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By Gerhard Adam | October 15th 2009 12:43 PM | 11 comments | Print | E-mail | Track Comments
While I can appreciate the usefulness of smoking bans, especially as it relates to non-smokers (or even smokers for that matter).  I'm not convinced that the science is establishing a sound cause and effect linkage.

There is little doubt that smoking is not a healthy activity, but similarly we should be aware of all forms of air pollution.  A recent study suggested that even a relatively brief exposure to second hand smoke could precipitate a heart attack1.  Unfortunately, I haven't seen how such a study or determination was made, so it is impossible to assess their methodology.  

Consider the following quote:
"The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has concluded that smoke-filled rooms may have up to six times the air pollution of a busy highway. And secondhand smoke inside a car can be more toxic than rush hour exhaust fumes."
http://www.nypirg.org/health/tobacco/secondhandsmoke.html

While I can fully concur with the notion of smoking inside a vehicle and smoke-filled rooms, this quote also suggests that there may be other toxins in the air that are being ignored.  I can appreciate the problems of second hand smoke, but I am suspect that any such study has the ability to differentiate between second hand smoke and other environmental toxins to such a high degree.

In fact, I suspect that no such linkage has been established.  Instead, I expect that smoking bans are easier (and less economically costly) to implement than making pollution free cars, so it represents any easy target.  It is inconceivable that an individual can spend one or two hours a day in a car breathing in automobile exhaust and suffer no consequences and yet even a light exposure to second hand cigarette smoke may cause a heart-attack.  When this is coupled with living in cities that may have any number of annual warnings regarding air quality hazards, and particulate matter from wildfires (as in California), one has to wonder how the data set connecting second-hand smoke could be kept so independent of all these other variables.

In particular, one study suggested that environmental tobacco smoke was up to ten times higher than exhaust from an idling engine.  However, the engine was an "ecodiesel" engine, so I guess the results might have been a bit different had a standard automobile been used.
"Conclusions: ETS is a major source of PM pollution, contributing to indoor PM concentrations up to 10-fold those emitted from an idling ecodiesel engine"
http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract/13/3/219

NOTE:  ETS = Environmental Tobacco Smoke and PM = Particulate Matter

Neglecting the fact that normal traffic situations rarely involve one car, nor do they entail three cigarettes in 30 minutes and invariably they don't occur in closed rooms.  Other than that, the comparison seems entirely appropriate.

While I am no advocate for smoking, it seems that this is simply a distraction to avoid dealing with the much larger issues of air pollution.  Tobacco is an easy target and the economic consequences aren't considered to be significant or relevant.  
"In most cities across the globe, the personal automobile is the single greatest polluter. Emissions from a billion vehicles running each day add up to a planet-wide problem. Breathing is fairly important for all of us and driving cars is our biggest single air polluting activity."
http://www.hopshop.net/tours/ecoauto_tour/healthpage.php

"The greatest possibility for high-level exposures is in the workplace... most people are exposed to benzene in tobacco smoke and automobile exhaust."
http://www.nutramed.com/environment/carschemicals.htm

Sorry, but in this case, I have to come down on the skeptical side of this study.  Unless the individuals studied have never lived in large cities, or been around cars, or have never been exposed to air pollution of any type, it is presumptious to suggest that anyone can link a heart attack to one definitive cause, such as second-hand smoke.

1"Although there is no direct evidence that a relatively brief exposure

to secondhand smoke could precipitate a heart attack, the committee

found the indirect evidence compelling."
http://www.sciencecodex.com/smoking_bans_reduce_the_risk_of_heart_attacks_associated_with_secondhand_smoke

Comments

aaanouel's picture
In their chapter about second hand smoke, Penn&Teller just said it : 

¡¡¡It's pure and simple Bullshit...!!!

... and I believe them.


I think you'll find this kind of flaw in many of the studies used to promote smoking bans, probably because establishing cause and effect is never a priority for anti-tobacco activists. And given that you don't find studies like the one cited compelling, what is it that's useful about smoking bans?

