At least 70 students and professors are promising to light up in Kogan Plaza on Tuesday to protest the University’s plans to become smoke-free.
Students who organized the protest said the smoking ban – which would go in place in all campus spaces and around 25-feet of all campus buildings – oversteps the bounds of a college by violating their freedom of expression. They also said smokers who are kicked to the curb will smoke off campus in possibly dangerous areas and will also potentially flare tensions with neighbors.
Senior Ellis Klein organized the protest and said he was shocked by what he called a minimal outcry from students. He said he wants to raise the voices who also oppose the ban.
“There’s only been a whimper of opposition that has come up. We want to be that bang. We won’t compromise, and we certainly won’t back down,” Klein, a history major, said.
Junior Christian Geoghegan arranged the protest with Klein. He said the ban violates his freedom of choice.
“We’re a little guy movement. We’re just students trying to rise up against a tyrannical university," he said.
Geoghegan called the smoke-free effort “absurd” and blasted GW for saying the ban was a student-driven idea when few students weighed in on the idea. The Student Association held a referendum last February about the smoking ban, which was floated by graduate student organization Colonials for Clean Air. The referendum showed that 66 percent of students favored the ban, but less than 20 percent of the student body cast a vote.
“They are claiming that it’s the students who support it but that’s not true,” Geoghegan, philosophy major, said. “The smokers, the people who actually care about this, had no idea.”
Both the Board of Trustees and the Faculty Senate executive committee have given their seals of approval on the idea in the last month. The University will announce the plan Nov. 15 at its annual Great American Smokeout.
Both students said they did not know about the vote last spring, information about which was sent out by the SA, and found similar sentiment among other students when trying to raise awareness of their protest.
“We’re just trying to spread that we’re having a protest but we’re fighting this on two fronts. We first have to alert people about the ban,” Geoghegan said.
The campaign, dubbed Smokers of the World, Unite!, plays on the idea of the worker detailed in The Communist Manifesto. Klein said it was wrong that the University did not ask workers what they thought of the policy, although it “disproportionately affects the workers.”
“Students have a propensity for skirting the law here, but workers could be fired, and that’s absurd. These peoples’ livelihoods depend on it,” Klein said.
The group will launch a social media campaign this week, including a video that features testimonies from GW employees who are opposed to the ban – a population that they say was included even less in the decision than students.
Klein said he heard from a handful of maintenance workers and UPD officers who do not want the ban to take effect, but said they feared retribution from GW if they spoke out.
“You’d be surprised with how many people love their cigarettes. It’s not just something you do, it’s who you are and its also a communal activity,” Geoghegan, who is also a former Hatchet writer, said.
Senior Associate Provost and Dean of Student Affairs Peter Konwerski said that the University is looking at the ban from a health perspective, saying GW wants to “keep it as healthy an environment as possible without infringing on their personal choice.”
“What we’re trying to do is from another angle: the ways in which students live, work and play and to see how this affects them socially out in front of residence halls and at the Marvin Center at student events,” Konwerski added.
The protest at 2:30 p.m. in front of Kogan Plaza’s Clock Tower will “be respectful” and include small signs and a few brief speeches, Klein said.
“We’re going to all join here and smoke to show them. We’re here to make a statement,” Klein said.
This article was updated Nov. 12, 2012 to reflect the following:
The photo caption incorrectly stated that the protest would be Nov.15. It is planned for Nov. 13.
The University should put all the smokers in one dorm and have a diesel exhaust fan blowing right outside the main entrance at all hours. Maybe then the smokers would understand how their “communal activity” has a negative impact on others.
Second hand smoke has never killed anyone. I challenge you all to produce one name of someone who died from secondhand smoke. While there are many theoretical projections — masquerading as studies — claiming people die from secondhand smoke, there are never any death certificates that say, “Secondhand smoke inhalation”; there are also plenty of studies showing no such threat exists.
All of this, though, is a sideshow. If someone is engaged in an activity you’d like to avoid, you’re at liberty to walk around that person. That GW thinks its students are too stupid to understand this basic concept of human liberty should be insulting to all students who pay ungodly amounts of money to study there.
get a health sciences education. take an anatomy/physiology/pathophys class. then talk about birth certificate diagnoses. second hand smoke didnt kill them. lung cancer did. thats like saying someone who dies from emphysema/lung cancer/COPD who has a 50 year history of smoking didnt die from smoking. obviously not. they died from diseases that they were at risk for from smoking.
Read, you idiot:
http://www.no-smoke.org/getthefacts.php?id=13
And if that still does not make sense, here is a non-biased source:
http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/library/reports/secondhandsmoke/secondhandsmoke.pdf
Those opposed to the ban continue to bemoan it as a way to damage their social lives or civil liberties. Neither of those issues are relevant: this is most importantly a public health issue, because secondhand smoke can cause cancer.
As a student who lives on campus, in a dorm whose entrance is often home to smokers, I’m happy to see the ban take effect. Why should others get a potentially deadly disease because you MUST smoke directly in front of a building?
Counter protest, anyone?
Can second hand smoke cause cancer when the exposure to it is brief, in low concentrations, outdoors?
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced an initiative to ban smoking from college campuses last month. This is part of the HHS goal to create a society free of tobacco-related disease and death, according to their action plan released by the HHS in 2010.
Colleges who fail to enact campus-wide smoking bans and other tobacco-free policies may soon face the loss of grants and contracts from the HHS, according to the plan. Western receives grants through a subdivision of the HHS called the National Institutes of Health, Acting Vice Provost for Research Kathleen Kitto said.
http://www.westernfrontonline.net/news/article_f8068f12-0efe-11e2-8b41-001a4bcf6878.html?success=1
Obama administration to push for eliminating smoking on college campuses
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/09/11/obama … z29zJ2V2TV
That’s a fine argument for why GW would want to take this action (dollah dollah billz, etc.)
But the question remains: does outdoor second hand smoke in the context that GW wishes to ban actually harm people?
Yes, brief second hand smoke exposure over time can scar lungs and increase risk of heart disease and a plethora of cancers. Smoking kills more people each year (1/5 deaths are caused by smoking related complications; 49,000/443,000 are caused by second hand exposure according to the CDC).
Cigarette smoking costs more than $193 billion (i.e., $97 billion in lost productivity plus $96 billion in health care expenditures)-CDC
Secondhand smoke costs more than $10 billion (i.e., health care expenditures, morbidity, and mortality).-http://www.soa.org/research/research-projects/life-insurance/research-economic-effect.aspx
So yes, it’s a serious issue. Yes, you have the right to take years off your life with tobacco but you do not have the right to inflict your decisions on others.
You didn’t answer the question. Can second-hand smoke exposure OUTDOORS cause health problems?
The thing is…. you can’t answer it. There’s no evidence that it does. Literally none.
We all agree smoking hurts the smoker. We all agree second hand smoke indoors can hurt others.
Any person with half a brain knows your “logic” here is completely ridiculous. When I walk out of a building and inhale the cloud of cigarette smoke that is the same cloud of cigarette smoke that I would be inhaling if I were in a confined space. Yes, there will be some fresh air mixed in there, but it’s the same stuff just perhaps in a different concentration. It is still harmful, in any concentration. In fact, secondhand smoke is incredibly dangerous in small doses for those who have asthma and those with high blood pressure.
Also, this referendum was just a formality. When the nationwide smoking on college campus ban is passed, the university will institute a ban as well, whether your crew of smoking activists stage a sit-in or not. They care more about gov’t grant money than they do about your chosen pastime.
Maybe the problem is you only have half a brain then, because any person with a full brain knows that the concentration of something matters a hell of lot when it comes to toxicity.
There’s arsenic in your apple juice. There’s asbestos in your water. These are facts.
I hate this argument so much and I’ll tell you why. Sure, every smoker can tell me it’s ok for them to smoke around me because their low concentration of smoke produced outdoors isn’t enough to give me cancer in one session. But we don’t live in a vacuum, you aren’t the only person that I will encounter that smokes. It’s the collective concentration of second hand smoke that causes cancer. If we don’t instill regulations that limits & specifies the areas where people can smoke the probability that I will encounter and breathe in smoke will increase exponentially.
I respect your decision to smoke but I don’t respect your decision to not give a crap about the health of those you are affecting.
You know how many millions of years thatd take,your making me laugh!
If you’re afraid of second-hand smoke, you should also avoid cars, restaurants…and don’t even think of barbecuing.
here are just some of the chemicals present in tobacco smoke and what else contains them:
Arsenic, Benzine, Formaldehyde.
Arsenic- 8 glasses of water = 200 cigarettes worth of arsenic
Benzine- Grilling of one burger = 250 cigarettes
Formaldehyde – cooking a vegetarian meal = 100 cigarettes
When you drink your 8 glasses of tap water (64 ounces) a day, you’re safely drinking up to 18,000 ng of arsenic by government safety standards of 10 nanograms/gram (10 ng/gm = 18,000ng/64oz) for daily consumption.
