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Written on 02 10 03

I am sorry it has taken me so long to get this update to you. I've been busy with medical scans (so far, so good), work, and even more extensive research into the second hand smoke issue.

Last week I wrote that second-hand smoke had not been scientifically proven to cause cancer and that the smoking ban was unnecessary and fascist. I was flooded with email from the more stubborn of you confronting me.

Here I’ll quote some of the more common complaints and respond:

First, from Keren (her spelling):

“Okay, so I agree that the whole ban on smoking in restaurants, clubs and bars is stupid, but I don't really agree with what you're saying about how 2nd hand smoking isn't dangerous. I smoke I know it's bad for me, I accept that I may be harming the health of people around me, but I won't go around saying that it's not doing anything wrong. But forget that, it's not the issue.”

What part of my article didn’t you get? I went through the trouble of researching and quoting from a multitude of scientific reports all of which said the same thing: that second-hand smoke does NOT cause cancer.

Are you part of a larger cultural resistance to fact?

“... I also suggest that you start writing more about your life again because all this controversial bullshit is boring and I think that everyone just wants to here a little bit more of you witty sarcasm.”

I hardly think that the smoking ban and the issues it raises are boring. If you want to read some asshole’s thoughts for the day, find a weblog. Just for that comment I'm going to be even more detailed and thorough this week.

Its because so many clubgoers are apolitical, selfish and willfully ignorant that the government is able to get away with everything it has.

I have no vested interest in people smoking. I don’t smoke and sometimes smoke does irritate me. Before I looked into it I accepted what I heard on the news. But even cursory research revealed that we’d been duped into thinking that second-hand smoke caused cancer; scared into accepting unnecessary governmental control.

“..What else... you look prettier as a boy.”

On that we agree.

Next, Phil writes:

“Your point on employers having the right to allow/disallow smoking in the workplace is weak. If, by your logic, the workplace is private property, and employers should be allowed to do as they please, then what is to stop an employer from, say, not providing any heat in the workplace during the winter? The government has a right to set reasonable workplace standards for the comfort of everyone, and forcing smokers to smoke outside maintains a comfortable workplace for everyone while allowing people to do what they want, such as smoke.”

Second-hand smoke is a nuisance but not a cancer risk. The smell of fish is a nuisance too; but there is no point in banning that smell from a fish market in order to “protect” the employees. Chefs work in a very hot, steamy, smoke-filled environment. This is par for the course if you work in a kitchen. If you work with horses you'll leave work smelling like shit. Bartenders may leave work smelling of smoke. If they mind it, they ought to choose a different job or work at a juice bar where no smoking is allowed, or a bar big enough to circulate the air, or one that has a smoking room.

A Christian might be against stripping; he's free not to work at a strip club. A vegetarian is free not to work at a steakhouse. Are you allergic to pollen? Don't become a florist. Hate noise? Don't take a job at the bowling alley. Despise the cold? Don't be a ski instructor. Homophobic? Don't clerk at Pottery Barn. I hate sand, the sun, and water. I choose not to be a lifeguard. I could go on and on.

Phil continues:

“Also, your association between the Nazis and anti-smoking is worthy of CNN. If Hitler liked his steak well-done, does that mean everyone who likes their steak well-done is a fascist? I think not. Therefore, I'm hard pressed to believe that the Nazi desire to ban smoking means that anyone who would support a ban against smoking is a fascist. Although you get bonus points for propaganda that Goebbels would have been proud of.”

You’re ignorant and your dismissive attitude is an insult to rational minds everywhere. Eating steak has nothing to do with behavioral control; the smoking ban does. On the other hand, if Hitler had banned eating steak for the "public good", that would be fascist. Do you even know what fascism is?

The parallel between Nazi smoking policies and our own was hardly drawn by me alone. There are books on the subject. The Nazi government was the first, in fact, to ban smoking, just as our own government is doing now. This is not my guess; this is a historical fact.

The social intolerance of the anti-smoking movement echoes Nazi Germany not only in theory but alarmingly also in method. The harmful effects of passive smoke have not been proven, but the government manipulates its data in order to trick us into thinking it has. This sort of propaganda - repeating lies over and over in mass media until they are accepted as truth - has its roots in Nazi Germany.

Controlling personal behavior for the "public good" or "public health" is fascist. The analogy between the Nazi ban and our own is not only strong; it is self-evident.



Some corroborating sources:

A great book:
"The Nazi War on Cancer" by Robert Proctor

An essay from the same author.

