that the incidence of Alzheimers disease was the same in smokers and non-smokers, but this was achieved by comparing active smokers against the group of never-smokers and ex-smokers lumped together. This exercise diminishes the protective effect of smoking, because any protection afforded to the ex-smokers is included with the never-smoking group. When active smokers and ex smokers were compared with never smokers, the former had a reduced risk of about 20% Smokers, because of their increased consumption of saturated animal fat and antioxidant imbalance (which could be corrected, if they took the advice to eat more fresh vegetables and fruit) are more likely to develop blood clots in small blood vessels. This may cause development of a type of dementia called vascular dementia, similar to Alzheimer’s. Many cases of vascular dementia in smokers may be misdiagnosed as Alzheimer’s disease, and it is becoming clear that there is also an associated vascular element in Alzheimers disease. What is needed to demonstrate unequivocally any protection that cigarette smoking has against the development of dementia is a comparison of smokers who have otherwise healthy or unhealthy lifestyles. Several earlier studies on identical twins who were both alive, also showed that if one twin smoked, then that twin had half the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. It should be remembered that there are around 700,000 cases of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease in the UK.Most studies have shown that because of the anti-oestrogenic effect of smoking, women who smoke have half the risk of developing cancer of the womb compared to non-smokers. Similar findings have been found for smoking and breast cancer but studies have been complicated by the anti-oestrogenic (protective) effect and the potentially cancer forming effect of cigarette smoke. A recent large study found that women who started smoking within 5 years of puberty had a 69% increased risk for pre-menopausal breast cancer and this was given prominent coverage in the press. But in the same study, for a smaller group of those who started smoking after their first full term pregnancy and who gained weight during life (the majority), the risk for post-menopausal breast cancer was halved, which represents a 100% reduction in risk.The effects of smoking are also complicated by alcohol intake. This question has recently been solved by the largest study of its kind, a collaborative reanalysis of over 58,000 cases in 53 studies. Increasing alcohol consumption resulted in increasing risk for breast cancer for smokers and non-smokers alike, but in non-drinkers, cigarette smoking did not produce any increased risk for breast cancer. The protective effect of high intakes of vegetables and fruit against the risk of breast cancer is well documented. Smokers have markedly lower intakes, so on balance, the anti-oestrogenic effect of smoking coupled with a healthy diet is likely to be protective.Is it a coincidence that the doubling of the incidence of childhood asthma parallels the decrease in smoking? A very large study in 57 countries showed that countries with the highest air pollution (and ETS exposure) had by far the lowest incidence of childhood asthma.Apart from the increased consumption of ‘junk food’ the increase in obesity with its attendant diseases such as heart disease and diabetes has also paralleled the decrease in smoking. How many GP’s say to their patients ‘quit smoking and then we will deal with the weight problem later’, but never do? The home of anti smoking is the U.S. and the Americans have the highest incidence of obesity in the world (30%). Obesity we are now told claims more deaths than smokers related diseases.Perhaps most importantly, the modern drug culture has paralleled smoking cessation propaganda and inculcation with the dangers of smoking. This is not a coincidence. Since cigarettes are so dangerous, ecstasy, cannabis and cocaine must surely be safer. This belief is borne out by a recent poll which showed that most young people think drugs are safer than tobacco. The real problem with drugs is that more than 50% of all crime is drug related. Drug addiction has resulted in the most appalling crimes to pay for the addiction, and innocent people are usually the victims. Did anyone ever mug an old lady for the price of a cigarette? Perhaps after all it was safer to experiment with a quick fag behind the school bike shed, and become addicted to tobacco, rather than drugs.There are also the stress associated diseases involved in quitting smoking. A few brave cardiologists will say to a patient after a heart attack ‘Perhaps it would be better for you to reduce your consumption of cigarettes rather than quit altogether because of the stress involved’.There are several other rare diseases for which smoking is protective, for example women who smoke have half the risk of pre-eclampsia during pregnancy.One of the more ridiculous claims of the anti-smoking lobby which appears as a warning on cigarette packets is that smoking increases facial wrinkling. Smokers have an increase in skin wrinkling of about 1/20^th compared to non-smokers. However, skin wrinkling is caused by the formation of a substances called metalloproteinase I, which is increased by lack of vitamins C and E. Smokers on average have significantly lower intakes of 16% for vitamin C and 11% for vitamin E than non-smokers and it is equally likely that any increased skin wrinkling is caused by these low intakes. The message is clear for smokers, eat more fruit, vegetables and whole grains.It is frequently stated that the Risk/Benefit ratio of smoking is 100/1. This is simply not true. The greatest number of deaths attributed to smoking, are from heart disease. The evidence however is not convincing for smokers who have otherwise healthy lifestyles. When we consider the beneficial effects of high intakes of fruit and vegetables in preventing heart disease, 5 out of 7 studies showed that the