December 31, 2007
Smoking Ban in T-Minus...
The clock is winding down for drinkers who enjoy a cigarette with their booze. The Smoke-Free Illinois Act is set to go into effect at midnight on Jan. 1, 2008. Illinois will officially join the list of states that have banned smoking in almost all indoor spaces. Besides bars, Illinoisans will not be allowed to smoke in such cigarette bastions as factory floors, stadiums, casinos, and prisons.
However, Chicago residents shouldn't expect John Q. Law to ruin anyone's New Year's celebration: according to ABC-7, the city has no plans to deploy health inspectors at the stroke of midnight. Bar owners are required to post no smoking signs and remove ashtrays, but some people will undoubtedly get one last drag in as the ban takes effect.
Those with sensitive noses are urged, upon observing a violation of the law, to kindly ask the smoker to extinguish his or her cigarette, and then tell the nearest grown-up - er, the management. If the offender deigns to comply, call 311 to report the perpetrator. When the city gets three complaints, they'll send out an inspector to investigate. Bar owners face fines ranging from $250 to $2500, and individual smokers could get tagged with a $250 fine. As far as fines go, it is a much more pleasurable use of $250 than, say, getting one's car out of the impound lot.
Finally, Tribune restaurant critic Phil Vettel notes another community that will be grievously harmed by the ban: phillumenists. Yes, Vettel believes the ban will lead to many restaurants getting rid of their matchbooks. --Tim Osgood
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Ugh. This is so ridiculous. More nanny-culture with all but unenforceable laws. I feel bad for the restaurant and bar owners who have one more layer of beauracracy slapped on them, one more way for the city to squeeze more blood-er-money out of them.
Before the anti-smoking cretins wind-up, I'm a non-smoker, whose mom died of lung cancer after a lifetime of smoking. I've worked as a waiter too. I liked the smoking section more since people lingering to smoke ordered more drinks and often tipped better. I value personal freedom above everything else. Today it's smoking, then it's fatty food, then it's whatever else they decide is bad for you. Bullshit.
I value personal freedom, too. As in, the freedom to enter a room with the intent to purchase goods and services, and to not end up smelling horrible, or breathing dangerous, second-hand smoke. "Non-smoking sections" don't work. This isn't being banned because smoking is bad for the smoker, it's being banned because it's bad for the non-smoker.
And don't try to hand us the "it's your choice to enter the bar" argument. Because while you're right, it is my choice, I should always have the right to go where I choose and not be adversely affected by something as basic as the air in the room.
It's not a "nanny-state" thing at all. This law isn't out to get smokers for harming themselves. This is a "don't tread on me" law, which, if you value freedom as you say you do, you should appreciate.
I'm with you on the potential of banning fatty foods, though--that would be the nanny-state, treading on the kind of personal rights that don't infringe on others' kind of law for which you're confusing the smoking ban.
Really? You guys are banning smoking in bars? Every year when I go to Chicago I look forward to four things: the unusually large amount of carbs on my plate at restaurants, White Castle, snow, and smoking in bars.
Sigh.
I feel sorry for the people in prison.
Why can't they have an area in the prisons where the inmates can smoke. I mean, for crying out loud, everything else has been taken away from them, the least they could do is look forward to a smoke now and then.
I don't smoke, never have and I don't know anyone in prison, but I always feel prickly whenever another personal freedom gets taken away.
>>And don't try to hand us the "it's your choice to enter the bar" argument.
You can't discount that. Look, I don't go to Gold Star because it's hideously smokey. I go to a bar further away that's better ventilated. You have a great many choices in this city in terms of bars and restaurants and there's always been a varying level of smokiness. That should be up to the businesses to decide, not the government. If enough people stop going to a bar/restaurant because it's too smoky, then that business has to deal with it. Simple economics, works better than any hare-brained law.
This is most certainly the nanny-state at work. People's personal behavior is being curtailed by a law. Rather than allowing people to make choices, something you scoff at apparently, we'll have a law that will make the choices for us. Are you that weak-willed, that incapable of saying "oh, this establishment allows smoking, I'll go somewhere else." You're imposing your preferences on other people by rule of law.
