What you will find is that you’ve been lied to. Don’t take my word for it though: read the analyses, read the studies, and if you have any substantive disagreements come back here and state them.

To see how the nonsense statistics to see just how nonsense statistics justifying these smoking bans get made up and WHY they get made up should check these three links:

http://www.jacobgrier.com/blog/archives/2210.html

shows how researchers promise the “right” kind of answers to the ban funders before even doing the research and how they juggle the numbers to create “right” answers even when they don’t exist.

http://www.velvetgloveironfist.com/index.php?page_id=65

shows how the nonsense 14% number was produced for Scotland: a good example of what’s been done in all these “instant heart attack cure” studies.

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/eletters/bmj.38055.715683.55v1#67440

offers strong criticisms for the grandfather of these studies: the “Helena Heart Miracle.” Read “100 Days,” “1,000 Days,” and down near the bottom “Independently Confirmed??” where you’ll see how the “evidence” of what they did was almost wiped from the Internet.

Michael J. McFadden
Author of “Dissecting Antismokers’ Brains”

The fact of the matter is that Tulane students will continue doing whatever they want, most likely blatantly disregarding any rules created by a Senate they don’t even know exists. They’ll keep smoking on campus anywhere they want, because that’s what we do. And the final straw that makes all of this irrelevant: who is going to enforce this policy? Surely — I hope — TUPD has better things to do than issue citations for smoking, much like the current drunkenness policy it’s at the discretion of TUPD officers to stop you. And when has anyone seen them voluntarily going out of their way to do extra work?

And Gene also neglects to mention that the year before Osteen made his EPA ruling he had ruled solidly AGAINST a Big Tobacco case when he gave tobacco oversight powers to the FDA.

And finally, Gene neglects to point out WHY Judge Osteen’s judgment was overruled. It had nothing to do with the substance of his judgment, but simply occurred because the EPA had been careful to make its report an “advisory report” rather than a “regulatory action.” Osteen’s criticisms of their fakery and propaganda were all quite valid, but unfortunately the courts simply don’t have jurisdiction over the EPA if it simply tries to get laws passed on the basis of “advice.”

I think Mr. Sichel’s article is quite well done. Even the jury-rigged EPA Report only claimed an increase of about 1 lung cancer for every thousand people and even then, ONLY if they were exposed virtually every day of the week, for 8 to 16 hours a day, FOR FORTY YEARS. There is absolutely NO trace of scientific or medical justification for concerns about long term health threats from passing exposures to outdoor smoke. These sort of bans rest purely upon the shoulders of the social engineers intent on reducing smoking through making it difficult, uncomfortable, expensive, and “denormalized.” There’s no sound reason in the world why comfortable indoor ventilated smoking areas couldn’t be provided for smokers and their friends to gather, study, and socialize on campus: it’s all social engineering.

Michael J. McFadden
Author of “Dissecting Antismokers’ Brains”

“a North Carolina judge ruled that the EPA’s report was scientifically invalid,” Sichel says. But he doesn’t tell you:

 — that the judge was an ex-tobacco lobbyist(!) Why else would Philip Morris shop its federal case down there to North Carolina?

 — that the judgement so closely hewed to Philip Morris’ briefs that it’s a classic of “judicial plagiarism.”

 — And worst of all, Sichel somehow, uh, forgets to tell you that the ex-tobacco-lobbyist’s judgement was itself invalidated.

 — at which point, Philip Morris — whose lawyers are among the highest paid and brainiest in the world — let the whole thing drop sans appeal. Very uncharacteristic of them. It’s almost as if they knew from the git-go they’d lose, but wanted this tutored judgement (their briefs enshrined as a court decision) out there, so that unthinking (or dishonest) fools like Sichel could selectively cite it.

So maybe he knew these things and knew that what he said it would be misleading — like an amoral propagandist.

Or maybe he didn’t, and he’s just plain, you know — stupid and gullible.

An online version of the “tax protestors” across the country, he has been sent out to create so much noise that some dimmer bulbs might think his spam has some distant relation to the truth.

Harleyrider has hijacked the Hullabaloo’s message board, forcing it to function as his own freebie PR Newswire. And not just at Tulane. His boilerplate floods every message board in the country (Google him or his phrases). He seems part of this cabal of maybe 10 shameless spammers who try by sheer force of numbers to make their lies seem true; they overwhelm boards with reams of misleading junk.