A review of that book from Canada's National Post.

And finally an even more articulate explanation of the analogy than my own.

Next, under the subject line "refute away my dear", Youngbradford assuredly writes:

“I appreciate your arguments, but I can find just as many from reputable sources that disagree with you...

http://www.who.int/inf-pr-1998/en/pr98-29.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2053840.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2489767.stm

This may be the first thing you have written where I did not say 'this bitch is good.'"

You will regret that last statement. Unlike Phil, you've at least done a little bit of research before writing me. But refute away I will.

The key phrase in your email is “reputable sources”. The source in the first two links you sent me is the World Health Organization. How do you know that the World Health Organization is a "reputable source"? Just because its printed in capital letters? This is the first rule of critical thinking - to not accept truth from the divine "authority" of government and media. Seek it out. Confirm your sources; something that you obviously did not do.

The World Health Organization is a corrupt, scientifically illiterate sham. Its budget is provided by pharmaceutical companies who have a vested interest in selling nicotine aversion products like the patch and nicotine gum.

The longest most comprehensive study ever undertaken on the issue of second-hand smoke and lung cancer was in fact conducted by the WHO. The study is called "Multi-center Case Control Study of Exposure to Environmental Tobacco Smoke and Lung Cancer in Europe,1998". The WHO tried to suppress it; but it was leaked to the Times of London and London's Daily Telegraph and can be seen in entirety here .

The WHO spent 5 years on this study and came up with nothing. To quote from the study itself:

"ETS exposure during childhood was not associated with an increased risk of lung cancer."

"No clear dose-response relationship could been demonstrated for cumulative spousal ETS exposure."

"Our results indicate no association between childhood exposure to ETS and lung cancer risk."

After this report was leaked, the WHO released the press release in the first link you sent me.

In this press release the WHO actually says this:

"The study found that there was an estimated 16% increased risk of lung cancer among non-smoking spouses of smokers. For workplace exposure the estimated increase in risk was 17%. However, due to small sample size, neither increased risk was statistically significant ." (My emphasis.)

Are they counting on a reader's ignorance to disregard that last bit?

Read this mention in the Washington Times of this ridiculous press release. It is also worth noting that the study results "proving" the cancer link, which according to the WHO weren't released because "according to accepted scientific practice, [they] had been sent to a reputable scientific journal for peer review before publication..." still haven't been released, after five years. Who exactly did they send them to? When?

In an act of desperation, a few months ago the WHO's sister organization, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, (IARC) released the press release from your second link, claiming an increased 20% risk of getting lung cancer from second-hand smoke. The world's media with the exception of BBC Online and the Washington Post, which buried it in the back pages, ignored it. The reason was because it was "junk science". "Junk science" is science that is manipulated for a political agenda.

Bear with me here. Knowledge is power and the most powerful knowledge doesn't come in the form of a sound byte or the unsubstantiated idiocy of a message board.

In epidemiology - the branch of medicine that deals with the cause, spread, and control of disease - causal results come in numbers. Anything under the number 2 means there is NO casual relationship. Numbers 3 and 4 show mild casual relationship. Numbers 5 and 6 show a casual relationship. The number 7 is a certainty. Put simply, if I drank milk and were lactose intolerant, my risk for feeling sick would be 7 - a certainty. If I drank water, I could expect no harmful effects - 2 or under.

There are over one hundred epidemiological studies on second-hand smoke and lung cancer. What the IARC did in the link you sent is take the highest 50 studies, ignore the rest and after statistical trickery come up with a 20% increased risk.

On average the risk number comes in between 1.15 and 1.20. Anything under 2 does NOT register as a cause. Some studies even came in at slightly less than 1, which means second-hand smoke may actually prevent lung cancer in non-smokers. Anti-smoking propagandists have tried to suppress many of these studies. Over one hundred studies, taken together, show no cancer causing effects of second-hand smoke.

Much of the propagandist "research" that purportedly connects second-hand smoke to cancer is a joke. Chances are that 100% of those with lung cancer have at one point in their lives been in a smoky bar. Does that mean that second hand smoke caused their cancer? Of course not. But we could release a alarming press release stating "100% of lung cancer patients spent time in smoky bars!" This is an exaggeration of the sort of claims coming from the WHO, IARC, and EPA.

