Piling on with more evidence
10/17/2009
New study shows why it makes sense to support public smoking bans
The stream of evidence proving the dangers of secondhand smoke grew stronger Thursday with the release of a major report showing that smoking bans in public places reduce the risk of heart attacks among nonsmokers.
It makes a stronger argument for a statewide smoking ban -- a fight lawmakers aren't willing to take on.
An Associated Press story reported on the study from the respected Institute of Medicine and co-author Dr. Neal Benowitz, of the University of California, San Francisco.
"If you have heart disease, you really need to stay away from secondhand smoke. It's an immediate threat to your life," Benowitz said.
The team engaged in the research reviewed 11 key studies of smoking bans in parts of the U.S., Canada, Italy and Scotland, including a 52-country study of secondhand smoke's effect on heart attacks, focusing particularly on nonsmokers.
Those reviews found that after bans were in place, the number of heart attacks dropped from 6 to 47 percent. In the three years after Pueblo, Colo., banned workplace smoking, hospitalizations for heart attacks dropped 41 percent.
For the sake of discussion, imagine if this many studies found similar dangers in substances other than secondhand smoke, like hairspray or cologne. Bans would be swift and face no public resistance.
Tobacco products are another matter, perhaps because smoking ban opponents twist the issue into one of protecting businesses' rights to decide what happens on their own property.
We agree those rights are precious, but they are outweighed by the public health hazard of secondhand smoke, in the same way businesses comply with fire safety regulations and restaurants must follow steps to ensure the food and drink they serve are free from food-borne illnesses.
Twenty-one states and the District of Columbia have laws banning smoking in both public and private workplaces, plus restaurants and bars. It is high time Kansas follows with its own comprehensive ban. It's a public health issue that cannot sit on the back burner.
-- Tom Bell
Editor & Publisher
822-1491
tbell@salina.com
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Herr Kommissar says....
Whether or not second hand smoke is dangerous is not the issue. The real issue is with the small independent business owners. They should be the ones deciding who they want to cater to, not the government. I don't like country western music. Should I expect the government to go tell Outlaws they need to play headbanger music so that I can feel comfortable going into that business? No! I should look for a business that caters to me. The Brookville Hotel serves up a great chicken meal. If you go there you have your choice of eating chicken or going hungry. There are people around who do not like or cannot eat chicken. Should the government go in and tell them they need to offer alternatives? No! If you don't like or can't eat chicken, find someplace else to go.
10/20/2009
ex-smoker says....
It's amazing what smokers will dredge up for a talking point to push their side. There could be like a million Doctors that say 2nd hand smoke kills and only 1 will say that it's okay and those smokers will flock like sheep to what that one doctor says... just a preaching and screaming as loud as possible. Find some data that is current NOT 10 years old AND by a reputable organization. Give me a break.
10/19/2009
JOHN says....
SECOND HAND SMOKE IS A JOKE. Ask the anti-tobacco folks to tell you what truly is in second hand smoke...when it burns from the coal its oxygenated and everything is burned and turned into water vapor..................thats right water..........you ever burned leaves in the fall...know how the heavy smoke bellows off.......thats the organic material releasing the moisture in the leaves the greener the leaves/organic material the more smoke thats made......thats why second hand smoke is classified as a class 3 irritant by osha and epa as of 2006........after that time EPA decided to change the listing of shs as a carcinogen for political reasons.......because it contained a trace amount of 6 chemicals so small even sophisticated scientific equipment can hardly detect it ........they didnt however use the normal dose makes the poison computation when they made this political decision. However osha still maintains shs/ets as an irritant only and maintains the dose makes the poison position.......as osha is in charge of indoor air quality its decisions are based on science not political agendas as epa's is. We can see this is true after a federal judge threw out the epa's study on shs as junk science......... Wednesday, March 12, 2008 British Medical Journal & WHO conclude secondhand smoke "health hazard" claims are greatly exaggerated The BMJ published report at: http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/326/7398/1057 concludes that "The results do not support a causal relation between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality. The association between exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and coronary heart disease and lung cancer are considerably weaker than generally believed." What makes this study so significant is that it took place over a 39 year period, and studied the results of non-smokers who lived with smokers..... meaning these non-smokers were exposed to secondhand smoke up to 24 hours per day; 365 days per year for 39 years. And there was still no relation between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality. In light of the damage to business, jobs, and the economy from smoking bans the BMJ report should be revisited by lawmakers as a reference tool and justification to repeal the now unnecessary and very damaging smoking ban