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We Used Terrible Science to Justify Smoking Bans
Slate ^ | 2-13-17 | Jacob Grier

Posted on 02/13/2017 5:49:16 PM PST by DeweyCA

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A decade later, comprehensive smoking bans have proliferated globally. And now that the evidence has had time to accumulate, it’s also become clear that the extravagant promises made by anti-smoking groups—that implementing bans would bring about extraordinary improvements in cardiac health—never materialized. Newer, better studies with much larger sample sizes have found little to no correlation between smoking bans and short-term incidence of heart attacks, and certainly nothing remotely close to the 60 percent reduction that was claimed in Helena. The updated science debunks the alarmist fantasies that were used to sell smoking bans to the public, allowing for a more sober analysis suggesting that current restrictions on smoking are extreme from a risk-reduction standpoint.

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When the Helena study and its heirs were originally published, a few scientists noted that the results were wildly implausible and the methodologies deeply flawed. Yet their criticism was generally ignored. Studies reporting miraculous declines in heart attacks made global headlines; when better studies came along contradicting those results, they barely registered a blip in the media.

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There were good reasons from the beginning to doubt that smoking bans could really deliver the promised results, but anti-smoking advocacy groups eagerly embraced alarmism to shape public perception. Today’s tobacco control movement is guided by ideology as much as it is by science, prone to hyping politically convenient studies regardless of their merit and ostracizing detractors.

This has important implications for journalism. As health journalists take on topics such as outdoor smoking bans, discrimination against smokers in employment or adoption, and the ever-evolving regulation of e-cigarettes, they should consider that however well-intentioned the aims of the tobacco control movement are, its willingness to sacrifice the means of good science to the end of restricting behavior calls for skeptical scrutiny.

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(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: environmentalism; pufflist; sciencetrust
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To: TexasGator

Smoking helped in the maintenance of pressurized aircraft. It was simple to find the pressure leaks by the nicotine stains left in the areas that needed sealing.

Now, not so easy to find.


41 posted on 02/13/2017 6:29:48 PM PST by wrench
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To: DeweyCA
“The free man owns himself. He can damage himself with either eating or drinking; he can ruin himself with gambling. If he does he is certainly a damn fool, and he might possibly be a damned soul; but if he may not, he is not a free man any more than a dog.”

G. K. Chesterton

42 posted on 02/13/2017 6:30:07 PM PST by tx_eggman (Liberalism is only possible in that moment when a man chooses Barabas over Christ.)
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To: Inyo-Mono

Ha! Yes!

Only the finest foreign and domestic blends.


43 posted on 02/13/2017 6:31:57 PM PST by MUDDOG
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To: DeweyCA

Well duh.

It was a government-funded propaganda blitz to justify their passing smoking bans. Now that these bans are in place, with little chance of repeal, they can openly admit it was fabricated junk science.


44 posted on 02/13/2017 6:32:36 PM PST by Trump20162020
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To: Sasparilla

Global warming “research” is the same deal.


45 posted on 02/13/2017 6:32:44 PM PST by jospehm20
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To: Moonman62

To each their own. I love the smell of cigs, cigars, pipes and e cigs. Especially the smell of a good cigar.


46 posted on 02/13/2017 6:32:48 PM PST by glenduh
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To: DeweyCA

It’s all about packaging. Don’t forget the MSM are far lefties who paint whatever leftist they like......... and they like them all.


47 posted on 02/13/2017 6:33:04 PM PST by umgud
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To: luvbach1

Vape is probably dangerous. Pot is dangerous if smoked. Crack will kill you. Kids are trying hookahs for some weird reason. Most coal miners will have lung problems. Both of my grandfathers died young of pneumonia so I suggest staying away actually far away from smoke. Both grandpas didn’t smoke. So second hand smoke overblown but useful. As CNN would say fake but accurate.


48 posted on 02/13/2017 6:33:47 PM PST by DazedVet (Self esteem cannot be taught in school but comes from actual achievement.)
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To: b4me

But there was the ceiling :(


49 posted on 02/13/2017 6:35:41 PM PST by colinhester
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To: Repeat Offender
Have to say that it is nice to not have to deal with the smoking section at restaurants. Knowing what I know now, I would avoid all restaurants that allowed smoking.

Back in the day, lucky me, I was always stuck in the non-smoking section right next to the smoking section with the clouds flowing over the so called barrier.

