"We don't want your car to be a safe haven"
Read my blog post at the Adam Smith Institute to find out...
Showing posts with label more smoking bans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label more smoking bans. Show all posts
Wednesday, 18 January 2012
Campus smoking bans
Who would say something as stupid as this?
Read my blog post at the Adam Smith Institute to find out...
Read my blog post at the Adam Smith Institute to find out...
Sunday, 1 January 2012
Peter Lavac - the whole story
I recently mentioned the bizarre case of Peter Lavac, who blames two people who lived in a flat below him for 18 months for giving him lung cancer and now plans to sue. The whole affair is as fishy as a barrel of haddock, not least because Lavac is a well-known nonsmokers' rights activist and the doctor who claims that his illness was probably caused by secondhand smoke "permeating" his apartment happens to be the chairman of ASH Australia.
My thanks to commenters on the previous post for pointing me to Lavac's testimony to a parliamentary committee on tobacco policy which is dated 1st May 2006. Despite being a member of the Non-Smokers Movement of Australia, Lavac describes himself in this document as a "private citizen". His testimony is filled with anti-smoking clichés and an obvious hatred of smokers.
His testimony provides some crucial facts that did not appear in the recent news reports, which make a mockery of ASH's claim that his lung cancer (from which he has now recovered) was caused by second, third or fourth-hand smoke. Bear in mind that this testimony was given two years before the cancer was detected, but while he was still living in the apartment.
He does not specify what this life-threatening illness was, but judging by the importance of "fresh clean air", it is reasonable to assume it was some sort of respiratory disorder. Furthermore...
It was at this cliff-side getaway that Lavac encountered two hated smokers who lived in a flat below. According to Lavac, "second-hand smoke constantly permeates my apartment" and according to the Sydney Morning Herald:
And so, within months of giving his testimony to parliament, Lavac had moved house. He had only been there for a year and a half, and it was another 18 months before he fell ill again.
Here we have a guy with a history of pneumonia, respiratory illness and asthma. A man who had scarred lung tissue long before he moved to his mountain retreat and who had only moved there in the first place because he had a "very serious life-threatening illness".
Both scarred lungs and pneumonia are risk factors for lung cancer:
Asthma is also an independent risk factor for lung cancer:
Attributing a case of lung cancer to any single cause is a fool's game—which is why his case will fail if it ever gets to court—but Lavac had at least three identifiable risk factors for the disease which had nothing to do with tobacco. It is plainly nonsense for ASH's chairman to claim that "on the balance of probabilities" Lavac's lung cancer was caused by living for 18 months by the ocean near some people who smoked on the balcony below him. This would be a ludicrous thing to say at any time, but it it is still more absurd when the patient had at least three known risk factors.
You be the judge, because I seriously doubt that a real judge will ever be asked to decide. This is a publicity stunt to launch ASH's campaign against smoking at home. Nothing more, nothing less.
My thanks to commenters on the previous post for pointing me to Lavac's testimony to a parliamentary committee on tobacco policy which is dated 1st May 2006. Despite being a member of the Non-Smokers Movement of Australia, Lavac describes himself in this document as a "private citizen". His testimony is filled with anti-smoking clichés and an obvious hatred of smokers.
We have laws to protect us from home invasion by thugs and criminals, yet inadequate laws to protect us from home invasion by toxic carcinogens transmitted by selfish ignorant idiots who do not give a dam [sic] about anyone else ... From the moment these people start sucking on their cancer sticks there is no escape ... Invisible smoking and non-smoking lines make about as much sense as having a non-urinating area in a swimming pool.
His testimony provides some crucial facts that did not appear in the recent news reports, which make a mockery of ASH's claim that his lung cancer (from which he has now recovered) was caused by second, third or fourth-hand smoke. Bear in mind that this testimony was given two years before the cancer was detected, but while he was still living in the apartment.
Not long ago I was diagnosed with a very serious life-threatening illness. One of the first things I did was to purchase a small apartment right on the headland on the edge of a cliff overlooking the ocean to take advantage of the fresh clean air coming off the sea. This, I felt, would be conducive to my recovery and treatment, and give me the best possible chance of beating my illness. The location is idyllic, the view spectacular, the atmosphere tranquil, but, most important of all, the ocean air is pure and pristine.
He does not specify what this life-threatening illness was, but judging by the importance of "fresh clean air", it is reasonable to assume it was some sort of respiratory disorder. Furthermore...
My current health problems are further aggravated and compensated by the fact that I am asthmatic, and have permanent scarring of my lungs from a bout of pneumonia several years ago.
It was at this cliff-side getaway that Lavac encountered two hated smokers who lived in a flat below. According to Lavac, "second-hand smoke constantly permeates my apartment" and according to the Sydney Morning Herald:
Professor Peters told Mr Lavac and his wife to reduce their exposure. After living in their flat for 18 months in 2005-06, they changed address.
And so, within months of giving his testimony to parliament, Lavac had moved house. He had only been there for a year and a half, and it was another 18 months before he fell ill again.
In March 2008, Mr Lavac was in a criminal trial in the Downing Centre, which happened to be filmed for an ABC documentary, On Trial.
"I got pretty sick but at the time I didn't realise just how sick," he said. "I had a bad flu that didn't seem to go away. After the jury verdict I got an X-ray done. I thought I had pneumonia."
A CAT scan detected a small dark shadow at the top of his right lung, and a biopsy confirmed it was cancer.
Here we have a guy with a history of pneumonia, respiratory illness and asthma. A man who had scarred lung tissue long before he moved to his mountain retreat and who had only moved there in the first place because he had a "very serious life-threatening illness".
Both scarred lungs and pneumonia are risk factors for lung cancer:
Tuberculosis and pneumonia can leave scarring on the lungs. The scarring is a risk factor for lung cancer development, specifically adenocarcinoma.
Asthma is also an independent risk factor for lung cancer:
The combined results from five case-control studies--that presented data limited to individuals who had never smoked--showed a 1.8-fold increase in lung cancer risk among asthmatics (95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.3-2.3).
Attributing a case of lung cancer to any single cause is a fool's game—which is why his case will fail if it ever gets to court—but Lavac had at least three identifiable risk factors for the disease which had nothing to do with tobacco. It is plainly nonsense for ASH's chairman to claim that "on the balance of probabilities" Lavac's lung cancer was caused by living for 18 months by the ocean near some people who smoked on the balcony below him. This would be a ludicrous thing to say at any time, but it it is still more absurd when the patient had at least three known risk factors.
You be the judge, because I seriously doubt that a real judge will ever be asked to decide. This is a publicity stunt to launch ASH's campaign against smoking at home. Nothing more, nothing less.
Wednesday, 16 November 2011
The British Medical Association spices up an old myth with a new lie
I predicted last night that...
In the end they plumped for the "23 times" figure despite it being thoroughly debunked in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, which offered this advice to advocates:
Did that stop the BMA resurrecting this zombie statistic?
It did not. Not only are the BMA bandying around a figure for which there is "no evidence in the scientific literature", but they have added a fresh layer of nonsense to it.
The BMA seem to be suffering from undiagnosed pseudologia fantastica. Their new briefing paper supplies three references for their bizarre claim about "realistic ventilation". Only one of the named studies experimented with a scenario in which all the windows were open. The researchers called it 'Condition 3' (PM is particulate matter)...
And how does that compare to a "smoky pub"?
Pedants and sceptics would say that there is a bit of a difference between "23 times higher" and "82% lower" but what the hell, eh? If the BMA says it, it must be true.
The chances are [the British Medical Association] will claim that a cigarette smoked in a car exposes passengers to either 23 or 27 times more secondhand smoke than they would get from a whole night in a smoky bar. Both of these statistics are obviously absurd.
In the end they plumped for the "23 times" figure despite it being thoroughly debunked in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, which offered this advice to advocates:
We recommend that researchers and organizations stop using the 23 times more toxic factoid because there appears to be no evidence for it in the scientific literature.
Did that stop the BMA resurrecting this zombie statistic?
It did not. Not only are the BMA bandying around a figure for which there is "no evidence in the scientific literature", but they have added a fresh layer of nonsense to it.
There is evidence to suggest that the levels of SHS present in vehicles can contribute to a serious health hazard for adults and children.
Further studies demonstrate that the concentration of toxins in a smoke-filled vehicle is 23 times greater than that of a smoky bar, even under realistic ventilation conditions.
In the studies a number of ventilation conditions were assessed, where airflow parameters included average driving speed, presence of air conditioning and open windows. Realistic ventilation is described as driving at average roads speeds with all four windows completely open.
The BMA seem to be suffering from undiagnosed pseudologia fantastica. Their new briefing paper supplies three references for their bizarre claim about "realistic ventilation". Only one of the named studies experimented with a scenario in which all the windows were open. The researchers called it 'Condition 3' (PM is particulate matter)...
At the other extreme, in Condition 3 (all windows open all the way while driving), the PM2.5 level was the lowest (M = 60.4 μg/m3, range = 15.7 to 220.5 μg/m3).
And how does that compare to a "smoky pub"?
To provide some context about the PM2.5 levels recorded in this study, in a recent report of PM2.5 levels in Irish pubs throughout the world, the average level of PM2.5 in 48 Irish pubs that allowed smoking was 340 μg/m3.