Am I “poisoning” you with the arsenic from my cigarette smoke? Actually, with the average cigarette putting out 32 ng of arsenic into the air which is then diluted by normal room ventilation for an individual exposure of .032 ng/hour, you would have to hang out in a smoky bar for literally 660,000 hours every day (yeah, a bit hard, right?) to get the same dose of arsenic that the government tells you is safe to drink.
So you can see why claims that smokers are “poisoning” people are simply silly.
You can stay at home all day long if you don’t want all those “deadly” chemicals around you, but in fact, those alleged 4000-7000 theorized chemicals in cigarettes are present in many foods, paints etc. in much larger quantities. And as they are present in cigarettes in very small doses, they are harmless. Sorry, no matter how much you like the notion of harmful ETS, it’s a myth.
You can continue posting data all you want about how your effect is insignificant compared to others, it still does not make it right.
Co-existence my friend! Its a novel Idea….
I work for the largest anti-tobacco organization in the country, and you are being completely disingenuous by that analogy.
You are listing chemicals individually and then saying other things those individual chemicals are in. Cigarettes are a compound effect: 300 known carcinogens in about 6,000 chemicals. A hamburger has nowhere near the number of carcinogens OR chemicals. But even if it did, ones consumption of a hamburger does not inherently pass those chemicals on to someone who doesn’t want them, unlike cigarettes. This is an incredibly fallacious comparison.
Secondhand smoke is incredibly dangerous in small doses: for those who have asthma, walking through a gust of smoke can induce an attack. For those with high blood pressure, severe coughing and the nicotine levels can induce a heart attack.
This is not to mention thirdhand smoke, which is the reason why the common 25 ft away from an entrance is proposed: thirdhand smoke is what is left when the smoke disappears: traces of chemicals that can seep into buildings and sit on walls, furniture, and on clothing. Thirdhand smoke can be devastating to young children, and though college campuses are mostly adults, small children often walk among the same halls.
Research overwhelming supports that smoke-free laws, such as those in GWUs plan, overwhelmingly reduces the incidences of smoking-related stroke, heart disease, and cancer in the overall population.
The role of an institution, or government for that matter, is to protect the right of its citizens to life. When habits of some harm that right, it is the duty of the governing institution to intervene. As Thomas Jefferson once said, the most basic role of government extends only to “acts that are injurious to others.” (Notes on the State of Virginia)
The science overwhelmingly supports smoke-free air laws as a method that actively protects and guards life. Just as smokers have the right to smoke, non-smokers have the right to clean air (there is substantial court precedence regarding this phrase). Rules that prohibit ones freedom for the benefit of the public good (in this case, health) are scientifically and constitutionally supported. This is similar to public nudity laws or open container laws— neither of which even have a public health imperative. Smoke-free laws are inherently more beneficial to the public than even these instances.
I applaud the University’s decision to prioritize student health over the complaints of a minority (only 17% of the country total smokes, those rates are lower among youth). If you would like to smoke, walk a bit farther— it would be better for your health, anyway.
3RD HAND JUNK SCIENCE
Thirdhand smoke fever – another example of prejudice and propaganda
Friday February 12, 2010
Chris Snowdon, author of Velvet Glove Iron Fist: A History of Anti-Smoking, explains the “science” behind the latest anti-smoking scaremongering
It was the kind of laboratory experiment that two chemists might conduct to kill time on a rainy Friday afternoon. It resulted in global media coverage. The Daily Telegraph was only marginally more excitable than the many other newspapers which reported it:
“Third-hand smoke as dangerous as cigarette fumes … Third-hand smoke found in hair and on clothes can be as dangerous as the fumes billowing directly from a cigarette – particularly to babies and children.”
This came just over a year after the concept of ‘thirdhand smoke’ – toxins lingering in hair and furniture for months after a cigarette is extinguished – was first launched into the public consciousness. On that occasion, a telephone survey asking whether parents would be less likely to smoke if they believed that dormant carcinogens in the upholstery could attack their children was reported as if such a phenomenon had already been proven. In fact it had not even been studied, but this speculative survey was enough to prompt think-of-the-children hyperbole from the Daily Mail under the headline: ‘Even smoking outside can harm your baby’.
Insight
Having established that a section of the public was open to the idea of a new health scare, the first laboratory experiment was commissioned (the order of events providing an insight into how these things work). Conducted in the respected Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, this experiment involved putting nitrous acid in contact with nicotine to see if the reaction created tobacco-specific nitrosamines (TSNAs). Specifically, they were looking for NNA and two known carcinogens – NNN and NNK.
The nicotine had been absorbed into a surface, hence ‘thirdhand smoke’, although not the clothes and hair mentioned in subsequent news reports. Instead, the glove compartment of a truck driven by a heavy smoker was selected; the smallest and most confined workplace imaginable. A sample was taken by wiping the glove box and the nitrous acid was then sprayed on, with underwhelming results. No NNN was found and both NNA and NNK were found at barely detectable levels, both under 1 ngcm-2. This was the closest the researchers came to experimenting in real-life conditions.
Unsurprisingly
In a further experiment, the team collected a sample from the truck using cellulose substrates which absorbed twice as much nicotine and, unsurprisingly, yielded twice as many TSNAs, albeit still well below 5 ngcm-2. They then exposed some cellulose substrates to secondhand smoke, but the levels of TSNA produced were, as the authors reported, “negligible”. Finally, they gave up using cigarettes altogether and simply impregnated the cellulose substrates with pure nicotine vapour. This produced nicotine concentrations that were 15 times higher than were found in the truck and when the nitrous acid was applied, the researchers were rewarded with a more newsworthy finding. Much higher levels of NNA were recorded (over 20 ngcm-2) and NNK also rose, albeit to a fairly feeble 3 ngcm-2.
Taken as a whole, this was remarkably flimsy evidence upon which to hang the claim that stale tobacco in clothes and furniture was “as dangerous as cigarette fumes”. Having come up empty-handed using a real-life smoking environment, the researchers had resorted to using nicotine vapour on cellulose substrates in an experiment that could not be replicated outside of a laboratory. Even then, they had not found NNN in any of the experiments and the only TSNA to appear in any quantity was NNA. This posed a problem because NNA doesn’t actually cause cancer, as the authors admit:
“NNA carcinogenicity has not been reported.”
This left them with one carcinogen that was barely present, one carcinogen that wasn’t present at all and one TSNA that was present but wasn’t a carcinogen. But even these inauspicious findings only hinted at a more fundamental problem with the study.
React
The paper had shown that nitrous acid molecules will react with absorbed nicotine (just as it would with free-floating nicotine) to produce TSNAs. The more nitrous acid in the room, and the more nicotine on the surface, the more the reaction will occur. But for the experiment to have any meaning beyond the walls of a Berkeley science lab, it needed to have some relevance to everyday life. People do not tend to spray their homes with nitrous acid. Was there, indeed, any reason for using nitrous acid at all, beyond the probability that it would create some nasty sounding chemicals?
Nitrous acid concentrations in the average Californian home are 4.6 parts per billion. The Berkeley researchers used concentrations of 65 parts per billion. They described this dose as “high but reasonable”, a baffling description since it is 14 times higher than would be found in a normal domestic setting. Since they were already using 15 times more nicotine than would be found in a smoky truck cabin, any relevance the experiment had to real life had long-since vanished. The concentrations were fantastically high when compared to the average home.
Exposed
In any case, if your house or car is full of nitrous acid then you have more to worry about than it reacting with absorbed nicotine. As the authors point out in the study:
“The main indoor sources of HONO [nitrous acid] are direct emissions from unvented combustion appliances, smoking, and surface conversion of NO2 and NO.”
NO2 and NO themselves are products of unregulated combustion. So you’ll only be exposed to high concentrations of nitrous acid if you’re exposed to the products of combustion – ie you’re a peasant in a smoke-filled hut, you live in a very polluted city like New Delhi, or you are in fact smoking a cigarette. The combustion products themselves are carcinogens, and are present in much higher concentrations than the TSNAs. Your problem would be the nitrous acid, not the chair you smoked a cigar in last Christmas.
More lies from the anti-smoking health zealots. Lucy says “Secondhand smoke is incredibly dangerous in small doses”
Is it really Lucy? I would put it to you that the VAST MAJORITY of studies PROVE that second hand smoke IS NOT DANGEROUS, even in LARGE doses!!
I have absolutely no doubt that ‘secondhand smoke,’ as any of us might experience it in real life,
does not hurt anyone. The problem with ‘my’ side of
this argument is that it takes a bit of effort to understand, and a bit of time to explain, whereas antismokers have snappy soundbites (‘Secondhand Smoke Kills!’). You really don’t have to be a rocket scientist, though, and all the evidence is readily available online. Both FOREST and FORCES International, for instance, have on their websites the full downloadable details of every ETS
study ever done. I’ll leave it to them, and other researchers, to explain in more detail, but the main points in a nutshell are:
(1) Lousy Methodology. People assume that ETS studies are produced by noble and brilliant
men in white coats who have infallible ways of knowing things – ways which we cannot possibly
understand. But it’s simply not possible to isolate and measure the long-term effect on individuals of tobacco smoke in the air. Thus most ETS studies are statistical junk science, based on giving people silly questionnaires asking them to recall who smoked around them during their childhood, how much, whether the windows were open, etc. Studies are also not corrected for ‘confounders’, or conflicting factors (for instance the fact that the nonsmoking spouses of smokers invariably
share the same dietary and other ‘lifestyle’ risk factors).
