[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Arethusa [/i]
[B]This is insane. To conclude that second hand smoke is safe simply because the oft cited statistic is not real is infinitely more damaging that citing a fake statistic. [/B][/QUOTE]
Uh ok, I'm lost here.. Who said it was safe?
I know I was only complaining that the science to prove it was lacking...
I don't think for one minute it's SAFE, but currently that is only an Opinion that I hold...
[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by JohnD [/i]
[B]Fireplaces don't blow the smoke in your face in concentrations anywhere near as high as second-hand smoke. If you have smoke in your house when you light your fireplace, you need to clean out your chimney or stop forgetting to open the flue. Plus, modern wood stoves are very efficient and good about emissions.
[/B][/QUOTE]
At camp fires its not that unusual for unexpected windshifts to blow smoke of high concentration into those around it. To the point of cauasing physical sympoms, does that mean campfires should be banned?
Just because you demonstrate severe negative reactions to second hand smoke does not a metric make, it could just be akin to an allergic reaction.
[QUOTE][B]
The toxins in cigarette smoke, which many people are exposed to on a daily basis in concentrations considerably higher than any fireplace smoke are frightening. Some of the more toxic include aklanes, aldehydes and other carbonyls, alkenes, aromatic hydrocarbons (i.e. benzene), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, inorganic gases (i.e. carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide), heavy metals (such as cadmium), acids, aza-arenes, N-nitrosamines, N-heterocyclic amines, hydrazine, etc. In simpler terms...acetone, ammonia, arsenic, benzene, benzoapyrene, butane, cadmium, formaldehyde, lead, propylene glycol, turpentine, etc. Of those compounds in cigarette smoke, many are poisonous and a large number are also carcinogenic.
[/B][/QUOTE]
No one is arguing that in large number they arent dangerous, however, what needs to be shown is at what level they are dangerous. Directly smoking the cancer sticks is of course dangerous as hell, no one is disputing that. But the amount of the aformationed compounds present in second hand smoke is dramaticly lower then that of direct ingenstion.
Is the amount of toxins high enough to warrent using the law with all that entials to deny other people their liberties? especially in environments like bars where you damn well know going in that people are going to be smoking?
For that matter a bar is a place where people deliberatly GO to ingest a known poison! (albet a very mild one)
You do realize that there are people who work at bars who do not necessarily smoke and yet are forced to inhale undeniably large quantities of second hand cigarette smoke?
Though I don't personally see there is much debate in this. The health risks are unedniable (unless you're Michael Chrichton, and a vast conspiracy of evil liberal scientests are out to get you), though their severity is of course debated. But just as you have a right to pay lots of money to inhale poison and carcinogens, I have a right not to. Smoking in a public place impinges on my right to choose not to inhale such things and make my own decisions about their dangers. Smoke in the privacy of your home where you can destroy your body and your property without bothering anyone else.
[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Tyvar [/i]
[B]At camp fires its not that unusual for unexpected windshifts to blow smoke of high concentration into those around it. To the point of cauasing physical sympoms, does that mean campfires should be banned?[/B][/QUOTE]
And being near an erupting volcano would do the same. How many people experience that each day, too? Probably the same as unexpected wind shifts blowing smoke of high concentration into those around a camp fire. Second-hand smoke, however, is in that concentration for everyone around the smokers.
[QUOTE][B]Just because you demonstrate severe negative reactions to second hand smoke does not a metric make, it could just be akin to an allergic reaction. [/B][/QUOTE]
I've been tested ad nauseum for years. It isn't a simple allergic reaction.
[QUOTE][B]No one is arguing that in large number they arent dangerous, however, what needs to be shown is at what level they are dangerous. Directly smoking the cancer sticks is of course dangerous as hell, no one is disputing that. But the amount of the aformationed compounds present in second hand smoke is dramaticly lower then that of direct ingenstion.[/B][/QUOTE]
And the legitimate studies showing that are where?
I'm sure the staff at the bars in Sweden are pleased, but a bar is privately owned. The staff are paid to work there. They go to work every day out of choice. My last job was awful. I was 'forced' to endure a stressful environment that raised my blood pressure (literally, I almost failed the physical to get my current job).
Oh, wait... I quit. That's right, I stopped going. They weren't forcing me to go to work, they were paying me. And once I decided that the cost in mental and physical health outweighed the paycheck I was getting, I just left.
What I wrote about cars the last time was not really a valid example, but perhaps this one is. I have lost count of the times I have been watching car and motorcycle races on TV, and seen tremendous crashes. Sadly, a few of those times, people were killed. Not just the drivers, either, but track workers and even spectators.
One race in Australia a few years ago, Ralf Schumacher got airborne at about 170mph. His car hit a fence going backwards at head level, and a track marshal who was standing next to a gap in the fence was killed instantly by flying debris. One of many tragic accidents, through the years.
The staff just work there, right? Yet their employers think nothing of regularly exposing them to severe danger, in a form whose lethality cannot be questioned. I honestly don't know enough to tell you how dangerous second-hand smoke is, and I'm not sure anyone really does. But I can tell you that getting hit in the chest by a wheel going better than 160mph will kill you. Would you place a 60mph speed limit at the Indy 500?
