Smoking ban passes Senate 21-14

The South Dakota Senate Wednesday approved a smoking ban this afternoon that applies to bars, restaurants and casinos by a vote of 21-14. With that vote, South Dakota becomes poised to join a growing number ...

[CONFEDERATE_1978]

WHAT BULLSHIT...........How much did the american cancer society pay out in bribes to those senators.

[John]

ILLITERATE_1978 wrote:

WHAT BULLSHIT..........How much did the american cancer society pay out in bribes to those senators.

"...where lawmakers acknowledged they received thousands of e-mails and phone calls on the
issue, the overwhelming bulk from people seeking to expand the current restrictions."

hmmm - I guess the majority of people (yep - republicans and democrats alike) really don't want to breathe your smoke or look at your cigarette butts when we go out in public. oops! I forgot, we're all just a bunch of socialist sheep not giving you the choice to drag us down with you in your self-destructive quest to die a slow, painful and costly death.

[Politically Incorrect]

You may be next, Johnny. Be careful who you suck up to. Do you drink, play golf, poker, attend organized sports...whatever? I don't smoke anymore, but I never played golf, etc, at all. It wouldn't mean anything to me to vote your sparetime pleasure right out of the ballpark...and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

They're considerin' legalizin' weed...for revenue. Remember when weed was the baby step into other drugs? Big fines/jail time...but it won't be, anymore. Now that it'll be legal to use it, I gue$$ the ri$k$ have dimini$hed, huh? They don't care about u$. They care about their wallet...period.

[John]

Politically Incorrect wrote:

You may be next, Johnny. Be careful who you suck up to. Do you drink, play golf, poker, attend organized sports...whatever?....It wouldn't mean anything to me to vote your sparetime pleasure right out of the ballpark...and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Drink - doesn't hurt you when others do it. Please don't insult me with the DUI BS argument. That's being addressed via other venues.

Play Golf - doesn't hurt you when others do it.

Poker - doesn't hurt you when others do it.

Organized sports - doesn't hurt you when others do it.

Smoking - hurts you when others do it.

Pretty simple equation. People of all political/geographical/religio us/sexual persuasions are simply fed up with second hand smoke. It's nauseating, unhealthy, vile and serves the pleasures of a misguided minority. Please, don't bring up Obama's smoking. I'm a republican. Couldn't give a sh1t about the man. What I could give a sh1t about is that I can finally, after all these years, go to a restaurant or bar and not suck down smoke. Not smell like smoke when I leave.
Real tobacco, tobacco that hasn't been dowsed with a billion chemicals, doesn't bother me at all. It's actually pleasant to smell. You get that with some high $$ pipe tobacco. The chemical tobacco that is sold in all cigarettes is horrible. I can tell you the difference (yes, had a bet with a friend, and won) between a Marlborough light and a Camel Light when they lit it up in the room. Something they do to Marlborough Lights will make me sicker than snot. Camel, as much.
Regardless, I digress. If you want to vote some of those simple pleasures away from me, have at it. It took over 50 years to get second hand smoke recognized. I'll be dead by the time you get to my alcohol...probably from sclerosis of the liver. HA!

[CONFEDERATE_1978]

John if thats even your name,you are so full of shit its comming out your ears.

Scientific Evidence Shows Secondhand Smoke Is No Danger
Written By: Jerome Arnett, Jr., M.D.
Published In: Environment & Climate News
Publication Date: July 1, 2008
Publisher: The Heartland Institute

Exposure to secondhand smoke (SHS) is an unpleasant experience for many nonsmokers, and for decades was considered a nuisance. But the idea that it might actually cause disease in nonsmokers has been around only since the 1970s.

Recent surveys show more than 80 percent of Americans now believe secondhand smoke is harmful to nonsmokers.

Federal Government Reports

A 1972 U.S. surgeon general's report first addressed passive smoking as a possible threat to nonsmokers and called for an anti-smoking movement. The issue was addressed again in surgeon generals' reports in 1979, 1982, and 1984.

A 1986 surgeon general's report concluded involuntary smoking caused lung cancer, but it offered only weak epidemiological evidence to support the claim. In 1989 the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was charged with further evaluating the evidence for health effects of SHS.

