[Gabz]

The antis (I forget which group) sued OSHA to set a zero limit for ETS, when OSHA refused they sued. the lawsuit was quietly dropped because the antis finally got it through their collective blockheads that had OSHA set PELs for ETS, smoking would be permitted nearly everywhere.

A PEL of zero is impossible because most of the compnents of tobacco smoke already have acceptable PEL level and all sorts of things would have had to be eliminated - most of it having to do with cooking!!!

[E Rocc]

The antis (I forget which group) sued OSHA to set a zero limit for ETS, when OSHA refused they sued. the lawsuit was quietly dropped because the antis finally got it through their collective blockheads that had OSHA set PELs for ETS, smoking would be permitted nearly everywhere.

A PEL of zero is impossible because most of the compnents of tobacco smoke already have acceptable PEL level and all sorts of things would have had to be eliminated - most of it having to do with cooking!!!

A PEL of "zero" would have had two problems. First of all, when speaking of chemical analysis there is no such number as "zero". All methods of analysis have detection limits, below which they cannot reliably detect the presence of the substance in question.

Second of all, cyanide has an OSHA established 8 hour time-weighted average PEL of 5 mg(CN)/m3. To say that ETS has a PEL of "zero" would be to say that it is more toxic than cyanide, an obviously absurd proposition.

However, if they establish a PEL, the whole thing becomes an issue of engineering, not behavior modification, defeating their purpose.

-Eric