Another propagandist tactic is to say that second-hand smoke contains carcinogens and chemicals. It sure does. A cup of coffee also contains carcinogens and chemicals. That doesn't mean a cup of coffee is dangerous or will give you cancer. Broccoli contains carcinogens. Sunlight contains carcinogens. Millions of things contain carcinogens, but what's important is the dose.

According to original EPA numbers, on average, 300 people would need to smoke 62 packs an hour in a sealed, non-ventilated 20 square foot room for the second hand smoke to reach a threshold level of carcinogenic danger. Look here for a detailed chart .

The Facts is a good site to read through and will teach you how to discern what is or is not a "reputable source". Be sure to click on the WHO and EPA links for debunkings of their results.

Another primer in rational thought can be found at JunkScience. Read their debunking of the second-hand smoke media myth as well as this incredibly clear report from them on Fox News.

Second hand smoke has NOT, NOT NOT NOT been proven to cause cancer, by anyone, ever.

Information on the WHO and its corrupt agenda:

"Common Sense Going Up In Smoke" - The Wall Street Journal

"World Bank and WHO Gang Up.. " - The Wall Street Journal Europe

"The WHO's Misplaced Priorities" - The Wall Street Journal Europe

"The WHO's Road to Hell" - The Times of India

"WHO, What and Why?" - The Institute of Economic Affairs (pdf)

and perhaps best of all:

"WHO Cares?" - Reason Magazine

Regarding the third link that Youngbradford sent: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2489767.stm

Let's start with this statement:
 
"If parents were smoking more than 40 cigarettes a day, levels in the blood were as much as 130% higher than those coming from smoke-free homes."
 
Note the qualifying terminology. What if parents aren't smoking more than 40 cigarettes a day? How many people do that? What is the increase for, say, 10 cigarettes a day? A 130% increase at 40 cigarettes a day.. how harmful is that? What is the level from kids in smoke-free homes? What is the base number that results in a "130%" increase?

Consider 130%. Lets say 100 smoke-free children are studied and one child has an increased level of "8-epi-PGF2alpha." And now 100 children are studied whose parents smoke cigarettes and two children have an increased level of "8-epi-PGF2alpha". Two kids - that's already a 100% percent increase. So an 130% increase really isn't that scary, especially for something that is only suggested to be of potential harm. Hardly "proof" of anything.

Its also questionable to connect childhood exposure to second hand smoke to vascular disease because vascular disease doesn't occur in most people until at least middle age, after decades of other influences - diet, exercise, environment, mental health, etc. Can a mere 130% increased level of "8-epi-PGF2alpha" in childhood endure all the way until middle age? Is it even present after these kids move to college? After these parents reduce their intake to say, 20 cigarettes a day? Who smokes 40 cigarettes a day in front of their kids?

The article is full of qualifiers:
 
"Fresh evidence of the potential harm..." 
 
"...which suggested their blood vessel walls could already be under attack."
 
"...in theory it could open the door for..."
 
"This is damage which is believed to accumulate over a lifetime..."
 
"Later vascular disease might be triggered early in childhood by exposure to second-hand smoke."

This is junk science. Science designed to fit an agenda. Sophistry.

Furthermore, the article quotes from an organization called ASH, the "Action on Smoking and Health". ASH is a radical anti-smoking lobbying group behind many lawsuits against persons who smoke even in the privacy of their own home. ASH was once investigated by the FBI for promoting a book that detailed ways to inject cyanide into cigarettes in order to kill smokers, and both the Australian Supreme Court and US Federal Court have found ASH guilty of manipulating its data.

ASH gets most of their money from the same pharmaceutical companies behind the WHO. Again, these companies have nicotine aversion products to sell, like the nicotine patch and nicotine gum. Funnily enough, ASH is first in line to dispute studies which suggest that nicotine causes cancer in order to protect these nicotine aversion products.

I wonder what the risk is of feeding a kid McDonalds every day? I'd guess those kids have an increased level of something in their blood too. Is it really that harmful? Should we ban McDonalds?

I wouldn't smoke in front of my kids because I wouldn't want them to get the habit or think its OK. And it smells bad. But I'm not about to legislate punishments for those who do when no proof exists of its harm.

It is hard to recognize hysteria for what it is when you're in the midst of it. But I hope I've shown that it is possible. Youngbradford, refuted.

A few people wrote to critique my analogy between being pro-choice and also against the smoking ban in support of individual rights.

From Brian:

"Abortion doesn't effect you directly. Cigarette smoke does. It effects me. I hate the smell and I support the ban."