Pedants and sceptics would say that there is a bit of a difference between "23 times higher" and "82% lower" but what the hell, eh? If the BMA says it, it must be true.
Tuesday, 15 November 2011
Smoking in cars: groundhog day
Word has it that the British Medical Association is going to have another stab at campaigning for a smoking ban in cars today. This is turning into an biannual crusade and I don't have any more to say about it than I did in all these previous posts.
The chances are they will claim that a cigarette smoked in a car exposes passengers to either 23 or 27 times more secondhand smoke than they would get from a whole night in a smoky bar. Both of these statistics are obviously absurd. The "27 times" canard comes from an unpublished, non-peer-reviewed study presented at a conference nine years ago. It was heavily rigged towards getting the "right" result and finally concluded...
"Residence" is not quite a "smoky bar" and "windows closed/ventilation off" is not exactly a realistic scenario for a smoker on a five hour car journey, but nevermind. And no, I don't know why 25 got changed to 27, but this is the reference ASH use for the claim.
The "23 times" claim is even more fun, because it involves a rare mea culpa from tobacco control. In a study in the Canadian Medical Association Journal entitled 'Second-hand smoke in cars: How did the “23 times more toxic” myth turn into fact?', MacKenzie and Freeman showed that the "fact" was entirely without scientific evidence and stemmed from a, obscure quote in a local newspaper in 1998 (as I had revealed on this blog two months earlier).
They concluded with the following unheeded recommendation:
I'll be talking about this on BBC Sussex at around 9.40 am.
The chances are they will claim that a cigarette smoked in a car exposes passengers to either 23 or 27 times more secondhand smoke than they would get from a whole night in a smoky bar. Both of these statistics are obviously absurd. The "27 times" canard comes from an unpublished, non-peer-reviewed study presented at a conference nine years ago. It was heavily rigged towards getting the "right" result and finally concluded...
The calculated exposure for a five hour automobile trip with the windows closed/ventilation off and with a smoking rate of 2 cigarettes per hour is 25 times higher than the same exposure scenario in a residence.
"Residence" is not quite a "smoky bar" and "windows closed/ventilation off" is not exactly a realistic scenario for a smoker on a five hour car journey, but nevermind. And no, I don't know why 25 got changed to 27, but this is the reference ASH use for the claim.
The "23 times" claim is even more fun, because it involves a rare mea culpa from tobacco control. In a study in the Canadian Medical Association Journal entitled 'Second-hand smoke in cars: How did the “23 times more toxic” myth turn into fact?', MacKenzie and Freeman showed that the "fact" was entirely without scientific evidence and stemmed from a, obscure quote in a local newspaper in 1998 (as I had revealed on this blog two months earlier).
They concluded with the following unheeded recommendation:
We recommend that researchers and organizations stop using the 23 times more toxic factoid because there appears to be no evidence for it in the scientific literature.
I'll be talking about this on BBC Sussex at around 9.40 am.
Thursday, 21 July 2011
Crushed
As you may have read elsewhere, Paul Bartlett's outdoor smoking ban was crushed on Tuesday evening. None of the nine other councillors were prepared to second the motion and only Bartlett was prepared to speak out in favour of it.
148 votes to 2. Ouch. The proposal may or may not re-emerge on 20 September. If it does, it looks certain to be rejected.
How very unfortunate.
Excellent. As I mentioned in a previous post, such was the degree of public interest that the meeting was held in the church, rather than the town hall. Hence this amusing announcement from the vicar:
Sounds like a heated, if one-sided, debate. The majority made themselves heard, Bartlett was put in his place and all is right with the world.
What can we learn from this little episode? Firstly, I think, it tells us that we in Britain have not yet succumbed to the hypochondria and misanthropy of those few parts of California that have banned smoking outdoors. This is no great surprise—California is in a league of its own when it comes to health hysteria. The next phase of the anti-smoking crusade depends heavily on smokers being regarded as second- or third-class citizens and it's pleasing to see that this kind of bigotry is not thriving, at least in Stony Stratford.
Secondly, and more importantly, while Bartlett is a strange and risible fellow, his initiative brought out the true colours of the Department of Health and their astro-turf group ASH, both of whom came out in favour of the idea. Those of us who have been following the tobacco control movement have known where these people are heading for some time, but it is only in the last week that the public has seen beyond doubt that they are—properly defined—anti-smoking fanatics.
Most nonsmokers have not been adversely affected by the 2007 smoking ban and they are entirely indifferent to issues such as the display ban and plain packaging. Why wouldn't they be? Regardless of whether they buy into the passive smoking panic, it is easy for them to believe that the 2007 ban was a legitimate health and safety measure, albeit one that went too far.
But the outdoor ban is an entirely different animal. As brazen as they might be, none of the anti-tobacco extremists have been able to bring themselves to pretend that smoking out of doors poses a health threat to others. Bartlett's talk about germs on cigarette butts and children being burnt in the street has rightly been dismissed as the ravings of a lunatic. Instead, the case was made on the openly authoritarian grounds that this is for your own good.
It hasn't worked—on the contrary, it has induced a wave of revulsion—but it is a watershed moment insofar at it marks the point when all pretense of this being about nonsmokers' rights was finally dropped and the paternalism became overt. I would expect ASH et al., to regroup and revert to the Fabian tactics of infringing liberties incrementally, but the cat is out of the bag. We know where they stand.
One speaker asked for a show of hands to see how many people in the room supported Councillor Bartlett's proposals. There were around 150 people in attendance and only 2 people raised their hands - one of those was Councillor Bartlett himself.
When it became apparent that nobody was prepared to second Councillor Bartlett's proposals, there were calls from some members of the public for him to also withdraw the proposal that had been moved to the 20th September. Other people were calling on Councillor Bartlett to resign from his position on the Town Council.
148 votes to 2. Ouch. The proposal may or may not re-emerge on 20 September. If it does, it looks certain to be rejected.
When Cllr Bartlett stood up to speak on his motions, he was heckled by the crowd on several occasions.
How very unfortunate.
Following this, several members of the public called for Cllr Bartlett's resignation.
Excellent. As I mentioned in a previous post, such was the degree of public interest that the meeting was held in the church, rather than the town hall. Hence this amusing announcement from the vicar:
This prompted Father Ross Northing, who later spoke out against a ban, to remind people where they were, and ask them to refrain from swearing and using the Lord's name in vain.
Sounds like a heated, if one-sided, debate. The majority made themselves heard, Bartlett was put in his place and all is right with the world.
What can we learn from this little episode? Firstly, I think, it tells us that we in Britain have not yet succumbed to the hypochondria and misanthropy of those few parts of California that have banned smoking outdoors. This is no great surprise—California is in a league of its own when it comes to health hysteria. The next phase of the anti-smoking crusade depends heavily on smokers being regarded as second- or third-class citizens and it's pleasing to see that this kind of bigotry is not thriving, at least in Stony Stratford.
Secondly, and more importantly, while Bartlett is a strange and risible fellow, his initiative brought out the true colours of the Department of Health and their astro-turf group ASH, both of whom came out in favour of the idea. Those of us who have been following the tobacco control movement have known where these people are heading for some time, but it is only in the last week that the public has seen beyond doubt that they are—properly defined—anti-smoking fanatics.
Most nonsmokers have not been adversely affected by the 2007 smoking ban and they are entirely indifferent to issues such as the display ban and plain packaging. Why wouldn't they be? Regardless of whether they buy into the passive smoking panic, it is easy for them to believe that the 2007 ban was a legitimate health and safety measure, albeit one that went too far.
But the outdoor ban is an entirely different animal. As brazen as they might be, none of the anti-tobacco extremists have been able to bring themselves to pretend that smoking out of doors poses a health threat to others. Bartlett's talk about germs on cigarette butts and children being burnt in the street has rightly been dismissed as the ravings of a lunatic. Instead, the case was made on the openly authoritarian grounds that this is for your own good.
It hasn't worked—on the contrary, it has induced a wave of revulsion—but it is a watershed moment insofar at it marks the point when all pretense of this being about nonsmokers' rights was finally dropped and the paternalism became overt. I would expect ASH et al., to regroup and revert to the Fabian tactics of infringing liberties incrementally, but the cat is out of the bag. We know where they stand.
Saturday, 16 July 2011
The Stony Standoff: Sanity 1, Bartlett 0
I've just returned from the beautiful town of Stony Stratford to join many others in offering my scorn for Paul Bartlett's ASH-approved plans for an outdoor smoking ban. It was standing room only in The Bull pub where a crowd of well over a hundred (*UPDATE: the BBC estimates 200) heard various politicians and pundits condemning the proposal and calling for the nanny/bully state to the reined in.
Protesters had travelled from Cumbria, North Yorkshire and even further afield to make themselves heard, making my own five hour round trip from the south coast look like a short commute. Some had stayed overnight in the town to make sure they were around when things kicked off at 11 am. And all at their own expense, on a Saturday and in torrential rain.
