P & T and Secondhand Smoke

[Ivor the Engineer]

Back from skiing in Austria in one piece:D Not enough snow:( It is common to see people who are into exercise, healthy eating and who are smokers. It's also very rare to find a non-smoking area in a bar or restaurant.

I was wrong about the leaders of a country not having the guts to ban smoking and tobacco -

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4012639.stm

[BillyJoe]

Ivor,

We didn't have any worthwhile snow all last winter and the local mountain had none at all.

I once saw a man light up a cigarette after running a marathon.

I think bans on tobacco sales will happen everywhere "in the fullness of time" (perhaps when the percentage of smokers falls below a level that can be ignored for political purposes ?5%)

BJ

[luchog]

Statistics in Australia are very different:
1983: males: 40%; females: 32%
Today: males: 18%; females: 16%

Nothing in your post indicates that that is the result of your warning lables.

I seriously doubt that warning labels have a statistically significant effect on the individual smoker's decision to light up. Far more likely is that it's the effect of greatly improved knowledge of and education about the dangers of smoking, and a changed social attitute toward smoking resulting in less peer pressure in favor of it during the time when most smokers start (teens and early 20s).

Reminds me of one of my favorite Denis Leary quotes:
"There's a guy, I don't know if you've heard about this guy, he's been in the news a lot lately ... apparently this is his life's dream cause he's going country to country, he has a Senate hearing coming up in the next few weeks, and this is what he wants to do: He wants to make the warnings on the packs bigger! Yeah, he wants the whole front of the pack to be one big warning. Like the problem is that we just haven't noticed yet. Like he's gonna get his way and all of a sudden smoker's around the world will be like, 'Yeah Bill, I've got some cigarettes -HOLY S***! These things are bad for you? I thought they were good for you. S***, I thought they had vitamin C in 'em and stuff.' You f***ing dolt, it doesn't matter how big the warning are. You could have cigarettes that were called the warnings. You could have cigarettes that came in a black pack, with a skull and crossbones in the front, and called TUMORS, and smokers would be lining up around the block, going 'I can't wait to get my hands on these things. I bet you get a tumor as soon as you light up.' Doesn't matter how big the warnings are or how much they cost. Keep raising the prices, we'll break into your houses to get the f***ing cigarettes, ok!? They're a drug, we're addicted, ok!?"

[luchog]

If there's a dichotomy here, it's of your making. You were the one who claimed that "are there to protect employees, not patrons." I don't contest that smoking bans do protect employees, but I do question the notion that that is the driving factor behind the bans, rather than an incidental effect.

Given that the actual text of the ban legislation, at least the ones I've read (several) so far, are worded strictly with regard to employee safety, and not the health of the general populace, it's a safe conclusion that the purpose was, in fact, the stated employee safety. Can you cite a regulation that contains language applying to general public health?

Given that the purported dangers of ETS have been bruited across the First World for over a decade, I find it hard to believe that such a creature still exists as a bar employee who is unaware of said dangers. (I say "purported" because the science supporting that notion was pretty shoddy up to the time this thread was started, even though I acknowledge that more solid evidence may have emerged in the interim.)

Your irony meter must have been broken when you wrote that. Pay specific attention to these two parts: "I find it hard to believe that such a creature still exists as a bar employee who is unaware of said dangers" and "I say "purported" because the science supporting that notion was pretty shoddy up to the time this thread was started". See the contradiction there?

It's just that kind of dismissive woo that ignores the reams of studies on the dangers of PES that have been published in the last 10, and in particular the last 5, years, that is the reason that I used the qualifier "fully" in my statement. Some knowledge is out there, definitely. But a lot of it tends to get downplayed, thanks to a number of bogus (and eventually debunked) studies by tobacco industry shills that supposedly "refute" the dangers.
I was also informed by my MAST instructor that, as a result of said strictures, people willing to tend bar in Washington state are in short supply, and anyone with a Class 12 or 13 permit who is halfway competent can more or less have his or her pick of jobs.
That must by why close to half of the the nearly-dozen licensed bartenders I know here in the city are unable to find bartending jobs, and typically work as waitstaff or baristas instead.