They prevent people coming home from work & leisure with their clothes and hair stinking?

aaanouel's picture
In that sense I agree with you and a lot of people (as my own wife).
I'm an occasional smoker and I do respect and care about other people loathing smoke, but from there to believe in all those pseudo-scientific studies... there is a very long distance.

13:15 asked: "what is it that's useful about smoking bans?"
Smoking bans provide a substantial element to the government exercising its maximum control over the citizenry. None of this has anything to do with health, safety, children or the "protected object de jeure." It is merely the opportunity to stick there nanny state nose into the lives of each and every person. It is about the same as their insane desire to arm every criminal and dis-arm every other law-abiding individual. It's all horse hockey.

Gerhard Adam's picture
Well, it depends on you mean by government, because while the government may make the regulations, it is the citizens that largely push that agenda.  Smoking bans were generally the result of citizen demands instead of government initiative.

Gerhard Adam,

Thank you for the response. I have no problem with any private entity who bans smoking on their premises. My gripe is with those governmental bodies at all levels who ban it in taverns (I don't drink), golf courses, other open air facilities and venues which allow clear ventilation. I seriously question that without the support of controllers in an official capacity they would have the clout to accomplish their ends. I will admit that I am equally opposed to various safety regulations, periodic food bans, regulation of flea markets for toxic substances, etc. which have little to do with safety but (and I repeat) control for the sake of running a nanny state.

This is anecdotal, but then almost every opinion is, I am currently hyper sensitive because my wife was just in an accident which left her with a compression fracture on her spine and facing weeks of wearing a brace. The front bumper was broken into two pieces and I'm still waiting for the air bag to deploy. The federal law requires that this equipment be installed on every vehicle. Apparently there is no law that it must inflate.

I just want to be left alone to live my life. I guess it come from being a geezer.

Gerhard Adam's picture
I understand and agree that government is what passes the legislation, but my primary point is that this is one circumstance where I have to say that it isn't done from their own volition.

I see a wide range of smoking bans throughout the country, so there is no singular governmental activity that is directing this.  Instead I find that local groups (and local government) are the primary drivers of these bans and, especially regarding cigarettes, have become almost fanatically militant about it.  The main fault I have with the government in this, is to allow themselves to respond to such pressure instead of letting each private establishment set it's own guidelines. 

Gerhard Adam's picture
I will admit that I am equally opposed to various safety regulations,
periodic food bans, regulation of flea markets for toxic substances,
etc. which have little to do with safety but (and I repeat) control for
the sake of running a nanny state.

I'm sorry to hear about your wife's injury, and I can well understand your frustration.

Regarding the government, I'm becoming more inclined to start blaming the citizens rather than the government.  While there is much that is wrong with the legislatures and the laws that are being passed, the unfortunate reality is that the majority of these actions are being driven by citizens that want a "nanny state".   However, having said that, a huge problem is the number of "free market" supporters that think there's nothing wrong with a "nanny state" for corporations.

In short, everyone is looking for someone to provide them an advantage or to advance their own personal agendas.  People are afraid of freedom, because it involves uncertainty and personal responsibility.  If we ended the favoritism for everything ranging from corporate welfare to individual segments of society, then we might be able to actually do something to make our society a better place.  However, as long as the only objective is to position your favorite group into a privileged position of power then we will continue to play this perpetual game of "tug of war" with our objectives.

I believe it's the well-funded and vocal anti-tobacco lobby that deserves credit for the enactment of smoking bans, especially in places where smokers go to smoke. Sure, the public may have pressured their representatives to do something about secondhand smoke; but I doubt their reaction would have been the same without the influence of crummy studies like the you wrote about or dishonest television ads like this one .

aaanouel's picture
I'd say that there are more than desirable people afraid of freedom for themselves but especially afraid of freedom for others.  They would love to control the smallest parts of others' life making them miserable (and in fact they do it during their idle time, lamentably having plenty of it). These people are not naturally addict for the truth, but for proofing and imposing their beliefs in anyway they find (right or wrong), and people usually integrate the government.
Meanwhile, common sense people do not loose their time in trying to stop such absurd attempts, ignoring them but later, the whole society suffers the consequences. At the end of this process, democracy could be extinct.




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