As for the residents, many of them popped into the pub from time to time to show support for their visitors. They seem bemused by the proposal and embarrassed by their councillor, who may be called to account at the next election. A rather splendid article in today's Guardian gives a flavour of the atmosphere:
The head of the local business association called for the proposal to be quashed and expressed disappointment that the town's efforts to pull in tourists were being undermined by Bartlett's mania—although today was clearly an exception. Needless to say, the man himself did not put in an appearance and if anyone in Stony Stratford agrees with him, they did not make their presence felt. And if, as the councillor has claimed, Stony Stratford has a problem with cigarette litter, somebody had helpfully cleared it up before we arrived. The streets were as spotless as they presumably were on the day Bartlett was forced to travel 10 miles to Milton Keynes for his publicity shot.
Several speakers pointed out this is not an issue of health, but liberty—a point underlined by the large number of nonsmokers in attendance, including Roger Helmer MEP who pledged to smoke a cigarette in the streets of Stony if the anti-smokers got their way. I doubt that will be necessary. Such has been the public interest that the vote has been moved from the council office to the (much larger) church and it seems likely that Bartlett will lose by a wide margin. Perhaps that would have always been the outcome. The people of Stony Stratford seem a sensible lot and are not prone to intolerance or extremism. Bartlett is the cuckoo in the nest. As a Stony resident said in the Guardian article:
A perceptive comment, that. The anti-smoking movement relies on a small handful of obsessives claiming to represent all non-smokers. They don't, they never have and they never will. Normal people do not wish to create division, segregation and 'denormalisation' in society (one of the placards today read 'Denormalise Councillor Bartlett'). ASH and Bartlett represent non-smokers about as much as David Koresh represented Christianity. Claiming that there is a war that must be fought is the great deception that the zealots must commit to fulfill their long-term goal of prohibition. More and more people are beginning to see through that lie.
No doubt similar proposals will be raised by unhinged councillors and attention-seeking MPs in the future. With a few tweaks here and a few bogus health scares there, outdoor smoking bans could yet become palatable to voters in the least liberal parts of the country. They are, after all, 'the next logical step'. But, for now, the sane majority looks likely to prevail. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Bartlett.
Protesters had travelled from Cumbria, North Yorkshire and even further afield to make themselves heard, making my own five hour round trip from the south coast look like a short commute. Some had stayed overnight in the town to make sure they were around when things kicked off at 11 am. And all at their own expense, on a Saturday and in torrential rain.
As for the residents, many of them popped into the pub from time to time to show support for their visitors. They seem bemused by the proposal and embarrassed by their councillor, who may be called to account at the next election. A rather splendid article in today's Guardian gives a flavour of the atmosphere:
Bartlett is well known for his zero tolerance views. He's a kind of mayor Giuliani for Milton Keynes or to put it another way "a total twat". So said Stony resident Gina Sherwood. "I think it's absurd. There are too many people against it. I don't know one person who is for it."
The head of the local business association called for the proposal to be quashed and expressed disappointment that the town's efforts to pull in tourists were being undermined by Bartlett's mania—although today was clearly an exception. Needless to say, the man himself did not put in an appearance and if anyone in Stony Stratford agrees with him, they did not make their presence felt. And if, as the councillor has claimed, Stony Stratford has a problem with cigarette litter, somebody had helpfully cleared it up before we arrived. The streets were as spotless as they presumably were on the day Bartlett was forced to travel 10 miles to Milton Keynes for his publicity shot.
Several speakers pointed out this is not an issue of health, but liberty—a point underlined by the large number of nonsmokers in attendance, including Roger Helmer MEP who pledged to smoke a cigarette in the streets of Stony if the anti-smokers got their way. I doubt that will be necessary. Such has been the public interest that the vote has been moved from the council office to the (much larger) church and it seems likely that Bartlett will lose by a wide margin. Perhaps that would have always been the outcome. The people of Stony Stratford seem a sensible lot and are not prone to intolerance or extremism. Bartlett is the cuckoo in the nest. As a Stony resident said in the Guardian article:
"This is just victimising people. Can't we just be non-smokers? Why do we have to be anti-smokers?"
A perceptive comment, that. The anti-smoking movement relies on a small handful of obsessives claiming to represent all non-smokers. They don't, they never have and they never will. Normal people do not wish to create division, segregation and 'denormalisation' in society (one of the placards today read 'Denormalise Councillor Bartlett'). ASH and Bartlett represent non-smokers about as much as David Koresh represented Christianity. Claiming that there is a war that must be fought is the great deception that the zealots must commit to fulfill their long-term goal of prohibition. More and more people are beginning to see through that lie.
No doubt similar proposals will be raised by unhinged councillors and attention-seeking MPs in the future. With a few tweaks here and a few bogus health scares there, outdoor smoking bans could yet become palatable to voters in the least liberal parts of the country. They are, after all, 'the next logical step'. But, for now, the sane majority looks likely to prevail. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Bartlett.
Friday, 15 July 2011
A line in the sand
 |
| A bigot yesterday |
Most readers will by now be familiar with the name of Stony Stratford, the small Buckinghamshire town that has hit the headlines thanks to a loony (pictured left) who wants to use the force of law to ban that which displeases him.
His name is Paul Bartlett and he suffers from some sort of pathological hatred of smokers which appears to stem from issues with his pipe-smoking father whom he describes as "disgusting."
His proposed ban on smoking in the streets of Stony does not seem likely to become law, largely because Bartlett himself is seen as a risible figure even within his own party. He confirmed this impression on TalkSport last night when, having bottled the opportunity to debate the issue with Dick Puddlecote, he turned up—tired and emotional—and fulfilled every stereotype of the foaming-at-the-mouth, anti-smoking fanatic. I am still none-the-wiser as to what his reasoning is for the ban, other than that he doesn't like smoking. That, however, is enough these days.
Dick Puddlecote is leading a delegation to Stony Stratford tomorrow to give Councillor Bartlett a figurative one-figured salute and I will be joining him. I hope you will too, because there are three reasons why a line needs to be drawn in the sand.
Firstly, the fact that the proponent of this piece of draconia is a Napoleonic fantasist with the charisma of a dead haddock does not mean that outdoor smoking bans could not be successfully introduced by individuals who possess a more convincing mask of sanity and better public relation skills. As indeed they have. New York fell to the prohibitionists with barely a squeal after Michael Bloomberg took his obsession to a new level. Several parts of California have done the same thing.
Secondly, the Department of Health's anti-tobacco front group ASH has given its blessing to the ban. This tells us—should we be in any doubt—where they're heading.
Thirdly, Bartlett has opened an Overton Window and made the unthinkable appear merely unlikely. This shifting of the sands is a common tactic for prohibitionists. You may recall the Lancet editorial of 2003 which called for the total prohibition of tobacco sales in the UK. Since the Lancet cannot seriously have believed this to be a practical possibility, it can only be viewed as an attempt to extend the parameters of public discourse. By discussing the impossible, it made the previously unthinkable option of a smoking ban in pubs seem plausible. It made a total smoking ban almost seem like a compromise.
It's an old trick but it works because normal, decent people are naturally inclined towards compromise. On last night's radio show, for example, most callers were appalled by the prospect of an outdoor smoking ban, but some were prepared to consider designated outdoor smoking areas—ie. segregation—as a 'compromise'. I venture to suggest that such a move was not on the cards before Slaphead Bartlett opened his mouth.
The problem with compromising is that it only works when both sides are normal, decent people. It doesn't works with fanatics because the deranged never stop. Not interested in finding a reasonable solution, they seek only to impose their will. It is their nature to eat away at tolerance and decency in society. They cannot be reasoned with. They need to be reminded that they are not normal.
Details of the Stony Standoff are here.
Monday, 4 July 2011
New York: protecting smack-heads from passive smoke
From Jon Stewart's ever-wonderful Daily Show, a dry look at New York's open air smoking ban. Finally, drug addicts and drunks won't have to put up with the nuisance of traces of cigarette smoke in a park that's bigger than Monaco. Happy Independence Day.
Thursday, 23 June 2011
Smoking in cars - a junk science retrospective
It seems that no matter which party is in power, the gradual prohibition of smoking moves on regardless. The latest development has been a private member's bill put forward by Labour MP Alex Cunningham to ban smoking in cars which have children in them. The BBC has reported it here and has helpfully given a campaigner a whole article to make the case for the ban without rebuttal here.
Since the ban seems rather limited—it targets a minority of a minority of the population—it's a shrewd way of moving smoking bans into private property and, if passed, you can guarantee that the 'next logical step' will be to ban smoking in the home. This would indeed be logical, since both cars and homes belong to the individual, and children spend far more time in the home than in the car.
The one aspect of smoking in cars that defies the prohibitionists is the fact in a moving vehicle with the window open, smoke is dragged out of the vehicle in a split second. There have been a small number of studies measuring smoke in vehicles and they have only ever found significant levels of secondhand smoke when all the windows are wound up. This is hardly surprising. Nor is it surprising that anti-smoking campaigners only refer to the window-wound-up scenario when pushing for bans.
Consequently, you may hear various claims about levels of smoke in cars being 23 times greater than in a bar, or such like. You may even hear the absurd claim that one cigarette smoked in a car produces the same amount of secondhand smoke as a whole evening in a smoky bar. These myths have all been debunked before, including—in one instance—by the Canadian Association Medical Journal. I didn't realise how much I'd written about this myself until I looked in the archive. Here are the main posts...