You don't seem to understand what personal rights are actually. You think that fatty foods would be the line? Trust me, the people who think laws are the solution will find a way to show how trans-fats are a societal risk (early deaths cause more latchkey/unattended kids, Obesity raises health-care rates) to jam the law through. Shaping behavior through legislation does not work.
The problem with the "personal choice" argument is that one smoker can make the decision for 100 non-smokers (or more). In this society, it's not polite to ask someone not to smoke, so it's not like you could approach the smoker and ask him or her to stop.
In this country (and many others), we limit personal choices for public good. Highway safety regulations, seat belt laws, laws against selling crack, etc., are decision that the public, as a whole, has made for the good of society. If you don't like it, vote the bums out of office.
Also, as a former smoker, it really would have helped me quit if I wasn't constantly exposed to it. In fact, the only reason I started was because there were so many people smoking in bars to begin with.
It's a bad habit, kills you and the people around you and increases the cost of public health. Good riddance.
The problem with the "personal choice" argument is that one smoker can make the decision for 100 non-smokers (or more). In this society, it's not polite to ask someone not to smoke, so it's not like you could approach the smoker and ask him or her to stop.
In this country (and many others), we limit personal choices for public good. Highway safety regulations, seat belt laws, laws against selling crack, etc., are decision that the public, as a whole, has made for the good of society. If you don't like it, vote the bums out of office.
Also, as a former smoker, it really would have helped me quit if I wasn't constantly exposed to it. In fact, the only reason I started was because there were so many people smoking in bars to begin with.
It's a bad habit, kills you and the people around you and increases the cost of public health. Good riddance.
The problem with the "personal choice" argument is that one smoker can make the decision for 100 non-smokers (or more). In this society, it's not polite to ask someone not to smoke, so it's not like you could approach the smoker and ask him or her to stop.
In this country (and many others), we limit personal choices for public good. Highway safety regulations, seat belt laws, laws against selling crack, etc., are decision that the public, as a whole, has made for the good of society. If you don't like it, vote the bums out of office.
Also, as a former smoker, it really would have helped me quit if I wasn't constantly exposed to it. In fact, the only reason I started was because there were so many people smoking in bars to begin with.
It's a bad habit, kills you and the people around you and increases the cost of public health. Good riddance.
Stupid me. Sorry.
Stupid me. Sorry.
Stupid me. Sorry.
Public good is a wonderful argument. It lets you do pretty much anything. Need to be strip-searched at the airport? Public Good. Cops pulling over the black kid in a white neighborhood? Public Good.
Your 100 to 1 number is completely plucked out of the air. You're exposed to as much particulate matter in second hand smoke simply walking down a busy street. So I guess cars and trucks and buses have to go. Public Good.
You say it's not polite to ask someone not to smoke, so it should be legislated? That's the epitome of hiding behind mommy when things get hard. If someone is blowing smoke in your face, move or ask them to stop. Most smokers I've encountered are polite folks who don't look to be confrontational with their habit. You're assumption is flawed and works from a cynical point of view about people.
Do you need to involve the police, put bars out of business and fill up the coffers of the already bloated department of revenue with tickets?
If you think that more laws mean a better society you deserve the Orwellian mess you'll end up with.
You can claim "public good" allows you to do anything, but "personal choice" is the same kind of catch all. It's a balance. It always has been a balance. It always will be a balance. We have an elected government to make those choices for us.
It's not the amount of particulate matter. It's the idea that my choice, as an individual, is not to have people near me smoking. Stupid or not, it's my choice. If me and 100 of my like-minded peers get together, 1 person invalidates all of our choices.
What's the end result of this law? Smokers will step outside and smoke away, just like they do in office buildings. Those who want to smoke will, and those who don't want to be exposed, won't.
Sounds like the perfect model of choice to me.
>>We have an elected government to make those choices for us.