Noise intended to drown out truth is a typical, documented tobacco industry tactic.

It must be a full work-day to hit every message board in the country as he does.

And it’s all anonymous; he doesn’t have to stand up to spew this swill out in the open in front of a legislature, where he might have to account for himself.

Does Post-for-Pay exist? Read how corporations are taking their PR wars to the Internet without disclosure:

http://www.jsonline.com/watchdog/watchdogreports/54195297.html

“Allegiances are not always explained. The most impassioned defense … on the blogs comes from Trevor Butterworth, editor of Statistical Assessment Service, also known as STATS. He regularly combs the Internet for stories … and offers comments without revealing his ties to industry.”

(STATS was funded by the tobacco industry)

And once the Flat Earthers, Holocaust Deniers and Green Card Lawyers start following hareleyrider’s scurrilous PR methods, message boards like the Hullabaloo’s will soon become as useless as newsgroups are today.

The Heartland Institute
 http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=23399

Exposure to secondhand smoke (SHS) is an unpleasant experience for many nonsmokers, and for decades was considered a nuisance. But the idea that it might actually cause disease in nonsmokers has been around only since the 1970s.
Recent surveys show more than 80 percent of Americans now believe secondhand smoke is harmful to nonsmokers.
Federal Government Reports
A 1972 U.S. surgeon general’s report first addressed passive smoking as a possible threat to nonsmokers and called for an anti-smoking movement. The issue was addressed again in surgeon generals’ reports in 1979, 1982, and 1984.

A 1986 surgeon general’s report concluded involuntary smoking caused lung cancer, but it offered only weak epidemiological evidence to support the claim. In 1989 the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was charged with further evaluating the evidence for health effects of SHS.
In 1992 EPA published its report, “Respiratory Health Effects of Passive Smoking,” claiming SHS is a serious public health problem, that it kills approximately 3,000 nonsmoking Americans each year from lung cancer, and that it is a Group A carcinogen (like benzene, asbestos, and radon).

The report has been used by the tobacco-control movement and government agencies, including public health departments, to justify the imposition of thousands of indoor smoking bans in public places.
Flawed Assumptions
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.

Even so, the EPA report was cited in the surgeon general’s 2006 report on SHS, where then-Surgeon General Richard Carmona made the absurd claim that there is no risk-free level of exposure to SHS.
For its 1992 report, EPA arbitrarily chose to equate SHS with mainstream (or firsthand) smoke. One of the agency’s stated assumptions was that because there is an association between active smoking and lung cancer, there also must be a similar association between SHS and lung cancer.
But the problem posed by SHS is entirely different from that found with mainstream smoke. A well-recognized toxicological principle states, “The dose makes the poison.”

Accordingly, we physicians record direct exposure to cigarette smoke by smokers in the medical record as “pack-years smoked” (packs smoked per day times the number of years smoked). A smoking history of around 10 pack-years alerts the physician to search for cigarette-caused illness. But even those nonsmokers with the greatest exposure to SHS probably inhale the equivalent of only a small fraction (around 0.03) of one cigarette per day, which is equivalent to smoking around 10 cigarettes per year.
Low Statistical Association

Another major problem is that the epidemiological studies on which the EPA report is based are statistical studies that can show only correlation and cannot prove causation.
One statistical method used to compare the rates of a disease in two populations is relative risk (RR). It is the rate of disease found in the exposed population divided by the rate found in the unexposed population. An RR of 1.0 represents zero increased risk.

Because confounding and other factors can obscure a weak association, in order even to suggest causation a very strong association must be found, on the order of at least 300 percent to 400 percent, which is an RR of 3.0 to 4.0.
For example, the studies linking direct cigarette smoking with lung cancer found an incidence in smokers of 20 to around 40 times that in nonsmokers, an association of 2000 percent to 4000 percent, or an RR of 20.0 to 40.0.

Scientific Principles Ignored

An even greater problem is the agency’s lowering of the confidence interval (CI) used in its report. Epidemiologists calculate confidence intervals to express the likelihood a result could happen just by chance. A CI of 95 percent allows a 5 percent possibility that the results occurred only by chance.
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 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 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.
EPA Study Soundly Rejected

In November 1995 after a 20-month study, the Congressional Research Service released a detailed analysis of the EPA report that was highly critical of EPA’s methods and conclusions. In 1998, in a devastating 92-page opinion, Federal Judge William Osteen vacated the EPA study, declaring it null and void. He found a culture of arrogance, deception, and cover-up at the agency.
Osteen noted, “First, there is evidence in the record supporting the accusation that EPA ‘cherry picked’ its data….

