This second-hand smoke business is hysterical, and I mean that. People assume now that it's genuinely harmful.

In 2006 the U.S. Surgeon General called a press conference and practically pounded on the podium in order to impress upon us all that second-hand smoke is harmful, and that there is no safe level of exposure.

There are safe levels of all kinds of nasties, such as arsenic, lead, mercury, biphenyls, PCBs, - you name it. But not smoke.

He said that second-hand smoke could account for as many as 3,600 deaths per year in the U.S. Notice the words "could" and "as many as".

The account of this press conference was reported by ABC News, which concluded with the statistic, apparently meant to add drama to the story, that each year 245 million Americans are exposed to second-hand smoke.

Okay, let's do the math. Dividing 3,600 by 245 million, we get .0000146 or .00146%. That's not even two thousandths of one percent.

As any statistician will tell you, that number is not only statistically insignificant, it pretty much proves the safety of second-hand smoke.

But all these studies and meta studies aside, remember that cigarette smoking was very early identified as causing lung cancer and heart disease for the very reason that smokers got it, and non-smokers didn't. If in fact second-hand smoke had had a similar effect on everyone, we would still be trying to figure out what was causing it.

Smoking bans are an agenda, and are not based in scientific fact.

Just because you don't have a bunch of deaths "proving" the deadliness of second hand smoke does not disprove the fact that second hand smoke is not in your personal health's best interest.

Not really - the connection between smoking and lung cancer came in two separate but related prongs, one dealing with actual laboratory studies using live tissue (see: "tar-painting" studies on mice) and one dealing with epidemiological evidence (such as the NCI's Monograph series, found here.

Now, you're trying to say that epidemiological evidence should have been clouded or subverted completely if second-hand smoke also causes cancer. However, this is likely false, if you consider that active smoking is considerably more dangerous than passive (or second-hand) smoking - this increase in scale would likely be sufficient to find the smoking/cancer link on its own. This is not a sufficient condition to claim that passive smoking is not dangerous - after all, there are other kinds of lung cancer as well. Just because we can separate smoking from, say, asbestos exposure, this doesn't mean that asbestos no longer is a 'cause' of lung cancers (mesothelioma, to be precise, but the point remains).

It's not enough to get cute with a statement like "If second-hand smoke had an effect similar to smoking . . ." because that's not the issue. In fact, if passive smoking is even 1/100th as dangerous as active smoking, it becomes a public health hazard. The science isn't perfect, but to deny the effects of inhaling smoke for second-hand users is as laughable as denying the effects of the same action on active smokers.

I love the smoking bans. I hope Michigan adopts one soon.

Oh, lest we forget, Radon causes cancer.

Now, how will the Government tax it?

Well first, the drug companies will bottle it, sell it after it gets approved by the FDA and some one will start making money from it.

If you feed lab mice enough water, how will that affect them?

^^^What in the hell are you talking about?

First of all, apples meet oranges.

And secondly, if you were actually trying to make a 'point', it was lost in the jibberish.

We get it, Tom, you smoke and like it. Keep puffing away.

Ban Dihydrogen Monoxide!

I got my 8th grade classmates to sign a petition to ban DHMO.

I'm such a nerd.

Maybe I can send this post to the Wisconsin legislature and they'll finally pass the ban so that stupid FIBs who can't make a good point will stop crossing the border.

We do? That's news to me as a lawyer.

You can't run a restaurant where you let rats crawl around in the cooler. It doesn't matter whether you warn all your customers about the presence of rats; it doesn't matter whether consumers have a choice between ratty and rat-free establishments; it doesn't matter whether science has shown definitive proof that rat droppings in food causes cancer. That restaurant is a nuisance and a danger to public health, and you have to close, period.

So where's your outrage about health inspection of restaurants and the infringement of the constitutional right to sell and buy filthy food? Maybe you realize that this kind of rule is comfortably within the police power of the state. Just like the smoking ban.
________
Marijuana card

Penguin, don't even go there. If it wasn't for us FIBs, you Cheeseheads would still be trying to grow corn on rocks:D

LOL I love jokes for nerds.

ME TOO!

CA has had it for YEARS and it is WONDERFUL!! I was in Salt Lake City last week and after an hour in a smoke filled bar, my wheezing self needed to be outside in the 20 degree weather gulping fresh air.

Didn't Dana Reeves die of lung cancer due to second hand smoke? I feel like I remember reading she was never a smoker...