[Speed Gibson,
Friday July 7, 2006 at 10:11am]
Second hand smoke debate is over?
I've waited a while to see what dust this Surgeon General's report has kicked up. Not much that I can see, but I'm sure we'll hear more when the Legislature reconvenes.
Craig Westover has done his usual fine work in dissecting this 727 page report, concluding that this was a political document, not a scientific one. The opening gambit of "there is no safe level of second hand smoke" is enough to prove that assertion.
I only wonder what happened to all the victims to date? Fifty years ago, smoking was twice as popular, and permitted almost everywhere. If even trace amounts of second hand smoke are lethal, there should have been millions of victims by now. Where are they? Show me the Death Certificates listing second hand smoke as even a contributing factor.
Here's another challenge. If I gave you two populations, telling you only that one comes from a "normal" state, the other from a "smoke free" state, what statistic could you track and / or what medical tests could you perform to reliably discern which is which?
Dave Thompson on "At Issue with Tom Hauser" made another good point, that if tobacco is truly that dangerous, why don't we just make it illegal?
Craig Westover has done his usual fine work in dissecting this 727 page report, concluding that this was a political document, not a scientific one. The opening gambit of "there is no safe level of second hand smoke" is enough to prove that assertion.
I only wonder what happened to all the victims to date? Fifty years ago, smoking was twice as popular, and permitted almost everywhere. If even trace amounts of second hand smoke are lethal, there should have been millions of victims by now. Where are they? Show me the Death Certificates listing second hand smoke as even a contributing factor.
Here's another challenge. If I gave you two populations, telling you only that one comes from a "normal" state, the other from a "smoke free" state, what statistic could you track and / or what medical tests could you perform to reliably discern which is which?
Dave Thompson on "At Issue with Tom Hauser" made another good point, that if tobacco is truly that dangerous, why don't we just make it illegal?