That's a terrifying way of thinking. We have an elected government to give voice to our opinions, not make our choices for us. In a mono-party state where elected officials rule as all but kings of divine right (the Stroger line) that kind of logic is the slipperiest of slopes.
You have every right to choose not to be around smokers. Why is it then that your choice is more valid? Because smokers "affect" you? Again, your 100 to 1 notion. One person smoking a bar with 100 people is not endangering their lives. The shrill and histrionic screams of anti-smoking activists have become the balliwick of mainstream argument on the topic. Being "affected" by simple proximity to a smoker means that you should either ask them politely to stop or leave. Businesses who lose enough customers close, businesses that cater to non-smokers flourish.
Your end result of this law is ridiculous as well. Now, instead of "suffering" with a few smokers inside you'll be walking through a cloud of smoke coming in and out of restaurants and bars.
You offer up your rights so freely for the promise of safety and comfort. Do you even see how easily you could be led astray? Nah, you're too busy being cared for.
We have an elected government to give voice to our opinions, not make our choices for us.
And our opinion was voiced. No more smoking.
I can understand how people are incensed about not being able to smoke in the bars anymore, but it's not like this wasn't already coming in July. I'm sure that there's hundreds of more important laws that deserve your attention than a smoking ban. Focus on something that matters, not something trivial like smoke.
Our opinion? Did I miss the referendum? All I saw were some sham hearings where the politicos were boulderized by scam activists and sob stories.
As for this being trivial, it's not. It's endemic of what's wrong with American thinking. More laws=more safe. That's complete nonsense. The Patriot Act, the DMCA and the recent Supreme Court ruling on Emminent Domain are all much more frightening and pressing, but they're all tied into this core notion that the government should be given more and more authority to protect us. The core of American democracy is protection from the government.
"but it's not like this wasn't already coming in July"
So we should just accept something ridiculous because we were given notice? It was idiotic then, it's sillier now.
Sitting here at work I can see people huddled at the front door copping a smoke. The notion I need to be protected from those people and they need to be sectioned off from the rest of us by force of law makes me feel like a child.
Big ups to Pinwiz11.
We live in a representative democracy. If you find that terrifying, you can, quite literally, leave.
You have no abstract right to smoke, just like I have no abstract right to be in a smoke free environment. None. Zero.
Let's start at the beginning. The Constitution guarantees us certain rights. If it's not in the Constitution, the government can regulate it. That's the American system of government.
Your point is that somehow the right to smoke trumps the right to not be smoked at. There's no support for that. It's a judgment call, and it's out job as citizens to tell our representatives how we feel about it. And we did.
I would say, by far, that the least of our troubles have to do with the anti-smoking measures.
Happy (smoke free) New Year. I'm out.
Christ, you will just happily hand over your rights won't you?
Smoking is a legal activity. The government is now going to start fining people for engaging in a legal activity on private property to protect the rights of people who are not compelled to be on that private property.
You want to make smoking illegal? Go right ahead. Otherwise it's completely ridiculous.
As for your representation, nonsense to that. The state legislature and Chicago City Council didn't hear from "the people", they heard from outside activists. Business owners who would be directly affected by the ban were not given equal time or access like the Illinois Lung Association and other anti-smoking groups.
And minimizing this as "oh, it's just a smoking ban" only makes your arguments that much more child-like. If you can't see the slippery slope that more laws and more governmental authority over your actions on private property means you're just not paying attention are you?
Happy (less free) New Year.
The Patriot Act, the DMCA and the recent Supreme Court ruling on Emminent Domain are all much more frightening and pressing, but they're all tied into this core notion that the government should be given more and more authority to protect us. The core of American democracy is protection from the government.
And the Smoking Ban is completely trivial compared to everything else. Focus on those aspects, not this.
Do something about it, not waste your time posting on a comment board. You're not going to win anyone over here.
The Patriot Act, the DMCA and the recent Supreme Court ruling on Emminent Domain are all much more frightening and pressing, but they're all tied into this core notion that the government should be given more and more authority to protect us. The core of American democracy is protection from the government.
And the Smoking Ban is completely trivial compared to everything else. Focus on those aspects, not this.