laws. Also significant is the World Health Organization (WHO) study: Passive smoking doesn't cause cancer-official By Victoria Macdonald, Health Correspondent " The results are consistent with their being no additional risk for a person living or working with a smoker and could be consistent with passive smoke having a protective effect against lung cancer. The summary, seen by The Telegraph, also states: 'There was no association between lung cancer risk and ETS exposure during childhood.' " And if lawmakers need additional real world data to further highlight the need to eliminate these onerous and arbitrary laws, air quality testing by Johns Hopkins University proves that secondhand smoke is up to 25,000 times SAFER than occupational (OSHA) workplace regulations. The Chemistry of Secondary Smoke About 94% of secondary smoke is composed of water vapor and ordinary air with a slight excess of carbon dioxide. Another 3 % is carbon monoxide. The last 3 % contains the rest of the 4,000 or so chemicals supposedly to be found in smoke… but found, obviously, in very small quantities if at all.This is because most of the assumed chemicals have never actually been found in secondhand smoke. (1989 Report of the Surgeon General p. 80). Most of these chemicals can only be found in quantities measured in nanograms, picograms and femtograms. Many cannot even be detected in these amounts: their presence is simply theorized rather than measured. To bring those quantities into a real world perspective, take a saltshaker and shake out a few grains of salt. A single grain of that salt will weigh in the ballpark of 100 million picograms! (Allen Blackman. Chemistry Magazine 10/08/01). - (Excerpted from "Dissecting Antismokers' Brains" with permission of the author.) The Myth of the Smoking Ban ‘Miracle’ Restrictions on smoking around the world are claimed to have had a dramatic effect on heart attack rates. It's not true. http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/7451/ As for secondhand smoke in the air, OSHA has stated outright that: "Field studies of environmental tobacco smoke indicate that under normal conditions, the components in tobacco smoke are diluted below existing Permissible Exposure Levels (PELS.) as referenced in the Air Contaminant Standard (29 CFR 1910.1000)...It would be very rare to find a workplace with so much smoking that any individual PEL would be exceeded." -Letter From Greg Watchman, Acting Sec'y, OSHA, To Leroy J Pletten, PHD, July 8, 1997 -harleyrider1978 JOINT STATEMENT ON THE RE-ASSESSMENT OF THE TOXICOLOGICAL TESTING OF TOBACCO PRODUCTS" 7 October, the COT meeting on 26 October and the COC meeting on 18 November 2004. http://cot.food.gov.uk/pdfs/cotstatementtobacco0409 "5. The Committees commented that tobacco smoke was a highly complex chemical mixture and that the causative agents for smoke induced diseases (such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, effects on reproduction and on offspring) was unknown. The mechanisms by which tobacco induced adverse effects were not established. The best information related to tobacco smoke - induced lung cancer, but even in this instance a detailed mechanism was not available. The Committees therefore agreed that on the basis of current knowledge it would be very difficult to identify a toxicological testing strategy or a biomonitoring approach for use in volunteer studies with smokers where the end-points determined or biomarkers measured were predictive of the overall burden of tobacco-induced adverse disease." In other words ... our first hand smoke theory is so lame we can't even design a bogus lab experiment to prove it. In fact ... we don't even know how tobacco does all of the magical things we claim it does. The greatest threat to the second hand theory is the weakness of the first hand theory. Outdoor bans are even crazier than indoor bans. The chemical make-up of shs is nearly 94% water vapor and A SLIGHT AMOUNT OF CARBON DIOXIDE with about 3% being carbon monoxide AND 3% CONTAINING THOSE SUPPOSED KILLER CARCENOGENS......... n-nitrosomines which you hear so much about is actually arsenic..what they dont tell you is that the measurements they took match the naturally occuring arsenic in the air outside everywhere. they measured levels at 0-29 picograms....which is totally safe...the amount has to be 5 million times that to be harmful to humans........you see how they switched it. Trying to blame shs for what is actually a natural thing. The levels of other things in shs if they can be measured at all are millions if not billions of times smaller than the amounts needed to harm anyone......just remember this second hand smoke is a joke within nano seconds from the burn it turns into WATER VAPOR.....Even the exhaled smoke is loaded down with water vapor...osha has said nothing in shs/ets is going to harm you or anyone else.....what shs will do is irritate those with weak immune responces.......thats why shs is classified as a class 3 IRRITANT BY OSHA AND THE EPA.....Remember this a prohibition movement must rely on scare tactics and big money in order to succeed to the level of getting legislation....These outdoor regulations are even crazier than the first claims made for indoor bans....... As for secondhand smoke in the air, OSHA has stated outright that: "Field studies of environmental tobacco smoke indicate that under normal conditions, the components in tobacco smoke are diluted below existing Permissible Exposure Levels (PELS.) as referenced in the Air Contaminant Standard (29 CFR 1910.1000)...It would be very rare to find a workplace with so much smoking that any individual PEL would be exceeded." -Letter From Greg Watchman, Acting Sec'y, OSHA, To Leroy J Pletten, PHD, July 8, 1997 -harleyrider1978
10/19/2009
TROYWIEGAND says....