(2) Inconsistency. At this writing, 70 studies have been done on ETS. Since many of them can be divided into sub categories ‘childhood,’ ‘spousal,’ and ‘workplace’) we could also express the grand total as 147. Of these, only 24 have shown any risk increase. However …
(3) Statistical Insignificance. Those 24 studies have not found anything close to the kind of proof we should be concerned about. The numbers are so low and so unreliable that they could easily be accounted for by a whole range of conflicting factors. Epidemiology (the study of the causes of disease) is not considered a hard science because so much of it is conjecture.
Epidemiologists have an established rule that anything under a consistent doubling or tripling of risk (ie 200-300%) is meaningless. This means that the often-cited ‘25% increased risk’ of disease for nonsmokers exposed to ETS is actually an insignificant increase on their already insignificant risk.
(4) The Best Studies Prove Nothing. The studies which show risk from ETS are not even the best ones. The biggest and most scientifically credible studies to date are the 10-year European one by the World Health Organisation (published in 1998) and the 39-year Californian one by Profs. Enstrom and Kabat (published by the British Medical Journal in 2003). Both failed to find any real danger from ETS (to be more precise: the WHO admitted its results were not statistically
significant, then buried them and stopped talking about them.
(5) High-Profile Studies Have Been Discredited. The California smoking ban – the one that got the ball rolling – was based on a study by the Environmental Protection Agency which was such a travesty of science that it was declared invalid and thrown out by a Federal Court.
Though the EPA was able to get Judge Osteen’s decision overturned by arguing that the he did not have jurisdiction over them, his conclusions about the science have never been challenged. Other much-hyped studies have been complete hoaxes; for instance, the one claiming that heart attacks in the small town of Helena, Montana, decreased right after, and because of, a smoking ban.
(6) Selective Use Of Data. Antismoking groups perpetuate the myth of ETS by cherrypicking
data from the few studies they like, and then extrapolating statistics from them. Many
studies are actually ‘meta-analyses,’ in which carefully-selected pre-existing studies are combined and the statistics ‘stirred around’ a bit. The results are then presented as a ‘new study’.
(7) Bias. Virtually all ETS studies are produced by groups with an avowed antismoking
agenda, and are mostly financed by pharmaceutical companies, which have a vested interest in getting us all off cigarettes and onto nicotine patches and antidepressants.
(8) Where Are The Bodies? Estimates of thousands of deaths from ETS are based on
statistical computer projections. There is not one death certificate, anywhere in the world, citing ETS as cause of death. There is not even one documented case of death proven to have been caused specifically by ETS. Antismokers have been challenged over and over again to produce one, and have refused every time. They now say simply that their position is ‘proven’ and refuse to debate it any further.
Statistically (here we go again) higher cancer risks have been found for eating mushrooms,
wearing a bra, or keeping a pet bird than for ETS. A bartender has a much higher statistical chance of dying in a bicycle accident, or from being left-handed and using right-handed things, than he or she has from exposure to tobacco smoke. I swear I’m not making this stuff up.
http://www.joejackson.com/pdf/5smokingpdf_jj_smoke_lies.pdf
Even the American Cancer Society says that there’s no evidence that Third-Hand Smoke is a danger. They suggest that even if it IS a danger (of which there is literally no evidence), it would be minimal.
http://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancercauses/tobaccocancer/secondhand-smoke
Lucy, everything you say is just tobacco control propaganda. You and your ilk keep harping on about the dangers of smoking(which are UNPROVEN), yet never mention the benefits of smoking.
Do you tell people that the only two people to blow out 120 candles on their birthday cakes were both lifelong smokers?….or that red indians smoked for thousands of years and never got lung cancer until modern times…or that tobacco leaves have anti-cancer properties…or that smoking lowers skin cancer risk…or that smoking protects against ulcerative colitis and bowel cancer, as well as alzheimers disease and parkinsons disease… and that smoking lowers risk of knee-replacement surgery? Do you tell people that smoking also reduces stress and lowers the risk of obesity…two of the worlds biggest killers?
You never tell folk that children whose parents smoke at least 15 cigarettes a day tend to have lower odds for suffering from allergic rhino-conjunctivitis, allergic asthma, atopic eczema and food allergy, compared to children of parents who have never smoked. You can see this with your own eyes… 40 years ago, when every man and his dog was a smoker, asthma in kids was practically non-existant, yet since the rapid decline in the number of smokers, there’s been a massive increase of kids with asthma!
Of course, we haven’t heard about any of these smoking benefits, because tobacco control, via the media, make sure that your propaganda is all we hear.
You and your ilk are deceiving people on a biblical scale. Shame on you.
It’s not an argument… it’s a question. The argument you’re responding with is a poor one — mainly because it’s not supported with any empirical evidence. In fact, it doesn’t even seem plausible. Go ahead and look up “dose-response” to learn about why what your saying sounds so silly.
About 90% of secondary smoke is composed of water vapor and ordinary air with a minor amount of carbon dioxide. The volume of water vapor of second hand smoke becomes even larger as it qickly disperses into the air,depending upon the humidity factors within a set location indoors or outdoors. Exhaled smoke from a smoker will provide 20% more water vapor to the smoke as it exists the smokers mouth.
4 % is carbon monoxide.
6 % is those supposed 4,000 chemicals to be found in tobacco smoke. Unfortunatley for the smoke free advocates these supposed chemicals are more theorized than actually found.What is found is so small to even call them threats to humans is beyond belief.Nanograms,picograms and femptograms……
(1989 Report of the Surgeon General p. 80).
All these bans are being pushed through because of the so called ‘dangers’ of second hand smoke. DON’T believe the anti-smoking propaganda!!……believe the scientists!!!
http://tctactics.org/index.php/Critical_Scientists
I love the picture of the hipster that goes with this article.
Smoking is probably “ironic” to him, just like his faux gold digital watch, Ray-Bans, plaid shirt, facial scruff and asinine haircut.
Ad hominem attacks do not prove that you are intelligent, sir. Show us your Rolex like a man.
I can assure you, Hippo, that my preference for rolled tobacco is quite serious and authoritatively unironic. Everyone needs a hobby, c’est mon dada.
hipsters suck
These guys are absolute idiots. What does it mean that they didnt know about the vote? It was everywhere. The hatchet covered it in depth. Maybe they should get their heads out of their butts (see what I did there) and pay attention to what’s going on in school a little more. Absolutely ridiculous for them to complain when they could’ve had their voice heard and didn’t take part.
I was opposed to the ban but now kogan will be full of smoke so I’m glad they’re reigning them in
You know what, I don’t care whether or not smoking or second hand smoke causes cancer. I don’t care that these students and faculty are upset. What I do care about is that THEY are violating my freedom of choice.
What is that choice? I would wish to walk around campus and NOT breath in something I find disgusting. I wish to walk around campus and breath in clean air. These smokers trample on my right to do so, and bitch and moan when non-smokers who really don’t care for smoking want to walk around their campus without having to dodge smokers.
Get these people strict designated smoking areas away from such populated walkways. I really don’t care if they smoke or not. What I do care about is if they smoke around me. Why should I have to go out of my way to avoid something harmful to me, when it should be them taking the consideration to get out of the way of me.
This is an urban campus. You want to get rid of cars, the metro, homeless people, and construction too? How about noise pollution? You gonna ban skateboards and loud music?
I’m a nonsmoker and I find your herping and derping far more offensive than tobacco smoke inside or outside.
I don’t blame you for being sheltered and unobservant. I blame your parents and your education for not exposing you to the reality that you are now woefully unprepared for. Good luck in the real world.
That was quite a pathetic response. It did nothing to add to the debate and was void of anything remotely intellectual. Good luck in the real world yourself.
I was shooting for funny, but you’re probably right.
Two things to think about when you get the chance:
Have you ever been outside the U.S?
Have you ever been addicted to anything?
Cheers!
Yeah! I want the same freedom of choice to NOT breathe in polluted air!
Ban cars! FREEDOM!
I agree with all these comments! Smoking is just icky! But not as icky and gross as those hipsters! And to the timexx man, may I say, I don’t know why you are adding homonyms, but it is probably smoker slang for being stupid!
I believe everyone has rights, but my rights as a non-smoker are greater than a smoker’s rights. We are equal, just more equal than others.
They shouldn’t smoke around me!!!! Furthermore, I am also a vegan, and I’m super offended when I see people walking around wearing animal products and eating meat! I think we should ban those things too because I am offended!
Guess what?