Do something about it, not waste your time posting on a comment board. You're not going to win anyone over here.
So your arguments are
-Shut up
-It's a done deal
-You knew about it already
-Everyone here disagrees with you, leave
Why would I want to win over someone whose vision of what their freedoms really are is so myopic? You're clearly ok with surrendering your adulthood to any master who gives you assurances of safety.
When tyranny comes it comes bearing not a sword but the illusion of security. You're not healthier or safer or better off because of this law, you're simply limited.
And I do quite a bit about those other ugly stains on our system, but seeing how apathetic and conditioned other people serves as a kind of inspiration for me to do more.
Bitching about the smoking ban is like talking about whether Grossman should start for the Bears in 2007. Entertaining, but ultimately pointless.
Have you mentioned your objections to The Powers That Be, or just on blogs?
Friend of mine jokes that one day he'd love to see a politician take the stage and say "I'm anti-family and pro-drugs."
During the city council hearings I wrote my alderman and copied every other alderman. When it went to the legislature I sent letters and made phone calls. The response? Couldn't get a single one of them on the phone (which is unusual actually, normally they're somewhat accessible with enough notice) and a pile of form letters, all of them talking about "the children of illinois" and things like "the public good". I sent a dvd copy of Penn and Teller's "Bullshit" on the subject (which was as succinct a statement on the issue as I could find) to the governor and the speaker. Nothing.
Being against the smoking ban is seen as being pro-smoking and pro big tobacco. I'm neither of those things, I'm against the government interfering with our rights to associate freely with like-minded people on private property engaged in a legal activity. Politicians love making more laws, it makes them look busy come election season. Laws that ultimately limit people's freedoms and serve only a cosmetic good.
I'm a law librarian, so this kind of thing just gets all up in my roundhouse.
Um "wheelhouse".
Okay, where does the right to smoke stem from? And, secondly, why does the right to smoke trump the right not to have smoke blown in your face in a public place? You still haven't answered that.
Saying "smoking is a legal activity" is a circular argument. As a person with some legal training, you can appreciate nuance. There are plenty of "legal activities" I can't do in public places. Being naked is "legal." Being naked at my corner bar, not.
But, even absolute rights like speech can be subject to time, place and manner restrictions.
If you're objecting to that lack of public input, I see your point, but that's not where your argument started.
Roundhouse. There's a difference in usage.
It's not about right to smoke, it's not an enumerated constitutional right of course. But the right of free association is, and in your distaste for smoking you're asking others to alter their behavior to suit your preference. You're legislating a moral and ethical choice.
You can be naked in a public place actually. A bathhouse, a strip club or a steam room. Public places where people are aware that nudity is possible, even encouraged.
Bars and restaurants that allow smoking are places you can choose to go into or not. It's that choice that makes the difference. I'd rather not go into a bathhouse and see a bunch of naked dudes, but I'm not going to ask that their behavior be outlawed because it doesn't suit me.
The core of my argument is that the people asking the government to outlaw a legal activity on private property is over-reaching and egregious.
It is "wheelhouse."
As a non-smoker, I am very, very glad this ban went into effect. You could say I don't care if I lose my rights, you could say I'm a tool of The Man. Scream that at me until you're blue in the face. I'll just respond that I like to go out and not have my evening adversely affected (and the next few days as well, because my clothes reek) because some people don't have the huevos to rid themselves of a very nasty habit.
There's a saying: "Your rights end at the tip of my nose." That seems to be the most salient point here. If someone wants to sit in the corner and inject themselves with nicotine, or snort it, or eat it, or whatever, that's fine with me. But once they light up and the smoke gets all over me, ruins the taste of my food, and affects my health (it seems a little facile to just dismiss health concerns by calling them trumped-up), then that's a problem. I shouldn't have to try to figure out which bar is smokier than another--the onus should be on the people who are negatively affecting others.
You can talk about a conspiracy, weak-willed politicians, a "nanny state" (which I don't think this reflects), or whatever. The bottom line is, if you want to smoke, head outside. I'll be inside, where it's warm.