benefit was entirely for smokers, whilst in the remaining 2 the benefit was largely for smokers. For all diseases related to smoking it is necessary to study the difference between smokers who have otherwise healthy or unhealthy lifestyles. This has not been done. Even if we accept the dubious evidence that the increased risk of heart disease is due to the act of smoking and is not coupled to the other lifestyle risks of the smoker, we would have to completely ignore the protection afforded against Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s diseases, post menopausal cancer of the womb, and the potential protection against cancer of the breast, stomach and colon.ConclusionsHistory abounds with anti-smoking fascists. Apart from the infamous Adolf Hitler, there were extremists like King James I of England and Mikhail Feodorovitch the first of the Romanov czars. Perhaps the most notable was Sultan Murad IVth of Constantinople, who in 1633 decreed the death penalty for smoking tobacco. He punished his own soldiers for smoking, by beheading, hanging, or crushing their hands and feet to be left helpless at the hands of the enemy.It can be argued that amongst smokers with _otherwise healthy lifestyles,_ the protection from diseases such as Parkinsons, Alzheimers, post menopausal cancer of the womb, breast cancer and obesity is considerable compared to the attributable risk for smokers related diseases.Why then, are smokers not told how they may protect themselves from smokers’s related diseases? The answer is simple, this advice may prevent them from quitting, and the Holy Grail is to quit smoking at whatever cost. The hard fact is that we have become so brain-washed, that to advise smokers how they may protect themselves is politically incorrect.The anti-smoking campaign has produced a polarisation in smoking habits. Better off, health conscious and more intelligent people have paid attention to what they believed was sound medical advice and have quit. Had they continued to smoke, their healthier lifestyle would have resulted in a much lower risk of developing any smokers’ related disease, and the protection afforded by smoking would have resulted in a lower incidence of other diseases. These are the people who have been misled. On the other hand, the poorer and less intelligent people have continued to smoke without altering their lifestyles, and these are the most vulnerable in our society. The extortionate and immoral tax on tobacco affects this section of society to the greatest degree. It would be more to the point to advise smokers how they may protect themselves, and then to collect the £10 billion in taxes rather more ethically. Is it not time to abandon this manic witch-hunt against smoking, and turn our attention to the problems of drugs, alcohol, obesity, dietary factors and the ‘couch- potato’ existence?The 27% of people in the UK who continue to smoke are a sizeable minority compared for example to the 3% Muslim minority and 5% minority of homosexuals, and yet they are far more tolerant and less vociferous than the latter, and more tolerant than anti-smokers in general. This is in the face of extremist bans on smoking in public places, introduced because of the perpetuated myth of ‘passive smoking’. They are tolerant because they have been brainwashed into believing that cigarette smoking is a vile, filthy and dangerous habit and inflicts damage to others, which is totally untrue.Of more than 70,000 papers published on the effects of smoking, not one in a thousand doctors ever read them in detail. They simply don’t have the time. They may glance at the abstract, but in the main they take advice from those who publish them without questioning the validity of the communications, and say what they are told to say.Statistically it is difficult to allow for confounding in parameters that are correlated and smoking is highly correlated with unhealthy lifestyle risk factors for heart disease and to a lesser extent, lung cancer. Nevertheless common sense dictates that such confounding must be considered. The entire medical establishment has been brainwashed by studies which have not allowed for confounding. What hope therefore has the lay public of learning the truth. It is no longer a case of how many deaths are attributed to smoking, but of how many smokers’ lives could easily have been saved, by telling them how to protect themselves against their other lifestyle risks associated with smoking, instead of indulging in this medieval witch hunt against smoking. The medical establishment, from the World Health Organisation to National Medical Institutions involved in the anti-smoking campaign, have kept this information from the lay public, during the thirty years or so that it has been available. There are elements within the anti-smoking medical institutions that are really no better than the tobacco companies whom they continually castigate.We now have draconian bans on smoking in public places in the absence of any concrete evidence for the deleterious effect of passive smoking, to force people to quit smoking. In this era of ‘human rights’ and the compensation culture how long will it be before somebody challenges the Chief Medical Officer or any authority imposing a ban, and take their case to the European Court of Human Justice, not for preventing them from smoking, but by doing so, subjecting them to an increased risk for Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s diseases, rather than an increased risk for lung cancer? Choice is a human right and it is likely that the judges will take a far more dispassionate view of the evidence for both passive and active smoking than the medical establishment.Where are the brave young doctors and medical scientists who will look at the evidence more closely and challenge this puritanical and sanctimonious dogma of the anti smoking campaign? In exposing the exaggerations and arriving at the truth they will contribute more to medical science, than swimming with the tide.