The EPA, the WHO, and the ACA don’t say that a vegetarian is a risk of cancer if they sit next to someone that is eating meat but they DO say that a non-smoker is at risk of cancer when they sit next to someone that is smoking.
http://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancercauses/tobaccocancer/secondhand-smoke
A federal Judge by the name of osteen got a case dropped in his lap in North Carolina,the case was that of EPA’S study on second hand smoke/environmental tobacco smoke.The judge an anti-tobbaco judge by reputation spent 4 years going thru the study and interviewing scientists at EPA and came to the conclusion :
JUNK SCIENCE
”EPA’s 1992 conclusions are not supported by reliable scientific evidence. The report has been largely discredited and, in 1998, was legally vacated by a federal judge.Before its 1992 report, EPA had always used epidemiology’s gold standard CI of 95 percent to measure statistical significance. But because the U.S. studies chosen[cherry picked] for the report were not statistically significant within a 95 percent CI, for the first time in its history EPA changed the rules and used a 90 percent CI, which doubled the chance of being wrong.
This allowed it to report a statistically significant 19 percent increase [a 1.19rr] of lung cancer cases in the nonsmoking spouses of smokers over those cases found in nonsmoking spouses of nonsmokers. Even though the RR was only 1.19–an amount far short of what is normally required to demonstrate correlation or causality–the agency concluded this was proof SHS increased the risk of U.S. nonsmokers developing lung cancer by 19 percent.”
The EPA fought to have Osteen’s decision overturned on technical grounds, ignoring the multitude of facts in the decision. They succeeded in 2002 on the narrowest of technicalities. The fourth circuit court of appeals ruled that because the report was not an official policy document Osteen’s court did not have jurisdiction. In their appeal the EPA did not answer a single criticism in the 92 page report, nor challenge a single fact put forth by Judge Osteen. Not one.
About 90% of secondary smoke is composed of water vapor and ordinary air with a minor amount of carbon dioxide. The volume of water vapor of second hand smoke becomes even larger as it qickly disperses into the air,depending upon the humidity factors within a set location indoors or outdoors. Exhaled smoke from a smoker will provide 20% more water vapor to the smoke as it exists the smokers mouth.
4 % is carbon monoxide.
6 % is those supposed 4,000 chemicals to be found in tobacco smoke. Unfortunatley for the smoke free advocates these supposed chemicals are more theorized than actually found.What is found is so small to even call them threats to humans is beyond belief.Nanograms,picograms and femptograms……
(1989 Report of the Surgeon General p. 80).
According to independent Public and Health Policy Research group, Littlewood & Fennel of Austin, Tx, on the subject of secondhand smoke……..
They did the figures for what it takes to meet all of OSHA’S minimum PEL’S on shs/ets…….Did it ever set the debate on fire.
They concluded that:
All this is in a small sealed room 9×20 and must occur in ONE HOUR.
For Benzo[a]pyrene, 222,000 cigarettes
“For Acetone, 118,000 cigarettes
“Toluene would require 50,000 packs of simultaneously smoldering cigarettes.
Acetaldehyde or Hydrazine, more than 14,000 smokers would need to light up.
“For Hydroquinone, “only” 1250 cigarettes
For arsenic 2 million 500,000 smokers at one time
The same number of cigarettes required for the other so called chemicals in shs/ets will have the same outcomes.
So,OSHA finally makes a statement on shs/ets :
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.” -Letter From Greg Watchman, Acting Sec’y, OSHA
“At least 70 students and professors are promising to light up in Kogan Plaza on Tuesday to protest the University’s plans to become smoke-free.”
This is the most asinine, obnoxious, and idiotic excuse of a protest I’ve ever heard. I don’t have an issue with the protest itself, but the best way to you is really to have a hoard of people smoking in one of the most busy areas of campus forcing a student body to breathe in your collective filth? Disgusting.
This is precisely the kind of offensive, unlettered drivel that we are in fact protesting against; this isn’t an issue about smoking, it’s an issue of preserving freedom and culture in the face of Philistinism and moral legislation.
It is clearly an issue about smoking. I’m so sorry you’re offended over me thinking that unnecessarily smoking in mass to prove a point that is obviously going to be a burden to people walking around Kogan that day is disgusting.
I don’t have a problem with smokers, I smoke occasionally. But I don’t agree that smokers shouldn’t give any thought to the people around them when it is proven to be a public health threat.
Also “Philistinism” really? Is smoking an artistic choice now? Since when is smoking an intellectual movement? You, me, and other smokers had the opportunity to vote against this ban in the past. It’s not mine or anyone else’s fault that the majority of smokers failed to care or even look at those ballots.
This is NOT about moral legislation. The smoking ban isn’t to try to get smokers to stop smoking, it is to let non-smokers breathe the clean air that GWU already invests so much in preserving.
Babble…more babble.
What freedom you are talking about? Freedom to kill yourself and others?
Precisely. We will not rest until the streets run red with the viscera of the innocent.
If you want to read the full treatise written in opposition to the ban, it can be found here: http://bit.ly/RRmjTL
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced an initiative to ban smoking from college campuses last month. This is part of the HHS goal to create a society free of tobacco-related disease and death, according to their action plan released by the HHS in 2010.
Colleges who fail to enact campus-wide smoking bans and other tobacco-free policies may soon face the loss of grants and contracts from the HHS, according to the plan. Western receives grants through a subdivision of the HHS called the National Institutes of Health, Acting Vice Provost for Research Kathleen Kitto said.
Obama administration to push for eliminating smoking on college campuses
They have created a fear that is based on nothing’’
World-renowned pulmonologist, president of the prestigious Research Institute Necker for the last decade, Professor Philippe Even, now retired, tells us that he’s convinced of the absence of harm from passive smoking. A shocking interview.
What do the studies on passive smoking tell us?
PHILIPPE EVEN. There are about a hundred studies on the issue. First surprise: 40% of them claim a total absence of harmful effects of passive smoking on health. The remaining 60% estimate that the cancer risk is multiplied by 0.02 for the most optimistic and by 0.15 for the more pessimistic … compared to a risk multiplied by 10 or 20 for active smoking! It is therefore negligible. Clearly, the harm is either nonexistent, or it is extremely low.
It is an indisputable scientific fact. Anti-tobacco associations report 3 000-6 000 deaths per year in France …
I am curious to know their sources. No study has ever produced such a result.
Many experts argue that passive smoking is also responsible for cardiovascular disease and other asthma attacks. Not you?
They don’t base it on any solid scientific evidence. Take the case of cardiovascular diseases: the four main causes are obesity, high cholesterol, hypertension and diabetes. To determine whether passive smoking is an aggravating factor, there should be a study on people who have none of these four symptoms. But this was never done. Regarding chronic bronchitis, although the role of active smoking is undeniable, that of passive smoking is yet to be proven. For asthma, it is indeed a contributing factor … but not greater than pollen!
The purpose of the ban on smoking in public places, however, was to protect non-smokers. It was thus based on nothing?
Absolutely nothing! The psychosis began with the publication of a report by the IARC, International Agency for Research on Cancer, which depends on the WHO (Editor’s note: World Health Organization). The report released in 2002 says it is now proven that passive smoking carries serious health risks, but without showing the evidence. Where are the data? What was the methodology? It’s everything but a scientific approach. It was creating fear that is not based on anything.
Why would anti-tobacco organizations wave a threat that does not exist?
…
The anti-smoking campaigns and higher cigarette prices having failed, they had to find a new way to lower the number of smokers. By waving the threat of passive smoking, they found a tool that really works: social pressure. In good faith, non-smokers felt in danger and started to stand up against smokers. As a result, passive smoking has become a public health problem, paving the way for the Evin Law and the decree banning smoking in public places. The cause may be good, but I do not think it is good to legislate on a lie. And the worst part is that it does not work: since the entry into force of the decree, cigarette sales are rising again.
Why not speak up earlier?
As a civil servant, dean of the largest medical faculty in France, I was held to confidentiality. If I had deviated from official positions, I would have had to pay the consequences. Today, I am a free man.
Le Parisien
…
Schuman’s Expert Witnesses Testify in Secondhand Smoke Trial
The plaintiff’s expert witnesses spoke up on day three of David Schuman’s case against his housing cooperative, Greenbelt Homes, Inc. (GHI), for its failure to prohibit the nuisance created by his townhome neighbors, the Popovics’, secondhand smoke.
Courtroom and Plaintiff’s Townhome Register Similar Carcinogen Levels
But, an incident from Repace’s testimony Thursday came back into play Friday during cross examination. Goecke pointed out that on Thursday, while demonstrating the carcinogen monitor, Repace had measured the concentration of carcinogens in the court room — which is in a smoke-free building — and the amount he recorded there was similar to what Repace had reported recording in Schuman’s townhome in July of 2011.
greenbelt.patch.com/articles/schumans-expert-witnesses-testify-in-secondhand-smoke-trial
I’m totally on board to ban all that cigz from kampus! I don no why we hadnt done that b4! Smokin is maaaaad gros. Get out of ‘muirka smokers. we shouldn hafta breeve ya smok in at all.
GOD BLESS!
Yeh man fuck da police
UCLA SMOKERS UNITED facebook page. They too are marching against the Obama pushed college smoking bans!
http://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/512006112151171/permalink/516557678362681/?comment_id=517094664975649¬if_t=like
So to protest the smoking ban, a group of 70 smokers will smoke in one of the busiest and prettiest places on campus.
Okay, go ahead! With that kind of protest, public opinion would surely turn against you.
