NH Smoking Ban

[erik]

Folks, the fact is, I don't need a clinical trial to tell me passive smoking is bad. I have enough colloquial evidence to convince me that standing all night in a smoky club is bad for me. The same way I have enough colloquial evidence to convince me that drinking six beers in a row is bad for me. I feel like shit afterwards.

I'd never suggest that anyone needs to rely on clinical trials to tell them that passive smoking is bad. It's certainly enough for one person to dislike passive smoking based on their own personal experience. Thanks for the googlesearch, some of the stuff in there is useful.

[HeuristicsInc]

(depending on what the definition of "serious physical harm" is - it isn't in the Definitions section of the Act)

In that case the Supreme Court may be called in to set a precedent, but here the OSH Act set up OSHA and gave them the ability to define the levels that are acceptable for a variety of things: "The Secretary, in promulgating standards dealing with toxic materials or harmful physical agents...,shall set the standard which most adequately assures, to the extent feasible, on the basis of the best available evidence, that no employee will suffer material impairment of health or functional capacity even if such employee has regular exposure to the hazard...for the period of his working life."

There is some good info on this page:

http://www.riskworld.com/nreports/1996/ ... 6aa042.htm

Including this:

Since the benzene decision, risk assessment at OSHA has been dominated by the question of showing "significant" risk from exposure to workplace carcinogens. The question that Justice Stevens threw back to OSHA in his benzene opinion--what constitutes a "significant" risk (within the limits he set)?--has never been fully answered. Justice Stevens' statement that a lifetime risk of one in a thousand is clearly significant has served as something of a benchmark; in practice risks below 10-5 are rarely given much significance, but the lower bound on risks considered significant is hard to define because it is difficult to show.

So then the question becomes something like - if you work in a smoky bar your whole life, do you have greater than 1 in 1000 chance to get cancer from it? And that, I think, is where the disagreements come in.
-bill

[bz£]

So then the question becomes something like - if you work in a smoky bar your whole life, do you have greater than 1 in 1000 chance to get cancer from it?

And, sadly, with all these smoking bans, we may never know the answer. Science is the real loser here.

[Lunkhead]

Folks, the fact is, I don't need a clinical trial to tell me passive smoking is bad. I have enough colloquial evidence to convince me that standing all night in a smoky club is bad for me. The same way I have enough colloquial evidence to convince me that drinking six beers in a row is bad for me. I feel like shit afterwards.

I'd never suggest that anyone needs to rely on clinical trials to tell them that passive smoking is bad. It's certainly enough for one person to dislike passive smoking based on their own personal experience. Thanks for the googlesearch, some of the stuff in there is useful.

I hear where you're coming from. If you have time, my brief glance at this report made me think they might actually talk about their methodology in it:

http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/library/s ... ke/report/

[Hoblit]

So then the question becomes something like - if you work in a smoky bar your whole life, do you have greater than 1 in 1000 chance to get cancer from it?

And, sadly, with all these smoking bans, we may never know the answer. Science is the real loser here.

You have one of the greatest sense of humors that I have ever come across.

[Billy's Little Trip]

There's no point in trying to disprove something that's made up. I don't have to disprove that fucking unicorns exist.

I'm sure if unicorns existed, someone would be fucking them.

[jack]

there's tons of stuff that "may" be bad for your health, that time may still prove to be bad, even though there may not be any established precedent.

when i worked for Patagonia years ago, there was internal concern that the polyester fleece jackets they have have been making for many years could be harmful, they are after all made from petroleum-based products and are worn next to the skin, but there has been no known case of any bad health effects from this. Does it mean that it will never happen? no.

we are bombarded by advertisements hyping the latest pill to cure whatever ails us (have a restless leg, take a pill!). will these new medications lead to side effects 20 years down the road? who knows. there is only so much safety testing that can be done in clinical trials.

my point is that just because a direct correlation can't be proven yet, doesn't mean it doesn't exist or won't be proven in time. just because there is no documented case of someone dying from second-hand smoke, it doesn't mean it hasn't happened or won't ever happen.

sometimes common sense is as compelling and makes as strong an argument as empirical scientific evidence. common sense tells me smoking is bad for your health. common sense tells me if i blow that smoke in someone elses face, it's probably bad for their health.

at the very least, it's pretty rude.

