Junk scientists wanted

Velvet Glove, Iron Fist ^ | June 27, 2010 | Christopher Snowdon

[libertarian27]

When it comes to tobacco control, it often seems that the policy is decided first and the science is produced as an afterthought. Since the lion's shares of the anti-smoking policies we see today were planned as far back as the 1970s, it is a remarkable coincidence that scientific evidence for each of them appeared at regular and timely intervals in the intervening years. This is something that The Economist gently hinted at in a recent review of a book called Merchants of Doubt:

~snip~

Secondhand smoke is old news in California these days, of course. These days, if you're an anti-smoking campaigner, your policy objectives are to ban smoking in the home and in the street. These 'next logical steps' have long since been settled on by the people who really matter—ie. you and your fellow 'health professionals'. All you need is a scientific fig-leaf to help you get around the quaint objections of personal liberty and individual sovereignty, which some politicians still consider important and which even you, as a citizen of a liberal democracy, feel compelled to pay lip-service to.

Of course, there isn't any serious scientific evidence that secondhand smoke from outdoors—or from next door—has the slightest effect on the health of others. Nor will there ever be. It would defy everything we know about toxicology, chemistry and biology, not to mention common sense. It's an idea of profound lunacy.

The best of a bad bunch of pseudo-scientific arguments for outdoor smoking bans are the risible notion of people being harmed by trace levels of toxins clinging to clothes and carpets ('thirdhand smoke') and the equally risible idea of cigarette butts leaching trace levels of toxins into the ground, thereby harming...er...something.

[libertarian27]

Crafted scientific studies with assumed results have created smoking bans and high taxation across the country. These same tactics also create safe harbors for Global Warming Fanatics...and not a peep out of the MSM - of course.....

California is spending 3.5 Million to set the agenda against so called 3rd hand smoke. Create the fear and watch the money come in.

[Bigh4u2]

If second and third hand smoke is such a health issue, then why not BAN it instead of ‘restricting’ it?

Why?

Because it’s a CASH COW and California, along with the rest of the states, couldn’t push through their pet projects without it.

If people in California alone could ‘buck up’ and not smoke for one week, California would have to declare bankruptcy and sell itself off to the highest bidder.

[reformedliberal]

What about all the immigrants, of all types, all
socioeconomic levels in California? In our travels, we noticed that Asia, the Pacific, Latin/Central America was full of smokers. The urban poor consistently seem to smoke. I assume they are all buying untaxed, contraband cigarettes? Where do they smoke? How can they work if smokers are not hired?

None of this makes sense, even by Californian terms, considering they profess to love third-world immigrants, especially illegals.