It's an expression by Oliver Wendall Holmes, "My right to swing my fist ends where your nose ends" and considering your slaughtering of that rather famous quote don't try to correct me about roundhouse (it does not just refer to a kick, it refers to a turn-about for trains, a point of redirection, change or pause).
Conspiracies? Who needs conspiracies when people like you and the other bumpkins on here are all but begging the government to be their mother/father? The more control and power you hand over to the government the less you need some evil puppet-master in an island volcano-base to be running it all. You just have a population of people saying "We're too stupid/lazy to run our own lives, help!" and of course someone will be along presently to "help" you.
What most tickles me about this ban is how hateful it's supporters seem. You all but twist your mustache at people out in the cold. You deny this law is about enforcing morality or legislating preference and yet the crux of your argument for it lies in your personal dislike of smoking.
Slippery. Slope.
Do you want to prove that we people who support the ban mock smokers out in the cold? Some of those people are my friends and coworkers, and I would never mock them or anyone else.
It seems to me that you are so incensed by this that you'll say anything to get us to "WAKE UP, PEOPLE! The barbarians are at the gate." Well, I'm all for personal freedom WHEN it doesn't impinge on the health and freedom of others. There are still plenty of places in the world where smokers can light up--unlike places to park in the city!
Now that's the one that gets my goat--parking permits needed all over the place, forcing people into parking lots downtown just to generate revenue. Feh!
I hardly think that adler "slaughtered" that quote. Paraphrase != slaughter.
But, rather than address the substance of the quote, you go on ad hominem attacks. We're bumpkins because we don't like to smell smoke in restaurants. Okay, sure.
I couldn't find a use of "roundhouse" on google like you've used it, and found plenty of uses of wheelhouse. The dictionary definition also does not show that your use of roundhouse is a common idiomatic use.
Also, your usage doesn't really make sense based on your own definition. This argument gets all up in your "turn about for trains" or your "pause" or your "point of redirection"?
There's a similar word that would make sense here. What it it? Wheelhouse, which is commonly used in baseball to mean a ball pitched to a location where the batter prefers it, e.g. "That ball was in my wheelhouse." Doesn't that sound like what you were trying to say?
But like this whole debate, you can go on stridently claiming you are correct, even if you can't convince anyone of your inherent moral and intellectual superiority.
You know that slippery slope arguments are persuasive, right? At least where I went to law school, you were told not to make those arguments, provided you have something better to say. When you make a "slippery slope" argument, you are conceding the point at issue, and saying it's only harm is what it may set precedent for. Well, it's debatable that point A actually does set precedent for point B. A smoking ban doesn't causally lead to a ban on hamburgers. They require independent justifications, in this case by the legislature.
Logically, what I don't get is why smoking gets the privilege over non-smoking. Your argument was, initially, if you don't like a smoky bar, don't go. Why can't the argument be, if you want to smoke, stay at home? Why should society privilege an unhealthy action over a healthy one? Shouldn't there be an incentive not to smoke, given all we know about its dangers?
And, as a person who did smoke (outside, when I had to, even), at some point it stops becoming a "choice" and you can't stop even if you want to. So, your model of individual choice has a bit of a hole in it.
But, this isn't just a case of an individual choice not affecting the world at large. You can scream (and you will, and have, and will again) about the nanny state, but when a smoker lights up in a closed space, he or she forces other people to inhale it. No one doubts the harm of second hand smoking, and no one doubts the annoyance factor.
As I said before (and you summarily dismissed), I think this law restores choice. If you want to smoke, step outside. If you don't, don't. Yes, now I have to walk through smoker to get inside, a total of about 5 seconds of exposure. That's a trade I am willing to make.
I think the "annoyance factor" should be left out of the debate, as there are a number of extreme annoyances in day to day life that obviously shouldn't/can't be legislated -- it merely leads to strawman clutter. "What, should we make it illegal to fart in public? Should people with b.o. be given a ticket?"
Defenders of the ban should stay on point -- is it a serious public health issue that warrants legislation or is it not?