I have two words for you: Pierce County. Following the introduction of the smoking ban by the Pierce County board of Health in January 2004, smoking bar patrons took their custom to King County and the Indian reservations instead. And yes, it hurt the industry; alcohol servers in Pierce found themselves with way less in tips, if they didn't get laid off altogether.

I've seen a lot of anecdotal claims about a number of areas and businesses. Nothing with any actual factual data to back them up. Care to provide a citation? Since all the actual studies done have so far shown just the opposite.

And if "85% of restaurants and bars were already non-smoking, and that number was only set to increase", then it really couldn't have made that big an impact, could it?
And before you ask "what about a limited area like New York City?" I would point out that there's snobbery involved, which skews the results.
Translation: "Anedcotes that support my assertions are scientific fact, hard data that refutes my assertions are obviously the result of some other factor, and therefore do not refute my claim". I suggest you do more reading, since studies in other areas that have enacted bans have shown little to no negative impact, and in some areas quite a bit of positive impact.

I said that "no campaign has been mounted on a scale even remotely comparable to that waged against ETS." Obviously, hearing damage (as an example) does not come close to the purported effects of ETS, but my point was, and remains, that there is oddly enough no campaign on, say, 40% of the scale of the anti-smoking campaign to eliminate loud noises in bars.

Did you completely

As it happens, I know two people, one of whom a good friend, who committed suicide because tinnitus affected their quality of life beyond the point that they thought said life was worth living.
Sounds like tinnitus most likely wasn't there biggest problem. Oh, and did earplugs just not exist in their world? (Also sounds extremely far-fetched, but I'm not going to get into that debate right now.)

By contrast, I know one person whose death is directly attributable to smoking (and we're not talking ETS; this guy smoked two packs a day for thirty years), and he didn't have to commit suicide.

By contrast, I have a number of friends, aquaintances and family members who have died or been hospitalized due to the direct effects of smoking or exposure to PES, or complication of an existing condition resulting from smoking or PES. So do my anecdotes trump your anecdotes, or would you prefer, as I would, to stick with actual, scientific evidence.

Speaking as a former soldier, I'm happy to inform you that noxious fumes can be blocked by the simple expedient of wearing a respirator.

Speaking as a reasonable human being (and also a former soldier), do you have to go to a special school to become that deliberately obtuse? So waitstaff and bartenders wearing respirators that seriously impede their ability to perform their jobs, are the equivalent of wearing hearing protection that doesn't have a significant impact on their ability to perform their jobs.

See, it's this kind of woo-woo thinking and resorting to blatant logical fallacies that eliminates any sympathy I have for the pro-smoking crowd.

False equivalence. Protection from ETS does exist, in the form of respirators. The distinction between bar staff having to work in self-purchased respirators and self-purchased hearing protection is one of degree, not of principle. Why should the staff be expected to buy ear plugs when the music could simply be turned down a few decibels?

No, the false equivalence is yours, since the protection methods have dramatically different impacts on the ability of employees to perform their jobs. Which anyone with more than three active brain cells can clearly see. The degree of difference is so large that it constitutes an effective difference in kind.

Oh, and unlike your previous claim, potentially harmful noise exposure is regulated by OSHA, and employers are required to provide hearing protection to employees when the noise level exceeds a particular threshhold.

I don't know a single smoker in Washington state who smokes in his or her own house; smoking in a local bar was the only option for indoors smoking open to myself and most of my acquaintances, and since the passage of 901, we don't even have that.
Then you must know practically no one. The only smokers I know (and over half the people I know smoke) who won't smoke in their residences refrain exclusively because of rental/lease agreements that prohibit it (and a few even ignore that restriction and smoke inside anyway).

But the plural of "anecdote" is not "data"; and the studies showing strong, direct links between numerous childhood ailments and disorders, including SIDS, is adequate proof that the majority of smokers do, in fact, smoke in their residences.

Guess you'll just have to buy an umbrella and cope right along with the rest of us.