On the claim that smoke in a car reaches 23 times the level found in a smoky bar
The effect of opening a window even by 3 inches
ASH's wacky claim that opening the window means that smoke comes back in
Since the ban seems rather limited—it targets a minority of a minority of the population—it's a shrewd way of moving smoking bans into private property and, if passed, you can guarantee that the 'next logical step' will be to ban smoking in the home. This would indeed be logical, since both cars and homes belong to the individual, and children spend far more time in the home than in the car.
The one aspect of smoking in cars that defies the prohibitionists is the fact in a moving vehicle with the window open, smoke is dragged out of the vehicle in a split second. There have been a small number of studies measuring smoke in vehicles and they have only ever found significant levels of secondhand smoke when all the windows are wound up. This is hardly surprising. Nor is it surprising that anti-smoking campaigners only refer to the window-wound-up scenario when pushing for bans.
Consequently, you may hear various claims about levels of smoke in cars being 23 times greater than in a bar, or such like. You may even hear the absurd claim that one cigarette smoked in a car produces the same amount of secondhand smoke as a whole evening in a smoky bar. These myths have all been debunked before, including—in one instance—by the Canadian Association Medical Journal. I didn't realise how much I'd written about this myself until I looked in the archive. Here are the main posts...
On the claim that smoke in a car reaches 23 times the level found in a smoky bar
ASH's wacky claim that opening the window means that smoke comes back in
Thursday, 26 May 2011
Nowhere left to hide?
The New England Journal of Medicine has published a comment piece about the future of tobacco control in the light of New York's outdoor smoking ban. I haven't written about the New York ban because, really, what is there to say? According to the BBC:
It is possible, dear reader, that you consider this to be a reasonable and proportion piece of legislation. You may believe that allowing people to smoke in the middle of the road—but not on the road, and certainly not on the pavement—is a fair compromise which neatly balances the rights of nonsmokers with smokers.
But if you believe that, I doubt there is anything I can say that would bring you to your senses. There isn't anything to say about the health grounds for the ban, because they're aren't any. There's nothing to say about the scientific basis for the ban because none has been offered. It's a simple case of 'might is right'. Michael Bloomberg is a billionaire bully who should move to Bhutan and I feel sorry for New Yorkers, but it's not as if he's done it all himself. Take this guy, for example:
If that sentence doesn't make you shudder then, again, you're reading the wrong blog. Imagine a society in which smoking is not only banned in parks but in which people find it unbelievable that such a thing could have ever taken place. How many years of illiberalism, molly-coddling, fear-mongering and 're-education' would have to pass before people's minds became that narrow? If ever there was an argument for lighting up, drinking up and checking out early, Thomas Farley's vision of the future is it.
So what does the NEJM article have to say about all this? Well, actually it's pretty reasonable. It reminds us that smoking bans pre-dated the secondhand smoke studies and that, therefore, bans have never been purely about health. It suggests that one of the justifications for the NY ban—that smoking outdoors is the main source of litter—is based on a highly dubious measure which counts the number of individual items rather than overall volume. It accepts that outdoor smoking bans are primarily part of the denormalisation campaign and are ethically questionable. And it says, as this blog frequently says, that what we are witnessing is creeping prohibition.
Go read.
On a similar note, the Free Society and Privacy International are hosting a debate about smoking and civil liberties at the Institute of Economic Affairs next Wednesday. Details here.
Smoking will be allowed on pavements outside parks, and car parks in public parks. One area the ban does not cover is "median strips" - known as the central reservation in the UK - the sliver of land in the middle of a large road.
It is possible, dear reader, that you consider this to be a reasonable and proportion piece of legislation. You may believe that allowing people to smoke in the middle of the road—but not on the road, and certainly not on the pavement—is a fair compromise which neatly balances the rights of nonsmokers with smokers.
But if you believe that, I doubt there is anything I can say that would bring you to your senses. There isn't anything to say about the health grounds for the ban, because they're aren't any. There's nothing to say about the scientific basis for the ban because none has been offered. It's a simple case of 'might is right'. Michael Bloomberg is a billionaire bully who should move to Bhutan and I feel sorry for New Yorkers, but it's not as if he's done it all himself. Take this guy, for example:
“I think in the future,” the city’s health commissioner, Thomas Farley, said at a public hearing, “we will look back on this time and say 'How could we have ever tolerated smoking in a park?'”
If that sentence doesn't make you shudder then, again, you're reading the wrong blog. Imagine a society in which smoking is not only banned in parks but in which people find it unbelievable that such a thing could have ever taken place. How many years of illiberalism, molly-coddling, fear-mongering and 're-education' would have to pass before people's minds became that narrow? If ever there was an argument for lighting up, drinking up and checking out early, Thomas Farley's vision of the future is it.
So what does the NEJM article have to say about all this? Well, actually it's pretty reasonable. It reminds us that smoking bans pre-dated the secondhand smoke studies and that, therefore, bans have never been purely about health. It suggests that one of the justifications for the NY ban—that smoking outdoors is the main source of litter—is based on a highly dubious measure which counts the number of individual items rather than overall volume. It accepts that outdoor smoking bans are primarily part of the denormalisation campaign and are ethically questionable. And it says, as this blog frequently says, that what we are witnessing is creeping prohibition.
Most health professionals agree that an outright prohibition on the sale of cigarettes would be unfeasible and would lead to unwanted consequences such as black markets and the crime that accompanies them.
Yet steadily winnowing the spaces in which smoking is legally allowed may be leading to a kind of de facto prohibition. Smoking bans imposed by states and municipalities have been accompanied by comparable measures in the private sector. Some employers and property owners prohibit smokers from congregating in building doorways; colleges and universities have banned smoking on their campuses; condominiums, apartments, and other multi-unit dwellings have passed requirements for smoke-free apartments. As the historian Allan Brandt has noted, smokers may soon have nowhere left to hide. Pressed by a city council member about where he believed people should be allowed to smoke in New York City, Farley responded, “I’m not prepared to answer that.”
Go read.
On a similar note, the Free Society and Privacy International are hosting a debate about smoking and civil liberties at the Institute of Economic Affairs next Wednesday. Details here.
Monday, 7 February 2011
New York conversation
What can I say about New York's latest smoking ban in 'public places' (how the definition of that changes)? I write about how these things are going to happen but when they do there doesn't seem to be anything left to say. It can't be justified on the basis of secondhand smoke, obviously, and very few people have tried to do so. In civil liberties terms it's beyond the pale. It probably can't be enforced, but we shall see. It's very sad, but New Yorkers knew what they were getting when they re-elected Bloomberg.
All this you know, so I'll just quote what other's have been saying.
Whoopi Goldberg's having none of it:
She may not have to pay many fines, if Carl at Ep-ology's experience is anything to go by:
The Daily Mash gives us the satirical take:
Rob Lyons has a less-than-romanic view of the Land of the Free:
But of particular interest to me was the editorial in the New York Times (h/t Carl Phillips). NYT editorials acted as something of a barometer of public opinion during the last great American Anti-Smoking Crusade (1899-1920).
As readers of Velvet Glove, Iron Fist will fondly recall, when the first rumblings of anti-cigarette fervour began in 1884, the NYT ran a xenophobic editorial attributing Spain's decline to the smoking of cigarettes and warned that "if this pernicious practice obtains among adult Americans the ruin of the Republic is close at hand."
But by the first decade of the next century, the newspaper was striking a more libertarian chord. When cigarettes were banned in Indiana, it called the ban "a scandalous an interference as can be conceived with constitutional freedom" and consistently defended the right to smoke.
If the NYT has written anything critical of the tobacco control lobby in my lifetime, I missed it. So perhaps—just perhaps—their latest editorial marked the moment when the NYT realised again that this is a prohibitionist crusade they're talking about:
All this you know, so I'll just quote what other's have been saying.
Whoopi Goldberg's having none of it:
"I'm done with this (anti-smoking) because I feel I pay taxes here just like everybody else. There should be a designated place and I'm tired of being treated like some damn criminal. If they're really worried about the smell in the air, give us electric buses, give us electric cars, and then I'll understand!
"But you know, (give smokers) a little respect because I understand that not everyone wants to smoke, I get that, but you can't keep treating people like they don't matter."
And Goldberg has vowed to defy the ban and pay the $50 fines for smoking in the newly-banned areas until nicotine lovers are given specially-designated spots to puff away in public.
She adds, "I'm going to take the hit, I'm gonna write the cheque, do everything until you guys do what you need to do to stop this nasty smell of cars and all the other nasty stuff... I'm smoking my cigarette, I'm sick of this!"
She may not have to pay many fines, if Carl at Ep-ology's experience is anything to go by:
I was in New York a couple of days ago and enjoyed the juxtaposition of talk of the brand new law against outdoor smoking and hanging out with people who chose to defy even the indoor ban, demonstrating that there is really no problem getting away with that.
The Daily Mash gives us the satirical take:
New York is bidding to reverse its plummeting violent crime figures by not letting anybody smoke.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg extended the city's smoking ban to parks insisting outdoor tobacco fumes were preventing people from enjoying the exhaust emissions from more than 300 square miles of gridlocked traffic.
But tourism experts say the move will also resurrect the authentic New York atmosphere portrayed in much loved Hollywood classics such as Mean Streets, Bada Bing and Fuck You.
