Smoking Ban Falling Apart Already!!!

A week has passed since the Harrison County Clean Indoor Air Regulation went into affect, and business owners say they're already having a hard time staying afloat. Bar employees, restaurant owners, and video lottery establishment owners packed the commission room Thursday morning to ask questions about the ban and if commissioners can come to their rescue. The Harrison-Clarksburg Health Department's Chad Bundy, and Prosecuting Attorney Joe Shaffer took as many questions as they possibly could leaving people still unhappy. Shaffer tells us four places including, the Blue Knights, FOP, Elks 1 and Elks 2 will not comply with the ordinance and had to be given misdemeanor citations. They claim their raffling license should give them an exemption. Shaffer and commissioners seemed to side with of all of those against this ban. And commissioners did file a motion to send a letter to the Board of Health to ask for the old ordinance to be reenacted.

[Razor1979]

I made the key part of this article bold.....

Its nice to see that at least in this county the people do have a voice. I was at the commishion meeting and wittnessed the outrage of the regular joes, business owners, the county commishion, and the prosecutor....the only one in the room for the smoking ban appeared to be the health department representative.

The county commishion did file a motion for the board of health to re enact the old 80/20 rule that really never had been a problem over the last several years.

[I call Shenanigans]

There were 2 cops at that meeting, and neither one of them was you

[lolagirl]

My mother owns a bar in stonewood and she has been trying to keep the non-smoking ban for a few months now. She is telling me that she has lost bussiness because of it. So good luck health department. Strip away more money for our bussiness owners in the county.

[Razor1979]

Here we go with this again.

[Cecil hickman]

I am one that agrees that smoking is not good for anyone,,,but I do smoke,,someday maybe i will quit,,I have went to restaurants before the ban and my wife and I chose not to smoke in the designated smoking area because there were children sitting in there with their parents,,it was also a bar area,,now tell me where is there a law preventing that,,,,also I say it is my right to smoke,,,i don't have a right to infringe on a non smoking area,,but it seems many non smokers love and search out to infringe on my rights,,,lets say we ban smoking all the way everywhere,,what will be next,,chewing gum bans,,drinking soda pop bans they say these things are not good for us,,,,Like I said ,I do not have the right to go to a non smoking area and light up,,but it seems to me that so many people go to the bars and smoking areas in restaurants just so they can complain,,and I have found that usually the biggest complainers of smokers are former smokers,,I think they feel they have been neglected or something,,they seem to get very irate about smoking areas,,maybe we should create a former smoking area in bars and restaurants so these persons can have others in their group to complain too,,,i am just being a little silly now,,but what i have said above could and will happen if we the people,,do not start stepping up to the plate,,because who does the department of health work for....US..they are paid their salaries by us,,and we have no say in what they decide,,none at all,,,it is beginning to be like that with all public,,city,,county,state, and country entitys,,,we are suppose to be their employers and they are the employees,,but it doesn't seem to work that way anymore....They Tell Us what to DO !!!!!!!!

[Not a WV goober]

Chewing gum doesn't kill or irriate other people like your cigarette smoke. Do you know how foul it smells? Smokers stink! That is just a fact. Smoke in your own home, but not in public.

Cecil hickman wrote:

I am one that agrees that smoking is not good for anyone,,,but I do smoke,,someday maybe i will quit,,I have went to restaurants before the ban and my wife and I chose not to smoke in the designated smoking area because there were children sitting in there with their parents,,it was also a bar area,,now tell me where is there a law preventing that,,,,also I say it is my right to smoke,,,i don't have a right to infringe on a non smoking area,,but it seems many non smokers love and search out to infringe on my rights,,,lets say we ban smoking all the way everywhere,,what will be next,,chewing gum bans,,drinking soda pop bans they say these things are not good for us,,,,Like I said ,I do not have the right to go to a non smoking area and light up,,but it seems to me that so many people go to the bars and smoking areas in restaurants just so they can complain,,and I have found that usually the biggest complainers of smokers are former smokers,,I think they feel they have been neglected or something,,they seem to get very irate about smoking areas,,maybe we should create a former smoking area in bars and restaurants so these persons can have others in their group to complain too,,,i am just being a little silly now,,but what i have said above could and will happen if we the people,,do not start stepping up to the plate,,because who does the department of health work for....US..they are paid their salaries by us,,and we have no say in what they decide,,none at all,,,it is beginning to be like that with all public,,city,,county,state, and country entitys,,,we are suppose to be their employers and they are the employees,,but it doesn't seem to work that way anymore....They Tell Us what to DO !!!!!!!!

[WV Goober]

I agree with the non-West Virginian non-goober. I keep hearing some of these tired, old veterans crying how they fought for our freedom and now these same sacred freedoms are being stripped away. Horse's Collar! How about this tax-paying patriotic American's right not to smell like BUTT!
Here's a surprisingly balanced article on the topic straight from the American Legion's website:

http://www.legion.org/magazine/2441/smoke-fre...

[Cecil hickman]

Not a WV goober wrote:

Chewing gum doesn't kill or irriate other people like your cigarette smoke. Do you know how foul it smells? Smokers stink! That is just a fact. Smoke in your own home, but not in public.
<quoted text>

depends on who and how they chew their gum whether it is irritating or not and what they do with it after they get down with it if it gets on my shoe then that is irritating to me,,besides Mr. Goober and not Mr. Goober if you had read the whole thing I wrote I said smoking is not good for the smoker,,,this whole campaign about second hand smoke is a big bunch of goober baloney anyway..

I think there should be smoking bars and non-smoking bars,,,,and smoking restaurants and non smoking restaurants,, this woul be fair and truly the american way,,not the old fasioned school way where one entity makes the whole sect suffer....Thank You Cecil

[Razor1979]

I don't want my goverment telling me I cant do something because its bad for me, I have parents for that.