Smokerphobia and hatred has been around for centuries much the same can be said for the hatred against the rich,the poor,being black,being white or just simply being fat.
Theres no end to hatred it breeds like roaches once it becomes entrenched in the society. Even Jim Crowe had its supporters much as todays anti-smoking movement has. Even the courts backed Jim Crowe and they today support smoking bans based upon ”JUNK SCIENCE”. This same style of science in Jim Crowe days were called evolutionary Darwinism where they defiled the black race with the measurements of skulls to show inferiority and much today the same style of ”EUGENICS” is being used to call smokers lazy,worthhless and subhuman………If you havent figured it out yet perhaps a walk down histories lane will reeducate yourself how laws,junk science and human hatred have shaped todays culture and been a reason why history so often repeats itself over and over again!……….
Heres a time line starting in 1900,dont be surprised to see the same thing playing out today nearly 100 years later.
1901: REGULATION: Strong anti-cigarette activity in 43 of the 45 states. “Only Wyoming and Louisiana had paid no attention to the cigarette controversy, while the other forty-three states either already had anti-cigarette laws on the books or were considering new or tougher anti-cigarette laws, or were the scenes of heavy anti- cigarette activity” (Dillow, 1981:10).
1904: New York: A judge sends a woman is sent to jail for 30 days for smoking in front of her children.
1904: New York City. A woman is arrested for smoking a cigarette in an automobile. “You can’t do that on Fifth Avenue,” the arresting officer says.
1907: Business owners are refusing to hire smokers. On August 8, the New York Times writes: “Business … is doing what all the anti-cigarette specialists could not do.”
1917: SMOKEFREE: Tobacco control laws have fallen, including smoking bans in numerous cities, and the states of Arkansas, Iowa, Idaho and Tennessee.
1937: hitler institutes laws against smoking.
Many may not be aware that antismoking is not new. It has a long, sordid history, much of it pre-dating even the pretense of a scientific basis and long before the more recent concoction of secondhand smoke “danger”. “Crusades” typically run on a plethora of baseless, inflammatory claims intended to manipulate lawmakers into instituting smoking/tobacco bans (the current crusade is no exception).
The two major antismoking crusades of the last century, and which were intimately connected, were in AMERICA and Nazi Germany. In America, antismoking was pushed by the Temperance and Eugenics Movements; in Germany, antismoking was an aspect of Eugenics. Some background:
http://www.americanheritage.com/conte…
Harley Rider, you rock- if you happen to find yourself around Kogan Plaza tomorrow at 2:30, seek us out- we’d love to hear from you!
LOL. morons.
Build a ring of fans around them when they do their little protest to blow the smoke back to them. I want to be able to walk through Kogan, in front of dorms, Gelman and other areas of campus without having to sift through the smoke screen to get there. All the smokers complaining about their freedom of choice and blablabla but us nonsmokers that don’t appreciate having to deal with that cancerous fog have similar arguments. If you want to smoke, go to Washington Circle or Dupont or somewhere. As for the referendum, ITS NOT OUR FAULT YOU DON’T PAY ATTENTION TO SA ELECTIONS, the Hatchet did something on it, and you cannot say you didn’t know the elections were happening. Take responsibility for your inaction.
They are taking responsibility for inaction, whether justified or not – ever heard of a recall? Read their manifest and the article, they’re smart kids and this protest is clearly not a one time thing. I don’t think that they’re entertaining any delusions of the ban just magically disappearing, they probably want to initiate another vote which is well within their rights within the university structure.
Regardless of your idealist philosophies about legislation and government issues, you chose not to participate in the election that determined the ban. SA sent out many emails about the election and your ignorance put you in this position.
Other than that, smoking is disgusting and I’m absolutely thrilled that I’ll be able to walk through campus without inhaling smoke. It’s nasty and inconsiderate.
Our principles are certainly not idealist, as we operate under a dialectic, which is inherently materialist.
Anon…so I take it that you don’t drive? Even the ‘cleanest’ engines pump out more carcinogens in one hour than a smoker will in a year.
And of course you’ll never, ever attend a barbecue…as those filthy things release the same level of dioxins in 2 hours as up to 220,000 cigarettes.
Or then again, you may just be a selfish bigot? http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3106039.stm
Fell free to start a protest against the use of barbecues and automobiles on campus. I am sure you will get good support.
So by your argument, something is only a health problem if you have popular support? That’s basically Lysenkoism.
This communication is to update BMJ readers regarding the May 17,
2003 BMJ paper by Dr. Geoffrey C. Kabat and me, “Environmental tobacco
smoke and tobacco related mortality in a prospective study of
Californians, 1960-98” (http://bmj.com/cgi/reprint/326/7398/1057.pdf). On
October 10, 2007 I published a 14,000 word peer-reviewed paper, “Defending
legitimate epidemiologic research: combating Lysenko pseudoscience” in
Epidemiologic Perspectives & Innovations 2007, 4:11 (http://www.epi-
perspectives.com/content/4/1/11).
The Abstract of the paper states “This analysis presents a detailed
defense of my epidemiologic research in the May 17, 2003 British Medical
Journal that found no significant relationship between environmental
tobacco smoke (ETS) and tobacco-related mortality. In order to defend the
honesty and scientific integrity of my research, I have identified and
addressed in a detailed manner several unethical and erroneous attacks on
this research. Specifically, I have demonstrated that this research is not
“fatally flawed,” that I have not made “inappropriate use” of the
underlying database, and that my findings agree with other United States
results on this relationship. My research suggests, contrary to popular
claims, that there is not a causal relationship between ETS and mortality
in the U.S. responsible for 50,000 excess annual deaths, but rather there
is a weak and inconsistent relationship. The popular claims tend to damage
the credibility of epidemiology. In addition, I address the omission of my
research from the 2006 Surgeon General’s Report on Involuntary Smoking and
the inclusion of it in a massive U.S. Department of Justice racketeering
lawsuit. I refute erroneous statements made by powerful U.S.
epidemiologists and activists about me and my research and I defend the
funding used to conduct this research. Finally, I compare many aspects of
ETS epidemiology in the U.S. with pseudoscience in the Soviet Union during
the period of Trofim Devisovich Lysenko. Overall, this paper is intended
to defend legitimate research against illegitimate criticism by those who
have attempted to suppress and discredit it because it does not support
their ideological and political agendas. Hopefully, this defense will help
other scientists defend their legitimate research and combat ‘Lysenko
pseudoscience.’ ”
This new paper expands upon and updates the September 20, 2006
research defense on my Scientific Integrity Institute website
(http://www.scientificintegrityinstitute.org). In addition, many new
relevant documents, publications, and audio visual files have been added
to my website. The new paper and other material support the validity and
significance of the May 17, 2003 BMJ paper.
James E. Enstrom, Ph.D., M.P.H.
The issue here is not smoking inside buildings but rather outside them, on public sidewalks. The University has no more right to dictate what happens on the sidewalk than any person. The city may introduce legislation to forbid smoking in public places and then the sidewalks would be included in that. But until then, smokers are permitted and have the right to smoke out of doors on the sidewalk, no matter what building they are in front of.
Just FYI, that’s not true. DC allows property owners to ban smoking within 25 feet or to the far edge of the adjacent sidewalk, whichever is closer. I.e. sidewalks are part of this.
I agree with Jennifer. The sidewalks are a public space and it’s not GW’s domain to control them.
And to respond to Anon’–while I don’t smoke and don’t like being in a room with smokers, the reality is that people do smoke; cigarettes are not illegal in this country. and there is no danger to you health-wise walking around campus with the few smokers that are outside at any one time having a cigarette. The car exhaust you breathe in poses a much bigger threat but I’m pretty sure you wouldnt want a car ban city-wide in DC. But even if you would, I don’t imagine you are waving away car fumes as you walk around; you’ve just learned to live with them. Since cigarette smoke is so much less prevalent and so much less a threat, perhaps you can cut the smokers some slack, and be satisfied that your evident disgust and scowling visage will make them feel bad enough, without a violation of their right to smoke a legal substance in public taken away.
So lemme get this straight. Taking away smoking is reason to organize students, to protest, and to call the school “tyrannical.” Meanwhile students are going into massive debt, construction workers on campus are having their rights violated, and we have no democracy in the way the school is governed. Put your energy towards something worth while you narcissistic dudebro
Notwithstanding the fact that this speaks to a larger civil liberties argument, I would encourage you to start a movement of your own to tackle the diverse and important issues you enumerated. This smoking ban is but one side of a multifaceted hydra of oppression
bro the group i’m with has been organizing all semester to help ACECO construction workers get the correct wages and not be fired for organizing a union. we’re part of the Walmart Respect DC campaign, we’ve organized marches against student debt on SallieMae and the Department of Education.
Please, tell me that this is more important. You people only care about workers when it affects you too.
We’ve been organizing since Thursday. And we already have over 70 people committed to attend, in addition to local media outlets. You’ve had all semester to get your shit together, yet no one has seen a march through campus for your cause yet. Pick up the banner!
A lot of people are saying that car exhaust is a bigger threat than smokers– but I ask you this, how many people a year does car exhaust kill in the U.S.?