New York cabbie Tom Logan said: "Ordinarily I would recommend the cultural highlights and reasonably-priced restaurants in our fair city but after pulling a 12-hour shift without a smoke I'll probably just spray the entrance to the Waldorf with machine-gun fire and then drive this motherfucker straight off the Brooklyn Bridge."
New York's anti-smoking laws are some of the strictest in America, though there is a loophole in the legislation to allow the public smoking of crack.
Rob Lyons has a less-than-romanic view of the Land of the Free:
This is a country where you can be arrested for not crossing the road in a state-approved place or for having a drink when you're 20 years old. Bloomberg seems to be just tidying up a few loose ends.
But of particular interest to me was the editorial in the New York Times (h/t Carl Phillips). NYT editorials acted as something of a barometer of public opinion during the last great American Anti-Smoking Crusade (1899-1920).
As readers of Velvet Glove, Iron Fist will fondly recall, when the first rumblings of anti-cigarette fervour began in 1884, the NYT ran a xenophobic editorial attributing Spain's decline to the smoking of cigarettes and warned that "if this pernicious practice obtains among adult Americans the ruin of the Republic is close at hand."
But by the first decade of the next century, the newspaper was striking a more libertarian chord. When cigarettes were banned in Indiana, it called the ban "a scandalous an interference as can be conceived with constitutional freedom" and consistently defended the right to smoke.
If the NYT has written anything critical of the tobacco control lobby in my lifetime, I missed it. So perhaps—just perhaps—their latest editorial marked the moment when the NYT realised again that this is a prohibitionist crusade they're talking about:
No smoking at the crossroads of the world? The vortex of tourism that brings smokers and nonsmokers in great numbers? The site of the world’s most famous New Year’s Eve party, where who knows what goes on? All of this takes the mayor’s nannying too far, even for those of us who want to avoid the hazards of secondhand smoke...
Meanwhile, there is talk that the mayor and the City Council want even more, like banning smoking near doors of office buildings and apartments. They need to take a deep breath and remember that we tried prohibition 90 years ago. They called it a noble experiment. It turned into a civic disaster.
Saturday, 13 November 2010
Don't annoy the Serbs
Yesterday, I suggested that the Serbian smoking ban was not particularly rigorous when compared to the draconian legislation of the English-speaking world. The Serbs, it seems, do not agree.
The article goes on to explain Serbian outrage at a ban that allows smoking in small bars and only requires nonsmoking sections in large bars.
Perhaps it's the use of the word "lamented"in this next sentence, but somehow it paints a more poignant picture than could be captured in any photograph...
I vividly recall such a scene in my local pub some years ago when the fiercely anti-smoking landlord decided to introduce a similar revenue-slashing measure.
Of course, you don't have to look far to find the real motive for the Serbian ban...
The EU. Forever encouraging diversity.
Tobacco-loving Serbs fume over smoking ban
The article goes on to explain Serbian outrage at a ban that allows smoking in small bars and only requires nonsmoking sections in large bars.
Perhaps it's the use of the word "lamented"in this next sentence, but somehow it paints a more poignant picture than could be captured in any photograph...
Neven Boskovic, a Belgrade cafe owner said he had fewer customers than usual, lamented his empty nonsmoking section — and pointing out his full smoking area.
I vividly recall such a scene in my local pub some years ago when the fiercely anti-smoking landlord decided to introduce a similar revenue-slashing measure.
Of course, you don't have to look far to find the real motive for the Serbian ban...
The law is a "step forward" for the country that aspires to be an EU member, argued Health Minister Tomica Milosavljevic. He said that "it is important that we try to act differently, to reduce the smoke around us."
The EU. Forever encouraging diversity.
Thursday, 11 November 2010
Another typical smoking ban
Welcome back. After three weeks in India and two weeks in techno limbo, do I even have any readers left, I wonder?
A fortnight without internet access and a television signal is not the liberating experience the tree-huggers and back-to-the-landers suggest it is. In fact it sucks. And the first thing I see when I get a television picture back is news footage of a group of protestors holding a placard that read "No Fee's (sic)". Call me an old stick in the mud if you wish, but I can't sympathise with University students who put an apostrophe in a non-possessive plural. It does, however, reminds us what is at the root of the Higher Education's funding problem—too many people going to University. And when I say 'people', I mean 'illiterate cretins'.
Anyway, I also see that another European country is, ahem, going smokefree...
Bearing in mind that Serbia is well outside of the Anglosphere, how 'tough' do you think this ban really is?
Schools, hospitals and government buildings. OK. But what about the places where people actually want to smoke?
And businesses?
So, to summarise, large bars and restaurants have to provide a non-smoking area, and small bars can do what they like. Meanwhile businesses are "allowed" to ban smoking wherever they like, as if they couldn't do that already. Sounds like a workable and reasonable compromise to accommodate everybody except the "loud-mouthed anti-smoking zealots, the wackos and the grab-bag full of nuts" (© Dave Goerlitz), thereby making Serbia typical of the majority of countries in Europe, and the vast majority of countries worldwide (see numerous previous posts, for example this one). Can we have a "tough" smoking ban too, please? Like Holland?
When I was in Budapest last year, I was interviewed by a woman who expressed surprise that while countries like Hungary were happily shaking off the yoke of Communism and embracing freedom, people in the West seem to be moving in the opposite direction, smoking bans being an obvious example. I didn't really have an answer for that. Nor can I explain why smoking bans are so much more popular on the left than the right (see this recent article in the uber-socialist Herald Tribune).
Meanwhile, a friend e-mails me from Israel:
A fortnight without internet access and a television signal is not the liberating experience the tree-huggers and back-to-the-landers suggest it is. In fact it sucks. And the first thing I see when I get a television picture back is news footage of a group of protestors holding a placard that read "No Fee's (sic)". Call me an old stick in the mud if you wish, but I can't sympathise with University students who put an apostrophe in a non-possessive plural. It does, however, reminds us what is at the root of the Higher Education's funding problem—too many people going to University. And when I say 'people', I mean 'illiterate cretins'.
Anyway, I also see that another European country is, ahem, going smokefree...
Serbia introduces tough smoking ban
Bearing in mind that Serbia is well outside of the Anglosphere, how 'tough' do you think this ban really is?
The law bans smoking in state institutions and buildings, schools, social care institutions, buildings used for cultural and sports activities, and media buildings.
Schools, hospitals and government buildings. OK. But what about the places where people actually want to smoke?
Smaller bars and cafes can decide to be smoke-free or not, while bigger ones, as well as restaurants have to provide a non-smoking space that would occupy more than a half of the premises and be properly ventilated.
And businesses?
Companies are allowed to provide a smoking area, but also to introduce anti-tobacco measures in all other spaces.
So, to summarise, large bars and restaurants have to provide a non-smoking area, and small bars can do what they like. Meanwhile businesses are "allowed" to ban smoking wherever they like, as if they couldn't do that already. Sounds like a workable and reasonable compromise to accommodate everybody except the "loud-mouthed anti-smoking zealots, the wackos and the grab-bag full of nuts" (© Dave Goerlitz), thereby making Serbia typical of the majority of countries in Europe, and the vast majority of countries worldwide (see numerous previous posts, for example this one). Can we have a "tough" smoking ban too, please? Like Holland?
When I was in Budapest last year, I was interviewed by a woman who expressed surprise that while countries like Hungary were happily shaking off the yoke of Communism and embracing freedom, people in the West seem to be moving in the opposite direction, smoking bans being an obvious example. I didn't really have an answer for that. Nor can I explain why smoking bans are so much more popular on the left than the right (see this recent article in the uber-socialist Herald Tribune).
Meanwhile, a friend e-mails me from Israel:
It appears that there is a smoking ban in restaurants and pubs, although I went into one place, a kind of speak-easy underground joint hidden behind a normal wine shop—definitely not 'adequately ventilated'—everyone smoking away happy as Larry under big "no smoking" signs on the wall.
I was confused. I asked the barmaid for a beer—which came with a free whisky chaser!—then, being a polite Englishman, enquired after an ashtray. She said to just use the floor. Apparently it turns out the fine is on the individual not the establishment so some places choose to allow smoking if the police come knocking everyone chucks their fags on the floor—making it hard to prove the crime on anyone person.
Wednesday, 27 October 2010
Who didn't see this coming?
I've written a few times about the myth that smoking bans are truly "comprehensive" outside of Britain and Ireland. In truth, other countries have passed laws which—while still trampling inexcusably on property rights—are far less draconian than those seen elsewhere in the world.
In other nations smoking bans have been relaxed (Holland, Croatia, Poland), or were relaxed to begin with (Portugal, Denmark, Belgium), or are simply ignored (Holland again, Greece and everywhere outside Europe).
And it seems that I am not alone in observing this...
We can't be having that now, can we? And the response from the (unelected) European Commission should come as no surprise.
The EU wanting to override national sovereignty is not a massive shock. And there had been noises on the smoking front.
Then perhaps they could start by banning smoking in the EU's offices, where the last attempt to stop MEPs smoking ended within weeks after the political class revolted?
Quite. And who better to make things bland and uniform than the European Commission?
In other nations smoking bans have been relaxed (Holland, Croatia, Poland), or were relaxed to begin with (Portugal, Denmark, Belgium), or are simply ignored (Holland again, Greece and everywhere outside Europe).
And it seems that I am not alone in observing this...
