1. People who CHOOSE to work in a smoking environment CHOOSE to take the chance and have NO RIGHT to complain to anyone other then their boss.

2. Second hand smoke is not a direct health hazard. It is more of a catalyst. If you are in it 24/7, then you have a very high risk of contracting problems (not 'only' or 'definitively', lung cancer). If your immune system is weak from a cold or you just being run down, you have a higher risk of having complications.

500 ug (OSHA safe level) divided by 3.3 ug (median reading [at]Applebees) = measured airborne nicotine* levels are 152 times safer than OSHA regulations ie. NO HEALTH HAZARD.
It is therefore impossible to implement smoking bans based on the argument that secondhand smoke is a health hazard, that argument has been scientifically proven false.

OSHA itself has stated regarding secondhand smoke:

"Field studies of environmental tobacco smoke indicate that under normal conditions, the components in tobacco smoke are diluted below existing Permissible Exposure Levels (PELS.) as referenced in the Air Contaminant Standard (29 CFR 1910.1000)...It would be very rare to find a workplace with so much smoking that any individual PEL would be exceeded."

If a person chooses to work in a smoking place, so be it. They were warned and knowledgeable about the policy.

http://cleanairquality.blogspot.com/2005/11/did-i-miss-anything.html


>snip< See charts at linked site

Should that same rule apply to working in an unsafe coal mine?

Here is what is not at issue today: This is not about the rights of smokers to smoke in public. They are in an establishment someone else owns. Any bar or restaurant in this city may voluntarily go smoke free, and smokers would have no claim against them, except to take their business elsewhere. Indeed, more than 200 businesses in Washington, D.C. have done exactly that.

But this is not about non-smokers rights, either. You don't have the right to walk onto someone else's property, demand to be served food or drink someone else has bought, and demand that they serve you on your terms. Free societies don't work that way.

This isn't about worker's rights. The idea that the Washington, D.C. city council is banning public smoking to benefit the city's waiters, waitresses and bartenders is a canard. There are countless jobs and professions that are far more dangerous than serving food or drink in the presence of secondhand smoke. The people who choose those jobs -- cab drivers, fishermen, and police, for example -- take those jobs full-well knowing the risks. The health risks associated with secondhand smoke are debatable. But this simple fact isn't: A waiter or bartender who chooses to work for an establishment that allows smoking knows what kind of environment he'll be working in.

So what is this debate about? It's about freedom. It's about standing up to the healthists, those people who believe the state has not only the right, but the responsibility to police our personal lives for bad habits.

In this case, they want to trample on a business owner's property rights, on his right to reap the fruits of his investment and his labor as he sees fit, and on his right and the right of his patrons to freely associate with whom they please. Why do they want to do this? They say it's to protect the "public" from secondhand smoke. But exactly whom are they protecting?

Not the bar or restaurant owner. He could make the whole place smoke-free if he wanted.

Not the employees. They can work elsewhere. Or find a new line of work.

And certainly not the patrons. They're giving the bar or restaurant their business voluntarily.

The healthists aren't protecting anyone. What they're protecting is a "right" for themselves that they've fashioned out of whole cloth. They're fighting to get invited to the party, then make the rules once they get there. They want the so-called "right" to be self-appointed nanny, mother, rule maker, and rule enforcer for everyone else.

It isn't enough for the smoke-free crowd to merely embrace good habits themselves. They want everyone else to share those habits too -- by force if necessary. It isn't enough for them to simply avoid businesses that allow smoking. They want a king's fiat to make them smoke free, or shut them down.

Healthists value longevity over a life well-lived. Abstention over indulgence. They believe adding years to the end of your life is the primary reason for living.

I'd have no problem with that if they only applied those values to themselves. But they want to use the law to make the rest of us live by them, too.

This is Nanny Statist government. Its roots go back to alcohol prohibition. It is government that wipes your nose when it's dirty, tells you to eat your vegetables, and makes sure you're in bed by ten.

The first quote states that the measurement involved shows there is apparently no health hazard from airborne nicotine, not that there is none from any of the other components of second-hand smoke..

What are the "normal conditions" referred to in the second quote? I know I've been (briefly) in places where even smokers left because they considered the air unbreathable..

