Smoking bans justified by junk science by George Dance
(libertarian)
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
To smokers like me, anti-smoking legislation is a serious threat to our personal liberty and property rights. A prime example is the old Toronto bylaw banning smoking in restaurants. That law died quickly in the face of public and media criticism, restaurateur lobbying, and widespread civil disobedience, but is being revived under the new megacity's bylaw consolidation process.
No-smoking bylaws rest on the rationale that ETS (Environmental Tobacco Smoke, or "second-hand smoke") is a threat to nonsmokers. A typical claim is the oft-repeated one that ETS causes more than 3,000 cases of lung cancer per year in the United States -- a claim that originated with a 1992 summary report by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
That report has often been challenged. Critics have charged the EPA with violating scientific procedure, and manipulating and suppressing data, to reach a prejudged conclusion. This past July [1998], Judge Osteen of North Carolina's Middle Court agreed, ruling that the EPA had acted unscientifically and therefore illegally under its mandate, and ordered the report nullified.
The Osteen decision, and the evidence on which it was based, are dealt with in a new book from Vancouver's Fraser Institute, Passive Smoke: The EPA's Betrayal of Science and Policy. In a clear and readable style the authors, biologist Gio Gori and philosopher John Luik, make a convincing case that the EPA report was "corrupt science" and dangerous for public policy.
Smokers in particular will welcome the scientific discussion. The authors give all the details of how the EPA misrepresented research data, cherry-picking supportive studies and suppressing unfavourable ones. But they do much more. They explain why such studies are never, and can never, be scientific.
They then review the known scientific facts about ETS to show that "smokers cannot be accused of posing a significant risk to non-smokers" . The argument that smoking endangers others collapses, and with it the case for governments' involvement.
Non-smokers, too, will appreciate the public policy chapters. The authors present a chilling portrait of a government agency engaging in deceit to further its own political agenda, and of the threat that agenda poses to "the democratic values of autonomy, diversity, and respect".
The myth of the impartial bureaucracy, serving only the public good, dies hard. The facts presented in Passive Smoke are a welcome new nail in the coffin.
[reprinted from Libertarian Bulletin, 19:3 (Spring 1999)]
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2008 Update: The foreword, summary, and first two chapters of Passive Smoke can be read on-line at http://oldfraser.lexi.net/publications/books/passive_smoke/
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I'm a wholesaler to Bars and Restaurants in Ohio, and I can tell you that I've seen close to a 30% drop in business across the board, and disproportionately higher in smaller businesses, since Ohio passed its wonderful concession to fascism-a total indoor smoking in public ban-no exceptions.
You are dead on about this, and its not about smoking, it's about freedom.
Posted By: Scott from Oregon
Date: 2008-06-11 10:49:15
"They then review the known scientific facts about ETS to show that "smokers cannot be accused of posing a significant risk to non-smokers" . The argument that smoking endangers others collapses, and with it the case for governments' involvement."
In California, the PEOPLE of the state voted in their own ban. It seems we non-smokers just got tired of the irritations and the stink and the inconsideration of smokers and put the kaibash down.
My sister had to give up her love of traveling because cigarette smoke was a strong trigger for asthma. This was before the ban on airplanes. Were her civil rights important to you filthy smokers?
I'm allergic to the smoke. It causes my eyes to water and my nose to run. Not what I want as I head out for a nice meal with friends. Are my rights important?
Stop whining and buy yourself a patch or some chewing gum.
Your filthy habits are not my or anyone else's problem nor should they be, which is why the bans are great things and should be hailed as government at its best.
Remember, a smoking section in a public place is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool...
Sure you have an absolute right not to have to be offronted by cigarette smoke - in your own home, on your own property, in your own car.
Why, I might even concede that you can attain this right via popular vote controlling the rules of public common areas.
But what you should not have, is the right to tell other private property owners whether they can permit smoking on their own properties. If smoke offends you, you have a choice not to visit said property owners' properties, and patronize other private property owners who, like you, forbid smoking on their properties.
What you want, is to compel your serving hosts what they they can do with their own property. That is no american's right, unless you wish us to live under a socialist state, with no fundamental private property. If so, you shouldn't be living in America.
You raised a lot of good points in your post, Scott from OR -- I appreciate your bringing them into the conversation. I wanted to say that up front, before replying to them, as my replies by themselves could give the wrong impression.
"In California, the PEOPLE of the state voted in their own ban."
I'll bet that you can't find a ban that's been supported by a majority of the people; but even if you could: where do you see those people having a right to decide what is done with other people's property?
"My sister had to give up her love of traveling because cigarette smoke was a strong trigger for asthma. This was before the ban on airplanes."
There were non-smoking flights, and entire airlines, before smoking was banned. That was the market responding to the will of the people, the way the market does: as the non-smoking and anti-smoking populations increased, businesses stepped in to satisfy their wants.
"Were her civil rights important to you filthy smokers?"
I think you're confusing "civil rights" with wants. No one has a "civil right" to do whatever they want, much less make others do whatever they want, on someone else's property. And no, I'll confess, your sister's wants, had I known of them, would not have been important enough for me to do anything about them. But (see above) they were important to some people, which should have been enough.
"I'm allergic to the smoke. It causes my eyes to water and my nose to run. Not what I want as I head out for a nice meal with friends. Are my rights important?
I'm sad to hear of your allergy. Today my daughter told me of one a college friend of hers has: she's allergic to alcohol. Even alcohol fumes in the air can set off her allergy.
Do you think (a) that her "civil rights" are important enough that we should ban the serving of alcohol in bars and restaurants; or (b) that she should she just go to restaurants where alcohol is not served?
If you chose (b), then: why couldn't you do that? Just as with airlines, there were non-smoking options long before there were bans. (McDonald's has been smoke-free for at least 15 years.)
"Your filthy habits are not my or anyone else's problem nor should they be, which is why the bans are great things and should be hailed as government at its best."
Your idea that government should be used to ban other people's "filthy habits" certainly is a problem for a lot of people; if it hasn't been a problem for you, then you're in a clear minority. (Even non-smoking, non-drinking Mormons have suffered from it.)
"Remember, a smoking section in a public place is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool."
"Smoking" and "non-smoking sections" were the camels nose in the tent, proposed by the very same interest groups that are behind the current bans. You guys just didn't have the guts to show your whole agenda that early on.
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