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Big Brother is Alive and Well 7/6/2005 11:15:29 PM
Since 1993, a select portion of the adult population has become a casualty of blatant discrimination. I am referring to those who choose to smoke tobacco. The EPA released their groundbreaking Report that year, claiming that for now and forever, "secondhand smoke" was to be classified as a "Class A Carcinogen." Without warning, smokers were suddenly lowered a couple of rungs down the social ladder. People could no longer smoke at the workplace. Restaurants and virtually all forms of public transportation banned smoking. Nonsmokers who previously had ashtrays in their homes for guests that smoked threw them away, no longer permitting smoking. It didn't matter if you lived in a brutally cold climate. If you wanted to take a smoke break in the middle of January where temperatures were more suited for Polar bears, you as a smoker were forced to go outside and shiver. After all, according to the EPA, you were subjecting nonsmokers to severe health risks.
If you were unfortunate enough to be a smoker, things went from bad to worse. Smokers were beginning to be regarded as pond scum, even criminals, if they so much as even thought of lighting up around children. Meanwhile, the bans continued to grow city by city. Currently, twelve years later, it is getting much worse for smokers. In the 1990's, bans were pretty much limited to restaurants and workplace environments, but as we approach the middle of the first decade of the new century, the list has grown to bars, bowling alleys, sports stadiums, and even outdoor parks and beaches. In California, there is a proposed law prohibiting smoking in your own car if there are children under the age of 16 riding as passengers. I would imagine that soon, smokers will be arrested and charged with something such as assault with a deadly weapon if they are seen lighting up within a specified parameter of an innocent nonsmoker. Next, children will be taken away from smoking parents. Ridiculous, you say? So was the notion of smoking bans twenty years ago.
I am no doctor. Nor am I a biologist,or an expert in the field of epidemiology. I am merely a writer and an angry
smoker to boot. In regard to this issue, I rely on common sense. Allow me to elaborate.
People smoked indoors for decades before all of this hysteria started. I grew up in the 1960's and 1970's, when just about everybody smoked. I lived in a tiny ranch house, often with closed windows, with a mother who smoked three packs of Marlboros on a daily basis. My father had a pipe in his mouth from the time he got up until the time he went to bed. In addition, I have smoked for thirty years. Why am I not dead, or at best, hooked up to a respirator? Why isn't anybody else who grew up in the same environment suffering the same consequences? The EPA lied to the public, that's why. There is not one single documented case of anyone dying from "secondhand smoke," a term itself unheard of by the public two decades ago. My theory is that somebody somewhere who was either offended by the smell of tobacco smoke or pissed off because either they or someone close to them became sick due to a "smoking-related" cause, which, by the way, is questionable in itself, but I won't go there in this blog)decided to concoct this fallacy to get some sort of "revenge" on the Tobacco Industry. The following are facts and not merely the author's opinions.
The EPA had to change the definition of just what a "Class A carcinogen" was to include it on their list. Class A means that there are ingredients known to cause cancer in humans. What they don't tell you is that the amounts are so small that they are practically indetectible. As an example, two of the "4000 chemicals" found in tobacco smoke that Anti-Tobacco fanatics love to bring up are Benzene and Arsenic. Benzene is found in potatoes. Therefore, french fries should be banned based on EPA logic. As far as Arsenic is concerned, it would require the smoke from approximately 5000 cigarettes to ingest as much as there is in a typical glass of tap water. The other 3998 "chemicals" are in equally small amounts as well. Also, the EPA completely ignored studies that didn't link secondhand smoke to disease.
The American Cancer Society has figuratively shot themselves in the foot by one of their latest findings. A study was conducted to measure levels of nicotine in employees of various occupations. It was found that Bingo Hall workers had the highest levels of exposure. No surprise there. People in Bingo Halls generally smoke like chimneys. However, it was determined that even a Bingo Hall employee would have to work for a period of approximately five years to ingest the amount of nicotine from just one cigarette.
In 1998, Federal Judge William Osteen ruled that the EPA's 1993 Report was flawed and therefore invalid. What is amazing is the fact that nobody seems to acknowledge this.
Smoking bans are not a health issue, as politicians would have us believe. It would take centuries for a nonsmoker to inhale as much smoke as a direct smoker, and therefore smoking bans are unwarranted. Basically, saying that it is a health hazard to be indoors with a smoker is synonomous with saying that being in the same room with someone eating a red-hot burrito who farts downwind of you will give you heartburn. There is speculation that the big pharmaceutical companies are behind this, and it does make sense. As soon as smokers were inconvenienced by being thrown outside,cessation aids such as nicotine patches and gum previously available by prescription only were suddenly sold over-the-counter.
To conclude,bans are designed to marginalize smokers. It is discrimination,period. No government on any level should have the right to dictate business practices as long as it is within legal confines. The owners of public establishments such as restaurants, taverns, and the like are the ones who should decide whether or not to permit smoking. This is supposed to be a country where free enterprise is observed. Unfortunately, as of late, government has decided to model themselves after George Orwell's Big Brother. Should this continue, other freedoms we once enjoyed will erode.
