PolicyBlog has moved!

Thank you for visiting, PolicyBlog has a new address.

Our new location is http://www.commonwealthfoundation.org/policyblog

Please adjust your bookmarks. Archived posts will remain here for now.

Thanks




Sunday, July 13, 2008

The Emperor Has No Clothes: The Truth about Secondhand Smoke

Short paper from the Heartland Institute (click here for PDF) on the science of second hand smoke - including the oft-repeated claim about the number of deaths due to second has smoke, a figure not only refuted by subsequent studies, but discredited as a fabricated statistic. More on Second Hand Smoke and Smoking Bans:

  • The Nanny-State Mentality
  • Policy Point on Smoking Bans
  • Secondhand Smoke Facts
  • Economics of Smoking Bans
  • Still Pooping in my Salad
  • Smoke, Lies, and the Nanny State
    • 4 comments:

      Anonymous said...

      It is clear that separation of smokers from non-smokers combined

      with air exchange technology is a complete solution to this largely

      artificial problem. All it takes is regulating authorities setting the

      standards for indoor air quality on passive smoke, and the technology

      does the rest. Such air quality standards are common in industrial

      and environmental contexts. But, to date, no country in the world has

      set them for smoking areas. It seems clear that the reasons are not

      scientific, nor are they economic or technical: they are political.

      The anti smoking agencies do not want safe standards that would still allow

      people to smoke...they simply want a ban that will push smokers

      outdoors like outcasts.

      http://pasan.thetruthisalie.com
      www.ventilatedsmokingrooms.ca

      Anonymous said...

      Smoke from tobacco is a statistically insignificant health risk.

      No one on this planet ever died or got cancer, solely from second hand smoke.

      The agenda of the anti-smoking cartel is to de-normalize smoking.
      Passing no-smoking laws is a big step in that direction.
      Unfortunately the hospitality industry is caught in the cross-fire

      Anonymous said...

      Smoking bans are the real health hazard.


      The bandwagon of local smoking bans now steamrolling across the nation -
      from sea to sea- has nothing to do with protecting people from the supposed
      threat of "second-hand" smoke.

      Indeed, the bans themselves are symptoms of a far more grievous threat; a
      cancer that has been spreading for decades and has now metastasized
      throughout the body politic, spreading even to the tiniest organs of local
      government. This cancer is the only real hazard involved - the cancer of
      unlimited government power.

      The issue is not whether second-hand smoke is a real danger or a phantom
      menace, as a study published recently in the British Medical Journal
      indicates. The issue is: if it were harmful, what would be the proper
      reaction? Should anti-tobacco activists satisfy themselves with educating
      people about the potential danger and allowing them to make
      their own decisions, or should they seize the power of government and force
      people to make the "right" decision?

      Supporters of local tobacco bans have made their choice. Rather than
      attempting to protect people from an unwanted intrusion on their health, the
      tobacco bans are the unwanted intrusion.

      Loudly billed as measures that only affect "public places," they have
      actually targeted private places: restaurants, bars, nightclubs, shops, and
      offices - places whose owners are free to set anti-smoking rules or whose
      customers are free to go elsewhere if they don't like the smoke. Some local
      bans even harass smokers in places where their effect on others is obviously
      negligible, such as outdoor public parks.

      The decision to smoke, or to avoid "second-hand" smoke, is a question to be
      answered by each individual based on his own values and his own assessment
      of the risks. This is the same kind of decision free people make regarding
      every aspect of their lives: how much to spend or invest, whom to befriend
      or sleep with, whether to go to college or get a job, whether to get married
      or divorced, and so on.

      All of these decisions involve risks; some have demonstrably harmful
      consequences; most are controversial and invite disapproval from the
      neighbours. But the individual must be free to make these decisions. He must
      be free, because his life belongs to him, not to his neighbours, and only
      his own judgment can guide him through it.

      Yet when it comes to smoking, this freedom is under attack. Cigarette
      smokers are a numerical minority, practicing a habit considered annoying and
      unpleasant to the majority. So the majority has simply commandeered the
      power of government and used it to dictate their behaviour.

      That is why these bans are far more threatening than the prospect of
      inhaling a few stray whiffs of tobacco while waiting for a table at your
      favourite restaurant. The anti-tobacco crusaders point in exaggerated alarm
      at those wisps of smoke while they unleash the systematic and unlimited
      intrusion of government into our lives.

      We do not elect officials to control and manipulate our behaviour.


      Thomas Laprade

      Anonymous said...

      The primary link above does not seem to bring us to an article about secondary smoke, but some of the links below it are good, particularly Joe Jackson's "Smoking, Lies, and the Nanny State."

      I would like to suggest one additional resource, specifically designed for fairly quick but high impact reading in a low-light bar/pub type situation. It is a free printable booklet called "The Stiletto" and a somewhat Pennsylvania-oriented version is available for reading or printing at:

      http://encyclopedia.smokersclub.com/257.html

      It clearly exposes the lies about the health effects of low levels of exposure to secondary smoke and the economic effects of smoking bans. A slightly updated and more generalized version is available from me at my aol address of Cantiloper for any who want it. It doesn't have the 400 pages or 600 references of my book... but hey, it's free! :)

      Michael J. McFadden
      Author of "Dissecting Antismokers' Brains"