Dr. K.W.E. DensonThame

Thrombosis and Haemostasis Research Foundation. * The author will be glad to provide references to any papers or statements made in this article. * The author and this establishment, have no liaison with and are not funded by any of the tobacco companies.

2006-10-22T23:08:00.000-07:00

Feed us facts on ingredients, not legislation

By Jay Evensen

Deseret Morning News

The E. coli-in-spinach scare came at just the right time — the right time, that is, to put some perspective on the trans fatty acid scare. The perspective is this: It's pretty darned hard to go through life knowing exactly what's going to hurt you and what isn't. And, therefore, it's fairly ridiculous for governments to try to micromanage what we consume. If the point is to protect us against ourselves, good luck. Next thing you know, someone will be suing Popeye. Meanwhile, the best we can do (statistically, anyway) is to follow common sense. Even at that, history teaches there is a high likelihood we're all going to die someday. I know, that's startling news to read on a peaceful Sunday morning. In some ways, this is a difficult column to write. A decade or so ago I was defending my support of the nation's first smoking bans in buildings, airports, etc., against people who assured me the government, if it won that fight, would soon come after the things we eat. And, well, here we are. But if I have to admit that some supporters of smokers' rights were correct, that doesn't mean it's wrong to continue expanding bans on cigarettes in public places (as Salt Lake City currently is contemplating). Nor does it mean it's wrong to draw the line somewhere, such as at the dinner table. Simply put, we know beyond a reasonable doubt that some things are harmful, not just to the people who consume them but to people who are around the people who consume them. If the person in the seat next to me is eating an unusually tasty order of french fries, I'm not likely to get hurt no matter how much I inhale. But if I'm gorging myself on fatty foods all the time, not exercising and gaining lots of weight — well, I shouldn't need a bureaucrat to tell me I'm heading in the wrong direction. This has become an issue in recent weeks, because the health commissioner in New York City, backed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, has proposed a citywide ban on the use of trans fats in all restaurants. Chicago has at least looked at a similar ban, and other cities are likely to follow suit. The New York mayor even brought Robert De Niro into the debate, noting the actor owns several restaurants that don't use the fats. Bloomberg stood right next to De Niro and admitted he loves oily popcorn, fries and other fatty foods but that he eats them without trans fats, which are made by a chemical process first developed in the 19th century to make certain oils last longer. Does this mean he pigs out on this stuff using saturated fats? Frankly, that doesn't sound too smart, either. I'm no expert, but it seems there is conflicting scientific data on what trans fats can do. This much seems certain: Trans fats add significantly to cholesterol levels and, subsequently, heart problems. But then, saturated fats can do the same if you eat tons of them all the time. Common sense ought to dictate that people eat more fruits and vegetables and get plenty of exercise. But you can't legislate that. At least, you shouldn't. Meanwhile, if government begins outlawing trans fats, it needs to look seriously at all the other potentially harmful ingredients in things we eat. There's no end in sight once you embark on that road. And, as with DDT, cyclamates and other substances thought to be horribly unsafe, further research may produce different results. Why not simply rely on a good dose of education and some faith in the market, which seemed to work well in alerting people about the problems with spinach and lettuce? Require labels on foods that contain trans fats, if you must, including at restaurants. The market already gives us no-caffeine Coke, and a growing number of products have "no-trans fats" labels. We should be allowed to make our own choices, and pay the consequences either way.
Jay Evensen is editor of the Deseret Morning News editorial page. E-mail: even@desnews.com

2006-10-21T09:17:00.000-07:00

A Smokers Diet

Before I went on this diet I use to get at least three or four colds a year. Since I went on this diet I haven't had a cold for at least 5 years.:)

Here is the 'big' kicker for "Fatty' Acids!!

Consume every day:

One teaspoon of Flaxseed Oil
One teaspoon of Extra Virgin Oil
Mixed the Oils with your salad

One tablespoon of Crushed Almonds and/or Walnuts.
Sprinkle the Almonds on your fruit salad.

I crush the Flax seeds (If I buy whole Flax Seed and also crush the Almonds, (Walnuts) in a Coffee Grinder)
Refrigerate in a plastic container.
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Eat fish (Salmon at least three times a week)

A fruit salad(you can freeze the fruit)
Which would consist of apples,oranges pineapple(crushed), blueberries,strawberries peaches,plums,bananas,etc.
A small bowl at lunch and supper(veggies and fruit salad)

Veggies(shredded)..I know it's lots of work..butt..You can make a big bowl and it will last you as long as you want:)
cabbage, broccoli, kale, carrots, celery, green onions, green and red peppers, etc.
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What does it cost you for a 48 oz. of V-8 Juice? 2.00? V-8 consist of the 'Juice' of the veggies..mine contains all the veggies
Your cost to make my concoction would be about 50 cents for a 48 oz. bottle or maybe even less.
The beauty of these recipes is you get a good cross-section of everything that is grown from the ground.

V-8 equivalent: My juice drink...

Put your veggies in a blender(equal amounts)
Carrots
beets
celery
garlic(half a clove)
A bag or whatever of leafy Spinach(frozen if need be)
Add a can of Tomato Juice(48oz.) or two to the condensed mixture.(Freeze the remainder for future use.)

By the way, Dr. Weil M.D. appeared on Larry King a few months ago and he said,"Americans don't eat enough 'fatty' acids.
That is why they are sick all the time:)

http://www.drweil.com/drw/ecs/index.html

http://goodfats.pamrotella.com/