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Hello. I'm back from NY and you know I'm softening in my attitude to the smoking ban. The point Papi and bitchiekittie make at the top of the thread about the positive effects really came home to me. People gathering on the peripheries - it's very clubbable. There seems to be an even greater bond between smokers, which - for an out-of-towner - feels very welcoming. With wide sidewalks and lots of outdoor seating (compared with London), where the bar can spill out onto the street, it doesn't feel like much of a sacrifice at all not to smoke where there's ceiling. And speaking to people, smokers and non, I can appreciate better how much a smoke-free atmosphere indoors improves lots of people's evening - and more happy people is good for everyone.
Although, what it's like in winter, and whether it would work in London, I'm less sure.
As a matter of purely persoonal interest, what are you smoking?
Not crack. I'm honestly not convinced that passive smoking causes cancer. And I'm kinda surprised that I'm the only one expressing such doubts. *shrug*
I believe that cigarette smoke contains carcinogens, but like anything else, dosis facit venenum.
Thing is, so many of these studies are so dodgy. For instance, the 1992 EPA study Flyboy linked to has been hugely criticised - particularly for their statistical analysis and for moving the goal-posts. When the results didn't reach the standard threshold for statistical significance, they lowered the threshold. Their use of 'meta-analysis' was also highly controversial. They gathered eleven small, discrete studies together to claimed the totality showed a statistically significant increase in cancer in passive smokers. In fact they bundled one report that concluded that there was a statistically significant increase with 10 that concluded neutrally and claimed a victory on the balance.
The same goes for the Australian National Health & Medical research Council report Nina offered; they were found guilty of fudging their results by a federal judge.
The other report that people often cite is the IARC one, carried out over 7 years by 12 research centres under the auspices of the World Health Organisation. That's the one gave the often-quoted 16% increase in lung cancer risk for non-smokers living with smokers. But it's shit science. They admit themselves that the increased risk was not statistically significant. Here, in their own press release, rebutting their critics.
(Incidentally, it's not that I think they're lying, Flyboy, more that they feel motivated to spin the evidence in a certain direction (for, arguably, laudable reasons). I don't believe that the smoking ban is about reducing lung cancer in non-smokers, I believe it's about reducing cancer in smokers.)
So, you can cite one study at me, and I'll cite another. How about this, from the BMJ - using a sample of 118,094 over 39 years: "The results do not support a causal relation between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality".
This might seem a bit tit-for-tat - and it's shitty that arguing this casts me as a shill for the tobacco companies - but we're being told that smokers are killing innocent people with their smoke, and I reckon you need to be damn sure that's true before making such a serious accusation.
Also I kinda resent being accused of being maddened by an emotional involvemnent by dint of being a smoker when the same charge isn't levelled at non-smokers who side against me. Go down that path and precisely who is qualified to take a view?
It seems to me that more we cast the conflict between smokers and non-smokers a moral one (who's killing whom, who's infringing whose rights) instead of a social one (how can we best accommodate people with different needs and desires), the deeper we entrench the two sides. Foul means are justified by a perception of dire ends. I'm *pleased* to see pubs, restaurants etc catering for people who don't like smoke. What I object to is government legislating that they're not allowed to cater for those who do. And I object to it all the more when it's justified through deception and trumped up accusations. |
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