[jimtyrrell]

Fair enough. But common sense could also tell me (and bear with me here, I'm about to make an example that uses numbers I can't even begin to back up, and doesn't encompass the scope of the problem):

If smokers generally live quite a while before their habit gives them cancer (what's the average? I don't know. Does twenty years sound too high?), and I'm standing nearby now and then and inhaling - let's say - 1/100th of the smoke these people inhale, then I can reasonably expect to live 100 times as long before reaching that same point of risk. By this, I would have to assume the current stance regarding second-hand smoke to be pretty overblown.

This somewhat absurd example aside, my big worry is that 'common sense' (an unflattering term among economists) might be taking the place of scientific fact.

[erik]

sometimes common sense is as compelling and makes as strong an argument as empirical scientific evidence.

This is the kind of rhetoric that gets pulled out by people who want to teach creationism in schools. Common sense means different things to different people, and quite often what is intuitive is totally wrong.

[Caravan Ray]

So then the question becomes something like - if you work in a smoky bar your whole life, do you have greater than 1 in 1000 chance to get cancer from it?

And, sadly, with all these smoking bans, we may never know the answer. Science is the real loser here.

I have just had a sudden image of Ben wearing a white coat, propped up in the corner of a seedy bar beer in hand, surrounded by rats with fags hanging out of their mouths.

[jack]

and to some people (not me), their belief in creationism is fact. at least to them it is. to them, faith is more powerful than science. and who is to say they actually are wrong? yes, science can certainly make a strong backing for darwin's theory, but is it conclusive? obviously not or people wouldn't still be debating it.

my common sense point was more directed towards good manners and etiquette, consideration for others, that sort of thing. you know, common sense. or at least to me, what is common sense. obviously, this concept might be lost on others.

[roymond]

If smokers generally live quite a while before their habit gives them cancer ...

Colds, flu, asthma, etc. It's not just cancer. It's a damaged immune system and the associated impacts that has on one's health. You don't have to die from something for it to be bad for you. While the deaths related to smoking are pretty insane in and of themselves, lost productivity and medical attention needed to deal with a weekenned body cost everyone. This is true also for snow boarding, walking down the street and lifting a bundle of groceries. You just might want to cut the risk at some point. For instance, apparently only 20 states have motorcycle helmet laws now. I hope riders in the other 30 states register as organ donors after leaving their helmets home.

And, from reading my own posts, I find I sound like some self-righteous asshole. Sorry about that. Just trying to make points. At any cost. No, really...I've learned a lot from this thread and like the discourse.

OMG Jack. Don't get me started.

[Caravan Ray]

they should ban cars too. there's plenty of second hand smoke there polluting our air.

Yes. Absolutely. There have been measure over the years to reduce emissions - laws requiring catalytic converters, laws banning leaded petrol, laws banning cars from city centres etc. And now that electric or at least hybrid forms of personal transport offer real alternative - I look forward to the day we wavbe bye-bye to the petrol-driven internal combustion engine. Hopefully the day will be soon - and people will no doubt find it just as inconceivable as banning smoke from bars.

[Lunkhead]

God, I can't stop myself from posting. What's wrong with me?

My summary of the wiki --- pedia article: Major organizations all over the world, with long established scientific credibility on the line, have collectively published many peer reviewed reports on research they've conducted on the health risks posed by second hand smoke, the vast majority of which conclude that second hand smoke significantly increases risks for many health problems. Fewer reports, and from less reputable sources, concluded differently.

That to me is fairly persuasive. Just because I haven't analyzed their raw data, or scrutinized their methodology, doesn't mean that the WHO, US DHHS, CA EPA, CDC, etc. are probably just making this shit up. Their data may or may not be publicly freely available to me on the Web, but for them to publish their results and expect them to be credible, they had to publish their methodology and data to their scientific peers for review/reproduction. The scientific community has not come out and discredited the research in these reports en masse. Applying Occam's Razor, I've discarded the notion of a global scientific conspiracy against tobacco, and concluded that second hand smoke is likely significantly toxic.

If anybody here can point to an equally large, reputable body of reports that concludes that second hand smoke is safe please do so. To me that will be more persuasive than a bunch of people speculating and presenting hypothetical situations. I strongly recommend people read the "Talk" section of the wiki --- pedia article, as most of the points being made here are made there and are refuted with citations/etc. by the editors that I mentioned.

[Caravan Ray]

And, from reading my own posts, I find I sound like some self-righteous asshole...

Isn't that what these message boards are for!?! Don't apologise - celebrate your assholity. It is good therapy.

[Hoblit]

If smokers generally live quite a while before their habit gives them cancer ...

Colds, flu, asthma, etc. It's not just cancer. It's a damaged immune system and the associated impacts that has on one's health. You don't have to die from something for it to be bad for you. While the deaths related to smoking are pretty insane in and of themselves, lost productivity and medical attention needed to deal with a weekenned body cost everyone.

