Posted on 02/04/2007 9:26:55 AM PST by Chi-townChief
Way back when, the closest thing to a "smoking ban" had to do with the age at which you could legally buy cigarettes. I think it was 12 or 13. After that, about half the teenage population seemed to be lighting up at least once an hour.
At Morgan Park High School, where I spent four years in the 1960s, there was a white line on the sidewalk a block away from the school building. That marked the point where the high school determined kids could smoke. It didn't stop the hard-core smokers who really needed to feed their habit -- between classes, they'd puff away in bathrooms so heavy with gray, fragrant clouds that you could barely see two feet in front of you. I recall not once going to the bathroom during my high school years.
These days, at the dinner table, I am guaranteed a big laugh by talking about my childhood doctor and how he'd examine me as he smoked. Wearing a stethoscope, he'd tell me to breathe in as his unfiltered Camel -- he wasn't one of those wimpy doctors who smoked Marlboros or Kents -- accumulated a big ash on the side of the desk.
Doctors weren't the only medical professionals who smoked. My mother used to regularly proclaim that "all nurses smoke." And patients, of course, were allowed to smoke in their hospital rooms.
Smoking was allowed in nearly all public places -- theaters were a notable exception -- and no one would give a second thought to lighting up on a bus or train, on airplanes, in restaurants, college dorm rooms or in the workplace.
That was truly a time when a "level playing field" existed for smokers. I came from a family of non-smokers but, as a kid, I can't remember my mom and dad ever complaining about being exposed to other people's smoke.
Things are sure different today and the concept of a level playing field, when it comes to smoking, refers almost exclusively to restaurants and bars. In the past few weeks, we have heard much about how a level playing field doesn't exist as long as there are restaurants and bars where smoking is allowed. In an era when smoking is banned in nearly all public places, the idea that a level playing field depends on people being able to fire up a smoke is more than a little sad.
But then, just about everything about smoking is sad. For smokers, it's an addictive behavior that can lead to serious health problems -- even death. For people who don't smoke, it is smelly and disgusting and pollutes the air that people who choose not to use tobacco products have to breathe.
Smoking bans in our Southland have been in the news a great deal as local communities debate whether to allow smoking in public, and especially at bars and restaurants. The most widely publicized smoking bans went into effect early last month in Orland Park, Tinley Park and Oak Forest. After a couple of weeks in which many bar and restaurant owners said they were being forced out of business by the anti-smoking ordinances, the three towns temporarily lifted the bans. In mid-March, a smoking ban in public places will take effect throughout suburban Cook County in towns that haven't adopted their own ordinances.
The concept of the level playing field has been a big part of the argument against smoking bans. As it turns out, smokers are not that loyal to places where they may have frequented for years if they cannot light up while there. Instead, they will head to another town where smoking is allowed. So as long as a restaurant or bar or bowling alley that allows smoking is within a reasonable drive, the playing field will not be level.
Whether there is a level playing field for non-smokers does not seem to be much of a consideration. In the last few weeks, we have heard a lot about the rights of people to engage in unhealthy behavior that they know jeopardizes their health -- it's just a choice they've made. We've heard about the rights of business owners to operate free from government interference. And we've heard about smoking bans being a page right out of the totalitarian playbook.
But there seems to be only one choice for non-smokers. If you don't like going to a place where people smoke, you can stay away. Don't go the restaurant or the bowling alley or the bar where people smoke -- you are free to make that choice. You don't have to work there. If you don't want your clothes to smell like an ashtray, stay away. If you don't want to be exposed to dangerous chemicals in the air, you can go to a movie.
Fact is, a lot of people made that choice a long time ago and decided not to go to places where someone a couple of feet away is fouling the air. I put myself in that category -- and I don't even consider myself a rabid anti-smoker. Over the years, I have liked many smokers a great deal. One of them, former Star business editor Jim Pecora, died of lung cancer about a month before the White Sox won the World Series, which would have made him ecstatically happy. He was a guy who loved life and it's sad he didn't get more of it.
I also think it's sad that workers in bars and restaurants, in calling for a level playing field last month, said they wanted smoking in their establishments so they could make a decent living.
"You want to be around that stuff?" I wondered. "Here is something that very possibly is affecting your health. But you'd rather take that risk?"
It's sad, this idea of a level playing field.
Tom Houlihan can be reached at (708) 802-8820 or thoulihan@starnewspapers.com
The same can be said for slavery, yet the South gave that up too. Promoting tobacco use for purposes of historical nostalgia makes no sense.
Uh... did you read the table you posted? This is absurd.
Your own table explains the cause of death in the other 301,770 cases. Other smoking-related cancers cause 31,000 deaths, smoking causes 23,000 strokes and 134,000 heart attacks. That isn't ETS... You know, reading is fundamental.
Then why break out the smoking related lung cancers seperately?
Why is the table immediately after the statement on ETS?
If it's not ETS related then WHAT is the big thing anti-smokers have on their side?
Are you really concerned about MY health?
Another straw argument.
Slavery was predominantly related to cotton in the south and not tobacco.
No one including me has advocated promoting Tobacco..for historical nostalgia or any other reason.
Criminalizing tobacco smokers while crucially depending on their tax revenue and their patronage in other business is the issue.
I don't understand your question. The table breaks lung cancer into two groups: lung cancer caused by direct smoking and lung cancer caused by ETS.
Why is the table immediately after the statement on ETS?
I don't understand your question. I think you need to look at the table again.
If it's not ETS related then WHAT is the big thing anti-smokers have on their side?
ETS kills thousands of people each year. But your 300,000 figure is simply bogus. Estimates vary, but I've never heard anyone suggest that it's anywhere near that large. Certainly the CDC has said nothing of the kind, that I've seen.
Ok, then correct me. What on earth are you talking about?
If you believe the stats that say anyone who dies and has been within 50 miles of a smoker in their lifetime is a smoking-related death.
Why bother with facts when you can sit on your butt and post patent nonsense on the internet? At least your hyperbole is entertaining. But are you sure it's 50 miles? Not 35 miles?
Criminalizing tobacco smokers while crucially depending on their tax revenue and their patronage in other business is the issue.
What does ETS stand for?
Environmental Tobacco Smoke = Second Hand Smoke
I agree
Thanks
My apologies, the ETS mortality estimate I'm quoting is not correct. I looked back at some notes I have and found that this was an earlier estimate of all smoking related mortalities.
Now, let's do some ciphering.
Smokers in ther US. 60,000,000. 20% of 300,000,000.
estimated mortality caused by smoking. 400,000+.
So, less 1% of smokers die from smoking related causes.
1%
Where the percentage of nonsmokers killed by smoking related causes must be in the fraction od a percent of a percentage point.
WHAT is the urgency?
Where is the public health emergency that MUST take property rights from an owner?
Admit the truth if you wish, you don't like the smell.
There is no over riding public health emergency that requires government intervention.
Environmental Tobacco Smoke.
Where are you getting this crap?
1. Your numbers are off, because the percentage is of adults only.
2. 400,000 die each year. The percentage of smokers who will die prematurely at some point because of smoking is over 50% (I don't recall the exact percentage but it's high).
Citation?
And what do you consider prematurely? 50? 60? 75?
I've never heard that it was adults. I've heard percentage of population.
How do you know?
100% of people who [fill in any activity] die anyway...
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