[CONFEDERATE_1978]

In 1992 EPA published its report, "Respiratory Health Effects of Passive Smoking," claiming SHS is a serious public health problem, that it kills approximately 3,000 nonsmoking Americans each year from lung cancer, and that it is a Group A carcinogen (like benzene, asbestos, and radon).

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

Flawed Assumptions

EPA's 1992 conclusions are not supported by reliable scientific evidence. The report has been largely discredited and, in 1998, was legally vacated by a federal judge.

Even so, the EPA report was cited in the surgeon general's 2006 report on SHS, where then-Surgeon General Richard Carmona made the absurd claim that there is no risk-free level of exposure to SHS.

For its 1992 report, EPA arbitrarily chose to equate SHS with mainstream (or firsthand) smoke. One of the agency's stated assumptions was that because there is an association between active smoking and lung cancer, there also must be a similar association between SHS and lung cancer.

But the problem posed by SHS is entirely different from that found with mainstream smoke. A well-recognized toxicological principle states, "The dose makes the poison."

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

Low Statistical Association

Another major problem is that the epidemiological studies on which the EPA report is based are statistical studies that can show only correlation and cannot prove causation.

One statistical method used to compare the rates of a disease in two populations is relative risk (RR). It is the rate of disease found in the exposed population divided by the rate found in the unexposed population. An RR of 1.0 represents zero increased risk. Because confounding and other factors can obscure a weak association, in order even to suggest causation a very strong association must be found, on the order of at least 300 percent to 400 percent, which is an RR of 3.0 to 4.0.

For example, the studies linking direct cigarette smoking with lung cancer found an incidence in smokers of 20 to around 40 times that in nonsmokers, an association of 2000 percent to 4000 percent, or an RR of 20.0 to 40.0.

[CONFEDERATE_1978]

Scientific Principles Ignored

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

Before its 1992 report, EPA had always used epidemiology's gold standard CI of 95 percent to measure statistical significance. But because the U.S. studies chosen for the report were not statistically significant within a 95 percent CI, for the first time in its history EPA changed the rules and used a 90 percent CI, which doubled the chance of being wrong.

This allowed it to report a statistically significant 19 percent increase of lung cancer cases in the nonsmoking spouses of smokers over those cases found in nonsmoking spouses of nonsmokers. Even though the RR was only 1.19--an amount far short of what is normally required to demonstrate correlation or causality--the agency concluded this was proof SHS increased the risk of U.S. nonsmokers developing lung cancer by 19 percent.

EPA Study Soundly Rejected

In November 1995 after a 20-month study, the Congressional Research Service released a detailed analysis of the EPA report that was highly critical of EPA's methods and conclusions. In 1998, in a devastating 92-page opinion, Federal Judge William Osteen vacated the EPA study, declaring it null and void. He found a culture of arrogance, deception, and cover-up at the agency.

Osteen noted, "First, there is evidence in the record supporting the accusation that EPA 'cherry picked' its data.... In order to confirm its hypothesis, EPA maintained its standard significance level but lowered the confidence interval to 90 percent. This allowed EPA to confirm its hypothesis by finding a relative risk of 1.19, albeit a very weak association.... EPA cannot show a statistically significant association between [SHS] and lung cancer."

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

Propaganda Trumps Science

The 1992 EPA report is an example of the use of epidemiology to promote belief in an epidemic instead of to investigate one. It has damaged the credibility of EPA and has tainted the fields of epidemiology and public health.

In addition, influential anti-tobacco activists, including prominent academics, have unethically attacked the research of eminent scientists in order to further their ideological and political agendas.

The abuse of scientific integrity and the generation of faulty "scientific" outcomes (through the use of pseudoscience) have led to the deception of the American public on a grand scale and to draconian government overregulation and the squandering of public money.

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

Dr. Jerome Arnett Jr.([e-mail]) is a pulmonologist who lives in Helvetia, West Virginia

[John]

Why do you insist on insulting everyone with that tired old article? Your esteemed source is on the tobacco payroll - what else is he going to say?

==========
Dr. Jerome Arnett Jr. is associated with the Competitive Enterprise Institute who criticises health and safety regulation and argues through its Death by Regulation project that overregulation itself can be deadly. For example, they have claimed that automotive downsizing due to federal fuel economy standards may increase road accident deaths, and have criticised the delayed availability of new medical therapies due to Food and Drug Administration rules. CEI scholars have also claimed that the health risks of secondhand smoke have not been adequately proven, and thus restrictions on smoking are unwarranted.

