Please don't smoke...

Shug on 18/7/2006 at 03:58

Quote Posted by Stitch

My point is not so much to minimize the effects of secondhand smoke but simply to put them in persepctive.

But I practically lived in a bar for six months :mad:

Quote Posted by Scots_Taffer

Just as Stitch pointed out asthmatics are in the minority, so are goddamn smokers which is why when they fag a place up

hahaha

Scots Taffer on 18/7/2006 at 04:30

oh behave!!

plus shug you aren't exactly the poster boy for the responsible alcohol argument :cool:

Convict on 18/7/2006 at 11:21

Quote Posted by Stitch

The problem (which even those of us with English degrees are capable of researching and comprehending) is that all (conflicting) studies on the effects of secondhand smoke deal only with people who live or work in a smoky environment, which has fuckall to do with your average person who dips into a bar for a couple hours on a Saturday night. Scale back the risk accordingly and suddenly it doesn't look like much of an issue anymore. Sure people who work in the bar breathe in the toxins day in and day out, but perhaps they should have thought of that before seeking employment at a smoky bar.

My point is not so much to minimize the effects of secondhand smoke but simply to put them in persepctive.

Stitch it is reasonable to question whether there is any measurable effect of a small amount of breathing in smoke. I am not aware of these conflicting studies you mention as I have only just started looking into the research. However this is some information I have gathered:

(http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/315/7114/973) Law et al. 1997
The meta-analysis found that at standardised age of 65 the estimated relative risk of ischaemic heart disease from smoking 1 cigarette per day was 1.39 (95% CI: 1.18-1.64) and 20 cigarettes per day was 1.78 (95% CI: 1.31-2.44)*. As you can see, this relative risk is suprisingly high for a much lower dose.

A problem of this meta-analysis is that it used mainstream smoke which (by definition) doesn't include sidestream smoke that is released when not inhaling. However sidestream smoke is even more deadly than mainstream smoke! Also you assume that second-hand smoke is the equivalent of 1 cigarette per day (which hopefully is a valid comparison).

The study concluded that "The effect of environmental tobacco smoke is not trivial, as is often thought. It is a serious environmental hazard, and one that is easily avoided. The evidence on ischaemic heart disease warrants further action in preventing smoking in public buildings and enclosed working environments."
*Non-smoking has relative risk of 1.0

Deep Qantas on 18/7/2006 at 13:40

Quote Posted by Shug

Not sure about your neck of the woods, but smoking here is very much a minority activity (but problematic due to the complete lack of proper ventilation in most drinking establishments)...

So how about requiring bars to set up proper ventilation if they allow smoking?

Oh and how about requiring bars that allow smoking to set up separate non-smoking areas? Or is there a law like that around your parts already?

Hier on 18/7/2006 at 13:52

Quote Posted by Deep Qantas

Oh and how about requiring bars that allow smoking to set up separate non-smoking areas? Or is there a law like that around your parts already?

They tried that here (requiring bars & restaurants to have separately ventilated smoking sections). It was a massive financial burden on small businesses, and carried with it a huge amount of litigation and inspections. Plus, the ultimate reason it failed is StD's argument: the staff were still exposed to the second-hand smoke.

The fears that business would drop off if smoking was banned turned out to be unfounded. Turns out that if you ban smoking in public places, more people become willing to visit those public places. Smokers are such a minority anyway, and usually on the lower end of the income scale, so they don't amount to a huge percentage of spending. Bars and restaurants and bowling alleys have done just fine without them.

I do not accept the arguments from some here that if staff don't want to be exposed to second-hand smoke they should look for work elsewhere. There are laws here against exposing employees to unnecessarily dangerous and harmful workplaces. A restaurant waitress should not be forced to find work elsewhere to cater to a small minority's desire to pollute the air through a useless and disgusting habit.

As for the health risks associated with brief exposure, I don't claim that spending 30 minutes in a smoky bar once a week will cause drastic damage. But it's annoying, and certainly not beneficial, and public places are far more pleasant without it. People can smoke all they want outside or in their own homes, I genuinely don't care what they decide to do to themselves. But they really don't need to annoy and disgust everyone around them.

SubJeff on 18/7/2006 at 13:52

I know it's awfully unfashionable to be down on smoking in this way but a ban on smoking in public places will also be massively beneficial for people attempting to quit. As you may or may not know the long term success rate for quitting, with patches, Zyban, both or any other supportive methods, is very low. Relapse is so easy (as anyone who has tried to quit will know) and it's even easier when you are in a smoky bar and a mate lights up in your face. Willpower shmillpower, it's neurochemical influence that is beyond your control.

Plus what Convict said.

Additionally, and this isn't the case where people pay for healthcare, smoking related illness is an arguably unnecessary drain on national healthcare resources.

Deep Qantas on 18/7/2006 at 13:55

Quote:

It was a massive financial burden on small businesses...

A-hold on... what?

The no-smoking plaques don't have to be made out of gold.

Hier on 18/7/2006 at 14:04

They required businesses to have a separately-ventilated smoking section. You're talking two different ventilation systems, completely sealed off, etc. It was not easy to implement.

Having a simple plaque designating one side of a big room as smoking and the other as non- is sorta like having a peeing and non-peeing section in a public swimming pool.

Ghostly Apparition on 18/7/2006 at 15:24

Quote Posted by Hier

Just had a mental picture of a lifeguard asking you when you go to the pool
"peeing or non-peeing" LMAO thx for that. hehehehe

Malygris on 18/7/2006 at 15:40

But those laws were never designed to give businesses a viable option to continue catering to smokers. They were meant to be so utterly draconian and punitive that the vast majority of businesses would throw up their hands and take the simpler route: a complete ban on smoking.

(Is there proof of this? Obviously not. But come on, requiring Mrs. C's Donuts and Coffee to install a hermetically-sealed cell with a completely independent ventilation system is a bit excessive, is it not?)

There are adequate compromises that could easily be reached that would protect the "rights" of everyone involved, but for the people at the front of the anti-smoking crusade, this is very much a "no-compromise" battle. And why not? The blood is in the water. They're winning, and they know it.

For the record, I quit smoking about four years ago, so the direct impact of this ban on me is minimal. My concerns stem from the fact that an individual's rights to use a legal product are being taken away, the economic impact anti-smoking efforts have on the area in which I live (I have tobacco fields less than 100 feet outside my window), and the ham-fisted, half-assed way our federal government is "handling" the problem.