We Used Terrible Science to Justify Smoking Bans

Slate ^ | 2-13-17 | Jacob Grier

[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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[TexasGator]

Hmmm. He completely ignored that the coffin nails caused lung cancer ...

[Moonman62]

Science isn’t needed to know that it smells bad, gets all over everything and takes forever for the smell to go away. I know someone who got a piano from a smoker’s house. It had to be restored as if it had been in a fire.

[TexasGator]

I was on a submarine years ago. The worst job was cleaning the cigarette gunk out of the precipitators.

[PeterPrinciple]

Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoke_%27em_if_you_got_%27em

[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.

[dhs12345]

Rush talked about this this morning. His point was that it was interesting that the Left are all over Big Tobacco but completely ignore Canabus and its similar risk factors.

[nopardons]

What you describe is not possible.

[puppypusher]

If people wish to smoke on their own property or in an unenclosed area where others will be at risk of inhaling second hand smoke than let them. Enjoy it if you like.

But non-Smokers should not have to suffer the consequences of inhaling Cigar and Cigarette smoke on aircraft,trains,any form of mass transit or establishment serving the public.

[luvbach1]

OK, second-hand smoke is not so dangerous. But where is it written that I have to smell like a snuffed-out cigarette just to satisfy someone's addiction?

Please indulge me a small anecdote: I was waiting in line at an airport where smoking was allowed. A nearby smoker dropped a flaming segment of ashes onto my suit label, instantly burning several holes in it. His reaction when I told him what he had done: A shrug and a muttered "sorry."

[Rusty0604]

Rush Limbaugh has been saying this for years.

[Gay State Conservative]

I grew up in a home with two parents who smoked like chimneys.Mom died at 52 of lung cancer...Dad spent the last 20 years of his life slowly dying of smoking related lung disease.

Although I grew up with a haze of cigarette smoke in the house I've never smoked.I can easily accept that "second hand smoke" is harmless.However,I'm seriously offended by the smell of cigarette smoke so I support smoking bans in public places.

[Rusty0604]

Could always just have smoking sections, and let the customer choose. If that is so bad go to a non smoking restaurant. Smokers eat out too.

[IncPen]

But all the scientists say what is expected of them, because otherwise the money dries up.

Imagine if Trump issued an Executive Order stating that all government scientific findings with regard to climate and funded with public money must be made public at once.

[suthener]

I am not a smoker and I hate the smell on cigarettes. What I hate even more is the government infringing on private property to include businesses. Don’t like smoke? Go somewhere else. I’ve thought abut going to a teenage dance club and telling them to turn down the music because it’s damaging my hearing.

[Teflonic]

I remember reading extensive studies concerning nicotine that can no longer be found anywhere. Apparently the original rat experiments by the anti tobacco scientists had serious problems as the exposed rats actually lived LONGER than the smoke free rats. They eventually overcame that hurdle by dosing the rats one day on then one day off which kept their bodies stressed from constant withdrawal every other day to shorten their lives sufficiently.

It's the chemicals added that cause the problems for smokers now. Especially the flame retardant that was mandated soon after the Democrats took power at the beginning of Obamas first term.

The same manufactured witch hunt continues today against vaping. I do believe the primary impetus for all these efforts is money and industry power uncontrolled by democrats. The tobacco lobby was powerful and backed republicans in office back when the democrats started sniffing for ways to break them. Seems they were quite successful in those efforts - easy to be when they own the media.

[In God I trust]

I agree 100%. I’m a smoker and even when it was okay to smoke in restaurants and bars (especially restaurants) I would not smoke near someone that was eating. The smoking ban has been ridiculous but there are some that I feel that are good for all smokers and non smokers to get along. The stupid little cough cough I’d get from someone outside many feet away has been annoying I must say.

[Rusty0604]

Amen.

[Inyo-Mono]

Filter, flavor, pack or box

"Smoking more but enjoying it less? Try the all new Camel cigarettes..."

[Glad2bnuts]

You were always free to stay home, or find places that disallowed smoking. What is someone doing on a conservative forum supporting a statist agenda of controlling the property of bar and restaurant owners?

[sargon]

Smokers in restaurants were disgusting. Every time you went out to eat it smelled like you came out of a bar or casino.

Let the market decide. There are plenty of restaurants who would be happy to ban smoking on their premises, and seek your business.

There are plenty of other restaurants that could cater to the smoking crowd.

And, wonder of wonders, you could actually choose which restaurant to patronize based on your personal preference! It's this radical American concept called Freedom! You should try it sometime.

Just because you like eating at smoke-free restaurants doesn't mean you have the right to force every restaurant to to be smoke-free.

There's also absolutely no reason that people shouldn't be able to eat at a restaurant that permits smoking.

The free market is perfectly capable of sorting out the details of whether either policy is viable.

With such a nanny-state mentality, you really are a CA Guy!