...CEI has received funding directly from various tobacco companies.[8],[9],[10] For example, the listing on the Philip Morris Glossary of Names: C gives the note “Received public policy grant from Philip Morris (1995); Pro-market public interest group dedicated to advancing the principles of free enterprise and limited government.“

[blueparrot]

John wrote:

<quoted text>
Drink - doesn't hurt you when others do it. Please don't insult me with the DUI BS argument. That's being addressed via other venues.
Play Golf - doesn't hurt you when others do it.
Poker - doesn't hurt you when others do it.
Organized sports - doesn't hurt you when others do it.
Smoking - hurts you when others do it.
Pretty simple equation. People of all political/geographical/religio us/sexual persuasions are simply fed up with second hand smoke. It's nauseating, unhealthy, vile and serves the pleasures of a misguided minority. Please, don't bring up Obama's smoking. I'm a republican. Couldn't give a sh1t about the man. What I could give a sh1t about is that I can finally, after all these years, go to a restaurant or bar and not suck down smoke. Not smell like smoke when I leave.
Real tobacco, tobacco that hasn't been dowsed with a billion chemicals, doesn't bother me at all. It's actually pleasant to smell. You get that with some high $$ pipe tobacco. The chemical tobacco that is sold in all cigarettes is horrible. I can tell you the difference (yes, had a bet with a friend, and won) between a Marlborough light and a Camel Light when they lit it up in the room. Something they do to Marlborough Lights will make me sicker than snot. Camel, as much.
Regardless, I digress. If you want to vote some of those simple pleasures away from me, have at it. It took over 50 years to get second hand smoke recognized. I'll be dead by the time you get to my alcohol...probably from sclerosis of the liver. HA!

you are definitely not a republican .. you sound stupid.. hopefully they will soon pass a law that makes stupid punishable by death .. youll b the first to go.. second hand smoke is as much a farce as global warming..keep drinking the kool aid and wetting yourself over obongo and the destruction of freedom..

[Happy Contented Soul]

blueparrot wrote:

<quoted text>
you are definitely not a republican .. you sound stupid.. hopefully they will soon pass a law that makes stupid punishable by death .. youll b the first to go.. second hand smoke is as much a farce as global warming..keep drinking the kool aid and wetting yourself over obongo and the destruction of freedom..

You're absolutely correct. John is not a Repiblican. He is a whiney libertard San Fransisco transplant sucking up welfare money in Tulsa, or so he claims that as his current loacation.

[Republican Vet]

blueparrot wrote:

<quoted text>
you are definitely not a republican .. you sound stupid.. hopefully they will soon pass a law that makes stupid punishable by death .. youll b the first to go.. second hand smoke is as much a farce as global warming..keep drinking the kool aid and wetting yourself over obongo and the destruction of freedom..

I'm also a die hard Republican and a 20+ year Army Veteran and agree 100% with John. Smoking is over in any public or private bar, restaurant or casino. It's your nasty harmful smoking habit KEEP it to yourself. All employees deserve a safe work environment in 2009.
If you want to kill yourself with the smoke knock yourself out, but HOW DARE you think you still can harm others with your second hand smoke.
Sorry pal but your smoking world is closing in on you fast.
We here in Maryland went smoke free in both public and private bars over a year ago and overall it is a HUGE success. Not one bar or restaurant in my area has closed and most boost business has increased and with a better class of people, and that includes the American Legions and VFW's. People just don't want to be around your filth any longer.

[WhoRu]

Republican Vet wrote:

<quoted text>
I'm also a die hard Republican and a 20+ year Army Veteran and agree 100% with John. Smoking is over in any public or private bar, restaurant or casino. It's your nasty harmful smoking habit KEEP it to yourself. All employees deserve a safe work environment in 2009.
If you want to kill yourself with the smoke knock yourself out, but HOW DARE you think you still can harm others with your second hand smoke.
Sorry pal but your smoking world is closing in on you fast.
We here in Maryland went smoke free in both public and private bars over a year ago and overall it is a HUGE success. Not one bar or restaurant in my area has closed and most boost business has increased and with a better class of people, and that includes the American Legions and VFW's. People just don't want to be around your filth any longer.