[Blue Mountain]

See, it's this kind of woo-woo thinking and resorting to blatant logical fallacies that eliminates any sympathy I have for the pro-smoking crowd.
[And everything else luchog wrote in that post]
Hear! Hear! It's nice to see someone with the time and resources to back up a lot of the points I've been making in this thread.

[BillyJoe]

Nothing in your post indicates that that is the result of your warning lables.You're right. I was using labels as a stand-in for "anti-smoking measures". Sorry, I thought actually that's what we were talking about.

I seriously doubt that warning labels have a statistically significant effect on the individual smoker's decision to light up. Far more likely is that it's the effect of greatly improved knowledge of and education about the dangers of smoking, and a changed social attitute toward smoking resulting in less peer pressure in favor of it during the time when most smokers start (teens and early 20s).Yep, the whole anti-smoking push. :)


Reminds me of one of my favorite Denis Leary quotes:
"There's a guy, I don't know if you've heard about this guy, he's been in the news a lot lately ... apparently this is his life's dream cause he's going country to country, he has a Senate hearing coming up in the next few weeks, and this is what he wants to do: He wants to make the warnings on the packs bigger! Yeah, he wants the whole front of the pack to be one big warning. Done.

Like the problem is that we just haven't noticed yet.Yeah, I agree. A big full faced coloured photograph of a diseased lung is no more noticeable than a single black and white line stating that "Smoking is a health hazard". :rolleyes:
Did anyone say denial? ;)

Like he's gonna get his way and all of a sudden smoker's around the world will be like, 'Yeah Bill, I've got some cigarettes -HOLY S***! These things are bad for you? I thought they were good for you. S***, I thought they had vitamin C in 'em and stuff.'Yeah, strawmen are easily set alight. :D

You f***ing dolt, it doesn't matter how big the warning are. You could have cigarettes that were called the warnings. You could have cigarettes that came in a black pack, with a skull and crossbones in the front, and called TUMORS, and smokers would be lining up around the block, going 'I can't wait to get my hands on these things. I bet you get a tumor as soon as you light up.' Doesn't matter how big the warnings are or how much they cost. Keep raising the prices, we'll break into your houses to get the f***ing cigarettes, ok!? They're a drug, we're addicted, ok!?"Firstly, addicts are known to give up their habit occasionally. Secondly, there is collateral damage - the not-yet smoker. Anyway, as I say, it's part of the anti-smoking push and that push is succeeding in reducing the number of smokers (in Australia at least).

[roger]

Obviously, hearing damage (as an example) does not come close to the purported effects of ETS, but my point was, and remains, that there is oddly enough no campaign on, say, 40% of the scale of the anti-smoking campaign to eliminate loud noises in bars.
Well, it is trivially simple to find a bar that is quiet, thus there is no pressing need or desire for legislative solutions to the problem. I hate loud places and smoky places. I can easily find quiet places. Prior to smoking bans, finding smoke free places was very, very difficult. Basically the only way to do so was to find a nearly empty place, and hope that no smoking customer was seated near you after you were seated. There's no need for the sonic compaign, outside perhaps the worker's safety reason, hence, no push for it.

[luchog]

Done.
Yeah, I agree. A big full faced coloured photograph of a diseased lung is no more noticeable than a single black and white line stating that "Smoking is a health hazard". :rolleyes:
Did anyone say denial? ;)
Yeah, strawmen are easily set alight. :D
Firstly, addicts are known to give up their habit occasionally. Secondly, there is collateral damage - the not-yet smoker. Anyway, as I say, it's part of the anti-smoking push and that push is succeeding in reducing the number of smokers (in Australia at least).
So I take it that hyperbolic humour isn't a big thing in Australia? Or are you just personally unaware that the comment was from a commedian

[BillyJoe]

Oh yeah. Well, a comedian is someone who makes a point in a humourous way. Very effective sometimes. But you can laugh and still disagree with his point.

[luchog]

Oh yeah. Well, a comedian is someone who makes a point in a humourous way. Very effective sometimes. But you can laugh and still disagree with his point.

Yes, but pointing out "logical fallacies" in hyperbolic humour is kind of like stomping goldfish on the sidewalk.

[BillyJoe]

...unless someone's using it to prove a point. ;)