Posted on 01/05/2006 6:57:14 AM PST by SheLion
Articles, editorials, op-eds and published letters in the pages of many of New Jersey's newspapers have been heavily lopsided in support of the effort to ban smoking in bars and restaurants. Each article or commentary seemingly has been designed to leave the reader with the perception that the supportive evidence presented is undeniable or that no contrary findings or opinion even exist.
Any claim that exposure to exhaled or sidestream smoke poses a threat to life is "indisputable" is false. There are studies and scientists who dispute it strongly. When New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg claimed his ban would save 1,000 workers' lives, the president of the American Council on Science and Health, who vehemently opposes smoking, wrote, "There is no evidence that any New Yorker — patron or employee — has ever died as a result of exposure to smoke in a bar or restaurant." Dr. Richard Doll, the scientist who first linked active smoking to lung cancer, said in a 2001 radio interview, "The effects of other people smoking in my presence is so small it doesn't worry me."
These statements, among many others, are based on the results of studies that found no long-term health risks, and even on studies that claim to find risks, because the science is so weak.
Since smoking bans are premised on protecting nonsmokers, this nonsense to ban smoking should stop right here. It is not a public health issue. However, the anti-smoking crusaders cloud the issue by also dragging in misapplied majority opinion. It's constitutionally unethical for the majority to tyrannize the minority.
But more importantly, polling the public to determine a private establishment owner's fate is indecent. No customer or employee — each free to be there or not — should be able to dictate the house's rules. And for the "my way or the highway" anti-smokers who don't get it, we mean smokers shouldn't either. Only one person's vote counts — the owner's.
The case that workers shouldn't have to leave an environment they don't like or hours that fit their personal needs is nothing more than emotional blackmail. Slavery ended a long time ago. No one is forced to do anything they don't like.
For the lawmakers who believe economics is the determining factor, New York City's sales tax revenue for bars and restaurants did not rise 8.7 percent, as claimed by agencies Bloomberg dispatched on the one-year anniversary (March 2004) of the city's ban. Not only were the figures distorted by including places like McDonald's and Starbucks as restaurants, but smoking was banned in 95 percent of restaurants since the 1995 smoking ban law. What pre- to post-ban restaurant tax revenue comparison was there to make? In all cases (notably bars), it's a no-brainer that sales tax revenue was artificially low immediately following 9/11. To compare the post-ban year to those figures is dishonest.
In April, the New York State Department of Taxation released a much more official review of sales tax revenue. When one compares the pre-ban year to the post-ban year, bars in New York City lost more than 3.5 percent. Statewide, as confirmed by a report in the New York Post May 2, sales tax revenue "dropped or remained relatively flat since the smoking ban went into effect July 2003."
Junk science, tyranny and cooked books is pitting neighbor against neighbor and has ruined or will ruin individual livelihoods. Unbelievable. Don't do it, New Jersey.
A note of disclosure: Our organization has no ties to the tobacco industry nor do we speak on the behalf of the hospitality industry.
Audrey Silk
FOUNDER
NYC CITIZENS LOBBYING
AGAINST SMOKER HARASSMENT
BROOKLYN
I was really happy that the newspaper picked it up. She sent it out to a bunch of different ones. I hope more will follow suit.
Hey, old buddy. New Jersey goes non-smoking next week. I'm five miles over the border in PA. I now live on a frontier!!!
I bet I'll have trouble getting a seat in my favorite bar, four miles from NJ.
"Ole buddy?" hehe
Where did you hear that NJ is going smoke free next week?
"second hand smoke still disgusting and obnoxious"
More than one smoke Gnatzi has claimed my child would be better off had I had an abortion instead of being born to parents who happen to smoke."
I despise anything being thrown out of a car window.........and I have actually stopped my car and made a passenger get out and retreive a butt thrown out the window.
As to the soda cans, my property has 500 feet of road frontage.....I pick more than 2 a day out of my yard and the ditch, just by my driveway........and I won't get into the beer bottles or other alcoholic beverage containers, as well as fast food containers. Butts get chopped up with the tractor - everything else I have to pick up by hand.
