There are two reasons why I could not possibly let this one pass by without comment.
First, while the free market argument against anti-smoking laws (such matters should be decided by means of individual choice and the exercise of property rights) are both meritorious and rational, nowhere near enough attention is actually paid to questioning the decades-long propoganda war against tobacco. Far too many people have now accepted as fact that inhaling tobacco smoke is a uniquely dangerous activity.
However, it is my view that, while smoking tobacco is not entirely risk-free, the dangers of doing so have been grossly exaggerated.
It has taken some time (these things usually do) but now some people are prepared to start challenging this taboo:
As for smoking bans in “public places”, there are three reasons why they’re unjustified. First, pubs and clubs are actually private property. Second, bars don’t have to be smoky any more, with the air-cleaning technology available. But most importantly: no danger from “second-hand smoke” has ever been proven. Unlike most journalists, politicians and, regrettably, doctors, I’ve gone through all of the more than 40 studies. Only a few show any risk, and it’s statistically insignificant. There are higher risks from drinking milk, using mouthwash and keeping pet birds. I swear I’m not making this up! People who use this sort of “junk science” to stigmatise smokers and to nag and bully us out of our pleasures should be bloody well ashamed of themselves.
So they should. Regrettably, they appear to be all too bloody well pleased with themselves.
Secondly, the above broadside was angrily discharged by Joe Jackson, the Grammy Award-winning British singer and recording artist and that makes it doubly significant. Like everybody else I have grown weary of members of the entertainment industry seeking more attention than they could ever possibly deserve with some conformist, fashionable claptrap about ‘saving the planet’ or similar bunkum. So it is encouraging to note that not everyone in that industry has lost the capacity for critical thought.
My warmest congratulations to Joe Jackson. Twice!
[My thanks to Kevin McFarlane who posted this link to the Libertarian Alliance Forum.]
“Far too many people have now accepted as fact that inhaling tobacco smoke is a uniquely dangerous activity.”
That’s because the “evidence is overwhelming” and “there are millions of studies that prove it” as long as you don’t ask for the raw data from just one study that does.
The purpose of the anti tobacco industry has nothing to do with health. It may have at one time but I’m doubtfull it ever was. The proof of that is the lack of any statements ever made on minimising risks to people who wish to continue as smokers. The proof is also in the utter rubbish they put forth on the subject of SHS and the “solutions” they come up with. If health were important then suggestions to switch from banning smoking in “public” places to setting maximum levels of air bourne dangerous particles of any kind would seem like a more healthy solution.
From the lack of any credible evidence to the contrary I’d say their purpose is to cripple the tobacco industry. Not because they produce tobacco products but because they make a lot of money. There is also an unbelievable amount of money to be made from the anti tobacco industry.
I shall go out and buy some licenced copies of Joe Jackson’s works at once, making sure to pay the full copyright.
If you believe all the propaganda then the tobcco industry seems like a singularly evil thing: a business which makes its money addicting children & the ignorant to a murderously deadly poison, and continually denying the obvious so as to perpetuate the scam. Such a stark portrayal of “evil” attracts career do-gooders who are probably at least as taken in by the libel as anyone else. It would be very hard for a person who’s built an identity upon opposing this “evil” to recognise, or even seriously consider, that they might be wrong.
To follow the logic of showing ugly pictures on tobacco products, I think they should show pictures of drowned children on bottles of water, as well.
Max
Smoking is an annoying habit. It makes everything around a smoker smell like a smoker. I couldn’t go around spraying cologne on passersby, so why does a smoker get to make others smell like smoke? And as for health effects, it gives me a headache.
I like the idea of air cleaning systems, but can such things be mandated? That doesn’t sound too libertarian. I don’t mind smokers smoking, I just don’t want to smell like their cigarettes (or other products). Banning smoking is stupid, but letting smokers run roughshod over our shared air is not something I enjoy.
jon: the complaints of people like you are the reason that so many businesses are non-smoking. When customers object, business pays attention.
The difference between free-market and mandated solutions is that, with a free market, all preferences get served. There will be places for folks who hate smoke, and places for those who like it. Under a mandated solution, those whose preferences don’t match up are out of luck.
I’m an ex-smoker (a 60 a day gal before I quit) and I’m quite happy to live and let live re smokers’ rights. As long as it’s not overwhelming, I can tolerate cigarette smoke in the air. And I agree with commentators who say it’s not about health; it’s about destroying the tobacco industry because these people are pure and simply vicious anti-capitalists and they cannot tolerate successful big business.
*But*, my tolerance plummets to below zero in the face of passive listening. I do not want to be assaulted by other people’s choice in music – not in restaurants, not in bars, not in supermarkets, not in elevators, not in airports, not in hotel lobbies. If we could just get the anti-capitalists interested in destroying the music industry, starting with bans on music in “public” places, that would be a start … They could say it raises the blood pressure of people who don’t like the music and gives them hypertension. Some suicidal businesses even play Celine Dion …
I dunno, Verity. You seem like you’re in the minority. 😛
The Wobbly Guy
Wobbly – why? Because I’m an ang-moh? There’s a movement – in fact, I think several in different countries – to get this assault stopped. We can no more shut unwanted music out of our brains than we can unwanted cigarette smoke out of our lungs. With a sight we don’t want to see, we can close our eyes. I think the Beeb’s Radio Four’s John Humphries is an active member of some group trying to axe unwanted music in public places.
Elevator music, music in railway stations and hotel lobby music seeks to be aural wallpaper and relatively inoffensive, but bars and clubs and restaurants force the choices of the minimum-wage staff on the customer. Do explain why you claim I’m in the minority. Terimah kasi, lah!