My analogy only extended to the belief that one can vehemently disagree with something while also recognizing the sanctity of individual freedom. That's what liberty is all about.

I have read a lot about abortion. I find second and third term abortions morally repugnant and physically disgusting. I’m pretty sure they bother me a heck of a lot more than a little cigarette smell bothers you. And yet because I’m a believer in liberty and individual freedom, I am still pro-choice. Likewise for smoking in bars. Government control is not needed.

On that note, Melissa writes:

"..anti-discrimination laws, for instance. See? The government does have a right to intervene sometimes, even on private (business) property."

The difference is clear. For one thing, discrimination clearly hurts one party. Second hand smoke does not. Besides, discrimination never involves consenting adults.

Even if I owned a little dive bar on avenue C and no one was there but me and I wanted to smoke, I'd be breaking the law. The bar could be full of my friends who all love to smoke, and still we'd be breaking the law. The government has no right to govern the behavior of consenting adults on their own property who aren’t harming anyone.

And by the way, the Boy Scouts are allowed to discriminate precisely because they are a private organization. They’re allowed to set their own rules as to who can be a member. Gays can’t be members. Nor atheists. Private bars and clubs ought to have the same right to allow or disallow smoking as they see fit.

Next, David writes:

"You're making the proverbial mountain out of a molehill. This isn't an attack on clubs, its a health issue. It isn't a big deal so who cares?"

If you don’t think New York's smoking ban isn't at least partially an attack on our nightlife, then why aren’t cigar bars similarly regulated? Cigars produce even more second-hand smoke than cigarettes, due to their size, aging, fermentation and long burning time. Not to mention the fact that cigar smokers don't inhale. They blow smoke directly into the environment. Who's protecting the people who work at cigar bars? Or the non-cigar smokers who just sit there drinking wine?

Its easy to conclude that cigar smoking hasn’t been banned from cigar bars because cigar smoking is the privilege of an elite, wealthy class. Cigarettes, on the other hand, are common.

The smoking ban hurts clubowners, as do many other city nightlife policies. If people are caught dancing in a “non-licensed” venue, the venue is fined and sometimes closed on the spot. Will this happen soon if someone is caught smoking? Why is a bar fined for smokers and yet the smokers go unpunished? Why would anyone in their right mind support this?

Are there any other businesses that get punished or shut down when its patrons are caught committing crimes? Drugs are dealt in train stations, parks and schools, and yet none of these places are fined or closed. If someone is caught using cocaine on Wall St, the police don't punish the firm - they punish the individual responsible for the crime.

The city alleges in some cases that the clubs themselves are involved in crime, but look at the Catholic church. Priests molest children, and yet the churches themselves don't get shut down. Surely the coverup and institutional rape of thousands of children over decades is a wilder and more wicked crime than anything the staffs of Exit or Sound Factory have done, but the city shut them down just last week.

Why are clubs held accountable? If someone does E in my apartment without me knowing and OD’s, do I then become culpable? Is this on the horizon? Will you support that?

So lets say you accept everything I've written about second-hand smoke but you still don't want to go home "smelling like an ash tray". Smoke aggravates your asthma. Smoke makes your eyes water. Smoke makes you cough.

That's all understandable.

But in a free society your proper recourse is to let social and market pressure create a demand for smoke-free bars and clubs. This is where the anti-smoking lobby and supporters of a ban should have concentrated their efforts. Then you'd go to a bar whose owner has chosen to appeal to a non-smoking crowd, or to a cavernous space where smokers don't matter, or to a bar big enough to have a separate smoking area. For the anti-smoking lobby and government to lie and the government to impose a ban everywhere is fascist. It is behavioral control and social engineering run amok.

Bar and club owners ought to have the right to allow or disallow smoking according to social pressures and their own beliefs. I ought to have the right to open a smoke-filled dive bar if I wanted. I also ought to have the right to go to one.

The most ridiculous complaint is that people get burned.

“I don’t like it. I get burned!” YB says.

Excuse me while my tongue lashes. I’ve been going out since the 80s and cannot remember more than once or twice I've been accidentally hit by a cigarette and in neither of those cases did it result in a burn.

Perhaps you should be asking yourself why you are burned so much. Maybe its because people don’t like you.

You wanna go out but you don’t wanna get a little dirty? Pussy. So go to Big Cup or XL and wear your designer trash. And then go to a water park and don’t get on any of the rides.