This is what I was saying earlier adding a bit about city tax subsidizing local health care facilities. (so does state tax but some some states don't have a state tax)

So non-smokers are already paying a small amount for smoker's health care as well as potential second hand smokers that science hasn't definitively proven yet. (picturing Ben in white lab coat at smoky bar with lab rat heads hanging low next to their mugs half empty)

[roymond]

And, from reading my own posts, I find I sound like some self-righteous asshole...

Isn't that what these message boards are for!?! Don't apologise - celebrate your assholity. It is good therapy.

Yeah. I set myself up for you. Right on cue

[anti-m]

So then the question becomes something like - if you work in a smoky bar your whole life, do you have greater than 1 in 1000 chance to get cancer from it?

And, sadly, with all these smoking bans, we may never know the answer. Science is the real loser here.

I have just had a sudden image of Ben wearing a white coat, propped up in the corner of a seedy bar beer in hand, surrounded by rats with fags hanging out of their mouths.

Oh my god, you've just described 90% of the bars in Portland!

[Jefff]

and to some people (not me), their belief in creationism is fact. at least to them it is. to them, faith is more powerful than science. and who is to say they actually are wrong?

Wait, I thought you were arguing FOR common sense.

[bz£]

And, sadly, with all these smoking bans, we may never know the answer. Science is the real loser here.

I have just had a sudden image of Ben wearing a white coat, propped up in the corner of a seedy bar beer in hand, surrounded by rats with fags hanging out of their mouths.

Oh my god, you've just described 90% of the bars in Portland!

And 90% of my evenings!

[erik]

Specificity, referring to a unique exposure-disease relationship (e.g., the association between thalidomide use during pregnancy and unusual birth defects), can be set aside as not relevant, as all of the health effects considered in this report have causes other than involuntary smoking. Associations are considered more likely to be causal as the strength of an association increases because competing explanations become less plausible alternatives. However, based on knowledge of dosimetry and mechanisms of injury and disease causation, the risk is anticipated to be only slightly or modestly increased for some associations of involuntary smoking with disease, such as lung cancer, particularly when the very strong relative risks found for active smokers are compared with those for lifetime nonsmokers. The finding of only a small elevation in risk, as in theexample of spousal smoking and lung cancer risk in lifetime nonsmokers, does not weigh against a causal association; however, alternative explanations for a risk of a small magnitude need full exploration and cannot be so easily set aside as alternative explanations for a stronger association. Consistency, coherence, and the temporal relationship of involuntary smoking with disease are central to the interpretations in this report. To address coherence, the report draws not only on the evidence for involuntary smoking, but on the even more extensive literature on active smoking and disease.

That's from "The Health Consequences of Involuntary Exposure to Tobacco Smoke: A Report of the Surgeon General". It talks about there being only a slight or modest increased risk for certain diseases, namely lung cancer. I'm asking for more information not because I'm being dense by overlooking what other people have already researched, but because the research says things that seem to go against what other people have been saying in this thread.

Asking for more information is never, ever a bad thing, and no one should feel bad for asking for more of it.

[Lunkhead]

Which PDF and what page?

EDIT: The Chapter 7 PDF is very meaty, for anyone interested in an overview of lots of research by many organizations all over the world into the potential health risks of secondhand smoke over the last 25 years.

EDIT 2: How about this from Philip Morris:

http://www.philipmorrisusa.com/en/healt ... _smoke.asp

Public health officials have concluded that secondhand smoke from cigarettes causes disease, including lung cancer and heart disease, in non-smoking adults, as well as causes conditions in children such as asthma, respiratory infections, cough, wheeze, otitis media (middle ear infection) and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. In addition, public health officials have concluded that secondhand smoke can exacerbate adult asthma and cause eye, throat and nasal irritation.

PM USA believes that the public should be guided by the conclusions of public health officials regarding the health effects of secondhand smoke in deciding whether to be in places where secondhand smoke is present, or if they are smokers, when and where to smoke around others. Particular care should be exercised where children are concerned, and adults should avoid smoking around them.

We also believe that the conclusions of public health officials concerning environmental tobacco smoke are sufficient to warrant measures that regulate smoking in public places. We also believe that where smoking is permitted, the government should require the posting of warning notices that communicate public health officials' conclusions that secondhand smoke causes disease in non-smokers.

All this stuff is on the wiki --- pedia page, which I suspect most folks are not bothering to read, for whatever strange reasons.