In order to confirm its hypothesis, EPA maintained its standard significance level but lowered the confidence interval to 90 percent. This allowed EPA to confirm its hypothesis by finding a relative risk of 1.19, albeit a very weak association…. EPA cannot show a statistically significant association between [SHS] and lung cancer.”
The judge added, “EPA publicly committed to a conclusion before the research had begun; adjusted established procedure and scientific norms to validate its conclusion; and aggressively utilized its authority to disseminate findings to establish a de facto regulatory scheme to influence public opinion.”

In 2003 a definitive paper on SHS and lung cancer mortality was published in the British Medical Journal. It is the largest and most detailed study ever reported. The authors studied more than 35,000 California never-smokers over a 39-year period and found no statistically significant association between exposure to SHS and lung cancer mortality.

Propaganda Trumps Science

The 1992 EPA report is an example of the use of epidemiology to promote belief in an epidemic instead of to investigate one. It has damaged the credibility of EPA and has tainted the fields of epidemiology and public health.
In addition, influential anti-tobacco activists, including prominent academics, have unethically attacked the research of eminent scientists in order to further their ideological and political agendas.
The abuse of scientific integrity and the generation of faulty “scientific” outcomes (through the use of pseudoscience) have led to the deception of the American public on a grand scale and to draconian government overregulation and the squandering of public money.

Millions of dollars have been spent promoting belief in SHS as a killer, and more millions of dollars have been spent by businesses in order to comply with thousands of highly restrictive bans, while personal choice and freedom have been denied to millions of smokers. Finally, and perhaps most tragically, all this has diverted resources away from discovering the true cause(s) of lung cancer in nonsmokers.

Though repetition has little to do with “the truth,” we’re repeatedly told that there’s “no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke.”

OSHA begs to differ.

OSHA has established PELs (Permissible Exposure Levels) for all the measurable chemicals, including the 40 alleged carcinogens, in secondhand smoke. PELs are levels of exposure for an 8-hour workday from which, according to OSHA, no harm will result.

Of course the idea of “thousands of chemicals” can itself sound spooky. Perhaps it would help to note that coffee contains over 1000 chemicals, 19 of which are known to be rat carcinogens.
-“Rodent Carcinogens: Setting Priorities” Gold Et Al., Science, 258: 261-65 (1992)

There. Feel better?

As for secondhand smoke in the air, OSHA has stated outright that:

“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, To Leroy J Pletten, PHD, July 8, 1997

Indeed it would.

Independent health researchers have done the chemistry and the math to prove how very very rare that would be.

As you’re about to see in a moment.

In 1999, comments were solicited by the government from an independent Public and Health Policy Research group, Littlewood & Fennel of Austin, Tx, on the subject of secondhand smoke.

Using EPA figures on the emissions per cigarette of everything measurable in secondhand smoke, they compared them to OSHA’s PELs.

The following excerpt and chart are directly from their report and their Washington testimony:

CALCULATING THE NON-EXISTENT RISKS OF ETS

“We have taken the substances for which measurements have actually been obtained — very few, of course, because it’s difficult to even find these chemicals in diffuse and diluted ETS.

“We posit a sealed, unventilated enclosure that is 20 feet square with a 9 foot ceiling clearance.

“Taking the figures for ETS yields per cigarette directly from the EPA, we calculated the number of cigarettes that would be required to reach the lowest published “danger” threshold for each of these substances. The results are actually quite amusing. In fact, it is difficult to imagine a situation where these threshold limits could be realized.

“Our chart (Table 1) illustrates each of these substances, but let me report some notable examples.

“For Benzo[a]pyrene, 222,000 cigarettes would be required to reach the lowest published “danger” threshold.

“For Acetone, 118,000 cigarettes would be required.

“Toluene would require 50,000 packs of simultaneously smoldering cigarettes.

“At the lower end of the scale — in the case of Acetaldehyde or Hydrazine, more than 14,000 smokers would need to light up simultaneously in our little room to reach the threshold at which they might begin to pose a danger.

“For Hydroquinone, “only” 1250 cigarettes are required. Perhaps we could post a notice limiting this 20-foot square room to 300 rather tightly-packed people smoking no more than 62 packs per hour?