I know smoking kills approximately 440,000 people a year, not including the following statistics on disease/death caused by secondhand smoke to nonsmokers each year:
-An estimated 46,000 deaths from heart disease in people who are current non-smokers
-About 3,400 lung cancer deaths in non-smoking adults
-Worse asthma and asthma-related problems in up to 1 million asthmatic children
-Between 150,000 and 300,000 lower respiratory tract infections (lung and bronchus) in children under 18 months of age, with 7,500 to 15,000 hospitalizations each year
-In the United States, the costs of extra medical care, illness, and death caused by SHS are over $10 billion per year
Finally– to those who disagree:
There is no safe level of exposure to SHS. Any exposure is harmful (The U.S. Surgeon General)
Except most of that and much more is caused by the burning of fossil fuels haha nice.
I see that you’ve taken in all the tobacco control lies! As for the “There is no safe level of exposure to SHS,” I guess Paracelsus was wrong then!
Paracelsus, the father of toxicology, wrote:
“All things are poison, and nothing is without poison; only the dose permits something not to be poisonous.”
Or, more commonly
“The dose makes the poison.”
That is to say, substances considered toxic are harmless in small doses, and conversely an ordinarily harmless substance can be deadly if over-consumed.
Get a grip man. It’s burning leaves, not nerve gas!
You argued that car exhaust is not comparable to second hand smoke, because first hand smoke causes deaths. Your argument is invalid.
Also:
There were nearly 6,420,000 auto accidents in the United States in 2005. The financial cost of these crashes is more than 230 Billion dollars. 2.9 million people were injured and 42,636 people killed. About 115 people die every day in vehicle crashes in the United States — one death every 13 minutes.
JOINT STATEMENT ON THE RE-ASSESSMENT OF THE TOXICOLOGICAL TESTING OF TOBACCO PRODUCTS”
7 October, the COT meeting on 26 October and the COC meeting on 18
November 2004.
http://cot.food.gov.uk/pdfs/cotstatementtobacco0409
“5. The Committees commented that tobacco smoke was a highly complex chemical mixture and that the causative agents for smoke induced diseases (such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, effects on reproduction and on offspring) was unknown. The mechanisms by which tobacco induced adverse effects were not established. The best information related to tobacco smoke – induced lung cancer, but even in this instance a detailed mechanism was not available. The Committees therefore agreed that on the basis of current knowledge it would be very difficult to identify a toxicological testing strategy or a biomonitoring approach for use in volunteer studies with smokers where the end-points determined or biomarkers measured were predictive of the overall burden of tobacco-induced adverse disease.”
In other words … our first hand smoke theory is so lame we can’t even design a bogus lab experiment to prove it. In fact … we don’t even know how tobacco does all of the magical things we claim it does.
The greatest threat to the second hand theory is the weakness of the first hand theory.
Here’s my all-time favorite “scientific” study of the the anti-smoking campaign: “Lies, Damned Lies, & 400,000 Smoking-Related Deaths,” Robert A. Levy and Rosalind B. Marimont, Journal of Regulation, Vol. 21 (4), 1998.
You can access the article for free on the Cato Institute’s wesbite, Cato.org. This article neither defends nor promotes smoking. Rather it condemns the abuse of statistics to misinform and scare the public. Levy, by the way taught Statistics for Lawyers at Georgetown University Law School. There is also a popular law school class called How to Lie With Statistics.
You might also find this study of interest. It examines carcinogens in cigarette smoke and finds them insufficient to be a cause of cancer. Last sentence is the key one:
there is little reason to be confident that total removal of the currently measured human lung carcinogens would reduce the incidence of lung cancer among smokers by any noticeable amount.
http://cebp.aacrjournals.org/content/16/3/584.abstract
You should quit smoking because smoking causes diseases and kills??????
Some facts for all smokers.
A number by itself has no meaning. To have meaning there must be another number for comparison.
Here(see the table):
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5745a3.htm
We find the basis for the claim that, in America, smoking causes 400,000 smokers’ deaths(SAM’S) per year from the smoking ’caused’ diseases.
However, we are given no number to be used for comparison.
The 400,000 smokers’ deaths are only a percentage of the smokers’ total number of deaths.
Let’s call that number of deaths “X” deaths.
A valid number for comparison is the number of never-smoker deaths from the diseases caused by smoking out of “X” number of total never-smoker deaths.
Doll’s 50 year study of British doctors’ mortality shows us that 85% of the total smokers’ deaths were from the diseases caused by smoking and 84% of the never-smokers total deaths were from those same diseases.
84 is 99% of 85.
99% of 400,000 = 396,000
Now we can say:
“Out of a given number of total deaths, smokers will have 400,000 deaths from the diseases caused by smoking and never-smokers will have 396,000 deaths from those same diseases.”
Compared to never-smokers, smokers have a 1% increased risk of dying from the diseases claimed to be ’caused’ by smoking!!!!
Now, those 400,000 deaths do not seem to be so great a number.
Here’s my all-time favorite “scientific” study of the the anti-smoking campaign: “Lies, Damned Lies, & 400,000 Smoking-Related Deaths,” Robert A. Levy and Rosalind B. Marimont, Journal of Regulation, Vol. 21 (4), 1998.
You can access the article for free on the Cato Institute’s wesbite, Cato.org. This article neither defends nor promotes smoking. Rather it condemns the abuse of statistics to misinform and scare the public. Levy, by the way taught Statistics for Lawyers at Georgetown University Law School. There is also a popular law school class called How to Lie With Statistics.
You might also find this study of interest. It examines carcinogens in cigarette smoke and finds them insufficient to be a cause of cancer. Last sentence is the key one:
there is little reason to be confident that total removal of the currently measured human lung carcinogens would reduce the incidence of lung cancer among smokers by any noticeable amount.
http://cebp.aacrjournals.org/content/16/3/584.abstract
.
You should quit smoking because smoking causes diseases and kills??????
Some facts for all smokers.
A number by itself has no meaning. To have meaning there must be another number for comparison.
Here(see the table):
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5745a3.htm
We find the basis for the claim that, in America, smoking causes 400,000 smokers’ deaths(SAM’S) per year from the smoking ’caused’ diseases.
However, we are given no number to be used for comparison.
The 400,000 smokers’ deaths are only a percentage of the smokers’ total number of deaths.
Let’s call that number of deaths “X” deaths.
A valid number for comparison is the number of never-smoker deaths from the diseases caused by smoking out of “X” number of total never-smoker deaths.
Doll’s 50 year study of British doctors’ mortality shows us that 85% of the total smokers’ deaths were from the diseases caused by smoking and 84% of the never-smokers total deaths were from those same diseases.
84 is 99% of 85.
99% of 400,000 = 396,000
Now we can say:
“Out of a given number of total deaths, smokers will have 400,000 deaths from the diseases caused by smoking and never-smokers will have 396,000 deaths from those same diseases.”
Compared to never-smokers, smokers have a 1% increased risk of dying from the diseases claimed to be ’caused’ by smoking!!!!
Now, those 400,000 deaths do not seem to be so great a number…
We struggle to get a dozen students out to protest workers’ rights being violated, but GOD FUCKING FORBID IF YOU CAN’T SMOKE IN KOGEN YOU DOUCHEY FUCKS
This is an issue of workers’ rights, dipshit.
if you people actually cared about workers you would stand with them when it doesn’t concern you. what about the construction workers who aren’t getting paid the correct wages and are getting fired for speaking out? what about the j street workers who have to deal with abusive managers? what about companies moving into GW and DC and screwing over students and workers?
you care about yourselves, not the workers. y’all are just some some armchair hipster leftists
It’s likely that students will continue smoking, no matter what. It’s the workers who will be let go for their habit over health insurance concerns.
It seems to me that you’re just merely bent out of shape over the fact that a seemingly frivolous issue like smoking on campus has attracted more discussion and attention that more serious issues of workers’ rights abuses. If that is indeed the case, then get off your ass, go forth, and publicize your own cause. Start a protest, spark a fire. If these smoking kids could build a big movement in a matter of days, surely you could do something on a much larger scale if you put your mind to it.
Mark Twain on Nicotine Nannies
The Moral Statistician
Originally published in Sketches, Old and New, 1893
I don’t want any of your statistics; I took your whole batch and lit my pipe with it.
I hate your kind of people. You are always ciphering out how much a man’s health is injured, and how much his intellect is impaired, and how many pitiful dollars and cents he wastes in the course of ninety-two years’ indulgence in the fatal practice of smoking; and in the equally fatal practice of drinking coffee; and in playing billiards occasionally; and in taking a glass of wine at dinner, etc. etc. And you are always figuring out how many women have been burned to death because of the dangerous fashion of wearing expansive hoops, etc. etc. You never see more than one side of the question.
You are blind to the fact that most old men in America smoke and drink coffee, although, according to your theory, they ought to have died young; and that hearty old Englishmen drink wine and survive it, and portly old Dutchmen both drink and smoke freely, and yet grow older and fatter all the time. And you never try to find out how much solid comfort, relaxation, and enjoyment a man derives from smoking in the course of a lifetime (which is worth ten times the money he would save by letting it alone), nor the appalling aggregate of happiness lost in a lifetime by your kind of people from not smoking. Of course you can save money by denying yourself all those little vicious enjoyments for fifty years; but then what can you do with it? What use can you put it to? Money can’t save your infinitesimal soul. All the use that money can be put to is to purchase comfort and enjoyment in this life; therefore, as you are an enemy to comfort and enjoyment where is the use of accumulating cash?
