TheAgitator.com
Secondhand Smoke Is Murder, She Wrote
Sunday, June 20th, 2004Two responses in the Washington Post yesterday to my piece on the smoking ban last week. The first:
Radley Balko is dead wrong when he suggests that Smokefree DC is a non-local effort ["Puffing for Property Rights," Close to Home, June 14]. Smokefree DC was started by myself and another District resident, Michael Tacelosky. Local chapters of public health organizations joined us last year. Decisions on how to spend our grant money were made by local folks running local organizations.We have gained support from dozens of D.C. organizations, including advisory neighborhood commissions, civic associations and more. To date, 2,500 people have signed an online petition in support of smoke-free workplaces; more than 2,200 of them are D.C. area residents.
Meanwhile, the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington, which takes national tobacco industry money and is fighting to block District residents from voting on the smoke-free workplace measure, lists just 12 percent of District restaurants as members. And the Cato Institute, for which Balko works, takes national tobacco industry money. Who’s local now?
–Angela Bradbury
Okay, but anyone can collect 2,500 signatures in a city of half a million and armed with a grant of a quarter million dollars. And RAMW may only claim 12% of D.C. restaurants, but they are at least D.C.-based restaurants. There’s somthing unseemly about one hugely-endowed foundation overriding property rights across the country through sheer buying power, as Robert Wood Johnson does.
As for Cato, the organization really had nothing to do with fighting the ban, other than that Joanne McNeil, a former Cato intern, founded the Ban the Ban group with Zoe Mitchell (who happens to be a an ex-Green Party official and leftist activist).
The second letter is yet odder:
Secondhand smoke kills. Nevertheless, Radley Balko asserts that proponents of a ban on smoking in the District should let bar and restaurant owners make their own decisions about whether to have smoke-free air. He argues that owners’ property rights trump workers’ and patrons’ human rights to breathe safe air.Perhaps they did in the 19th century, but this is the 21st.
– James Repace
The writer is a visiting professor at Tufts University in Boston and a consultant on the effects of secondhand smoke.
I’m not sure what Professor Repace is getting at. Is he equating property rights-based opposition to the smoking ban with property rights-based opposition to 19th century opposition to the abolition of slavery? If so, he should come right out and say it.
That, again, is a debate I’ll have any time he likes.
You don’t have a right to breathe safe air if that air is situated on the property of someone else, as long as you voluntarily entered that other person’s property. If one takes this professor’s argument to its logical conclusion, I could sneak into your house and demand that you stop smoking because you’re infringing on my right to breathe clean air no matter where I go.
The only thing that bothers me about the smoking debate is the children issue. I don’t think parents should be free to do whatever they want to their children; they should not be allowed to commit unreasonable physical harm against them, for example. Children don’t really have a choice except to breathe the secondhand smoke of their smoking parents. Should this be classified as child abuse, if secondhand smoking does indeed have the deleterious health effects that many suggest it does? I’m not sure, what do fellow libertarians think?
These people won’t be happy until the entire country is practically walking around in bubble-wrap. Period.
Yeah that is about right. All those two people have confirmed is that are total knobs or rather authoritarian knobs.
I am sure the safety-fascists would love to come into your house and tell you not to smoke.
There is virtually no controversy over the risks of smoking, to the smoker.
Yet there is bitter controversy about the risks of so-called second hand smoke.
Why is that?
There is virtually no controversy over the risks of smoking, to the smoker.
Yet there is bitter controversy about the risks of so-called second hand smoke.
Why is that?
Because much (not all) of the science behind the risks of SHS is not as robust as some would have you believe.
I’ve argued about this on this site and elsewhere to the point that I’m sick of it and don’t really want to argue about it anymore, but to quickly recap:
1) The increased relative risk among people regularly exposed to SHS rarely exceeds 1.3 (or a 30% increase in your chances of getting cancer, heart disease, whatever they are studying.) By contrast, the relative risk for lung cancer among heavy smokers is something like 20.