I stayed in a smoking room once while I was overseas. Most miserable night of sleep my whole life. Plus, it permeated and saturated my clothes and belongings. And I don't and didn't smoke! It was in a humid area and added to a damp, moldy, acrid smell. Yuck!

Around 3am, I couldn't take it anymore and demanded that I be moved. It was a mix-up at the hotel.

50 posted on 02/13/2017 6:36:46 PM PST by dhs12345
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To: DeweyCA

Hitler was the first to ban smoking in public.


51 posted on 02/13/2017 6:37:32 PM PST by fruser1
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To: glenduh

Some pipe tobacco doesn’t smell too bad initially, and vapor is an entirely different category. But to a non-smoker that hasn’t lost his sense of smell due to smoking, most tobacco smells worse than a smoldering manure pit. And like I said, it gets all over everything and lingers for years.

Anybody who’s rehabbed a smoker’s house will tell you that some things have to be replaced like flooring, and the walls have to be sealed with a non-permeable primer.


52 posted on 02/13/2017 6:40:22 PM PST by Moonman62 (Make America Great Again!)
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To: DeweyCA

Tobacco bump


53 posted on 02/13/2017 6:40:27 PM PST by Mrs. Don-o (“Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it.” - Jonathan Swift)
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To: DeweyCA
World Health Organization came out with a study (I believe in the early 90's) that showed that second hand smoke was actually good for you (not making this up).
They cooked the numbers to show that it was worst than Bus exhaust, when in fact it was barely detectable.

Ed

54 posted on 02/13/2017 6:40:43 PM PST by husky ed (FOX NEWS ALERT "Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead" THIS HAS BEEN A FOX NEWS ALERT)
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To: Moonman62

I smoke and have a sense of smell. Can smell a litter box immediately. Smell of syrup, vanilla, cooking meat or musk make me gag. Olfactory senses differ.


55 posted on 02/13/2017 6:46:28 PM PST by glenduh
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To: nopardons

It is possible. The fumes get into the vents and carpeting. If the walls aren’t painted with Killz, a blocking paint that prevents the nicotine from oozing through, it can surface.

Granted, it would likely take someone more sensitive to it than normal, but it is very possible.

I smoked for 24 years off and on. Quitting was really difficult for me. I was so glad when I moved from CA to AZ in 2000 so I could smoke freely again but one year after moving I started coughing like crazy from smoking and probably from living a mile high up in the mountains. For me the smoking lamp went out permanently. I had to switch to chew for a year before I could finally quit that too. It really wasn’t a choice for me. I loved smoking but smoking didn’t love me. Now I try to avoid it at all costs. Even walking by someone smoking is annoying. His right and I wouldn’t ever want to see that change; but the aroma is not pleasant to me any longer. For a long time it didn’t phase me at all but over time I noticed it was bothering me more and more.


56 posted on 02/13/2017 6:47:36 PM PST by Boomer (The modern day leftist dems is the party of criminally insane)
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To: DeweyCA

Bump!


57 posted on 02/13/2017 6:47:40 PM PST by harpu ( "...it's better to be hated for who you are than loved for someone you're not!")
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To: sargon
What is the rationale behind banning chewing tobacco in stadiums?

No such thing as second hand tobacco juice.

It is all about CONTROL.

"It looks icky to me, so YOU can't do it."

58 posted on 02/13/2017 6:48:57 PM PST by boop ("We don't feel like we are doing anything illegal"- Democrat credo)
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To: Repeat Offender

“It should be left up to the property owner. If a restaurant owner wants to have a smoking restaurant that should be his choice and nonsmokers are free to go elsewhere. Likewise if he wants a nonsmoking establishment, he should be free to do so as well, and smokers can go elsewhere or smoke outside. Nanny government should not be dictating.”

Bravo. I agree 1,000%.


59 posted on 02/13/2017 6:49:41 PM PST by SharpRightTurn (White, black, and red all over--America's affirmative action, metrosexual president.)
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To: DeweyCA

Well, I don’t know about heart attacks and lung cancer, the only people I know who had either were non-smokers.

I do know three people who developed Parkinson’s after they quit smoking. I do know people who lost their jobs after smoking bans went into effect in bars who served food. I do know and have experienced discrimination as a smoker.

I do sincerely believe that many of the anti-smoking laws are outright discrimination and should have never been allowed.


60 posted on 02/13/2017 6:50:32 PM PST by Duchess47 ("One day I will leave this world and dream myself to Reality" Crazy Horse)
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