You stopped driving your car right?
Yea thats what I thought
another hipocrit....Liberal

[Free_America]

Republican Vet wrote:

<quoted text>
I'm also a die hard Republican and a 20+ year Army Veteran and agree 100% with John. Smoking is over in any public or private bar, restaurant or casino. It's your nasty harmful smoking habit KEEP it to yourself. All employees deserve a safe work environment in 2009.
If you want to kill yourself with the smoke knock yourself out, but HOW DARE you think you still can harm others with your second hand smoke.
Sorry pal but your smoking world is closing in on you fast.
We here in Maryland went smoke free in both public and private bars over a year ago and overall it is a HUGE success. Not one bar or restaurant in my area has closed and most boost business has increased and with a better class of people, and that includes the American Legions and VFW's. People just don't want to be around your filth any longer.

You defiantly not a Republican or you would stand up for property rights not collectivist/socialist non-smokers. You also spread the lie that it doesn't hurt business. The only studies that show no economic harm are those that are funded by tobacco control, Better class of people? You socialist scum that strip property rights from the owner have no class and aren't qualified to pass judgment on others!

[John]

Happy Contented Soul wrote:

You're absolutely correct. John is not a Repiblican. He is a whiney libertard San Fransisco transplant sucking up welfare money in Tulsa, or so he claims that as his current loacation.

Repiblican?! you dipstick

[John]

Free_America wrote:

You defiantly not a Republican or you would stand up for property rights not collectivist/socialist non-smokers. You also spread the lie that it doesn't hurt business. The only studies that show no economic harm are those that are funded by tobacco control, Better class of people? You socialist scum that strip property rights from the owner have no class and aren't qualified to pass judgment on others!

Hey Dillweed - this issue transcends party lines as is evidenced by the growing support from republican politicians. You can keep trying to make it a political issue if that makes you feel better about yourself, but it really has nothing to do with it. Democrats and Republicans alike are affected by second hand smoke. Democrats and Republicans alike are standing up and voicing their approval for these bans. It's coming - get used to it.
As for your putrid studies, I'm not funded by any tobacco company and I don't need a study to tell me whether or not a business endured economic harm when they went smoke free. I've witnessed it first hand. No businesses in Tulsa were negatively affected when the smoking ban went into effect. None. Zero. Nada. Not one. The ones I have seen (and I eat out a lot - not much time to cook and cooking for one kinda sucks) have seen an INCREASE in business. The common sense logic is pretty easy to understand. 80% of the general populous doesn't smoke. hmm, that would mean retail sales would be in direct proportion to that number. There were a lot of parents that wouldn't take their kids out to eat because of the smoke that will now. Go figure... On the same hand, smokers didn't quit eating out because of the ban, they just had to endure a few more minutes without a nicotine fix (and a few more kids in the restaurants - yes, I know you probably want to ban kids in the restaurant - been there heard that).
Next.......

[Happy Contented Soul]

John wrote:

<quoted text>
Repiblican?! you dipstick

You're not a Republican either you dipstick.

[Free_America]

John wrote:

<quoted text>
Hey Dillweed - this issue transcends party lines as is evidenced by the growing support from republican politicians. You can keep trying to make it a political issue if that makes you feel better about yourself, but it really has nothing to do with it. Democrats and Republicans alike are affected by second hand smoke. Democrats and Republicans alike are standing up and voicing their approval for these bans. It's coming - get used to it.
As for your putrid studies, I'm not funded by any tobacco company and I don't need a study to tell me whether or not a business endured economic harm when they went smoke free. I've witnessed it first hand. No businesses in Tulsa were negatively affected when the smoking ban went into effect. None. Zero. Nada. Not one. The ones I have seen (and I eat out a lot - not much time to cook and cooking for one kinda sucks) have seen an INCREASE in business. The common sense logic is pretty easy to understand. 80% of the general populous doesn't smoke. hmm, that would mean retail sales would be in direct proportion to that number. There were a lot of parents that wouldn't take their kids out to eat because of the smoke that will now. Go figure... On the same hand, smokers didn't quit eating out because of the ban, they just had to endure a few more minutes without a nicotine fix (and a few more kids in the restaurants - yes, I know you probably want to ban kids in the restaurant - been there heard that).
Next.......

