Friday 20 August 2010

For those born yesterday

As a coda to the previous two posts...

From Katherine Huntly of the British Lung Foundation, in a letter in today's Guardian:

Smoking just one cigarette, even with the car window open, creates a greater concentration of second hand smoke than a whole evening smoking in a pub or a bar.

And from ASH's latest smoking-in-cars 'fact sheet':

Opening a window does not reduce the levels of secondhand smoke in a car to a safe level as the smoke simply blows back into the vehicle, often lingering for hours.

As Frank Zappa once said, it's not getting any smarter out there.

11 comments:

Bucko said...

Trouble is, no matter how blatantly rubbish these statements are, lots of people will beleive them.

Any its the beleivers rather than the peddlers of rubbish that are the most dangerous.

Anonymous said...

Yes the most evil crime these strange people are doing to smokers is relying on the majority of non smokers ,and amongst those there are plenty enough who want to believe this for all sorts of reasons ,of course the educated amonst the non smoking group mostly don't,to do their dirty work for them.
I would not say believers, I would say the gullible.
Or no someone who smokes ,someone who has more than you ?
Here's a stick to beat them with ,vent your jealous rage.

Carl V Phillips said...

That's hilarious. Though it does explain why, on a sunny day when the inside of my parked car gets so hot, if I drive with the windows open it does not cool down -- because all the hot air is blowing back in. Oh, wait, it does cool down.

It makes you wonder why people are taking advice about cars from people who have apparently never ridden in a car.

Witterings from Witney said...

So when I press a button in my car and drop the roof I suppose Ash would say I am just increasing the rate at which the smoke blows back?

Anonymous said...

I did the experiment as a passenger in a car a couple of years ago.

With the window open a little, and at not any great speed you get a lovely venturi ? effect.
A tiny whirlwind taking the smoke straight out of the window.

I suppose you might even call it a tornado.

Rose

Anonymous said...

"Smoking just one cigarette, even with the car window open, creates a greater concentration of second hand smoke than a whole evening smoking in a pub or a bar."

And what fucking pub or bar would that be, seeing as we all stand outside now?

C'mon Ms Huntly, give us some names and addresses for such establishments?

TheFatBigot said...

Bernoulli, Miss Rose.

Anonymous said...

Have you noticed how when you read anything nowadays labelled as a 'fact sheet', or preceded with 'Get the facts', the last thing you're going to get is any actual facts.

Christopher Snowdon said...

Anon,

And the funniest thing is the UK Faculty of Health reports quotes Abraham Lincoln at the start of their report:

"I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts.”

Rick S said...

Katherine Huntly attributes the one-cig-in-a-car quote to the Royal College of Propaganda’s report Passive Smoking and Children, which apparently also “confirms that passive smoking is a leading cause of death and disease in children” and which “revealed 22,000 new cases each year of wheeze and asthma are caused as a direct result of passive smoking”. This has got to be complete and utter claptrap, just as their 1992 document Smoking And The Young was – but unfortunately you have to pay £20 if you want to read the whole thing. If the anti-smoking movement is pushing for legislation based on figures like this, surely this information should be in the public domain so that it can be properly assessed?

Leg-iron said...

As Anon 23:15 says, she's right.

Smoking one cigarette a month in a car or anywhere else causes more smoke that you'd get in a bar all evening.

Because smokers aren't allowed to smoke in there. Therefore her argument is that it's 'more than zero'.

Bucko, yes, they are conditioned to believe what they are told.

So tell them things ;)