OSHA has also refused to implement smoking bans despite being ordered to by the courts, so they're not exactly an unbiased source of information.

The forgotten chapter
Is secondhand smoke really deadly? Look at the facts carefully.

In summary, a bunch of tobacco farmers sued the EPA for deliberately suppressing scientific evidence that would have proven secondhand smoke not guilty of murder. In July 1998, South Carolina judge William Osteen -- a notably anti-tobacco judge -- ruled that the EPA's evidence against secondhand smoke was not found in the proper conditions. He found that:

The EPA did not do any new research. They simply aggregated the results of a number of existing studies into one "super study" from which to draw conclusions.

The EPA announced the results of their analysis before it was finished.

The EPA excluded nearly two thirds of the data from their analysis.

When they still couldn't arrive at the desired conclusion by ignoring most of the data, they doubled their margin of error.
Judge Osteen ordered the 600-page report vacated -- declared legally null and void. Secondhand smoke was the biggest scandal of the 20th century, and as far as I know, the Court's damning decision went totally unreported by the media.

The EPA was able to claim secondhand smoke causes cancer only after it cherry-picked information, changed the rules of standard statistical analysis, and tortured the data to fit its agenda.

In other words, if the EPA had followed its own rules and the well-accepted rules of science, it could not have concluded that secondhand smoke causes cancer. An objective observer looking at all the available evidence would reach very different conclusions from those of the EPA.

The American public relies on the government to provide fair, accurate, well-supported evidence in its statements about public health. Perversion of the scientific process to support a political agenda is a reprehensible violation of public trust.

"Aren't you aware that Osteen's ruling was ITSELF vacated by the U.S. Court of Appeals in 2002?"
It is true that the EPA appealed Osteen's ruling, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit granted EPA's appeal. However, the reason for granting the appeal was based on a legal technicality, not on the scientific merit of the Osteen decision. The Court of Appeals reversed Osteen's ruling based on jurisdiction, while explicitly affirming the importance of the issues raised by Osteen regarding the glaring deficiencies in the methodology of the EPA's fatally flawed report on secondhand smoke.

You should seriously question the credibility of anyone who refers to the EPA report, or any of the conclusions that it reached, as if they were facts. That includes everyone who calls secondhand smoke a "class A carcinogen." Once they do, every subsequent statement they make should be considered highly suspicious until it is thoroughly verified.

"But what about the individual studies? What do THEY say?"
Well, let's see.

"In general, there was no elevated lung cancer risk associated with passive smoke exposure in the workplace"
Brownson et al, American Journal of Public Health, Vol. 82, No. 11

"... an odds ratio of 0.91 ... indicating no evidence of an adverse effect of environmental tobacco smoke in the workplace"
Janerich et al, New England Journal of Medicine, Sept. 6, 1990

"...the association with exposure to passive smoking at work was small and not statistically significant"
Kalandidi et al, Cancer Causes and Control, Vol. 1, No. 1

"Among women exposed only at work, the multivariate relative risks of total CHD were 1.49 ... among those occasionally exposed and 1.92 ... among those regularly exposed to secondhand smoke, neither of which is statistically significant according to commonly accepted scientific standards"
Kawachi et al, Circulation, Vol. 95, No. 10

"No association was observed between the risk of lung cancer and smoking of husband or passive smoke exposure at work."
Shimizu et al, Journal of Experimental Medicine, Vol. 154

"We found no increase in CHD [coronary heart disease] risk associated with ETS exposure at work or in other settings."
Steenland et al, Circulation, Vol. 94, No. 4

"... no statistically significant increase in risk associated with exposure to environmental tobacco smoke at work or during social activities...."
Stockwell et al, Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Vol. 84

"There was no association between exposure to ETS at the workplace and risk of lung cancer."
Zaridze et al, International Journal of Cancer, Vol. 75

Furthermore, according to the largest study ever performed on the topic:

"No significant associations were found for current or former exposure to environmental tobacco smoke, before or after adjusting for seven confounders, and before or after excluding participants with pre-existing disease."
Enstrom & Kabat, British Medical Journal, Vol. 326

Every major study whose parameters were not changed to bolster a preconceived result shows little or no health risk from secondhand smoke.