2) Most epidemiological studies where the endpoint is cancer or heart disease do not adequately account for confounding factors, most importantly, diet, which certainly affects your risk of heart disease and likely your risk of cancer.
3) Most epidemiological studies on SHS focus on people who live with smokers…the risk to people exposed in the workplace (bartenders, etc) is largely unaddressed in the literature. This is important, because the supposed risk to workers is the primary justification for most municipal smoking bans.
4) There is a largely unacknowledged bias in all of science, but especially in public health, against the publication of negative data.
Clever title to this post, Radley, considering the letter writer is named Angela Bradbury (awfully close to Angela Landsbury)…
“Perhaps they did in the 19th century, but this is the 21st.”
I’ve encountered this kind of argument far too many times…you start talking about property-rights or the virtues of the Enlightenment, and people (’progressives’ mostly) look at you as if you were a recently-thawed Neanderthal.
We have to face the fact that the Constitution and the founding virtues of our nation just aren’t ‘progressive’ enough for today’s frail society…
Um, yeah, first off, I could get 2,200 online signatures (as Balko said, out of a city of half a million) with my eyes closed and no grant, especially if there was a preexisting negative social stigma attached to the activity I was rallying against. I might have taken her statement a bit more seriously if the number had breached the 5-digit mark, but she’s less than 25% there.
Second, why is it considered the touch of Lucifer if you receive donations from tobacco companies? Should Cato turn down those donations because smoking is supposedly evil? If Ms. Bradbury honestly believes that The Balko is fighting the ban because Cato received donations from tobacco companies, then it is obvious that she’s got not idea what she’s talking about, and didn’t even bother to do some research (such as taking 10 minutes to read “The Agitator” and see that Radley has libertarian principles that transcend restaurant smoking bans). Not to blow smoke up Balko’s ass or anything, I’m just stating fact here. How are we to take Ms. Bradbury seriously, if she cannot even grasp this simple concept? She sees “Cato Analyst” beside his name, and BAM, she inferrs that Balko’s position is influenced by the donations that Cato gets from tobacco companies. Ignorance abound!
As for Mr. Repace’s weird statement, first off, he says “Secondhand smoke kills”. Ok, so does carbon monoxide, so does mercury, so do the emissions from coal and oil-fired power plants. I said this once before, and I’ll say it again, if Mr. Repace drives a car or uses a single watt of traditional electricity, then he is guilty of a sin much worse than secondhand-smoke-production. See, secondhand smoke is escapable. All you have to do is get up and walk out of that bar, or quit your job there. If I lived in LA, I couldn’t just get up and walk away from the pollution, because it’s everywhere. So, short of leaving the city altogether, you’re stuck. Yet, cars and fossil-fuel-burning power plants are not in the sights of these altruistic crusaders. Why is that? I mean, if they truly care about the respiratory health of the people, as they claim (and not, as I would assert, simply to force restauratuers to hand them free clean air at the point of a gun, simply because they’re too lazy to use their powers as consumers to bring about natural change in the marketplace by voting with their dollars), then they would not be focusing simply on secondhand smoke in restaurants, but also on these other various pollutants that are not as easily escapable as tobacco smoke. When that big Mack truck drives by, spewing black smoke in my face, where is Mr. Repace? Why isn’t he there, fighting for my supposed “right” to breathe clean air?
Fucking hypocrites. And yes, I would also like to know what he means by that “19th century” statement. Hm, yes, property rights are a thing of the past. We should all just submit to the greater good. Methinks that Mr. Repace might just be a closet commie.
God, I just read that again. “He argues that owners’ property rights trump workers’ and patrons’ human rights to breathe safe air.”
Hey, guess what, jefé. You’re on MY property. You made the VOLUNTARY CHOICE to enter my property, and thus, breathe my air. If there is anything that displeases you or you believe to be harmful to you, then you are free to leave at any time. Just get up and walk away. Your decision to stay here is equally voluntary. Your decision to breathe my smoky air is yours alone. You have no “human right” to clean air while you’re on MY property.
