Second-Hand Smoke
In a surprise to no one with the capacity to reason, the Surgeon General declared, amongst other things, that separate smoking sections don't protect people from the dangers of second-hand smoke.
What's interesting to me about this report, however, is that you have a Republican agency official talking about the dangers of second-hand smoke, when 15-20 years ago there was a huge amount of puffery (pun intended) from the far right about how second-hand smoke wasn't a danger to anyone. I can remember this controversy boiling up while I was in elementary school. Now, the fight is over; no longer does anyone seem to be suggesting that second-hand smoke isn't damaging (and such would be a fool's argument, with the amount of scientific data that has been collected on the subject). Instead, when people argue against things like public smoking bans, they rely on libertarian arguments that the state shouldn't be telling people what to do. That's usually the fallback position that is taken right before a wave of major change happens, since it appeals to far fewer people overall (my buddy Martin notwithstanding).
I want to close off this post with one other thought. It's interesting to me how so often, die-hard conservatives will fight and fight and fight to say that something isn't credible, or isn't happening, only to eventually have to cave to an avalanche of data. I'm thinking now about things like a hole in the ozone layer, the dangers of de-forestation (remember Reagan's Interior Secretary?), and the need for clean air and clean water standards. Now, we can add second-hand smoke to the list. What's interesting to me is that it seems the same thing is happening with global climate change; Republicans like El Presidente himself are making noises about how this is a serious issue that needs serious discussion. Just 15 years ago his father was mocking that kind of thinking.
I'm sure that this happens on the left as well (I can think of several areas where it probably has, such as welfare and education), but it sure seems that this level of myopia is particularly problematic on the Republican side.
posted by JST @ 8:02 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Sigh
The data used in the Surgeon general's report is all old, most of it is based on the 1993 EPA study which was thrown out of federal court. Nothing was newer than 3 years old. A World Health Organization study was unable to find anything statistically signifcant regarding 2nd hand smoke and lung cancer. It takes 40,000 cigarettes to give a smoker a 1 in 1000 chance per year of getting lung cancer, 2nd hand "smokers" will rarely approach that level of exposure.
The "relative risk" of getting lung cancer from 2nd hand smoke is 1.02 people per 100,000. The "natural rate" of Relative Risk for getting lung cancer is 1.00 per 100,000 people.
The "hole" in the ozone layer effected nobody, as it was over Antarctica. Nobody cares, as evidenced by the lack of news stories relating to the production of HCFC's which are generally considered a risk to the Ozone layer. The 6% reduction in Ozone over places people actually live has not been linked to anything in a statistically significant manner.
Deforestation was always BS, trees are a crop that there is demand for, therefore there are trees to continue to cut down.
Global warming may or may not be true. Temperatures in the last 50 years have gone down slightly, temperatures in the last hundred years have gone up a little, were down from 1000 years ago and slightly up from 4000 yeras ago. There is more solar output than before and the CO2 ice caps on Mars are melting away at an accelerated rate.
I wouldn't mind if you dug a little deeper than just reporting on the AP summary of the SG's press release of the Executive Summary of a report done by one of the most unobjective offices in government.
Seat belt laws kill more people than are saved. Speed limits do nothing to save lives, helmet laws increase motorcycle crashes, Seals deserve to be clubbed and freedom is a precious commodity that is in a constant state of erosion due to the latest "cause" that people use to replace the empty feeling they get when they reflect on their own lives.
This post was largely just a giant softball designed to egg you on, Martin, since you are pretty much the only reader of this blog. I was feeling pithy this morning and published a pithy post.
So here's what I actually believe: first, all of the data was certainly old, but I'll stick with the SG on this one. I'll do some research if I get a chance (end of the summer semester is upon me and I'm working on my final paper, hence the recent paucity of posts on my blogs). My suspicion is that your "relative risk" statistics are rubbish, but I'm open-minded enough to admit I might be wrong.
On the ozone layer; the argument being made by conservatives in general wasn't that it "effected nobody," but that it didn't exist. The very idea that there was a hole in the ozone was scoffed at. For the purposes of this post, I'm not even going to dig into the idea of what caused that hole, because that is irrelevant. Far more relevant is the fact that the scientific data indicating that the hole existed at all was scoffed at and ignored until it couldn't be anymore. On the plus side, all reports indicate the hole is disappearing. Yay.
Deforestation...don't get me started. Timber is a crop, yes. However, the way that timber has been harvested is incredibly unsustainable. If you look at Forest Service data on the profitability of timber cutting on National Forest lands, you'll find that it's profitable pretty much only in the Northwest, and extremely unprofitable elsewhere. We need wood, we have wood to provide; arguing that we can continue to utilize the clearcutting and other non-sustainable methods currently in use is madness, unless you'd like the whole United States to look like central New Mexico.
Global Warming...can't argue with you. There is evidence of increasing global temperatures, but who knows if that's going to continue. My point in including it was that there is increasing scientific evidence that global warming is a problem, yet conservatives have been scoffing at the idea for years. Even you are now acknowledging that it "may or may not be true." This is a far cry from the old party-line that it was a total fabrication, an argument that was made with vehemence in the past. The point, essentially, is that conservatives shouldn't be so dismissive of suggestions that there are problems with the way they view the world. The same is true of liberals. Neither side is always right, and pretending that they are results in making it more difficult later on to change views.
As for "not minding if [I] dug a little deeper," the point of the blog was only partially second-hand smoke. The issuing of the SG of the report today was a good vehicle for making a larger point. I didn't see a need to dig deeper on the issue. And, incidentally, the article itself states that there is no new data present; it's not like I thought this was breaking news. Incidentally, the value of the story was also in the fact that the SG, an employee of a Republican administration, issued the report. THAT is where the story is, not in whether second-hand smoke is in fact a danger.
As for your last paragraph, I'm not sure what that's all about. However, I assume the "freedom" comment was meant to suggest that the supposed "freedom" of smokers to engage in their habit wherever they want to is in danger, and indicative of a larger loss of "personal freedom." To that, I say who cares? What about the general public's freedom from smoke in public? You can't have sex in public; you can't do drugs in public; you can't urinate or defecate in public. I guess I don't have a problem if communities also say you can't smoke in public. It's a nuisance, and I don't see it as an issue of "freedom." Smoke in your car, smoke in your home, smoke in your private club. I don't care. I'm not going to defend a supposed "right" to smoke in public, a right which exists nowhere in the Constitution, unless you want to make the desperate argument that it is a part of the "liberty" protected by substantive due process...but as a good libertarian/conservative, I doubt you want to use substantive due process to protect anything. This is not an issue that I feel passionately about; I'm a recluse that doesn't go out much, and almost never to places that allow smoking anyway, so I don't really care whether it is banned or not in bars and other places. I just don't see a reason to defend those who think it should be preserved. Have fun fighting this battle; it's a losing issue.
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