UH EVERYONE NEW THAT SECONDHAND SMOKING IS FARTHER WORSE THAN THE PERSON THAT ACTUALLY SMOKES AT LEAST THEY SHOULD GOD ITS BEEN THAT AWAY FOR GENERATIONS DONT HAVE TO MAKE UP EXCUSES TO BANNED THE SMOKING IN PUBLIC PLACES BUT ME PERSNALLY THINK THAT ITS TAKING AWAY OUR FREEDOM TO DO WHAT WE WANT TO DO ALTHOUGH I DO UNDERSTAND IT AND I AM ALL FOR IT BECAUSE ITS NOT RIGHT FOR A NON-SMOKER TO BREATH IN THE SMOKE AND ETC.
10/17/2009
Salina.com doesn't necessarily condone the comments here. Read our full online terms of service policy.
Herr Kommissar says....
Hey ex-smoker! What part of personal responsibility do you not understand? You don't want to be around cigarette, cigar, or pipe smoke? Great, excercise your liberty and patronize a business owner who wants to attract customers who do not smoke. Quit trying to force your opinion on everyone.
10/26/2009
Herr Kommissar says....
Whether or not second hand smoke is dangerous is not the issue. The real issue is with the small independent business owners. They should be the ones deciding who they want to cater to, not the government. I don't like country western music. Should I expect the government to go tell Outlaws they need to play headbanger music so that I can feel comfortable going into that business? No! I should look for a business that caters to me. The Brookville Hotel serves up a great chicken meal. If you go there you have your choice of eating chicken or going hungry. There are people around who do not like or cannot eat chicken. Should the government go in and tell them they need to offer alternatives? No! If you don't like or can't eat chicken, find someplace else to go.
10/20/2009
ex-smoker says....
It's amazing what smokers will dredge up for a talking point to push their side. There could be like a million Doctors that say 2nd hand smoke kills and only 1 will say that it's okay and those smokers will flock like sheep to what that one doctor says... just a preaching and screaming as loud as possible. Find some data that is current NOT 10 years old AND by a reputable organization. Give me a break.
10/19/2009
JOHN says....
SECOND HAND SMOKE IS A JOKE. Ask the anti-tobacco folks to tell you what truly is in second hand smoke...when it burns from the coal its oxygenated and everything is burned and turned into water vapor..................thats right water..........you ever burned leaves in the fall...know how the heavy smoke bellows off.......thats the organic material releasing the moisture in the leaves the greener the leaves/organic material the more smoke thats made......thats why second hand smoke is classified as a class 3 irritant by osha and epa as of 2006........after that time EPA decided to change the listing of shs as a carcinogen for political reasons.......because it contained a trace amount of 6 chemicals so small even sophisticated scientific equipment can hardly detect it ........they didnt however use the normal dose makes the poison computation when they made this political decision. However osha still maintains shs/ets as an irritant only and maintains the dose makes the poison position.......as osha is in charge of indoor air quality its decisions are based on science not political agendas as epa's is. We can see this is true after a federal judge threw out the epa's study on shs as junk science......... Wednesday, March 12, 2008 British Medical Journal & WHO conclude secondhand smoke "health hazard" claims are greatly exaggerated The BMJ published report at: http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/326/7398/1057 concludes that "The results do not support a causal relation between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality. The association between exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and coronary heart disease and lung cancer are considerably weaker than generally believed." What makes this study so significant is that it took place over a 39 year period, and studied the results of non-smokers who lived with smokers..... meaning these non-smokers were exposed to secondhand smoke up to 24 hours per day; 365 days per year for 39 years. And there was still no relation between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality. In light of the damage to business, jobs, and the economy from smoking bans the BMJ report should be revisited by lawmakers as a reference tool and justification to repeal the now unnecessary and very damaging smoking ban laws. Also significant is the World Health Organization (WHO) study: Passive smoking doesn't cause cancer-official By Victoria Macdonald, Health Correspondent " The results are consistent with their being no additional risk for a person living or working with a smoker and could be consistent with passive smoke having a protective effect against lung cancer. The summary, seen by The Telegraph, also states: 'There was no association between lung cancer risk and ETS exposure during childhood.' " And if lawmakers need additional real world data to further highlight the need to eliminate these onerous and arbitrary laws, air quality testing by Johns Hopkins University proves that secondhand smoke is up to 25,000 times SAFER than occupational (OSHA) workplace regulations. The Chemistry of Secondary Smoke About 94% of secondary smoke is composed of water vapor and ordinary air with a slight excess of carbon dioxide. Another 