“Of course the moment we introduce real world factors to the room — a door, an open window or two, or a healthy level of mechanical air exchange (remember, the room we’ve been talking about is sealed) achieving these levels becomes even more implausible.

“It becomes increasingly clear to us that ETS is a political, rather than scientific, scapegoat.”

Chart (Table 1)

-“Toxic Toxicology” Littlewood & Fennel

Coming at OSHA from quite a different angle is litigator (and how!) John Banzhaf, founder and president of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH).

Banzhaf is on record as wanting to remove healthy children from intact homes if one of their family smokes. He also favors national smoking bans both indoors and out throughout America, and has litigation kits for sale on how to get your landlord to evict your smoking neighbors.

Banzhaf originally wanted OSHA to ban smoking in all American workplaces.

It’s not even that OSHA wasn’t happy to play along; it’s just that — darn it — they couldn’t find the real-world science to make it credible.

So Banzhaf sued them. Suing federal agencies to get them to do what you want is, alas, a new trick in the political deck of cards. But OSHA, at least apparently, hung tough.

In response to Banzhaf’s law suit they said the best they could do would be to set some official standards for permissible levels of smoking in the workplace.

Scaring Banzhaf, and Glantz and the rest of them to death.

Permissible levels? No, no. That would mean that OSHA, officially, said that smoking was permitted. That in fact, there were levels (hard to exceed, as we hope we’ve already shown) that were generally safe.

This so frightened Banzhaf that he dropped the case. Here are excerpts from his press release:

“ASH has agreed to dismiss its lawsuit against OSHA…to avoid serious harm to the non-smokers rights movement from adverse action OSHA had threatened to take if forced by the suit to do it….developing some hypothetical [ASH’s characterization] measurement of smoke pollution that might be a better remedy than prohibiting smoking….[T]his could seriously hurt efforts to pass non-smokers’ rights legislation at the state and local level…

Another major threat was that, if the agency were forced by ASH’s suit to promulgate a rule regulating workplace smoking, [it] would be likely to pass a weak one…. This weak rule in turn could preempt future and possibly even existing non-smokers rights laws — a risk no one was willing to take.

As a result of ASH’s dismissal of the suit, OSHA will now withdraw its rule-making proceedings but will do so without using any of the damaging [to Anti activists] language they had threatened to include.”
-ASH Nixes OSHA Suit To Prevent Harm To Movement

Looking on the bright side, Banzhaf concludes:

“We might now be even more successful in persuading states and localities to ban smoking on their own, once they no longer have OSHA rule-making to hide behind.”

Once again, the Anti-Smoking Movement reveals that it’s true motive is basically Prohibition (stopping smokers from smoking; making them “social outcasts”) — not “safe air.”

And the attitude seems to be, as Stanton Glantz says, if the science doesn’t “help” you, don’t do the science.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008
British Medical Journal & WHO conclude secondhand smoke “health hazard” claims are greatly exaggerated

The BMJ published report can be found here:
 http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/326/7398/1057

And concludes:

The results do not support a causal relation between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality. The association between exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and coronary heart disease and lung cancer may be considerably weaker than generally believed.

What makes this study more significant than any other is that it took place over a 39 year period, and studied the results of non-smokers who lived with smokers….. meaning these non-smokers were exposed to secondhand smoke up to 24 hours per day; 365 days per year for 39 years. And there was still no relation between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality.

This report was of course silenced in the media; however in light of the damage to business, jobs, and the economy from smoking bans the BMJ report should be revisited by lawmakers as a reference tool and justification to repeal the now unnecessary and very damaging smoking ban laws.

Also significant is the World Health Organization (WHO) study which concluded “..secondhand smoking doesn’t cause cancer…” found online here.

Excerpt:

Passive smoking doesn’t cause cancer-official
By Victoria Macdonald, Health Correspondent

The results are consistent with their being no additional risk for a person living or working with a smoker and could be consistent with passive smoke having a protective effect against lung cancer. The summary, seen by The Telegraph, also states: “There was no association between lung cancer risk and ETS exposure during childhood.”

And if lawmakers need additional real world data to further highlight the need to eliminate these onerous and arbitrary laws, air quality testing by Johns Hopkins University, the American Cancer Society, a Minnesota Environmental Health Department, and various researchers whose testing and report was also peer reviewed and published in the esteemed British Medical Journal……prove that secondhand smoke is 2.6 - 25,000 times SAFER than occupational (OSHA) workplace regulations.