"Never mind the studies. If you can see it, and you can smell it, that means there's SOMETHING THERE, and that ain't CLEAN AIR!"
Tobacco smoke is not pure air.

About 95% of tobacco smoke is composed of ordinary air with a slight excess of water and carbon dioxide.

The remaining 5% contains the rest of the "4,000 chemicals" supposedly found in tobacco smoke -- but found, obviously, in extremely small amounts.

Far from all 4,000 of those chemicals are normally labeled as toxic in the first place, with the 1989 Surgeon General's report only noting that "some" are -- without reference to how many or to what amounts would be considered toxic. One of the most fundamental principles of toxicology is that "the dose makes the poison" -- a fact always ignored by anti-smoking crusaders. An aspirin a day keeps the doctor away, but take the whole bottle at once and it will kill you instantly.

Dr. Gio Batta Gori and Dr. Nathan Mantel -- both ardent anti-smokers -- actually burned cigarettes and measured the chemicals produced. Then they consulted the U.S. government's list of safe levels of exposure for each of the chemicals detected in the smoke.

How many cigarettes would it take to reach these levels? Let's see.

FIGURE 1. Estimated number of cigarettes required to reach OSHA safe exposure limits from secondhand smoke emission of selected chemicals in a sealed and unventilated 20' x 20' x 9' enclosure (Gori & Mantel, 1991)

ETS Component /ETS Output (mg/cig)/Safety Limit (mg/m3)/CigsReqd
Methyl chloride/.........0.88/..................... 0.30 /............... 1,170
Acetaldehyde/.............1.26.....................180.00/.................1,430
Nitrogen oxides/..........2.80.......................50.00/.................1,780
Phenol/.......................0.25.......................19.00/.................7,600
Benzene/....................0.24.......................32.00/................13,300
Dimethylamine/...........0.036.....................18.00/................50,000
Benzo[a]pyrene/.........0.00009....................0.20/..............222,000
Polonium 210/.............0.4pCi....................3pCi/l...............750,000
Toluene/.................... 0.000035...............375.00............1,000,000

It does not look like these enormous amounts will be reached in any normal environment, at work or at home. If you think I'm kidding, read the actual report.

According to Michael J. McFadden, "the risk of secondary smoke to nonsmokers has been twisted and exaggerated beyond all reason purely as a tool of social engineering. Even the infamous EPA Report of 1993 testified more to the safety of secondary smoke than to its danger. According to the EPA figures themselves, a nonsmoker living with a smoker for 30 to 40 years would have better than a 99.9% chance of not getting lung cancer from such long-term and constant exposure."
...

What harmful substances are found in gasoline and diesel fuel?

Gasoline and diesel fuels contain toxic substances that can enter the environment and cause adverse health effects in people. Some of these substances, such as benzene, toluene and xylenes, are found in crude oil and occur naturally in fuels and their vapors. Other substances, such as 1,3-butadiene and formaldehyde, are formed in engines during combustion and are only present in exhaust.
Other harmful pollutants found in engine exhaust include particulate matter (known more commonly as soot), nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide and various hydrocarbons. Ozone, the major component of urban smog, is formed when nitrogen oxides react in sunlight with hydrocarbons.

Diesel exhaust is a particular health concern. There are
1.25 million diesel-fueled engines and vehicles operating in California. These diesel vehicles account for only 2 percent of on-road motor vehicles in the state, but they produce 30 percent of the nitrogen oxides and 60 percent of the particulate matter directly emitted from California motor vehicles. Diesel exhaust also contains over 40 different substances identified by the California Air Resources Board (ARB) as toxic air contaminants that may pose a threat to human health. The particulate matter in diesel exhaust has been identified as a toxic air contaminant by ARB, and it has been linked to lung cancer.
...
What health effects are associated with exposure to fuels?

Breathing gasoline and diesel vapors can irritate the nose and throat and cause headaches, dizziness, nausea, vomiting and confusion. Of course, most people are not exposed to high enough levels of fuels to become ill in this manner. However, we are all exposed to lower levels of fuel components throughout our lives. This lifelong exposure can increase the risk of adverse health effects.

