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yawn wrote:
OSHAY?

OSHA

www.osha.gov

I was gonna say something offensive to Mayfair regarding his allegiance to OSHA but thought better of it because he seems like a decent human. And Sir your recordings are kinda spectacular.

yawn wrote:

Mayfair wrote:

yawn wrote:
OSHAY?

OSHA

www.osha.gov

Boy! You have a small brain.

Clearly I do too, because, based on the above, I don't understand why Mayfair's brain is small. Does the weeness of Mayfair's brain somehow hinge on the term 'oshay'?

Yawn, enlighten me.

yawn wrote:I was gonna say something offensive to Mayfair regarding his allegiance to OSHA but thought better of it because he seems like a decent human. And Sir your recordings are kinda spectacular.

Whoops, too late, buddy. Now what do I do? Should I edit my post for yawn's sake?

Hey you guys, I MUST have a small brain. I have NO IDEA what you both are talking about. 'Oshay'? Huh? ...help...I'm dumb.

But to clarify.... My point about things such as OSHA were that, yes, there ARE things in place that help to regulate health issues for workers (in answer to a post inferring the opposite). They are one of many many inforcers of guidelines, rules, laws, etc. that help the commonly small guy (employee) against the commonly big guy (the company, industry). I will not go all the way back through it but I think I invoked them to point out we as a country have made it a point to protect such rights of the individual in terms of health (etc, etc) and this is one of those tools.

In my limited dealings with OSHA it has seemed to me that what they proscribe often did not just protect the employee from harm but also safeguarded the employer from possible liability...as in an 'everyone wins' kinda thing. Do you have a different take on OSHA? Or were you just having some fun with me?

Elizabeth M. Whelan, Sci.D., M.P.H., President/Founder of the American Council on Science and Health, says that the "evidence is scanty" regarding the health risks of SHS. The EPA study that people drag out as definitive proof that SHS is harmful was lambasted in a '98 federal court ruling exposing that the EPA intentionally ignored data that contradicted their pre-determined conclusion. Main point: the science is still under debate -- people have already started to accept it as fact, but the health risks are still in the process of being researched. Note: I haven't read every word of this entire thread, so I may have missed more recent data about all this.

But even if it was a substantial health risk, it shouldn't matter. Why not ban alcohol from being consumed in bars, too? I'm sure it would save thousands of lives by reducing drunk driving. If smoking is that threatening to certain non-smokers, then they wouldn't go to places where people smoke... but apparently, many people are still willing to risk their lives.

You can't sterilize the world.

John W. wrote:Elizabeth M. Whelan, Sci.D., M.P.H., President/Founder of the American Council on Science and Health, says that the "evidence is scanty" regarding the health risks of SHS. The EPA study that people drag out as definitive proof that SHS is harmful was lambasted in a '98 federal court ruling exposing that the EPA intentionally ignored data that contradicted their pre-determined conclusion. Main point: the science is still under debate -- people have already started to accept it as fact, but the health risks are still in the process of being researched. Note: I haven't read every word of this entire thread, so I may have missed more recent data about all this.

But even if it was a substantial health risk, it shouldn't matter. Why not ban alcohol from being consumed in bars, too? I'm sure it would save thousands of lives by reducing drunk driving. If smoking is that threatening to certain non-smokers, then they wouldn't go to places where people smoke... but apparently, many people are still willing to risk their lives.

You can't sterilize the world.

Though I agree with you John that is is not struck in stone yet and people of merit still fall on both side of the science, it seems to me the weight of who falls on the side warning of health risks is immense compared with the lone wolves (of merit) who question it. Nothing is black and white right or wrong so I have to step back (since I did not do the actual scientific research myself) and look at as much as I can and then derive an educated opinion. I assume if you really look and stack the folks up in the correct corner you mostly will have doctors and science on one side of the issue and Fox news and tobacco companies on the other...though there are a few strays in there as well as you have shown... (as with the intellegent design argument and really all arguments worth arguing).

But John, I must ask you then... you are a smart and well read guy (not to mention level headed and nice). Do you think smoking is bad for your health? If so, do you think the same smoke is not bad for the person next to you?

By the way, drunk driving IS outlawed. Our right to drink alcohol is HIGHLY reduced in this country with laws that prescribe age and location (i.e. open container laws, school property, age of 21, public intoxication, etc). And as said before... someone drinking does not affect the health of the person sitting right next to them or in the same room (as someone eating red meat doesn't). That can not be said for smoking so it is not a good analogy in my opinion.

I will agree with some on here who have said it should at least be a license one needs to get to have a smoking bar just as you do with alcohol... not that that solves a ton of problems or anything... probably makes more problems... I think that could have been a baby step worth taking. It does make sense though I think this is the beginning of something bigger for smokers and public places... I think you can feel it coming too.

I am just trying to imagine how worked up all you people will get when they try and ban pole smoking.....

Also John, look more closely at Elizabeth M. Whelan. She seems to benefit from such 'official' opinions as she works for and is funded by those that benefit her arguments... and it seems she should be seen as a lobbiest rather than an impartial 'scientist'.

But yeah, there are others that do what you say she does....have big questions to the validity of the health risks... I still think they are dwarfed by the voice on the other side of the matter.

Cecil Adams:

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/000602.html

And even if it is proven that SHS kills, then people who don't want to put themselves in that kind of danger, shouldn't go to places where this possible danger exists. If it is important enough for non-smokers to avoid tobacco smoke, they wouldn't go to bars where people smoke. I think the reason that the dissenting opinions are dwarfed by the other side of the matter is because we live in a culture of fear. Hyping the idea that people around you who smoke induces slow death sells ads and panders to the (in my opinion, slightly neurotic and increasingly common) notion that we need to live in an unreasonably antiseptic world. Incidentally, I think that Fox news would be on the anti-smoking side of this issue, since it generates fear... but that's pure speculation on my part.

The drunk driving analogy is probably not the best one for this argument, but my point was that we allow other types of behavior that are equally dangerous. For instance, the cell phone ban while driving. It has been statistically proven that talking on a headset is just as distracting to drivers as talking on a regular cell phone, yet the Chicago law allows people to talk on headsets when driving because 'common sense' says it's safer. This is a double standard, an example of people making laws that pick and choose data as a means for their justification, just like the smoking ban.

I personally get annoyed by smoke, but I hate the idea of people telling others how they should live their lives. Yes, the actual right to smoke isn't being taken away, but in a way it is... a bar is the number one place where people go to smoke (at least, that's what I think the Family Feud survey would show).

I do think smoking is bad for your health... is it bad for the person next to the smoker? Sure 'common sense' says yes, but is SHS dangerous enough to force everyone to refrain from smoking at a dirty little bar that non-smokers easily can avoid? I don't think so.

People who don't like cig smoke are fine with me... I'm pretty much one of them. People who want to force issues for everyone else's own good or want to change the whole world to fit their own agenda... that really bothers me.

A frivolous factoid, the Nazis were fiercely anti-smoking.