You csn focus on wheelhouse/roundhouse all you like. I'm sure it makes your argument all the stronger. I was amused that someone picking at my choice of words then smashed a quote. Search all you want, it was in common usage in my time at U of C and I've used it for years.
As for the actual substance of the argument, why would I even try to convince you, when clearly you are not interested in listening to anything approaching a non-emotional argument? People kvetching about "stinkiness" while ceding their rights to enjoy a legal activity on private property are absolutely deserving of scorn. Ad hominem attacks aren't something I usually employ, but the utter lack of awareness, the zeal with which you and other seem to hand over your basic rights of free association, the begging hands outstretched to a government saying "please, protect us from ourselves"...it's outrageous. You seem like literate people, but you're certainly acting like rubes.
I didn't bring the slippery slope into this purposely because it is so overused, and often poorly cited, but by the same token it's quite applicable here. New York is a perfect example of the nanny state gone amuck. "Good intentioned" attempts to legislate smoking and otherwise legal behaviors have led to a city where revenue officers walk the street fining people for sitting on crate.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2965768.stm
More laws lead to more abuse of those laws by those in authority. When you hand over power to the state that is power you're not going to get back easily. Look at that emberassing fois gras fiasco, many aldermen are now embarrassed by it, but they aren't in a rush to amend their error.
Finally, I, as a non-smoker who has seen the horrors that a life-time of smoking can wreck, do not support this ban. I think it infantalizes citizens and is one more step towards a society wherein laws are seen as the end solution. On a level of personal preference, I'm very happy that my local pub will be less smoke-filled. I may even head to a couple places I've avoided over the years because of the smoke and check them out. But my personal preference should not trump the rights of others to behave as they wish in a legal manner on private property. Keeping those ideas separate was one of the cornerstones of my law school education.
You seem to have stepped back from the brink there. Welcome. Let's keep this civil, rubes. Me especially.
I think you're in a tough position if you're saying that society must always privilege individual choice over what's objectively better for society, particularly given the negative externalities associated with the action.
Deciding what's better is hard. Sometimes we'll get it wrong, but I think it's still a valuable exercise.
Take schooling, for example. Does requiring kids to go to school until they are 16 restrict an individual's choice? Yes, it does, but the consequences of not doing that are greater, and impose greater costs on society as a whole.
Is that the nanny state or is it people deciding what they want for their society and their civilization?
You know, nanny-state is one of those buzzwords that manages to be an ad hominem attack all on its own, like the word "liberal.
You say you're worried about the slippery slope and people being willing to give up their rights, and then you choose to slam people who already feel their right to breathing agreeable air and not having to shower and wash their clothes when they go to a smoking-allowed venue (I go for concerts, and it's a huge sacrifice to listen to music while my lungs are heaving and my eyes are tearing).
The slippery slope was tipped long, long ago by the events of 9/11 and the subsequent losses of freedom enacted by the Patriot Act and illegal surveillance by our government. I don't think the smoking ban is a "tipping point." You don't sound like a freedom fighter, just another fanatic who doesn't know where the real fight is.
Ferdy: I'll just do as Dostoyevsky said we should in the face of predestination, fold my hands in my lap and wait for the end.
Of course this is simply one front in a much larger fight, but it's still wrong. I don't think that being passionate, strident even, about freedom from undue legal restraint makes me a fanatic.
I agree with you that the 9/11 was a tipping point. Read the book "What We Have Lost'by Graydon Carter, if you haven't already. It outlines just what has been stripmined from the constitution by the illusion of safety.
But as all politics are local and this is just one aspect of the slide away from personal responsibility.
Mondegreen:
I disagree with your choice of example. Children are not yet of the age a majority and therefore do not enjoy the same legal standing as adults. Requiring behavior of them is radically different than requiring adults engaged in legal activity to conform on private property.
I keep saying that because I'm hoping that people reading will see past their distaste for smoking and it's attendant negatives (which are many) and see the core argument, the government is legislating private a legal private behavior. I wonder how many people who are for this ban on smoking oppose the current criminalization of pot? Or think that police powers in the drug war and war on terror are over-reaching? These are all connected.
