Look at what you are up against folks: 
Posted on 06/28/2006 10:39:04 PM PDT by SheLion
Psst! Hey kid! Come over here and jump off this bridge! All the cool kids've done it 'n you're the only one left! It won't hurt, it'll be fun. Anyhow, if ya don't do it, I'm gonna come back 'n bugya, 'n bugya, 'n bugya forever till ya do.
Don't worry though, they'll come back to clean up those scraps once the rest of the rowdies have been pacified and you're all alone. Meanwhile, just shut up and don't make waves!
If the smoking ban was actually based upon a concern for the health of the workers, if the studies supporting it were actually carried out and cited honestly, I would not complain. I might be unhappy, but I wouldn't complain.
So why do I complain? Simply because the above conditions don't hold true. Most of the studies cited at the City Council hearings were paid for by anti-smoking-earmarked funds: studies guaranteed to turn out results that ensure the researchers' future grant streams. In those rare cases where a study's results did not support the predetermined agenda, they were simply reinterpreted and massaged so it would appear they did support a ban.
Am I exaggerating? Not at all.
One of the flagship studies used to promote the smoking ban involved Helena, Mont. "The Great Helena Heart Miracle" made headlines and newscasts around the world trumpeting the news that protecting nonsmokers from smoke brought about an immediate drastic decrease in heart attacks and that removing that protection resulted in an immediate "bounce back" to the old higher rates of coronary episodes. In reality, the study itself made no analysis of nonsmokers, and the main "bounce back" actually occurred during, not after, the ban. Unfortunately, these observations received virtually no media coverage; they are known only to those who bother digging through the dusty cyberpages of the online British Medical Journal. The "miracle" was more fraudulent than miraculous, but it's universally used as proof of the urgent need for smoking bans.
Of course, Helena is just one study, and they've got thousands that support the need for smoking bans, don't they? No. Helena and a few others are their best and their brightest but are all similarly and deeply flawed. And they are all repeatedly paraded before legislators who rarely have the knowledge, conviction or inclination to question them.
Would you raise the question if you were in their place? Would you do so knowing you'd be accused of being a "Big Tobacco Mouthpiece" and realizing you'd be standing alone in mean-spirited opposition to the phalanx of innocent and pink-lunged children with whom Councilman Michael Nutter packed the balcony? And would you do so aware that you'd be sharing the TV screen with dozens of fresh-faced idealistic little girls wearing signs proclaiming the dread diseases you're condemning them to? What politician in their right mind would have the courage to stand up for truth when confronted with such opposition? Unfortunately, very few.
Last week, Lady Elaine Murphy of the British House of Lords chided me in an e-mail, saying that I had "completely missed the point" about the English smoking ban in talking to her about the science. She wrote that "the aim is to reduce the public acceptability of smoking and the culture which surrounds it." Now, that's quite different than the public posturings about "saving the health of the workers" and the images of oppressed teenaged waitresses being slaughtered by deadly toxins as they work their way through school. And, it's quite different than the cheap shows of pleading children in front of City Council's TV cameras.
The smoking ban is based on lies, even if they are lies that are often truly believed by those supporting it.
Philadelphians value freedom. Philadelphia is known as the birthplace of liberty. For Philadelphia to blithely trade away pieces of that individual freedom to heavily funded lobbying groups pursuing social-engineering goals based on lies is nothing short of a crime—a crime that we can only hope will be stopped by Mayor Street.
Michael J. McFadden is the author of Dissecting Antismokers' Brains (Aethna Press) and the Mid-Atlantic director of The Smokers Club, Inc
>>Using proper statistical methods, a person who gets lung cancer having been exposed to only a trivial amount of secondhand smoke should be regarded as a data point against the proposition that secondhand smoke is significantly harmful, in that it shows that not all cases of lung cancer are attributable to SHS. To a statistical homeopathist, however, any case of cancer by anyone with any exposure whatsoever to SHS proves that SHS is dangerous.<<
Both of the approaches are incorrect.
If I had to choose, I'd take my chances with second hand smoke.
Pastor Martin Niemöller still applies...
First they regulated machine gun owners, but I was not a machine gun owners so I did not speak out.
Then they regulated marijuana smokers, but I was not a marijuana smoker so I did not speak out...
LOL!
I'm sorry, but I don't have a response to that. Just LOL!...
I enjoy a smoke every once in a while. Heaven knows I'm in for it if we ever come up with like generalizations for coffee drinkers, though. "If he drinks, he stinks"? I know it'll be something rotten...and they're coming for my caffeine. I just know it!