Hey dipstick, sorry if I don't believe you, every place that has had a ban was hurt by it. Here is a bar in St Louis by an anti-smoking activist. He opened with much fan fair. He thought a non-smoking bar would make a killing, WRONG He wound up closing and re-opening as a smoking allowed bar. You can stomp your feet and talk about nicotine fixes and all that bull$hit. The bottom line is that going out is a luxury and no-one is going to spend their hard earned dollars where they are not catered to. You ask any legitimate businessman and they will tell you that if you are turning between 14-20% profit you are doing good. If you lose 20+% of your business because of a ban you are hurting. Yes, I know you claim that non-smokers go out more after a ban. That is not the reality, the majority go out the same as they use to. So the bottom line is that businesses are hurt.

[Free_America]

John wrote:

<quoted text>
Hey Dillweed - this issue transcends party lines as is evidenced by the growing support from republican politicians. You can keep trying to make it a political issue if that makes you feel better about yourself, but it really has nothing to do with it. Democrats and Republicans alike are affected by second hand smoke. Democrats and Republicans alike are standing up and voicing their approval for these bans. It's coming - get used to it.
As for your putrid studies, I'm not funded by any tobacco company and I don't need a study to tell me whether or not a business endured economic harm when they went smoke free. I've witnessed it first hand. No businesses in Tulsa were negatively affected when the smoking ban went into effect. None. Zero. Nada. Not one. The ones I have seen (and I eat out a lot - not much time to cook and cooking for one kinda sucks) have seen an INCREASE in business. The common sense logic is pretty easy to understand. 80% of the general populous doesn't smoke. hmm, that would mean retail sales would be in direct proportion to that number. There were a lot of parents that wouldn't take their kids out to eat because of the smoke that will now. Go figure... On the same hand, smokers didn't quit eating out because of the ban, they just had to endure a few more minutes without a nicotine fix (and a few more kids in the restaurants - yes, I know you probably want to ban kids in the restaurant - been there heard that).
Next.......

http://banthebanwisconsin.wordpress.com/2008/...

[Happy Contented Soul]

Republican Vet wrote:

<quoted text>
I'm also a die hard Republican and a 20+ year Army Veteran and agree 100% with John. Smoking is over in any public or private bar, restaurant or casino. It's your nasty harmful smoking habit KEEP it to yourself. All employees deserve a safe work environment in 2009.
If you want to kill yourself with the smoke knock yourself out, but HOW DARE you think you still can harm others with your second hand smoke.
Sorry pal but your smoking world is closing in on you fast.
We here in Maryland went smoke free in both public and private bars over a year ago and overall it is a HUGE success. Not one bar or restaurant in my area has closed and most boost business has increased and with a better class of people, and that includes the American Legions and VFW's. People just don't want to be around your filth any longer.

Smoke Free, you're just another name changing troll living on Fantasy Island.

IMO you also have no more military experience than abusing GI Joe dolls.

In Maryland we have a wide and ever expanding choice of bars, restaurants, clubs ( including VFW posts, and American Legion halls), and other business establishments to smoke in, because the owners and members know which side their toast is buttered on. It didn't take them long to understand that the Gerbers coupons and food stamps that you cheap mother effin antis use for collateral just were not acceptable.

You have no place in any free society.

People just don't want to be around filth like you any longer!

[Republican Vet]

Here's a recent article:

The ban has been a boon to the Blarney Stone Pub in Fells Point. After 12 months of airing out, the bar has no lingering whiff of tobacco, and a different crowd has emerged, according to bartender Christopher Fabian.

“For every customer we lost, we gained three or four who wouldn’t have come in with the smoke,” said Fabian, 29.

Brandon Frank, 22, one of Fabian’s regulars, estimates that he has cut his smoking in half as a result of the ban.

Frank, a Towson University student, is more troubled by the rising taxes on cigarettes than by the smoking ban. But lighting up on the windy sidewalk of Broadway instead of the warm confines of the Blarney Stone is no big deal.

“You get used to it,” he said.

Cyndi Dee, 24, feels a little differently. While walking down 36th Street in Hampden, she said the law’s only effect is that she drinks more.

With a playful half-shrug she said,“If it’s the choice between having another beer or having a cigarette out in the freezing cold, I’m going to have another beer.”