Great things have happened in dark smoky bars. Jazz. Stonewall. CBGB's. Do you think Debbie Harry or Patti Smith would have stood for a government imposed smoking ban?

Or as Peggy Noonan puts it:

"Bars, the last public place you can go to be a dropout, a nonconformist, refusenik, a time waster, a bohemian, a hider from reality, a bum, a rebel, a bore, a heathen. The last public place in which you can really wallow in your own and others' human messiness. The last place where you can still take part in that great American tradition, leaving the teeming marching soldiers of capitalism outside to go inside, quit the race, retreat and have a drink and fire up a Marlboro and . . . think, fantasize, daydream, listen to Steely Dan or Sinatra, revel in your loser-tude, play the Drunken Misery Scene in the movie of your life, meet a girl, meet a guy, meet a girl who's a guy. The last public place you could go to turn on, tune in, drop out and light up."

But no more, says Bloomberg.

Those of you who don’t see the big picture sadden me. Realize that you are part of a country that grows increasingly more scientifically illiterate, homogenous and intolerant, even as we fight the ignorance and intolerance of enemies abroad. Its worth noting that after we defeated the Taliban, Afghans played music, danced, and lit cigarettes in celebration.

I celebrate freaks. I celebrate diversity. I celebrate aberrant behavior. I celebrate our right to seek pleasure as we see fit. I celebrate liberty, even when its inconvenient for me. I celebrate our right to smoke, even though I don't.

The next time the government bans or regulates something, hope that it isn't something you care about.

What’s next? When will you draw the line? When will it be too late?

---

Addendum:

So many idiots have written to blindly disagree with everything I said. "Of course second-hand smoke causes cancer!" Yeah, and at one point "of course" the world was flat.

Does my dictatorial demeanor put you off? Get over it.

Denying facts because they don't adhere to your worldview is stupid. You're a fool if you don't let facts guide you, even when those facts lead you in a direction you don't want to go.

Convictions must be based on facts; otherwise even the most well intentoned convictions are worth nothing.

More resources:

Finally a "mainstream" media source is reporting what I've been saying since early January. Check out this video clip from Penn & Teller's Bullshit (56k, cable).

"Them - The one group for whom liberals have no tolerance at all."
A brilliant & concise essay from Peggy Noonan on liberals, smokers, and Bloomberg.

Capitalism magazine
What about the rights of a worker to a smoke-free environment?

"End the Smoking Apartheid" by Pierre Lemieux
On the private vs public space issue, for Canada's Financial Post.

"Lies About the Demon Weed" - WorldNet Daily
A succinct article about propaganda and anti-smoking fascism

"Propaganda Techniques Related to Enviromental Scares"
Propagandist techniques from a psychological prospective.

The Daily Gleaner
A Canadian politician standing up to the hysteria.

The San Francisco Chronicle
An articulate essay on the "public health" vs "private property" debate.

"Passive Smoking, Coronary Heart Disease, and Meta-Analysis"
Regarding second-hand smoke and heart disease from the New England Medical Journal

"Exposures to second-hand smoke lower than believed"
The Oak Ridge National Laboratory study that I quoted last week.

"The Public Health Ant-Smoking Scam: A Paper of Dissent" (pdf)
A thoroughly researched and extremely well-footnoted paper on the whole issue.

"Lies, Damned Lies.." - Regulation/The Cato Institute (pdf)
A great article about "junk science" and the faux-statistics of the anti-smoking lobby.

"For Your Own Good: The Anti-Smoking Crusade and the Tyranny of Public Health" by Jacob Sulum
An radical and yet informative book on smoking issues and health laws. Here's an online list of its own "10 myths of the anti-smoking movement" , including the one about smokers being a financial burden to society (they're not).

NYC CLASH
NYC Clash is an organization formed by NYC police officer Audrey Silk to combat the smoking ban.

Audrey writes:

"Yes, I'm a NYC Police Officer for 18 1/2 years now. In December of '99 NYS Gov. Pataki decided to raise the tax on cigarettes (that was two tax hikes ago). When I read that part of the reason for jacking up the price was to "encourage people to stop smoking" I got incensed at the idea that the govt. would monetarily punish me in order to manipulate my behavior. That, in my opinion, was none of their business and I was disgusted by the paternalism.  That's when I started NYC C.L.A.S.H."

It's good to know that there are even some police officers who respect our individual rights. Do you?

until next week..
when you dance, we are a part of what you feel.

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