Every time someone says that, they seem to think that just because they think this way, it is true. Well, if "I" found smoking to STINK so bad, I would surely quit.
I remember once I lit up a cigarette and my mom said "Oh that smells so good!" So, all cigarettes do NOT stink. I rarely find one that does.
I know that sometimes, a cigarette can smell like burnt socks. But that hasn't happened in a long time. I think it was just something in the tobacco. :)
The amokers are hanging around the front door?
Why?
I agree with you.
The whole anti-smoking jihad does not pass the smell test. Consider: 42 years ago when U. S. Surgeon General found a "causal link" between cigarette smoking and lung cancer almost 8 out of 10 Americans smoked. The anti-smoking war began.
Today smoking is not only not socially acceptable it is inconvenient and expensive. Today only about 4 in 10 Americans smoke cigarettes.
Question: has the incidence of lung cancer gone down in proportion to the decline in the number of people smoking?
Answer: No. According to the CDC (Center for Disease Control), even adjusting for population growth, the incidences of lung cancer has gone up.
What will the anti-smoking zealots do now? Will their next jihad be "Light up and prevent lung Cancer."
Perhaps we owe Joe Camel an apology.
One of the very few times I have ever used the "abuse" feature on FR was against a troll who showed up here and said that........that was about 2 or 3 years ago, and was the last time I hit the abuse button.
The whole anti-smoking jihad does not pass the smell test. Consider: 42 years ago when U. S. Surgeon General found a "causal link" between cigarette smoking and lung cancer almost 8 out of 10 Americans smoked. The anti-smoking war began.
Today smoking is not only not socially acceptable it is inconvenient and expensive. Today only about 4 in 10 Americans smoke cigarettes.
Question: has the incidence of lung cancer gone down in proportion to the decline in the number of people smoking?
Answer: No. According to the CDC (Center for Disease Control), even adjusting for population growth, the incidences of lung cancer has gone up.
What will the anti-smoking zealots do now? Will their next jihad be "Light up and prevent lung Cancer."
Perhaps we owe Joe Camel an apology.
The whole anti-smoking jihad does not pass the smell test. Consider: 42 years ago when U. S. Surgeon General found a "causal link" between cigarette smoking and lung cancer almost 8 out of 10 Americans smoked. The anti-smoking war began.
Today smoking is not only not socially acceptable it is inconvenient and expensive. Today only about 4 in 10 Americans smoke cigarettes.
Question: has the incidence of lung cancer gone down in proportion to the decline in the number of people smoking?
Answer: No. According to the CDC (Center for Disease Control), even adjusting for population growth, the incidences of lung cancer has gone up.
What will the anti-smoking zealots do now? Will their next jihad be "Light up and prevent lung Cancer."
Perhaps we owe Joe Camel an apology.
The whole anti-smoking jihad does not pass the smell test. Consider: 42 years ago when U. S. Surgeon General found a "causal link" between cigarette smoking and lung cancer almost 8 out of 10 Americans smoked. The anti-smoking war began.
Today smoking is not only not socially acceptable it is inconvenient and expensive. Today only about 4 in 10 Americans smoke cigarettes.
Question: has the incidence of lung cancer gone down in proportion to the decline in the number of people smoking?
Answer: No. According to the CDC (Center for Disease Control), even adjusting for population growth, the incidences of lung cancer has gone up.
What will the anti-smoking zealots do now? Will their next jihad be "Light up and prevent lung Cancer."
Perhaps we owe Joe Camel an apology.
The whole anti-smoking jihad does not pass the smell test. Consider: 42 years ago when U. S. Surgeon General found a "causal link" between cigarette smoking and lung cancer almost 8 out of 10 Americans smoked. The anti-smoking war began.
Today smoking is not only not socially acceptable it is inconvenient and expensive. Today only about 4 in 10 Americans smoke cigarettes.