Where did this convoluted idea come from, that, as soon as I open up a business, all of a sudden, I am bound to protect and provide all sorts of positive “rights” to anyone who chooses to enter my property? Nobody’s forcing you to drink at my bar, and nobody is forcing you to work there either.
The real tragedy here is that 2,200 people feel they have the right to control how the other 497,800 people in the DC area live. How long before these same type of meddlers try to outlaw red meat because it contributes to heart disease, or coffee and tea because the caffiene they contain causes high blood pressure. And let’s not forget the 50,000 plus people that die in car accidents every year. If we give these people their way we will be a nation of non-smoking, vegitarian, horse riders. Which will no doubt ruffle the feathers of the animal rights dummies. The only thing more dangerous than a do-gooder with a cause is a do-gooder with a cause AND a government grant.
Can you guys help me out on this property rights thing? Should my property rights allow me to put up a sign in my restaurant that says “No Coloreds.” Sorry if my spelling sucks.
Redfirecracker:
Whether or not you put up such a sign should be no concern of the government. Other than that, it is the moral and ethical obligation, in a free society, of society itself, to make sure that something like this does not stand. Personally, I would never even dream of frequenting such an establishment, even if they had the best goddamned porterhouse on the continent. And society itself would be responsible for its failure or success.
As I said, it is not an issue with which the government should be involved. I have property. I have the ultimate say who can and cannot enter my property. Now, morally, ethically, it is wrong to exclude people based on ethnicity or sex or creed, etc. And it is the responsibility of society, by way of the market, to not tolerate this type of action. And all it takes is about a month of no customers before that idiot realizes that maybe his discriminatory practices aren’t acceptable.
What everyone needs to understand, is, there is often a great difference between something that is morally wrong, and a “right” that the government must enforce. In fact, our constitutional republic is built upon negative, not positive, rights. And a customer boycott is much more of a powerful message than a cease an decist letter from the courts.
Redfirecracker –
Yes.
Redfirecracker–
Yes.
Bruce: you have illustrated the very problem with democracy, and the reason our founding fathers dirided it so. Ben Franklin once said something to the effect of, “in a democracy, two wolves and a sheep take a majority vote on what’s for lunch, whereas, in a republic, the wolves don’t get to vote on lunch, and the sheep is well-armed”. Democracy is, by definition, majority, or MOB, rule. If 50.1% of the people say that everyone must wear red pants on Tuesdays, then that’s the law. If 50.1% of the people say that slavery should be legal, then it is. If 50.1% of the people say that the government should steal half your income, then they can do it.
Our country was created as a constitutional republic, and was set up to protect AGAINST mob-rule. But as federalism wanes and statism takes over, that ideal is dying, and giving way to mobe-rule…where even 2200 out of half a million people can decide the acceptable actions of everyone, even on private property.
And this problem obviously goes much deeper than a smoking ban…it’s merely another symptom.
Redfirecracker–
It should also mean that you can put up a sign that says “no racist assholes”, BTW.
2500 signatures? I agree with Radley … that’s nothing. Most people don’t pay attention to what they sign anyways.
Penn and Teller got over 1000 signatures in less than an hour to ban Dihyrdogen Monoxide - (that’s water BTW).
Especially when it’s online, and there’s no real human interaction.
But regardless, even if it was 200,000 signatures, that still doesn’t mean that it’s OK for the government to come onto private property and tell people whether they can allow certain legal activities.
Sorry, meant “Dihydrogen”
…latest from James Repace:
“Hello”, he lied.
I loved the clever switch from absolute numbers to percentages. Let me give that tactic a whirl.
‘I know of no less than 300 UK citizens who are strongly in favour of involuntary euthanasia for over 30’s, whereas only 98% of citizens polled were strongly opposed.’
Gee gosh, it looks like I got me a strong case there.
I love to smoke crack and PCP on my property. I have opened a whorehouse on my property. This is my right!
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