Gustave:
Try “Stepping Out”, one of Jackson’s earlier albums. The song “Everything Gives Your Cancer” is a precursor of his current attitude towards the Nannies.
As a non-smoker, the thing that pisses me off most about passive smoking is nothing to do with any potential health risks. It’s more to do with the fact that it is incredibly unpleasant. Banning it may be very much over the top but I just wish some people were a bit more considerate. It really is annoying that everytime I go to the pub I return home reeking of someone elses filth.
Why is it some people are incapable of stopping smoking for an hour or two while they are in a restaraunt? Just the other day I was enjoying a meal in the local Chinese when someone nearby lit up and all but ruined my meal with the suffocating stench of it.
As for music in restaraunts I would be inclined to agree that it is extremely irritating (unless they play something I like, in which case it would extremely irritate someone else.) In the aforementioned Chinese they play dodgy karaoke versions of shitty pop songs, old and new. They even have TV’s up all over the walls with the words on them and dodgy videos too.
Oh, come on! You would really believe that there are NO risks to second hand smoke? Suddeny the tobbaco companies are the poor down trodden, and non smokers are the bullies. Despite what Jeffrey Wigand has told you, you wold rather believe that the tobbaco industry is benign. Can you remember the CEO’s swearing to congress that there were no harmful effects to smoking? I am actually laughing. The smoke from cigs is filled with nicotine and tar. If I breath it…what? I can smell it on my clothes, and in my hair….are you going to tell me it isn’t in the air that I breath?
The only reasons why there are not enough conclusive studies against second hand smoke, is first of all IT IS OBVIOUS, and second, who is going to pay millions of dollars for the study? The FDA knows that the product is a drug delivery system, and is forced to turn the other way. Why? Because the poor tobbaco farmer, and multimillion dollar industry (read taxes) would be impacted…
Give me a break…Joe Jackson? Suddenly we are listening to Joe Jackson? He got his doctor of science and Ph.D. degree where exactly? I forget…. “I’ve gone through all of the more than 40 studies”. Well I supose if the surgeon general can have an opinion on music, a musician can have an opinion on the harm of second hand smoke.
Shame
OK, I can’t stop….
Let’s believe Joe Jackson over the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Report on Carcinogens “Second-hand smoke has twice as much nicotine and tar as the smoke that smokers inhale. It also has five times the carbon monoxide which decreases the amount of oxygen in our blood”
Let’s have Joe Jackson decide public policy instead of the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare. After all they think that “Second-hand smoke causes disease and death in healthy non-smokers”.
Maybe we should give Joe Jackson the chance to write for the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. He could dispute the findings in the Vol. 24, August 1994, edition (pp. 546-554) where they found that “Exposure for as little as 8 to 20 minutes causes physical reactions linked to heart and stroke disease”.
Joe Jackson is acting as a “member of the entertainment industry seeking more attention than they could ever possibly deserve”. The only difference it is just that this time the ‘member’ agrees with you.
Buck, millions have been spent on second-hand smoke studies – for at least forty years. It smells nasty, and there may be some effect on a few people, but that’s about it. Smoking is like licking match-heads, the potassium and other chemicals will rot away your bones and lungs: second-hand smoke is like lighting a barbecue.
I do know of one study that had results. The researcher studied the effects of SHS (or ETS) on asthmatics – a sure-fire way to get stats on dangerous effects. right? Except no correlation was found… However, the study was actually worthwhile because it uncovered a recessive gene that may cause as much as forty percent of asthma! This was less than a year ago, so not fully verified yet, but may lead to help for asthma sufferers.
The fact remains that when used correctly, cigarettes kill 1/3 of their users. What other product can you name that does this? If someone tried to introduce a product that did that today, it would never make the market.
There is no “safe” exposure to cigarettes. What you get is a set of odds that for a second-hand smoker are far better than for a smoker. It’s kind of like drinking when pregnant. There is no safe exposure to alcohol in pregnancy and no way to know for sure if that last drink or that last smoke was the one that gave you cancer or your baby FAS.
All this aside, I’ve been voting with my feet for the last 10 years or so. I try not to go to smoky clubs and restaurants. If I end up in a place where the air is unbreathable, I leave. Business around here are starting to figure this out, too. Finally.
Studies that “had results”:
Health Effects of Exposure to Second-hand Smoke “Health effects of exposure to environmental tobacco smoke: Final Report”; California Environmental ProtectionAgency, Office of the Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, September 1997.
“Environmental tobacco smoke exposure and ischaemic heart disease: an evaluation of the evidence”; M.R. Law,J.K. Morris, N.J. Wald, British Medical Journal 315: 973-988, 18 October 1997.
“Passive Smoking and the Risk of Coronary Heart Disease – A Meta Analysis of Epidemiologic Studies”; J. He, S.Vupputuri, K. Allen, M.R. Prerost, J. Hughes, P.K. Whelton, The New England Journal of Medicine, 340(12):920-926, March25, 1999.
“Passive Smoking as well as Active Smoking Increases the Risk of Acute Stroke”, R. Bonita, J. Duncan, T. Truelsen,R. T. Jackson, R. Beaglehole, Tobacco Control 8:156-160, Summer 1999
I am afraid that none of these researchers are Grammy winning musicians, so you probably do not think that any of them count.
OK, OK… I will stop. But my favorite, is the study that showed that children aged between 12 and 36 months exposed to 10 cigarettes per day, had 12 times the nicotine in thier system than children who are not exposed to second hand smoke.
http://ije.oupjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/24/1/88
Now maybe in Joe Jacksons world that is not a big deal, but these babies are not actually smoking, and yet the level of nicotine in their systems are as high as if they did take a drag or two every day.