Question: has the incidence of lung cancer gone down in proportion to the decline in the number of people smoking?
Answer: No. According to the CDC (Center for Disease Control), even adjusting for population growth, the incidences of lung cancer has gone up.
What will the anti-smoking zealots do now? Will their next jihad be "Light up and prevent lung Cancer."
Perhaps we owe Joe Camel an apology.
The whole anti-smoking jihad does not pass the smell test. Consider: 42 years ago when U. S. Surgeon General found a "causal link" between cigarette smoking and lung cancer almost 8 out of 10 Americans smoked. The anti-smoking war began.
Today smoking is not only not socially acceptable it is inconvenient and expensive. Today only about 4 in 10 Americans smoke cigarettes.
Question: has the incidence of lung cancer gone down in proportion to the decline in the number of people smoking?
Answer: No. According to the CDC (Center for Disease Control), even adjusting for population growth, the incidences of lung cancer has gone up.
What will the anti-smoking zealots do now? Will their next jihad be "Light up and prevent lung Cancer."
Perhaps we owe Joe Camel an apology.
The whole anti-smoking jihad does not pass the smell test. Consider: 42 years ago when U. S. Surgeon General found a "causal link" between cigarette smoking and lung cancer almost 8 out of 10 Americans smoked. The anti-smoking war began.
Today smoking is not only not socially acceptable it is inconvenient and expensive. Today only about 4 in 10 Americans smoke cigarettes.
Question: has the incidence of lung cancer gone down in proportion to the decline in the number of people smoking?
Answer: No. According to the CDC (Center for Disease Control), even adjusting for population growth, the incidences of lung cancer has gone up.
What will the anti-smoking zealots do now? Will their next jihad be "Light up and prevent lung Cancer."
Perhaps we owe Joe Camel an apology.
The whole anti-smoking jihad does not pass the smell test. Consider: 42 years ago when U. S. Surgeon General found a "causal link" between cigarette smoking and lung cancer almost 8 out of 10 Americans smoked. The anti-smoking war began.
Today smoking is not only not socially acceptable it is inconvenient and expensive. Today only about 4 in 10 Americans smoke cigarettes.
Question: has the incidence of lung cancer gone down in proportion to the decline in the number of people smoking?
Answer: No. According to the CDC (Center for Disease Control), even adjusting for population growth, the incidences of lung cancer has gone up.
What will the anti-smoking zealots do now? Will their next jihad be "Light up and prevent lung Cancer."
Perhaps we owe Joe Camel an apology.
The whole anti-smoking jihad does not pass the smell test. Consider: 42 years ago when U. S. Surgeon General found a "causal link" between cigarette smoking and lung cancer almost 8 out of 10 Americans smoked. The anti-smoking war began.
Today smoking is not only not socially acceptable it is inconvenient and expensive. Today only about 4 in 10 Americans smoke cigarettes.
Question: has the incidence of lung cancer gone down in proportion to the decline in the number of people smoking?
Answer: No. According to the CDC (Center for Disease Control), even adjusting for population growth, the incidences of lung cancer has gone up.
What will the anti-smoking zealots do now? Will their next jihad be "Light up and prevent lung Cancer."
Perhaps we owe Joe Camel an apology.
The whole anti-smoking jihad does not pass the smell test. Consider: 42 years ago when U. S. Surgeon General found a "causal link" between cigarette smoking and lung cancer almost 8 out of 10 Americans smoked. The anti-smoking war began.
Today smoking is not only not socially acceptable it is inconvenient and expensive. Today only about 4 in 10 Americans smoke cigarettes.
Question: has the incidence of lung cancer gone down in proportion to the decline in the number of people smoking?
Answer: No. According to the CDC (Center for Disease Control), even adjusting for population growth, the incidences of lung cancer has gone up.
What will the anti-smoking zealots do now? Will their next jihad be "Light up and prevent lung Cancer."
Perhaps we owe Joe Camel an apology.
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