3 % is carbon monoxide. The last 3 % contains the rest of the 4,000 or so chemicals supposedly to be found in smoke… but found, obviously, in very small quantities if at all.This is because most of the assumed chemicals have never actually been found in secondhand smoke. (1989 Report of the Surgeon General p. 80). Most of these chemicals can only be found in quantities measured in nanograms, picograms and femtograms. Many cannot even be detected in these amounts: their presence is simply theorized rather than measured. To bring those quantities into a real world perspective, take a saltshaker and shake out a few grains of salt. A single grain of that salt will weigh in the ballpark of 100 million picograms! (Allen Blackman. Chemistry Magazine 10/08/01). - (Excerpted from "Dissecting Antismokers' Brains" with permission of the author.) The Myth of the Smoking Ban ‘Miracle’ Restrictions on smoking around the world are claimed to have had a dramatic effect on heart attack rates. It's not true. http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/7451/ As for secondhand smoke in the air, OSHA has stated outright that: "Field studies of environmental tobacco smoke indicate that under normal conditions, the components in tobacco smoke are diluted below existing Permissible Exposure Levels (PELS.) as referenced in the Air Contaminant Standard (29 CFR 1910.1000)...It would be very rare to find a workplace with so much smoking that any individual PEL would be exceeded." -Letter From Greg Watchman, Acting Sec'y, OSHA, To Leroy J Pletten, PHD, July 8, 1997 -harleyrider1978 JOINT STATEMENT ON THE RE-ASSESSMENT OF THE TOXICOLOGICAL TESTING OF TOBACCO PRODUCTS" 7 October, the COT meeting on 26 October and the COC meeting on 18 November 2004. http://cot.food.gov.uk/pdfs/cotstatementtobacco0409 "5. The Committees commented that tobacco smoke was a highly complex chemical mixture and that the causative agents for smoke induced diseases (such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, effects on reproduction and on offspring) was unknown. The mechanisms by which tobacco induced adverse effects were not established. The best information related to tobacco smoke - induced lung cancer, but even in this instance a detailed mechanism was not available. The Committees therefore agreed that on the basis of current knowledge it would be very difficult to identify a toxicological testing strategy or a biomonitoring approach for use in volunteer studies with smokers where the end-points determined or biomarkers measured were predictive of the overall burden of tobacco-induced adverse disease." In other words ... our first hand smoke theory is so lame we can't even design a bogus lab experiment to prove it. In fact ... we don't even know how tobacco does all of the magical things we claim it does. The greatest threat to the second hand theory is the weakness of the first hand theory. Outdoor bans are even crazier than indoor bans. The chemical make-up of shs is nearly 94% water vapor and A SLIGHT AMOUNT OF CARBON DIOXIDE with about 3% being carbon monoxide AND 3% CONTAINING THOSE SUPPOSED KILLER CARCENOGENS......... n-nitrosomines which you hear so much about is actually arsenic..what they dont tell you is that the measurements they took match the naturally occuring arsenic in the air outside everywhere. they measured levels at 0-29 picograms....which is totally safe...the amount has to be 5 million times that to be harmful to humans........you see how they switched it. Trying to blame shs for what is actually a natural thing. The levels of other things in shs if they can be measured at all are millions if not billions of times smaller than the amounts needed to harm anyone......just remember this second hand smoke is a joke within nano seconds from the burn it turns into WATER VAPOR.....Even the exhaled smoke is loaded down with water vapor...osha has said nothing in shs/ets is going to harm you or anyone else.....what shs will do is irritate those with weak immune responces.......thats why shs is classified as a class 3 IRRITANT BY OSHA AND THE EPA.....Remember this a prohibition movement must rely on scare tactics and big money in order to succeed to the level of getting legislation....These outdoor regulations are even crazier than the first claims made for indoor bans....... As for secondhand smoke in the air, OSHA has stated outright that: "Field studies of environmental tobacco smoke indicate that under normal conditions, the components in tobacco smoke are diluted below existing Permissible Exposure Levels (PELS.) as referenced in the Air Contaminant Standard (29 CFR 1910.1000)...It would be very rare to find a workplace with so much smoking that any individual PEL would be exceeded." -Letter From Greg Watchman, Acting Sec'y, OSHA, To Leroy J Pletten, PHD, July 8, 1997 -harleyrider1978
10/19/2009
TROYWIEGAND says....
UH EVERYONE NEW THAT SECONDHAND SMOKING IS FARTHER WORSE THAN THE PERSON THAT ACTUALLY SMOKES AT LEAST THEY SHOULD GOD ITS BEEN THAT AWAY FOR GENERATIONS DONT HAVE TO MAKE UP EXCUSES TO BANNED THE SMOKING IN PUBLIC PLACES BUT ME PERSNALLY THINK THAT ITS TAKING AWAY OUR FREEDOM TO DO WHAT WE WANT TO DO ALTHOUGH I DO UNDERSTAND IT AND I AM ALL FOR IT BECAUSE ITS NOT RIGHT FOR A NON-SMOKER TO BREATH IN THE SMOKE AND ETC.
10/17/2009
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