Of course this is all ridiculous, but the point is the same. When people choose to place themselves in danger as part of their everyday lives, it falls to them to take responsibility, rather than to government to play nanny.
It simply comes down to the fact that Second hand smoke IS more than likely bad for everyone, but the complaint here is the lack-of-real-science to back up the law made for it, and more importantly the marriage of politics and science in doing it.
Comments
[B]This is insane. To conclude that second hand smoke is safe simply because the oft cited statistic is not real is infinitely more damaging that citing a fake statistic. [/B][/QUOTE]
Uh ok, I'm lost here.. Who said it was safe?
I know I was only complaining that the science to prove it was lacking...
I don't think for one minute it's SAFE, but currently that is only an Opinion that I hold...
;)
[B]Fireplaces don't blow the smoke in your face in concentrations anywhere near as high as second-hand smoke. If you have smoke in your house when you light your fireplace, you need to clean out your chimney or stop forgetting to open the flue. Plus, modern wood stoves are very efficient and good about emissions.
[/B][/QUOTE]
At camp fires its not that unusual for unexpected windshifts to blow smoke of high concentration into those around it. To the point of cauasing physical sympoms, does that mean campfires should be banned?
Just because you demonstrate severe negative reactions to second hand smoke does not a metric make, it could just be akin to an allergic reaction.
[QUOTE][B]
The toxins in cigarette smoke, which many people are exposed to on a daily basis in concentrations considerably higher than any fireplace smoke are frightening. Some of the more toxic include aklanes, aldehydes and other carbonyls, alkenes, aromatic hydrocarbons (i.e. benzene), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, inorganic gases (i.e. carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide), heavy metals (such as cadmium), acids, aza-arenes, N-nitrosamines, N-heterocyclic amines, hydrazine, etc. In simpler terms...acetone, ammonia, arsenic, benzene, benzoapyrene, butane, cadmium, formaldehyde, lead, propylene glycol, turpentine, etc. Of those compounds in cigarette smoke, many are poisonous and a large number are also carcinogenic.
[/B][/QUOTE]
No one is arguing that in large number they arent dangerous, however, what needs to be shown is at what level they are dangerous. Directly smoking the cancer sticks is of course dangerous as hell, no one is disputing that. But the amount of the aformationed compounds present in second hand smoke is dramaticly lower then that of direct ingenstion.
Is the amount of toxins high enough to warrent using the law with all that entials to deny other people their liberties? especially in environments like bars where you damn well know going in that people are going to be smoking?
For that matter a bar is a place where people deliberatly GO to ingest a known poison! (albet a very mild one)
Though I don't personally see there is much debate in this. The health risks are unedniable (unless you're Michael Chrichton, and a vast conspiracy of evil liberal scientests are out to get you), though their severity is of course debated. But just as you have a right to pay lots of money to inhale poison and carcinogens, I have a right not to. Smoking in a public place impinges on my right to choose not to inhale such things and make my own decisions about their dangers. Smoke in the privacy of your home where you can destroy your body and your property without bothering anyone else.
[B]At camp fires its not that unusual for unexpected windshifts to blow smoke of high concentration into those around it. To the point of cauasing physical sympoms, does that mean campfires should be banned?[/B][/QUOTE]
And being near an erupting volcano would do the same. How many people experience that each day, too? Probably the same as unexpected wind shifts blowing smoke of high concentration into those around a camp fire. Second-hand smoke, however, is in that concentration for everyone around the smokers.
[QUOTE][B]Just because you demonstrate severe negative reactions to second hand smoke does not a metric make, it could just be akin to an allergic reaction. [/B][/QUOTE]
I've been tested ad nauseum for years. It isn't a simple allergic reaction.
[QUOTE][B]No one is arguing that in large number they arent dangerous, however, what needs to be shown is at what level they are dangerous. Directly smoking the cancer sticks is of course dangerous as hell, no one is disputing that. But the amount of the aformationed compounds present in second hand smoke is dramaticly lower then that of direct ingenstion.[/B][/QUOTE]
And the legitimate studies showing that are where?
Oh, wait... I quit. That's right, I stopped going. They weren't forcing me to go to work, they were paying me. And once I decided that the cost in mental and physical health outweighed the paycheck I was getting, I just left.
What I wrote about cars the last time was not really a valid example, but perhaps this one is. I have lost count of the times I have been watching car and motorcycle races on TV, and seen tremendous crashes. Sadly, a few of those times, people were killed. Not just the drivers, either, but track workers and even spectators.
One race in Australia a few years ago, Ralf Schumacher got airborne at about 170mph. His car hit a fence going backwards at head level, and a track marshal who was standing next to a gap in the fence was killed instantly by flying debris. One of many tragic accidents, through the years.
The staff just work there, right? Yet their employers think nothing of regularly exposing them to severe danger, in a form whose lethality cannot be questioned. I honestly don't know enough to tell you how dangerous second-hand smoke is, and I'm not sure anyone really does. But I can tell you that getting hit in the chest by a wheel going better than 160mph will kill you. Would you place a 60mph speed limit at the Indy 500?
Of course this is all ridiculous, but the point is the same. When people choose to place themselves in danger as part of their everyday lives, it falls to them to take responsibility, rather than to government to play nanny.
;)