It won’t do for you to say that you can use it to better purpose in furnishing a good table, and in charities, and in supporting tract societies, because you know yourself that you people who have no petty vices are never known to give away a cent, and that you stint yourselves so in the matter of food that you are always feeble and hungry. And you never dare to laugh in the daytime for fear some poor wretch, seeing you in a good humor, will try to borrow a dollar of you; and in church you are always down on your knees, with your ears buried in the cushion, when the contribution-box comes around; and you never give the revenue officers a full statement of your income.
Now you know all these things yourself, don’t you? Very well, then, what is the use of your stringing out your miserable lives to a lean and withered old age? What is the use of your saving money that is so utterly worthless to you? In a word, why don’t you go off somewhere and die, and not be always trying to seduce people into becoming as ornery and unlovable as you are yourselves, by your villainous “moral statistics”?
Now, I don’t approve of dissipation, and I don’t indulge in it either; but I haven’t a particle of confidence in a man who has no redeeming petty vices. And so I don’t want to hear from you any more. I think you are the very same man who read me a long lecture last week about the degrading vice of smoking cigars, and then came back, in my absence, with your reprehensible fire-proof gloves on, and carried off my beautiful parlor stove.
We want to thank you for your support. Hopefully we will see you there tomorrow, but we want to acknowledge how fantastic, that in a slew of “enlightening” comments, there are still a few we can look upon happily.
You’re welcome. As for the debate about the SHS bull****, let Penn and Teller tell it how it is!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6WITuzkS_g
…or read this brilliant piece, ‘Smoke, Lies and the Nanny State’ by Joe Jackson!
http://www.joejackson.com/pdf/5smokingpdf_jj_smoke_lies.pdf
All these bans are being pushed through because of the so called ‘dangers’ of second hand smoke. DON’T believe the anti-smoking propaganda!!……believe the scientists!!!
http://tctactics.org/index.php/Critical_Scientists
I think there should be smoke free areas in front of buildings but Kogan and Square 80 and UYard should be ok to smoke.
I intend to bring my hookah to this protest.
While we’ve declined to comment on this article so far (though we’ve found many of these comments quite amusing) we’ve decided to break the fourth wall to extend our thanks and admiration to you, ShishaMan. You rock. We look forward to hitting your hookah in solidarity tomorrow. The only question is what flavor?
“And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.”
Oh, really? Looking at the comments on this page, from the ultra-narrow-minded and persecutory anti-smoking lobby, I do wonder WHAT happened to the American concept of ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’. There really ISN’T any, is there? The smokers HAVE given consideration to the anti-smoking lot, and smoking HAS been banned in so many places I’m astonished that none of you can be gracious enough to allow them SOME ground! Regardless of the arguments for and against smoking, I’m appalled at how selfish and intolerant you are. Unfortunately for us in Britain, since our Government follows yours like a load of silly sheep, WE get to suffer the consequences of the daft decisions taken by your own Government. Can I just say, you ARE all going to die. One day, of something. And whether it’s diesel fumes, or the high-fat, high-calorie diet so many of you seem to favour, or second-hand smoke, or being run over by an out-of-control bus, or killed in a boating accident or a car accident that REALLY wasn’t your fault, the fact of the matter is that sooner or later, you are going to die. LIFE is hazardous. Life kills us. The stress of hating another sector of the population will be affecting the health of all of you, right now, and doing you no good at all. I have to say, I think the contributions on here from the American ‘free and democratic’ citizens REALLY let your country down, as far as the rest of the world is concerned.
What ALSO lets you down, horribly, is the fact that so few of you seem to have any real grasp of correct English, specifically the difference between ‘your’ and ‘you’re’. So, can I please just point out that if you are trying to say, “you’re an inconsiderate jerk to smoke and I wish you’d take your nasty habit elsewhere”, you need to use the ‘re for the first version and NO apostrophe for the second. The reason for this is that at the start of the sentence, the “you’re” means “You ARE”. The apostrophe indicates that the ‘a’ of ‘are’ has been removed. In future, any time you want to use the shortened form of ‘YOU ARE’, it would be greatly appreciated if you could remember this golden rule. “You ARE” = “You’re”. See? And if you want to say, ‘Your’, as in ‘your disgusting habit’, you don’t need an apostrophe because ‘your’ in this sense is to do with ownership and belonging and no letters have been removed from the word. So, you don’t need an apostrophe.
I do hope that’s clear. The appalling grasp of correct English on some of these sites is, in some ways, even worse than the appalling grasp of the concepts of ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’ that you all claim to hold so dear and trill on about at every given opportunity.
Good luck, Ellis and Christian – you have a lot of support from many British smokers, so please know you are by now means alone.
Thanks for the support from across the pond; carrying on the noble tradition of Churchill and Hitchens. It’s always heartening to see the young generation of Brits picking up the torch. As your forbears so eloquently put it, fascism means war.
I mean, NO means alone, sorry. It’s rather later here than it is in America!
I’m just a bit too far away in UK to be able to attend, but my thoughts and best wishes are with you all and I would like to pass on my full support for this protest.
I see that anti-smokers are doing all the usual ducking and diving, spewing out their manufactured statistics and trying to maintain their claim that it is ‘just a health issue, nothing more’! It is not a health issue! The claims that SHS is harmful has been exposed as a lie, no one has ever been harmed by SHS. We now know that as smoking has declined, cancers continue to increase;
This is very much an issue of freedom AND much much more. It is about the loss of trust in morally corrupt public figures whom we SHOULD be able to trust: It is about the demise of ethical medical science that has been diverted away from discovering truth to supporting a pre-determined agenda: It is about an unprecedented level of propaganda, spin, and lies to force social change as determined by a minority of anti-smoker fanatics, who themselves have been exploited by big corporate entities to improve their profits: It is about distorting and manipulating the democratic process for political ends. In short do not allow any anti-smoker fanatic to con you into believing that this is a minor issue.
Hopefully, your positive action will serve to educate others and inspire them to question their propaganda based ‘knowledge’ on smoking, public health moral panics and smoking prohibition.
You are a saint. The more support we get, the greater our cause. The fact that we are gaining international support is incredibly important to us and shows that we have the people on our side. Keep up the good fight.
“Keep Calm, and Smoke On”
Just wanted to point out that it is true that the incidence of cancer has continued to increase but that is because people are living longer and the tests to detect cancer are getting better. It is also true that the number of people smoking cigarettes has declined. In conjunction with this decline there have been less cases of cancer in the lung/bronchus since ~1990. By these statistics I believe it is safe to say that lung cancer is primarily caused by the inhalation of cigarette smoke. The threshold level of cigarette smoke exposure that will cause cancer is too hard to discern and really depends on person to person. I think America is taking steps in the right direction to ban smoking inside restaurants and offices, places where non-smokers work and may suffer the consequences of having repeated exposures to cigarette smoke.
Do I believe that smoking outside should be banned? I’m not convinced that is such an issue. However in the crowded city where the air is already heavily polluted it may be a good idea.
But as my friend Daniel always says, “Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.”
Simple fact is, smoking is (slowly) becoming less socially acceptable, just like heroine or cocaine use as an ingredient was many years ago.
This is just a last dying gasp (pun intended) of vocal minority that some how thinks pollution is a civil rights issue.
Its more than any civil rights cause,its more than a human rights cause and more importantly its an AMERICANS BIRTH RIGHTS CAUSE! Liberty isnt a word its an american right. Prohibition is the tool of control freaks and we shall not bend one bit from our birth right to the liberty WE ALL ENJOY! Join us in defending America.
Dear Sir, or Madam,
You are quite wrong to label this a civil rights issue. This is a civil liberties issue. Kicking smokers out of inside is understandable: if a person who does not like torched-tobacco is inside with a smoker, they cannon get away from the smoke. However, kicking people out of outside (note the absurdity) is fatuous.
And check your spelling on heroin, as well as your grammar, sentence structure and syntax. It may help your future arguments.
Dear Sir and Madam:
Good catch on the misspelling of heroin. As for sentence structure, you as well might need some help : ‘Kicking smokers out of inside’ or ‘cannon get away from smoke’
See, we can both do it! BTW, correcting a comment’s grammar as a way to invalidate the argument is so passe. Welcome to USENET 1999!
Cheers.
I would assume that the “kick smokers out of outside” was intentional as they pointed out the absurdity. It also seems that you missed that charge of fatuousness. If you need to look up that word, there is no shame in that.
Furthermore, you seemed to miss the argument made against your own. Liberties vs. Rights. Again, if you need help with that, consulting Sartre’s Theory of Groups may be of assistance.
I am very happy that you use irony in such a poor way that you have lowered its level in discourse to that of the excremental. Keep up the good work, and red-herring “USENET” arguments headed on this page.
Mazel tov.