Both liquid gasoline and motor vehicle exhaust contain chemicals that can cause cancer. Benzene, a fundamental component of gasoline and diesel fuel as well as vehicle exhaust, causes cancer in humans. Gasoline exhaust also contains cancer-causing 1,3-butadiene, formaldehyde and acetaldehyde. Diesel exhaust contains several dozen toxic substances and scientific studies have shown that workers exposed to diesel exhaust are more likely to develop lung cancer. Long-term exposure to particles in diesel exhaust poses the highest cancer risk of any toxic air contaminant evaluated by OEHHA. ARB estimates that about 70 percent of the cancer risk that the average Californian faces from breathing toxic air pollutants stems from diesel exhaust particles. The microscopic particles making up diesel exhaust particulate matter are less than one-fifth the thickness of a human hair. They are small enough to penetrate deep into the lungs, where they can contribute to respiratory disease.

Gasoline and diesel exhausts contain nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide and sulfur dioxide. Nitrogen oxides can damage lung tissue, lower the body's resistance to respiratory infection and worsen chronic lung diseases such as asthma. As mentioned earlier, nitrogen oxides react in the atmosphere with hydrocarbons to form ozone, the major component of urban smog. Ozone is a strong irritant to the eyes and respiratory tract. It can make respiratory problems worse for people who already have asthma and other respiratory diseases. Children, senior citizens and people with chronic lung disease, such as Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), are especially sensitive to ozone. Ozone also hurts the lungs of healthy people who exercise outdoors when ozone levels are high.

Carbon monoxide is a colorless, odorless gas that limits the blood's ability to transport oxygen to body tissues. Its presence in the body places a strain on people who already have cardiac or respiratory diseases, as well as pregnant women and the elderly.

MTBE

Another concern about gasoline is methyl tertiary butyl ether, or MTBE, which originally was used in gasoline in small amounts to reduce engine knocking. Beginning in the mid-1990s, more MTBE was added to make gasoline burn cleaner and produce less air pollution. MTBE is present in gasoline vapors and in the exhaust.

Regulatory agencies for years have required the monitoring of drinking-water wells for benzene and other gasoline components that can enter groundwater from leaking underground tanks. As its use became more widespread in the 1990s, MTBE also began to show up in California drinking water wells that were near leaking underground tanks. Bacteria do not break MTBE down as readily as they do benzene, so MTBE will stay in the water longer. MTBE is also more difficult and expensive to remove than benzene. Even at very low concentrations, MTBE has an unpleasant taste and odor that renders drinking water unusable.

Although not as toxic as benzene, MTBE has been shown to cause cancer in certain laboratory animals and may cause cancer in humans. Because of concerns about MTBE in California's drinking water supplies and its general impact on public health and the environment, Governor Gray Davis ordered the removal of MTBE from California's gasoline by the end of 2002.

Concerns about MTBE also prompted legislation that requires the study of potential health impacts prior to the adoption of any new state gasoline regulations that are intended to improve air quality. OEHHA is developing methods to study the risks that could occur throughout the entire "life cycle" of a fuel, from its production, storage, transportation, dispensing and use, through its recycling and disposal.

For more information on the misleading statements, exaggerations, half-truths and sometimes outright lies that the anti-smokers use to further their agenda, you may want to check out Michael McFadden's book, Dissecting Antismokers' Brains. http://www.antibrains.com

OSHA regulates exposure to substances as toxic as RUBBING ALCOHOL in the workplace. Why is cigarette smoke, a known carcinogen, exempt?

Should employers be able to submit their employees to any level of hazard they choose, since people can choose not to work there? Maybe, but it's not how things work now. Right now, workplace safety is highly regulated.

The fact that the dangers of cigarette smoke are exempted is an anomoly that is the result of tens of millions of dollars of lobbying by Big Tobacco.

I'm afraid the whole medical and scientific community disagrees with you; they estimate something like 30,000 secondhand smoke deaths a year. What's your source?

Here is a GREAT idea for OSHA- Mandate that people working in smoking environments take their breaks/lunch in a fresh air environment (either leaving the building or a very well ventilated room!

It amazes me how some people talk a good game when it comes to things they like that annoy others, yet turn into exactly the same whiny, I-know-better-whats-good-for-you-than-you-do types when something annoys them.