While partial or total smoking bans have been introduced in many European countries ending patrons' ability to smoke in bars, cafes and other public venues, it is still relatively easy in some states to find a bolt-hole where smokers are welcome, whether due to exceptions to such laws or owners flouting the bans.
We can't be having that now, can we? And the response from the (unelected) European Commission should come as no surprise.
Health commissioner John Dalli has said he wants to put a stop to this.
"We need a complete ban on smoking in all public spaces, transport and the workplace," he said in an interview on Monday (11 October) with German daily Die Welt.
The EU wanting to override national sovereignty is not a massive shock. And there had been noises on the smoking front.
Announcing that Brussels is currently preparing a bill to be brought forward next year, he said that exceptions should no longer be tolerated
Then perhaps they could start by banning smoking in the EU's offices, where the last attempt to stop MEPs smoking ended within weeks after the political class revolted?
The commission will furthermore try to win agreement on rules making tobacco products no longer visible to customers and make packaging as unattractive as possible. The packets are to be made identical in appearance and to bear colourful warning pictures, such as of diseased lungs, as well as more information on the toxins the product contains.
"The more uniform and bland packaging the cigarettes are, the better," said the commissioner.
Quite. And who better to make things bland and uniform than the European Commission?
Tuesday, 26 October 2010
ASH launch new campaign
Campaigners call for desert island smoking ban
Anti-smoking campaigners have called a smoking ban on desert islands "the next logical step" in the war against second- and third-hand smoke. Deborah Arnott, director of Action on Smoking and Health, is leading a campaign for a total smoking ban across the world's islets and archipelagos: "It is a common misconception that smoking on a patch of land in the middle of the ocean poses no threat to others," she said.
"But we know there is no safe level of secondhand smoke. Cigarettes contain 4,000 chemicals which can travel hundreds of miles, contaminating nonsmokers, especially children, in neighbouring countries and pose a particular risk to passing sailors, especially children. There is overwhelming evidence that toxins remain on the torn trousers of shipwrecked travellers for years, which poses a serious health threat to potential rescuers, especially children."
At the moment there is little evidence that secondhand smoke can travel over international waters but scientists at the UK Centre for Tobacco Control Studies have promised to study the issue. "We'll get the evidence, don't you worry about," Arnott said. "For too long people have used loopholes like living thousands of miles from civilisation as a way to get around the hugely popular smoking ban. We need to send a clear message to smokers: we will track you to the ends of the earth."
ASH's new campaign has received high profile support from Glasgow-born millionaire Duncan Bannatyne and former desert island resident Man Friday.
Speaking at a press conference organised by Pfizer, Mr Friday said: "For most people, a desert island is a place to get away from it all and listen to their favourite records. They forget that for people like me it is a workplace and we deserve the same protection as other workers. By their very nature, desert islands tend to be unregulated and it is people like me and the fat kid with glasses from Lord of the Flies who end up paying the price."
But critics accused campaigners of going too far. Simon Clark of the smokers' rights group FOREST said: "This is just another example of the nanny state gone mad. Many desert islands are already struggling to attract ship-wreck survivors and this proposed legislation will finish them off. And it's unenforceable. This is just the precursor to banning smoking across whole countries."
In response to the accusation that ASH's real goal is to ban smoking indoors and outdoors in every country in the world, Arnott said: "Have you been reading my diary?"
Thursday, 19 August 2010
Glass onion
After yesterday's discussion of the "secondhand smoke in a car is x times more toxic than in the home", I've been looking again at the origins of this claim.
My first port of call was the ASH website, which has changed its fact sheet on the subject since I last visited in March. It's at the same URL because ASH have a slightly Orwellian tendency to delete old information as if it had never existed. Nevertheless, the old page said:
As I mentioned yesterday, the Ontario Medical Association's figure has been exposed as bogus. On their new page, ASH say:
And this time we have a reference: Proposed Identification of Environmental Tobacco Smoke as a Toxic Air Contaminant, a document prepared by the California Environmental Protection Agency (Cal-EPA). It is indeed thorough, and although it never uses the "27 times" figure, it does rely on a study that came close to doing so.
The study (Offermann et al., 2002) is one I've seen referenced before but had never found. Today, after much searching, I did. It's obscure because it seems never to have been published or peer-reviewed, but it was presented at the 9th International Conference on Indoor Air Quality and Climate (book early to avoid disappointment!) in Monterey in 2002. And in it, Offermann makes a nearly-familiar claim:
Given the lack of ventilation and the small size of the smoking environment, this is certainly plausible. Offermann measured respirable suspended particles (RSP) in a moving car under three different conditions and got the following readings:
(1) Windows open/ventilation off: 92 µg/m3
(2) Windows closed/ventilation on: 693 µg/m3
(3) Windows closed/ventilation off: 1,195 µg/m3
(In experiments of this kind, the idea of drivers having the windows open and the ventilation on is apparently considered too far-fetched to be worth studying.)
It is worth noting that although Scenario 1 says 'windows', it is clear from the text that only the driver's window was open. The driver also held the cigarette in his right hand despite being in a left-hand drive vehicle. And RSP levels fell to nearly zero within 60 seconds of the cigarette being extinguished.
In any case, it is not Scenario 1 that Offermann focuses on; he prefers to dwell on the much more unlikely Scenario 3. This is what he bases his "25 times higher" figure on.
Offermann's unpublished study forms the basis of Cal-EPA's own figures. Offermann didn't measure RSP in the home, but Cal-EPA found some other studies to piece the picture together. Their summary is shown below (click to enlarge):
As you can see from the top line, average RSP concentrations in smokers' homes were found to be between 44-125.6µg/m3. Average RSP levels in nonsmokers' homes were between 20-87.8µg/m3. The reason these two sets of figures are so close together is that a smoker's home is not necessarily a home with a smoker smoking (and there are other sources of RSP other than cigarettes). Studies in rooms with people actually smoking found much higher RSP concentration of between 160-5,500µg/m3—much higher than anything recorded in Offermann's car (actually it was a minivan, but let's not get bogged down in the detail.)
As I said, Cal-EPA never use any of this to say that smoking in a car is x times worse than smoking in a home or a pub. But let's speculate for a moment and say that someone (from ASH?) looked at these figures, picked the lowest home reading (44µg/m3), compared it with the highest vehicle reading (1,195µg/m3) and did a quick calculation. 1,195 divided by 44 = 27. Bingo!
And let's say they picked the lowest nonsmoking home figure (20µg/m3) and did the same thing. 1,195 divided by 20 = 60. And so, once we unravel all the layers, I think we may have found the original source of what was written in The Guardian yesterday:
And, to be fair to the UK Faculty of Public Health, they did mention that this was a completely unventilated car:
UPDATE: This is a comment from Carl V. Philips, e-mailed to me after he was unable to post in the comments section:
My first port of call was the ASH website, which has changed its fact sheet on the subject since I last visited in March. It's at the same URL because ASH have a slightly Orwellian tendency to delete old information as if it had never existed. Nevertheless, the old page said:
According to a report by the Ontario Medical Association, secondhand smoke levels in cars can be 23 times greater than in a house.
As I mentioned yesterday, the Ontario Medical Association's figure has been exposed as bogus. On their new page, ASH say:
In 2005, The State of California’s Air Resources Board (CARB) conducted a comprehensive review of studies which measured secondhand smoke particle concentrations in a variety of environments. The review found that in-car concentrations were up to 60 times greater than in a smoke-free home, and up to 27 times greater than in a smoker’s home.
The study (Offermann et al., 2002) is one I've seen referenced before but had never found. Today, after much searching, I did. It's obscure because it seems never to have been published or peer-reviewed, but it was presented at the 9th International Conference on Indoor Air Quality and Climate (book early to avoid disappointment!) in Monterey in 2002. And in it, Offermann makes a nearly-familiar claim:
The calculated exposure for a five hour automobile trip with the windows closed/ventilation off and with a smoking rate of 2 cigarettes per hour is 25 times higher than the same exposure scenario in a residence.
Given the lack of ventilation and the small size of the smoking environment, this is certainly plausible. Offermann measured respirable suspended particles (RSP) in a moving car under three different conditions and got the following readings:
(1) Windows open/ventilation off: 92 µg/m3
(2) Windows closed/ventilation on: 693 µg/m3
(3) Windows closed/ventilation off: 1,195 µg/m3
(In experiments of this kind, the idea of drivers having the windows open and the ventilation on is apparently considered too far-fetched to be worth studying.)
It is worth noting that although Scenario 1 says 'windows', it is clear from the text that only the driver's window was open. The driver also held the cigarette in his right hand despite being in a left-hand drive vehicle. And RSP levels fell to nearly zero within 60 seconds of the cigarette being extinguished.
In any case, it is not Scenario 1 that Offermann focuses on; he prefers to dwell on the much more unlikely Scenario 3. This is what he bases his "25 times higher" figure on.
Offermann's unpublished study forms the basis of Cal-EPA's own figures. Offermann didn't measure RSP in the home, but Cal-EPA found some other studies to piece the picture together. Their summary is shown below (click to enlarge):
As you can see from the top line, average RSP concentrations in smokers' homes were found to be between 44-125.6µg/m3. Average RSP levels in nonsmokers' homes were between 20-87.8µg/m3. The reason these two sets of figures are so close together is that a smoker's home is not necessarily a home with a smoker smoking (and there are other sources of RSP other than cigarettes). Studies in rooms with people actually smoking found much higher RSP concentration of between 160-5,500µg/m3—much higher than anything recorded in Offermann's car (actually it was a minivan, but let's not get bogged down in the detail.)
