No Smoking Here!

Opposition to tobacco has a history in Western Civilization, a history that starts as soon as it was imported into England in the early 1600s by Sir Walter Raleigh*. It was opposed by King James I, for example. The current round of anti-smoking legislation, however, began, at least here in New York, around 1990, when smoking in elevators was banned by law. Five or so years later, then Mayor Giuliani banned it in restaurants and workplaces. There was opposition to this, but not too much. The phenomenon started of your seeing people hanging about outside buildings or restaurants, or in parking lots at offices outside the city, often huddled against a wall during driving rain or snow. Some business may have been lost to the catering industry, and definitely there was an increase in unproductivity in workplaces as many employees took too much time off for smoking breaks.

It was always known that tobacco had deleterious effects on health (as well as good effects such as sharper awareness, which are never mentioned now). The US Surgeon-General Everett Koop came out with a dictat against smoking in the 1970s, hence the warning labels on cigarette packs and the limitations on advertising. It is only in the last few years, generally marking the beginning of the 21st Century, that actual smoking bans have proliferated, starting in California.

That trend has now gone to extremes (although not so far here in NY as San Francisco's ban on smoking in parks and squares), with Mayor Bloomberg, an ex-smoker himself -- hence his fanaticism as a 'convert' -- banning this activity in bars, a once sacrosanct haven for smokers. Booze and Smokes go together, as all drinkers/smokers know. To separate them is a hardship. He also banned it in private clubs, which, to me, is an unconstitutional infringement on freedom of association.

The ostensible reason for the ban is to protect the health of the local workers from the effects of 'second-hand smoke'. This argument is fallacious, obnoxious as the fug used to be in some badly ventilated bars. Read this:

The first law of Toxicology is: the dosage makes the poison. A cup of coffee for example contains 19 carcinogens and a thousand chemicals. Does this mean a cup of coffee is harmful? No. The amounts are so minute as to be harmless. Broccoli contains carcinogens. Does this mean broccoli is harmful? No. The reason is the same. Frying meat generates thousands of chemicals and carcinogens into the air, many of the very same ones as second-hand smoke. Does this mean frying a steak imperils the health of others? No. For the very good reason that the dosage makes the poison.

When the issue becomes second-hand smoke logic and common sense are dispatched and replaced with an organized campaign of scare mongering.

Toxicologists have repeatedly quantified the 'Threshold Level' of the 19 carcinogens in second-hand smoke. Here is a sample of the cigarettes needed to reach 'Threshold Levels' - assuming an 8-12 foot, sealed, non-ventilated room-per hour:
• Toluene: 1,000,000 cigarettes per hour
• Polonium: 210-750,000 cigarettes per hour
• 2-Toludine: 290,000 cigarettes per hour
• Benzo (a) Pyrene: 222,000 cigarettes per hour
Without belaboring the point the absolute lowest is Benzene where ONLY 1,290 cigarettes PER HOUR are required to reach threshold levels. This would require 300 smokers each smoking 62 packs per hour in an 8-12 foot sealed, non-ventilated room.

This is how ridiculous the propaganda about second-hand smoke has become.

-- Warren Klass - President Forces Canada, Winnipeg

One can also argue that cars and factories produce more pollution that is harmful to the lungs than smoking ever did. However, it is probably now too late to ease the smoking ban and allow more exceptions than under the current laws. It has been in effect too long and has become a non-issue except for inveterate smokers like myself, who will continue to stand outside the bar during a snowstorm or a heatwave for a smoke break, and will not frequent a bar where I need to be more than 20 feet away from the front door, or have to risk having my seat taken while I am away.