I used to go out to my local watering hole around 5 -- happy hour, and enjoy a couple of those drumette buffalo wings with my O' Douls. The last time I was there the bartender said the owners stopped serving them because of some insurance thing, but I really think it was cause I'd seen some of the paper plates left outback for strays, I guess.
Needless to say, I haven't been out since. I just liked the way it was before, drink in one hand, drummete in
the other.
Oh the injustice of it all!
Smoking is good for you...
So what else is new? The professional busybodies have always KNOWN what's good for everyone else and feel it their God given duty to impose their will on everyone. Gun control, smoking bans, prohibition, WOD, seat belt laws, etc. all come from the same "I'm going to control your behavior" mindset. What it all boils down to is a loss of freedom.
Personally I think a few of them should be executed in a salutory fashion just to let the other know that there are consequences to sticking their long noses in other people's business. (Rob Reiner and Sara Brady come to mind along with all of the skanks in MADD)
Mrowrl
Few realize that this outfit's ultimate goal is prohibition.
However, SHS is a different issue. I trust Pres. Bush, I trust his surgeon general.
I don't. It's just part of the rationale behind controlling people - claiming their actions affect the health of others. I haven't seen any studies that I'd trust linking shs to cancer. Smells bad and is annoying, but causes cancer? I'm not convinced.
"There is an old Jewish saying: "Your body is your Temple."
Keep it clean."
A rather amusing statement, since the average American has over a rather substantial amount of human waste in it at any given moment.
How about keeping your own body any way you like, and showing others the respect of allowing them to decide how to live their own lives...?
Look at what you are up against folks:
As some of you know, I have a rather unique perspective on this one. I work part time in a bar. I've also served as Safety Manager for several of my companies, and my dad was Safety Director for two major corporations. We both have engineering degrees. I also don't smoke.
Leaving aside the debate about the dangers of ETS (aka "secondhand smoke"), and there are very serious questions about whether or not it is indeed dangerous in normally encountered concentrations, there are generally accepted methods for dealing with any kind of chemical exposure in the workplace. They are based on what is called the Permissable Exposure Limits (PEL)
A PEL is the concentration that a worker can be safely exposed to. They are often set for both instantaneous exposure, and 8 hour average exposure. Even the nastiest chemicals have PELs. For example, the OSHA established PEL for hydrogen cyanide is 10ppm.
At one point, some of the anti-smoking advocates were pushing OSHA to establish a PEL for ETS. As it turns out, ETS contains several chemicals which already have PELs. For normally encountered concentrations, the PEL for these is not reached.
Two things became obvious:
1) A PEL for ETS would not have been as low as the advocates desired.
2) Bars and restaurants would be able to easily meet it using air scrubbers and ventilation systems.
As a result, the anti-smoking lobby abandoned the PEL. In effect, they advocated a PEL of "zero". They are promoting the idea that a mere cigarette smell is as bad as heavy smoke. At this point, they should have also abandoned the entire "employee safety" argument, because the PEL is the cornerstone of all occupational chemical exposure regulations. It's sort of like saying you want democracy, but dismiss the idea of voting.
All this is established fact. It's conjecture, but easily supportable conjecture, to claim that this proves the anti-smoking advocates could give a modell about employee safety, but instead are trying to ban personal behavior which they disapprove of. That's busybodyism, and busybodyism has no place in a free society.
To make this even clearer, look at the structure of the NYC law as originally written. The smokers themselves weren't charged. The bar was charged, and fined, for "allowing" smoking. Clearly, the law was all about the money, with of course the busybodyism thrown in.
"Employee protection"? Guess who got the modelly end of the enforcement stick? Bar employees, in particular bouncers. At least one got killed trying to enforce this law.
-Eric
"the aim is to reduce the public acceptability of smoking and the culture which surrounds it."
We had no doubt that this was their true reason. This is nothing more than a fancy way of saying, "we want to control individual's behaviour." Enemies of Liberty.
As the saying goes, "Is that the hill you want to die on?" You want to fight for liberty to do something unhealthy and stinky?
I used to smoke. Loved it. Then didn't love it but wanted it badly and didn't feel right without it. I paid $100 a month for the stench, the cough, the fire hazard, and the social drawbacks of being a smoker around wiser and cleaner people.
Come into the light, friends. It's a nasty habit, not a torch of liberty. Addiction isn't freedom. Old Nic is not your ally, he's just the enemy of your enemy---and he's your enemy too.
How's the air up there on Mt. Olympus?
Would it be OK if some of us continue living our own lives, or is this forbidden by the "wiser and cleaner?"
Pompous ass.
I'm quitting right now. Well as soon as the ten cartons I just got from the redskins are gone...
Seriously, your pomposity underwhelms me.
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