As I said, Cal-EPA never use any of this to say that smoking in a car is x times worse than smoking in a home or a pub. But let's speculate for a moment and say that someone (from ASH?) looked at these figures, picked the lowest home reading (44µg/m3), compared it with the highest vehicle reading (1,195µg/m3) and did a quick calculation. 1,195 divided by 44 = 27. Bingo!
And let's say they picked the lowest nonsmoking home figure (20µg/m3) and did the same thing. 1,195 divided by 20 = 60. And so, once we unravel all the layers, I think we may have found the original source of what was written in The Guardian yesterday:
Second-hand smoke can be 27 times more toxic in a car than a smoker's home, it says in a report published today.
And, to be fair to the UK Faculty of Public Health, they did mention that this was a completely unventilated car:
In a closed car, levels of second-hand smoke can be extremely high – the concentration in cars can be up to 60 times higher than in a smoke-free home, and up to 27 times greater than in a smoker’s home.
It's cherry-picking, of course, and the words "up to" should always ring alarm bells when statistics are involved. Such calculations make no attempt to find the average readings under average (real life) conditions. We could use the same set of figures to make the claim that there is nearly as little secondhand smoke in a smoky car (92µg/m3) as in a completely smoke-free house (87.8µg/m3) and, even then, only while the cigarette is burning. After that, a smoky car is less smoky than a smokefree house!
That would be a dodgy use of statistics as well, and—lest we forget—it all hinges on an unpublished study which neither ASH nor the Faculty of Public Health appear to have read (ASH only reference the Cal-EPA report, the Faculty didn't even do that.)
Nevertheless, I owe ASH and the Faculty of Public Health an apology. I accused them of falling for someone else's bogus figure. In fact, they came with their own.
The frustrating thing is that even after all this we are no closer to getting to the source of the "23 times" claim that conquered the world on the back of a brief report in Rocky Mountain News. Offermann's study came out in 2002 and the Cal-EPA report is from 2005. But Rocky Mountain News published its story back in 1998 and the trail has long-since gone cold. Some mysteries are destined never to be solved.
UPDATE: This is a comment from Carl V. Philips, e-mailed to me after he was unable to post in the comments section:
[This is an attempt to recreate a comment I wrote but somehow managed to lose rather than submit. I am not going to redo the calculations, so I will try to do it from memory, and also try to write my long comments offline from now on!]
First, I want to say that this is great research work, Chris. Thinking of the silly attempt to hush you up re: The Spirit Level Delusion, I have to say that if half the people publishing in health science journals were even half the scientist that you are, the field would be improved enormously.
As for the ventilation in cars study itself, if you are taking this further I think there must be some problems with the numbers. Such problems do not compare to the extremists lying about what the numbers mean, of course, but it is a separate problem.
I know this is not my field, but the statistics should be pretty straightforward, and they do not seem to add up. Comparing tests 1 and 2, the air exchange rate is very similar. The half-life for a bit of air (and thus a bit of smoke) is somewhere between half and 3/4 of a minute for both of them (assuming perfect mixing). That is, a particular smoke molecule has a 50% chance of being gone in that much time. It does not seem plausible that there would be such a difference in concentration then.
But the more important one is the difference between test 3 and 2. If 3 is really right, and it is the one that the antis want to say is right, then 2 and 1 do not seem plausible. The air exchange rate in 3 translates into a half life of about eight minutes. If someone smokes a cigarette over the course of four or five minutes then the vast majority of the smoke is still in the car at the end of the period.
This compares to the other scenarios when, by the time of the last puff, almost all the smoke from the first few puffs is gone and even half the smoke from the previous puff is gone. It does not make any sense, then, that the concentration is only reduced by half in 2 compared to 3. This suggests that the numbers for a ventilated car – i.e., the worst realistic-case scenario, since as you point out, no one turns the ventilation off – are exaggerated.
An interesting comparison is that the air exchange rate (according to what I looked up) for a room in a house is in the order of 10/hour (a pub is in the range of twice that). So, though the space is much larger, the smoke lingers a lot longer. Thus, it is not entirely clear to me that the exposure in a car is actually worse. Since in a realistic car situation, the smoker who is not trying to annoy others in the car at least cracks the window, holds the cigarette near there, and exhales toward the opening (harm reduction!), typical exposure will be even lower than the best case of the tests run. It may be that momentarily the concentration is higher, but drops lower than a room fairly rapidly. The question would be “is it worse to have a higher peak exposure or lower exposure for longer” – an interesting question, but one we will never know the answer to because the millions of dollars spend studying these matters are never directed at anything practical. (Actually, we might know. There is physiologic research on effects of smoke being done by industry, even though the “health” people are not interested in gaining useful knowledge about reducing effects, and so someone might find something relevant.)
Anyway, the bottom line is that the actual difference between smoking in a car with someone or a room of a house is not actually large and it is not even clear which is a greater exposure under realistic conditions.
Wednesday, 18 August 2010
Before the truth could get its shoes on
There's a sense of deja vu in the air today. This, from The Guardian:
The report in question comes from the UK Faculty of Public Health, which says:
60 times smokier than a house with no smoke in it? Don't ask me, I've given up trying to figure out their logic. Presumably it has something to do with measuring nanograms of some biomarker—not what you or I would call 'smoke'.
But let's ignore that, and let's ignore fact that people very rarely smoke in a "closed car". The main point, as Dick Puddlecote has pointed out, is that this "27 times greater" myth has been thoroughly debunked. Or rather, the "23 times greater" myth, as it seems to have been further embellished since I discussed it back in March, when I traced it back to an obscure article in that prestigious scientific journal Rocky Mountain News.
Two months later, the Canadian Medical Association Journal published an article by Becky Freeman and Ross MacKenzie which not only concluded that the figure had no basis in fact, but actively encouraged fellow anti-smoking campaigners not to use it.
The CMAJ article is behind a pay-wall, but it tells the story with this graph (click to enlarge). [UPDATE: You can read it here.]
This little tale of Chinese whispers does not just involve local newspapers not bothering to check their facts. After the "23 times" claim appeared in Rocky Mountain News, it was used in a Tobacco Control editorial and then mentioned in Nicotine and Tobacco Research. From there, it spread to the Ontario Medical Association and the British Columbia Ministry of Health.
By 2009, it had gone global. The Australian Medical Association, Action on Smoking and Health (Ireland), the European Lung Foundation and Action on Smoking and Health (England) were all taken in. The Sunday Times, the Irish Times and the Irish Medical Times quoted the figure. And they were not alone. Take this, for example, from the Irish Independent :
When the Royal College of Physicians campaigned for a total ban on smoking in cars in March 2010, they insisted that levels in cars were "20 times higher" than in smoky bars—a claim that fails the basic test of believability.
All of this based on an indirect quote that once appeared in a now defunct Denver newspaper.
And, despite being comprehensively and explicitly exposed as a myth in a major medical journal, here it is again, still unreferenced in a public health report and now exaggerated still further. And still, of course, appearing in national newspapers to sway public opinion.
All of which means that (a) the UK Faculty of Public Health has carried out some new research which it's keeping very quiet, (b) they don't keep in touch with what's being written in the medical journals, even when it's written by prominent tobacco control figures like Becky Freeman, or (c) they don't care about getting their facts right.
As it says in the CMAJ paper:
To put it mildly.
Second-hand smoke can be 27 times more toxic in a car than a smoker's home, it says in a report published today.
The report in question comes from the UK Faculty of Public Health, which says:
In a closed car, levels of second-hand smoke can be extremely high – the concentration in cars can be up to 60 times higher than in a smoke-free home, and up to 27 times greater than in a smoker’s home.
60 times smokier than a house with no smoke in it? Don't ask me, I've given up trying to figure out their logic. Presumably it has something to do with measuring nanograms of some biomarker—not what you or I would call 'smoke'.
But let's ignore that, and let's ignore fact that people very rarely smoke in a "closed car". The main point, as Dick Puddlecote has pointed out, is that this "27 times greater" myth has been thoroughly debunked. Or rather, the "23 times greater" myth, as it seems to have been further embellished since I discussed it back in March, when I traced it back to an obscure article in that prestigious scientific journal Rocky Mountain News.
Two months later, the Canadian Medical Association Journal published an article by Becky Freeman and Ross MacKenzie which not only concluded that the figure had no basis in fact, but actively encouraged fellow anti-smoking campaigners not to use it.
We recommend that researchers and organizations stop using the 23 times more toxic factoid because there appears to be no evidence for it in the scientific literature.
The CMAJ article is behind a pay-wall, but it tells the story with this graph (click to enlarge). [UPDATE: You can read it here.]
This little tale of Chinese whispers does not just involve local newspapers not bothering to check their facts. After the "23 times" claim appeared in Rocky Mountain News, it was used in a Tobacco Control editorial and then mentioned in Nicotine and Tobacco Research. From there, it spread to the Ontario Medical Association and the British Columbia Ministry of Health.