Simple - The government legislates ALL KINDS of things. This is one incursion into personal behavior that a lot of us fully endorse. We don't believe that a smokers' rights trump ours. What do you do when "rights" conflict? I say nonsmokers rights have been suppressed too long, and strictly because of custom (the former popularity of smoking), not because of any inalienable good or right.
I'm not letting you off the hook.
"Age of majority" is something the government legislated. The government decides when you're smart enough to make your own decisions. Well, bollocks, I say. Talk about nanny state. That's nanny state in spades.
And, if you like, you can say it's an encroachment on the parent's freedoms to raise their kids. I'm a parent and I don't want my kids to go to school. Tell me why I don't have that freedom?
It a dodge to say that children don't have the same "legal standing" as adults.
To me, the word "legal" is always question-begging in an argument like this. To say something is "legal" means that at some point some entity made a decision to allow or forbid some action. Children don't have the same "legal standing" because the government took it away from them. Crack is "illegal" because the government made it so. Tomorrow, the government could say the age of majority is 8 and crack is no longer forbidden. Legal, schemegal.
Or, brining it all back home, smoking is "legal" to the extent the legislature allows it. The goalposts can, and do, get moved.
simplecreature, you are my hero.
We "Smokers" have been spit-on, verbally abused, taxed to benefit everyone else, forced outside of bars and restaurants, turned into second class citizens, treated like we were the addicted scum of the Earth, and repeatedly told that smoking causes all sorts of deadly diseases and is killing us and everyone else!!!!!
Anti-smoking groups have been spreading lies and propaganda for decades. In fact most smokers, if asked, would say that they "KNOW" that smoking is bad for them and that they should quit.
This is not the truth; but, the result of a well orchestrated, highly funded campaign by the makers of nicotine replacement programs.
The spending of as much as $880 million dollars a year on "Tobacco Control" (according to the AMA.
For instance, The Johnson and Johnson Company (makers of Nicorette gum and Nicoderm patches) created the R.W.Johnson Foundation. The RWJ Foundation has given about $500,000,000 to anti-smoker groups over the last few years.
The drug industry, according to estimates by the Center for Public Integrity, has spent $758 million on lobbying - more than any other industry - since 1998.
The LA Times also recognized that "outside the confines of a doctor's office, pharmaceutical marketing efforts become more extravagant."
Drug companies also score favor, spending $1.12 billion in 2005 just to fund medical education seminars:
Smokers can not hope to come up with that kind of money; but, we can vote.
And will not be voting for anyone that promoted SB500 ......
NICOTINE NANNIES.............
A. You say that nicotine(cigarette smoke) is more addictive than heroin; in fact,about the most addictive substance on the planet.
B. You say that food/drink servers in smoking allowed places are exposed to enough SHS to equal smoking about a pack of cigarettes per shift.
C. You says smoking bans are needed to protect these workers from the adverse health effects of SHS.
Now; if cigarette smoke is that addictive and workers are exposed to that much smoke, shouldn't all servers be addicted and be smokers?
If all servers are smokers, is not a smoking ban to protect them from SHS stupid?
So which is it?
A. Is cigarette smoke(nicotine) not addictive?
B. Are servers actually only exposed to such a very,very,teeny, tiny amount of cigarette smoke that they do not become addicted?
C. If servers are only exposed to such a miniscule amount of SHS as to not be addicted, the adverse health effects of such exposure would be miniscule too and would smoking bans not be necessary and actually be stupid?
D. If servers are exposed to such a miniscule amount of SHS, then are not patrons exposed to only a tiny part of that miniscule amount and bans are certainly not needed to protect them?
Another question that should be asked the antis and politicians:
You say that smoking is the leading cause of preventable Heart Disease deaths.
Of the 50 states plus Washington, D.C., D.C. and Minnesota have the same smoking rate.
The 'Heart Disease Death Rate' ranking for Washington, D.C. is 3rd, about the highest.
