Tim … I agree, it would have been nice to clear the air for everyone without legislation. Based on the flack I’m getting here and elsewhere about “smoker’s rights”, how the Smoke Free Illinois Act is Communist tyranny, and head-in-the-sand denial of the health consequences of secondhand smoke … that never would have happened.

Michael … OK, the first link on your list talks about environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) and lung cancer. I concede that link is weak, although probably still real. However, the lung cancer attribution to ETS-related mortality is 3,000 deaths per year, a small fraction of the total. Most environmental tobacco smoke deaths are attributed to cardiovascular disease (heart attack and stroke), and there the link is much stronger.

Regarding the 2nd, 3rd & 4th links … all three go to articles about the SAME STUDY, a British Medical Journal report that looked at non-smoking spouses of smokers in California.

One, it’s a single study. Many others do show a link. For some examples, start here.

Two, the BMJ study made no attempt to measure exposure levels by a quantitative method like plasma or urine cotinine (a stable nicotine metabolite). In relationships where you have a non-smoker and a smoker living together, a good portion of the time, the non-smoker tells the smoker to take it outside. My grandmother made my cigar-smoking grandfather take it to the garage, and that was more than a decade before the 1968 Surgeon General’s report linking tobacco to human disease. This study did not account for that. It just looked at the number of packs per day smoked by the smoker … not where they were actually smoking them, and how much smoke their spouse was actually exposed to. This weakness renders the BMJ study meaningless.

Just like the climate debate, deniers point to one or two supportive studies as the be-all and end-all of their arguments, while they ignore the massive MOUNTAIN of data that argues against their point. Secondhand smoke has PROVEN, MEASURED physiologic responses in test subjects. ETS makes arteries narrow, the interior lining of the blood vessels stickier, and platelets stickier. Those three things together are a BAD combination, especially in someone who already has coronary and/or carotid artery disease.

http://www.lpconline.com/secondhand_smoke.html

http://www.reason.com/news/show/35718.html

http://psyed.org/r/crit/crd/second_smoke.html

There are a lot of things that can kill you floating about.

Are you going to put a law in place for everyone of them?

Also, the effects of second-hand smoke are hardly “minuscule.” The low end, conservative estimates indicate about 20,000 deaths per year. The high end estimates approach 60,000. That’s just in the United States.

tsheets,
So non-smokers shouldn’t bitch if a smoker starts a fire with his un-extinguished cig butt??? Color me a radical, but I think negligent arson is a perfectly reasonable thing to bitch about. Cigarettes are responsible for the majority of home fires and more than a few outdoor wild fires in this country.

Eric,
Body odor and perfume don’t cause thousands of deaths every year.

I have the right to stay home? Seriously? That’s an argument? Why do I have to stay home to accommodate a smoker’s habit??? That makes absolutely ZERO sense.

Can we apply that to body odor and perfume as well? C’mon… Thats not realistic. As a non smoker, you have the right to stay home and avoid all contact with smokers, smelly or undesirable people! Just park close to the door and run into whatever business you are patronizing.

As for the ashtrays… Half or your older counclemen and reps probably smoke… So, just heap some more tax on the ciggies… They keep buying them no matter what the price! That will pay for a few $300.00 ashtrays.

Eric (Non-Smoker who is tired being legislated)

What *is* a stretch is for you to state that mortonmalaise is “blaming” non-smokers for a hypothetical fire started in a trash can from a cigarette butt. He didn’t place blame at all….just stated that the non-smokers would bitch about it if firefighters had to extinguish the fire. Which, is probably true.

You’re not entitled to inflict your habit on ANYONE ANYWHERE. Your “right” to smoke ends at the lungs of ANY non-smoker in your vicinity. Anything short of that is not only rude behavior, but chemical assault. It’s exactly the same as walking up to random people and punching them in the face. You don’t have the right to do that on ANY property … public or private.