By 2009, it had gone global. The Australian Medical Association, Action on Smoking and Health (Ireland), the European Lung Foundation and Action on Smoking and Health (England) were all taken in. The Sunday Times, the Irish Times and the Irish Medical Times quoted the figure. And they were not alone. Take this, for example, from the Irish Independent :
Dr Angie Brown, chairwoman of ASH Ireland, said the ban has been already introduced in several regions in Australia and the United States, while it is being considered in the Netherlands and South Africa. "There is irrefutable evidence to show that a car can be 23 times more toxic than a home environment in the context of passive smoke," she warned.
When the Royal College of Physicians campaigned for a total ban on smoking in cars in March 2010, they insisted that levels in cars were "20 times higher" than in smoky bars—a claim that fails the basic test of believability.
All of this based on an indirect quote that once appeared in a now defunct Denver newspaper.
And, despite being comprehensively and explicitly exposed as a myth in a major medical journal, here it is again, still unreferenced in a public health report and now exaggerated still further. And still, of course, appearing in national newspapers to sway public opinion.
All of which means that (a) the UK Faculty of Public Health has carried out some new research which it's keeping very quiet, (b) they don't keep in touch with what's being written in the medical journals, even when it's written by prominent tobacco control figures like Becky Freeman, or (c) they don't care about getting their facts right.
As it says in the CMAJ paper:
Unfortunately, inaccurate reporting of health information is not an uncommon phenomenon.
To put it mildly.
Tuesday, 3 August 2010
Hobart paving
Tasmania's state capital Hobart has just introduced a smoking ban in public places. Nothing unusual about that, you might say, except this ban is a little more 'comprehensive' than most.
I've been meaning to write about the extremism sweeping through the Antipodes for a while. As has been happening in California, local officials seem to be vying with each other to bring in the most draconian legislation.
Discussing the new ban, Hobart's Lord Mayor, Rob Valentine, summed up the old Velvet Glove/Iron Fist dichotomy in a few well chosen words. First came the good cop...
And then the bad cop...
Inevitably, campaigners now want to see an outdoor smoking ban across the state. Equally inevitably, they are citing that old favourite: the level playing field.
In recent years Tasmania, like the rest of Australia, has become a world leader in tobacco control. It has an indoor smoking ban, a partial outdoor smoking ban, graphic warnings on packs, huge tax rises on cigarettes and a total ban on tobacco advertising.
So how are all these 'evidence-based' policies working out?
Keep up the good work, chaps.
A controversial ban on smoking in Hobart's outdoor malls has been well received, the city's council says.
Hobart City Council in May passed a ban on smoking at three outdoor malls in central Hobart, which took effect on Sunday.
Smoking in Hobart's alfresco dining areas will be illegal from August next year.
I've been meaning to write about the extremism sweeping through the Antipodes for a while. As has been happening in California, local officials seem to be vying with each other to bring in the most draconian legislation.
The ban caused controversy when first announced, with retailers expressing concern it could affect business.
But the council said at the time it was proud to have some of the nation's most stringent anti-smoking laws.
Discussing the new ban, Hobart's Lord Mayor, Rob Valentine, summed up the old Velvet Glove/Iron Fist dichotomy in a few well chosen words. First came the good cop...
"It's been well received, but at the same time we're not trying to pounce on people," he told ABC Radio on Monday.
Mr Valentine said he hoped the council would not have to enforce the ban with fines.
"We're not really keen to go down the punitive measure trail because we think that people at the end of the day will support it.
"There are others that will see smokers and point to the no-smoking sign.
And then the bad cop...
"But if push comes to shove, there is a $200 fine."
Inevitably, campaigners now want to see an outdoor smoking ban across the state. Equally inevitably, they are citing that old favourite: the level playing field.
The Cancer Council's Darren Carr says a blanket ban "would put all councils and all restaurants on a level playing field".
In recent years Tasmania, like the rest of Australia, has become a world leader in tobacco control. It has an indoor smoking ban, a partial outdoor smoking ban, graphic warnings on packs, huge tax rises on cigarettes and a total ban on tobacco advertising.
So how are all these 'evidence-based' policies working out?
The Heart Foundation's chief executive Graeme Lynch says in 2001 approximately 24 per cent of Tasmanians smoked.
"And the latest ABS figures [show] that rate has actually risen to 24.9 per cent," he said.
Keep up the good work, chaps.
Wednesday, 24 March 2010
Just open the window!
I was interviewed on BBC Scotland radio this morning on the subject of banning smoking in cars (listen here for 7 days, 2.17 hours in). Sleepy though I was—and coming off the back of a hilariously one-sided vox pop—I tried to make the point that the simple act of opening a window in a moving vehicle provides ample ventilation to disperse secondhand smoke.
Prof John Britton had earlier told the BBC that levels of secondhand smoke in cars are twenty times higher than in smoky bars. As a medical man, his opinion naturally trumped mine as far as the presenter was concerned. Nevertheless, it's worth finding out this '20 times higher' claim comes from.
A good place to start is a heavily referenced report from ASH (UK). It claims that:
According to a report by the Ontario Medical Association, secondhand smoke levels in cars can be 23 times greater than in a house.
ASH give a citation of this report from the Ontario Medical Association, which says:
Based on the evidence that exposure to SHS in a vehicle is 23-times more toxic than in a house due to the smaller enclosed space, the state of Colorado drafted a bill that would impose fines on adults caught smoking in cars when a child is present.
But what evidence is this? Their only reference turns out to be a news story from the Rocky Mountain News, not exactly a reliable scientific source.
ASH do, however, have another source:
A study comparing secondhand smoke particle concentrations in a vehicle with those in a bar which allowed smoking, found in-vehicle concentrations 20-times greater than inside the bar.
Again there is a citation, this time to an actual scientific journal, but the article in question does not measure secondhand smoke in cars, nor does it attempt to. It certainly doesn't give any estimate of how much more secondhand smoke is in cars than other locations, and it doesn't cite any references that might lead us to find an article that does.
And there the trail ends. Such is the game of Chinese whispers that passes for evidence-based medicine these days.
If you want to find some real science on this issue, you have to turn to an American Journal of Preventive Medicine study from 2006, which measured particulate matter (PM2.5) in vehicles.
Bearing in mind that the EPA's 'hazardous' level for 24 hour exposure is 250 ng/m3, this study found average peak concentrations of 271 ng/m3. But they did so by keeping the windows closed. When a window was opened, the level was only 51 ng/m3. This is a fraction of what would be found in a smoky bar (200-500 ng/m3) and is well within the EPA's limit (which, remember, is for 24 hour exposures, not the occasional car journey). And after smoking, levels quickly fell to the same found in a nonsmokers' car.
The study also measured carbon monoxide levels, with even less impressive results. When the window was opened, levels barely changed at all.
Another study sometimes cited carried out a similar experiment but only opened the window by 3 inches. Even with this restricted ventilation, average levels of PM2.5 were 119 ng/m3—well below the EPA's hazardous level.
All of which suggests that—if smoking in cars is a problem at all—it is one that can be simply solved by opening the window. And that, of course, is what everyone already does.
Would I agree with a law forcing people to open the window whilst smoking? I probably would, if I thought that would be the end of the matter, but we all know that it won't be because protecting people from secondhand smoke is not the purpose of the Royal College of Physicians' latest 'demands'. By calling for a total ban on smoking in cars, even when no one else is present, they have finally given the game away. This issue isn't about science and it's not about 'protecting' nonsmokers. It never has been.
UPDATE
While I was on BBC Scotland, Tony Blows was on Radio 5, making his point rather more forcefully. He called Deborah Arnott a liar which, considering she brought up the Scottish heart scam, I suppose is fair comment. F2C have the audio.
Incidentally, I was told that the producers wanted me to debate with a spokesman from an anti-smoking group but the spokesman refused! I bet Arnott now wishes she'd ducked out as well.
Monday, 1 February 2010
Foregone conclusions
Dick Puddlecote has some typically excellent posts about the government's latest steps towards tobacco prohibition - in particular the pharmaceutical connection and the fact that the smoking ban was never about secondhand smoke.
I would add one small observation. It was promised as far back as 2005 that the smoking ban would be reviewed in 2010. This review will indeed begin in July. A 'review' implies that all aspects of the ban will be looked at, including the social effects on communities and the financial effects on pubs, clubs etc. It implies that the ban could be repealed or made less draconian. It also implies that it will be entered into with an open mind, with voices from all sides heard.
Anyone familiar with the small clique of individuals and state-funded organisations who actually dictate policy in this area will suspect that the review will be nothing of the sort. They would be right. It will be a closed shop, with only the shrillest voices from ASH and the Department of Health allowed to be heard.
But even the most hardened cynic would at least expect them to wait until the review begins before publishing the foregone conclusion. Alas, that is not the case. Today's publication shows that it will only be a question of how far the ban is extended:
Smokefree legislation, introduced in 2007, continues to see high levels of compliance and public support. We have undertaken to review the impact of smokefree legislation in 2010.That review will provide an opportunity to examine whether the legislation is working and where it can be improved, and will also enable assessment of what more can be done to extend protection.Particularly, we will look to promote and support smokefree prisons and examine the case for extending smokefree requirements around building entrances.
For the benefit of younger readers, I should point out that Britain was once known for its democratic process and its commitment to personal liberty.
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