Then the universty ottu go total Solar!!! And not be dumping true toxic heating (oil or gas)gases in our air! And ban all motorvehles, because to those dump real toxic waste into our air, though they are odorless and invivible!!!!!
An excerpt from an antismoking “advocacy toolkit” (from a Canadian toolkit, but will be very similar around the world). These “toolkits” sport very few, if any, facts. It highlights the tricks/tactics used to contrive appearances – from flooding comments boards with inflammatory rhetoric, to conducting their own “polls”, to giving the appearance of wholesale public support for smoking bans – to manipulate the public and politicians/law-makers:
“For the next few months, strive to ensure there are positive media stories, letters to the editor, etc., that tout how well the bylaw changes are working. There will no doubt be a backlash from smokers in the beginning until they get used to the changes.
In the meantime, you have to counter their negative comments in the media, in comment sections of online news pieces and blogs, on radio call-in shows, etc.
Your job is to make politicians continue to believe that they did the right thing.”
It is not unheard of for councillors to backtrack on their decision and water down legislation.” (p. 48)
SMOKEFREE OUTDOOR PUBLIC SPACES: A COMMUNITY ADVOCACY TOOLKIT
http://www.smoke-free.ca/pdf_1/Smoke-free%20outdoor%20spaces%20advocacy%20-sept2010.pdf
Even if a smoking ban has produced catastrophe, the role of the antismoking activist is to assure the public and law-makers in particular that the ban is a “resounding success”, that even smokers are ecstatic about being further marginalized. It is all activism of the worst kind.
Antismoking activists are – demonstrably – destructive pathological liars. Those that have been given obscene amounts of funding have become professional liars, i.e., propagandists.
Information on how to do propaganda, by the German National Socialist Party, 1920′s thru 30′s:
Almost everything described in these “how to” manuals pretty much is what the Anti-Smoking Industry has followed to a tee.
For newspaper propaganda back then, the National Socialist Party had a special propaganda guidebook that was kept in secret by all newspaper editors and by following the guidelines in the book, all newspapers could be kept on the same wavelength reinforcing one another and the party.
Nowadays, with modern electronic communications, I imagine the propaganda of the Anti-Smoking Industry can be kept extremely cohesive and repetitively so worldwide and subtly enough to remain undetectable to the casual reading/listening/viewing public.
Annnnnd someone compared the other side to the Nazis, the argument is officially over. Everyone loses.
Historical context isnt covered by Godwins law.
It comes as little surprise to discover that the phrase “passive smoking” (Passivrauchen) was coined not by contemporary American admen, but by Fritz Lickint, the author of the magisterial 1100-page Tabak und Organismus (“Tobacco and the Organism”), which was produced in collaboration with the German AntiTobacco League.
http://constitutionalistnc.tripod.com/hitler-leftist/id1.html
“The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation.”
(Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler; 1943)
The Führer thanks you from the grave:
Hitler was a Leftist
Hitler’s Anti-Tobacco Campaign
One particularly vile individual, Karl Astel — upstanding president of Jena University, poisonous anti-Semite, euthanasia fanatic, SS officer, war criminal and tobacco-free Germany enthusiast — liked to walk up to smokers and tear cigarettes from their unsuspecting mouths. (He committed suicide when the war ended, more through disappointment than fear of hanging.)
1. I voted. Why didn’t the opponents?
2. People will still be able to smoke in some places on campus.
3. Cigarette smoke smells terrible and is no fun to breath in when you don’t want to.
4. Students with allergies to cigarette smoke will benefit significantly from this ban.
Cig smoke contains no proteins to be allergic too!
We have a mental disorder on hold to be issued with every new ban movement:
Nord Med. 1994;109(4):121-5.
[Environmental somatization syndrome. How to deal with the external milieu syndrome?].
[Article in Swedish]
Nilsson CG, Göthe CJ, Molin C.
SourceMed Rehabiliteringskliniken, Huddinge Sjukhus.
Abstract
Somatization is a tendency to experience and communicate psychogenic distress in the form of somatic symptoms and to seek medical help for them. Patients suffering from environmental somatization syndrome (ESS) consider their symptoms to be caused by exposure to chemical or physical components of the external environment or by ergonomic stress at work. ESS is distinguished by mental contagiousness and a tendency to cluster. Sometimes it explodes in wide-spread epidemics that may be escalated by mass-media campaigns. Extensive ESS epidemics have been connected to, i.a., arsenic, carbon monoxide (“generator gas poisoning”), mercury (“oral galvanism”), carbon-free copy papers, electromagnetic fields (“electric allergy”) and repetitive movements (“repetition strain injury”, RSI). The typical patient directs the interest on the external environment, refuses alternative explanations of his symptoms and abhors any suggestion of a psychogenic etiology.
The community is often placed in difficult positions by lobby groups calling for drastic measures to eliminate alleged disease-inducing exposures. When hygienic evils occur simultaneously with an ESS epidemic, it is essential to strictly differ the hygienic problems from the ESS problems. If mismanaged, measures aimed at reducing hygienic inconveniences may aggravate the complex of ESS problems.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8170802
Come help us spread the fear!
http://www.niehs.nih.gov/health/topics/conditions/asthma/allergens/smoke/
The inconvenient truth is that the only studies of children of smokers suggest it is PROTECTIVE in contracting atopy in the first place. The New Zealand study says by a staggering factor of 82%.
“Participants with atopic parents were also less likely to have positive SPTs between ages 13 and 32 years if they smoked themselves (OR=0.18), and this reduction in risk remained significant after adjusting for confounders.
The authors write: “We found that children who were exposed to parental smoking and those who took up cigarette smoking themselves had a lower incidence of atopy to a range of common inhaled allergens.
“These associations were found only in those with a parental history of asthma or hay fever.”
They conclude: Our findings suggest that preventing allergic sensitization is not one of them.”
The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology
Volume 121, Issue 1 , Pages 38-42.e3, January 2008
http://www.jacionline.org/article/S00…(07)01954-9/abstract
This is a Swedish study.
“Children of mothers who smoked at least 15 cigarettes a day tended to have lower odds for suffering from allergic rhino-conjunctivitis, allergic asthma, atopic eczema and food allergy, compared to children of mothers who had never smoked (ORs 0.6-0.7)
CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrates an association between current exposure to tobacco smoke and a low risk for atopic disorders in smokers themselves and a similar tendency in their children.”
Clin Exp Allergy 2001 Jun;31(6):908-14
http://www.data-yard.net/30/asthma.htm
…
In 2008 this paper was produced in America and concludes that nictotine and hence active smoking and passive smoking leads to less asthma. It also gives the aetiology (causation) why nicotine and the biologial process that reduces asthma in recipients.
The results unequivocally show that, even after multiple allergen sensitizations, nicotine dramatically suppresses inflammatory/allergic parameters in the lung including the following: eosinophilic/lymphocytic emigration; mRNA and/or protein expression of the Th2 cytokines/chemokines IL-4, IL-5, IL-13, IL-25, and eotaxin; leukotriene C4; and total as well as allergen-specific IgE. unequivocally show that, even after multiple allergen sensitizations, nicotine dramatically suppresses inflammatory/allergic parameters in the lung including the following: eosinophilic/lymphocytic emigration; mRNA and/or protein expression of the Th2 cytokines/chemokines IL-4, IL-5, IL-13, IL-25, and eotaxin; leukotriene C4; and total as well as allergen-specific IgE. ”
http://www.jimmunol.org/cgi/content/a…
Welp, you’ve convinced me. Maybe I’ll bring some babies to your smoke break this afternoon so you can blow smoke in their faces in the name of “health”.
You should stick to other arguments; convincing people that smoking is not harmful just isn’t going to work.
No need to unless you just want too! We all grew up with smoking mothers and fathers even in the car on the way to grandmas………
WE LIVED!
5. Where are these dangerous areas near campus? The IMF? The West End? K Street?
I suppose theres a mass second hand smoke grave hidden somewhere on campus. Let us seek ou and find this hidden monument to the victims of second hand smoke,we might also find Sadams WMD’S and maybe some global warming dead mixed in!
How about you ask the 14 girls who have been raped in the past 2 years and the more than 80 victims of violent assault and robbery (by perpetrators not affiliated with the university).
You wouldnt believe the number of deaths and crimes attributed to smoking bans that have happened to smokers!
Look I’ve been an educator, a motivator, a fitness guru, and a health food junkie my entire life. Sure at age seven I had bad skin, low self-esteem and no respect but I began eating success for breakfast….with skim milk. Now all you smokers out there may have this crazy idea that smoking is cool, rad and hip, but let your uncle tony give you a little advice. Smoking is not cool!
Having been educated my entire life by private tutors I am looking forward to interacting with children for the first time.
Thank you that is all.
This ban will probably only increase the number of smokers smoking inside the dorms especially in the bathrooms. BUTTTTTTT you people aren’t looking that far ahead yet.
Dear non-smokers, DC air is probably so polluted that with or without the ban, the air you breathe will be significantly detrimental to your health. So please, don’t be so selfish and let us enjoy our rights to smoke wherever we please, as long as it’s not indoors.
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