The 'Heart Disease Death Rate' ranking for Minnesota is 51st, the lowest.
Now; if smoking is the leading cause of preventable Heart Disease deaths,how can there be such a completely different 'Heart Disease Death Rate' ranking for two areas with the same percentage of smokers and SHS exposure??
Another question that should be asked the antis and politicians:
You say that smoking and SHS cause Asthma.
Of the 50 states plus Washington, D.C., D.C. and Oregon rank 32nd and 42rd in smoking rates and North Carolina ranks near the highest at 13th.
In the ranking of Asthma incidence rates:
1. The highest is Washington, D.C.
2. Oregon
51st: The lowest incidence of Asthma is North Carolina.
If smoking and exposure to SHS causes Asthma, how is it that the state with the higher smoking rate ranks lowest and states with a much lower smoking rates rank the highest and second highest in Asthma incidence?
Another question that should be asked the antis and politicians:
You say that smoking is the leading cause of preventable cancer deaths.
Of the 50 states plus Washington, D.C., D.C. and Minnesota have the same smoking rate.
The 'Cancer Death Rate' ranking for Wash DC is 1st, the highest.
The 'Cancer Death Rate' ranking for Minnesota is 39th or among the lowest.
Now; if smoking is the leading cause of preventable cancer deaths,how can there be such a completely different 'Cancer Death Rate' ranking for two areas with the same percentage of smokers and SHS exposure??
Another question that should be asked the antis and politicians:
You say that smoking is the leading cause of preventable deaths?
Of the 50 states plus Washington, D.C., D.C. and Minnesota have the same smoking rate.
The 'Total Death Rate' ranking for Washington, D.C. is 4th highest.
The 'Total Death Rate' ranking for Minnesota is 47th or 4th lowest.
Now; if smoking is the leading cause of preventable deaths,how can there be such a completely different 'Total Death Rate' ranking for two areas with the same percentage of smokers and SHS exposure??
The lies started at least 40 years ago. The Surgeon General's Report of 1967 stated that smoking kills.
This is what the report actually contained; do not bother looking for this in their archives, it has been deleted.
The lies started at least 40 years ago.
The SG's Report of 1967 stated that smoking kills.
This is what the report actually contained; do not bother looking for this in their archives, it has been deleted.
"Prevalence rate for given smokers." smoking category divided by prevalence rate for never smokers.
Ratios of less than 2.00=not significant
Ratios of 1.00 = same as "never smoked"
RR of less than 1.00 are a protective effect!!
Surgeon General Report-May 1967 (Page 11)
Table D. Ratios of age-adjusted prevalence rates of chronic conditions for persons 17 years and over who have ever smoked to persons who have never smoked, by cigarette smoking status, number of cigarettes smoked per day for present smokers-heaviest amount, sex, and selected chronic conditions:
United States, July 1964 - June 1965 Sex and selected chronic conditions
Male Ratio - All chronic conditions
Number of cigarettes smoked per day for present smokers-heaviest amount
1-10 11-20 21-40 41+
Relative Risk
0.92 1.04 1.30 1.54
Female Ratio- All chronic conditions
Number of cigarettes smoked per day for present smokers-heaviest amount
1-10 11-20 21-40 41+
Relative Risk
0.88 1.05 1.39 2.00
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Surgeon General Report-May 1967 (Page 11)
Table D. Ratios of age-adjusted prevalence rates of chronic conditions for persons 17 years and over who have ever smoked to persons who have never smoked, by cigarette smoking status, number of cigarettes smoked per day for present smokers-heaviest amount, sex, and selected chronic conditions:
United States, July 1964 - June 1965 Sex and selected chronic conditions
Male Ratio - All chronic conditions
Number of cigarettes smoked per day for present smokers-heaviest amount
1-10 11-20 21-40 41+
Relative Risk
0.92 1.04 1.30 1.54
Female Ratio- All chronic conditions
Number of cigarettes smoked per day for present smokers-heaviest amount
1-10 11-20 21-40 41+
Relative Risk
0.88 1.05 1.39 2.00
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