What makes you think they're going to stop at cigarettes? We're headed down a slippery slope to a society where everything that's not forbidden is compulsory...

In Chicago, a subsidiary of the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company is opening an upscale tobacco lounge just as a smoking ban has taken effect.

(link) [New York Times]

/Politics | 4 writebacks | permanent link

On 1/23/2006 07:45:22
Arwin wrote

Another prohibition?

Dave, I generally agree with what you have said here. However I have to point out that you should be happy about Elk Grove's stance. In a previous post you suggested government is making money from tabacco and therefore will never ban it. I think your problem was it was hypocritical for the state to make money from sale of a product the state labeled as contrary to public health. Of course Elk Grove may not be making any money from sale of tabacco and therefore have no qualms about being "consistent" in their banning of tabacco. Banning of tabacco will probably work about as well as prohibition.... hey Dave, if tabacco is banned this could be a great business opportunity for you.

On 1/23/2006 20:20:07
Bill Hannegan wrote

Welcome new ETS study.

Good news! A huge new ETS study indicates smoking bans may not be necessary to protect public health after all! Press Release For Immediate Release: December 5 , 2005 Do Smoking Bans cause a 27 to 40% drop in admissions for myocardial infarction in hospitals? December 5, 2005 Antismokers claim that studies have shown that bans bring about an immediate and drastic decrease in heart attacks among nonsmokers exposed to smoke at work. This claim was never true to begin with - the cited studies never separated and analyzed nonsmokers as a separate group - and it has now been pointed out in the pages of the BMJ that even the claim of saving lives among the combined population of smokers and nonsmokers might be worthless. While many making that claim may have believed their information to be accurate, it is now obvious that its basis has been thrown strongly into question. As Jacob Sullum noted in a December 1st reaction to the announcement, "An effect this dramatic (i.e. an immediate and pronounced drop of hospital admissions for heart attacks) should have been noticed all over the country..." Just a week before the Chicago Aldermen were due to vote on a citywide smoking ban, two independent researchers working together, David W. Kuneman and Michael J. McFadden, unveiled a new study covering a population base roughly 1,000 times as large as the previous town-based studies. The new study indicates strongly that rather than a 30% decrease in heart attacks, statewide smoking bans seem to have literally NO EFFECT AT ALL on heart attack rates. Incredibly the data even indicates that California's statewide heart attack rate went UP by 6% in the first full year of their total smoking ban! The data for the study and the basis of its design have been backed up and expanded by well-known antismoking researcher Michael Siegel who has come out in support of the researchers' approach as providing "compelling evidence that brings into question the conclusion that smoking bans have an immediate and drastic effect on heart attack incidence." His observation is echoed by researcher Kuneman who asks, "Ever wonder why you didn't hear about post ban heart attack declines in New York City? Or in Minneapolis or Los Angeles? Now you know!" On December 4th the British Medical Journal entered the fray with the online publication of a Rapid Response by Mr. McFadden outlining the new research and posing sharp criticisms of the earlier studies and of the refusal of the authors of those studies to respond to previous criticisms and questions. McFadden points out that the data in the Kuneman/McFadden study are fully open for public examination and far less selective than the data in the earlier studies and notes with pride that he and his co-researcher have been quick to respond to all queries posted about their methodology on Dr. Siegel's web blog. He also poses the wider ranging question of whether studies commissioned by the "Antismoking Industry" should begin to receive the same cautious reception accorded those commissioned by "Big Tobacco." The current study, as well as an earlier one by the duo, were unfunded and neither researcher receives grants for their work from either interest group. Kuneman sharply asks the question, "Why the difference between the studies? For one thing we weren't dependent on antismoking-targeted grants!" At this point there appears to be very little, if any, real scientific support for the claim that protecting nonsmokers from normal levels of exposure to secondary smoke prevents any heart attacks. And it is this claim that has always provided the impressive numbers upon which ban advocates have pressed legislators to pass smoking bans. Without those numbers proponents of extreme bans are left with little other than the widely discredited EPA figures relating ETS to lung cancer and a few isolated instances of hospitality workers who have come to believe that their own cancers were caused by working in smoking establishments. Samantha Phillipe, editor of the longstanding smokersclubinc.com newsletter, notes that while it's always a cause for sadness when someone becomes ill that it's even more sad when they are misguidedly advised to blame family and friends for their illness. Without a compelling body of scientific evidence backing them up, smoking bans are an unnecessary and overbearing intrusion of government into the spheres of free choice, private property and free enterprise. And the Kuneman/McFadden study points up just how uncompelling even some of the strongest and most publicised evidence actually is. References: 1) Article: A Preliminary Study 2) Mike Siegel's blog analysis and follow up comments: 3) BMJ Response: Helena 1000 Days 4) Jacob Sullum's REASON column: Hit and Run Michael J. McFadden Author of "Dissecting Antismokers' Brains" Mid-Atlantic Regional Director of SmokersClubInc.com web page: http://pasan.thetruthisalie.com/ Email: Cantiloper@aol.com

On 1/24/2006 08:05:14
Arwin wrote

Consideration

Congratulations! A flawed health report has been found regarding smoking! It seems the medical community often goofs up. What is unhealthy today is the next health trend. Remember how eggs were very bad for you. Let's assume for a minute smoking is a healthy habit. Even so I think it is incumbent upon smokers to be considerate of non-smokers. I don't enjoy smelling smoke, especially cigarette smoke. For some reason pipe and cigar smoke to my nose isn't so bad... depending on the quality of the tabacco. It brings to mind the old comedy bit by Steve Martin. "Mind if I smoke?" "No, do you mind if I fart? Yeah, I'll just light one up." If you want to, as Kurt Vonnegut puts it, slowly commit suicide by smoking, be my guest. While doing so don't expose me to the stench from your cigarette.

On 1/28/2006 10:48:27
Lachlann wrote

runnin smokes for Capone

This is just a speakeasy for the new millenium! History has demonstrated time and again that if the sale of a desired product is banned, organized crime will step up to fill the niche. Then tobacco will be added to the "war on drugs".