[Cecil hickman]

I agree,,Our Government is suppose to be us "we the people" not "They the Government",like I said before I know smoking is not Good,,neither is sugar so they say,,,neither is bacon, fats of any kind,Alcohol is not good for us either and the Government many years ago tried to abolish drinking and now look who controls it,,I just want fairness that is all,I worked at at a place when the smoking areas were first created and the ones that did not smoke said yes, and yea,, and the ones that were behind it so badly to have seperate areas where do you think they come to sit,,,so I asked them I thought you were so for having a seperate area, then why are you sitting in the smoking area,,their words to me were they did not want to sit alone,,all by themselves.. so now instead of having a big area where the smokers were spread out,,,the smaller area was worse for a non smoker ,,but they still came to the smoking area,,,wow what a hypocritic action if you ask me,,,blessings..Cecil

[Razor1979]

All the people who agree with a smoking ban and crazy taxes on cigarettes are just setting the government up with legal precident to tax big mac's so they are like $4 or just ban them completely. Its not a far reach from the same thing.

[budz]

They sure don't have a problem enforcing the ban in Ohio.

I hate walking in someplace smelling good and walking out smelling like a cig.

I agree with Not a WV goober, smokers smell reallly bad!

Also, most smokers litter A LOT!

do that disgusting habit at home, if you must.

can u tell I don't like smoking? rofl

[Smokey da Bear]

Razor1979 wrote:

All the people who agree with a smoking ban and crazy taxes on cigarettes are just setting the government up with legal precident to tax big mac's so they are like $4 or just ban them completely. Its not a far reach from the same thing.

Sorry, Razor. Big Macs not analogous to Cigs. Ever hear of someone suffering from second-hand low-density lipoprotein?

[Razor1979]

Smokey da Bear wrote:

<quoted text>Sorry, Razor. Big Macs not analogous to Cigs. Ever hear of someone suffering from second-hand low-density lipoprotein?

I afraid I strongly disagree. I don't beilive in second hand smoke first of all, I think its right up there with global warming as largest hoaxes ever created to support a cause.

This issue is your classic slippery slope argument. You support a smoking ban as the government having the right to protect us from ourselves you are telling them you are not capable of doing it yourself and you dont mind thier intervention to protect you from yourself.

CA has already tried to ban the construction of any new fast food resauraunts in some areas citing health concerns.

Philadelphia just banned the use of trans fat in the city limits http://www.bantransfats.com/

The list goes on and on Boston, Kansas, NYC....

You people are all for banning something you dont like when it comes to something you do like you may feel different.

[Smokey da Bear]

Razor1979 wrote:

<quoted text>
I afraid I strongly disagree. I don't beilive in second hand smoke first of all, I think its right up there with global warming as largest hoaxes ever created to support a cause.
This issue is your classic slippery slope argument. You support a smoking ban as the government having the right to protect us from ourselves you are telling them you are not capable of doing it yourself and you dont mind thier intervention to protect you from yourself.
CA has already tried to ban the construction of any new fast food resauraunts in some areas citing health concerns.
Philadelphia just banned the use of trans fat in the city limits http://www.bantransfats.com/
The list goes on and on Boston, Kansas, NYC....
You people are all for banning something you dont like when it comes to something you do like you may feel different.

I suppose you think the government made a mistake in banning DDT, also.
I'm also glad to know you "don't believe in second-hand smoke". Are you hard of smelling?
I could cut&paste a mile-and-a-half of peer reviewed publications from renowned medical journals refuting your silly "hoax" theory, but I'm sure you would only counter with "facts" generated from the same sources who believe the lunar landing was staged, the holocaust didn't happen and Israel was behind 9/11.

I can actually respect but agree to disagree with your libertarian argument for less government intervention, states rights, etc....
...but to think that the propogation of the pernicious cosequences of tobacco smoke is some sort of conspiracy ..........
....by whom?!?!?!
The bubble-gum industry?

[Razor1979]

Comparing DDT to this conversation is quite a stretch. I'm talking about personnal decisions, you are talking about commercial agricultural chemicals??? How is that similar at all?

And your debate strategy to bring up crazy off the wall things like the moon landing, and holocaust to try to make me sound like some kind of nutcase....nice try. In the words of one of my favorite bands The Bare Naked Ladies..."Its all been done before"

You base what you call facts on the consensus theory, if enough scientist say it, it must be true.

It has been several years since then U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona said, "The debate is over. The science is clear: Secondhand smoke is not a mere annoyance, but a serious health hazard."

At the time, Carmona released a seemingly impressive 727-page report on secondhand smoke, the introduction of which claims secondhand smoke killed approximately 50,000 nonsmoking adults and children in 2005.

Carmona's report stated the new orthodoxy in the anti-smoking establishment: There is a "consensus" on the dangers of secondhand smoke. But did his report actually make the case?

Understanding Carmona's report requires familiarity with a different report--the Federal Judicial Center's 2000 "Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence, Second Edition," the official guide for judges to understand and rule on science introduced in courtrooms.

According to the manual, nearly all the studies cited in Carmona's report wouldn't pass muster in a court of law because they are observational studies, the sample sizes are too small, or the effects they show are too negligible to be reliable.

For example, the Reference Manual states, "the threshold for concluding that an agent was more likely than not the cause of an individual's disease is a relative risk greater than 2.0." Few of the studies Carmona cites found relative risks this large, and most found risks in a range that included 1.0, which means exposure to secondhand smoke had no effect on the incidence of disease. In the world of real science, that's a knockout blow.

Most of the research Carmona cites was rejected by a federal judge in 1993, when the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) first tried to classify secondhand smoke as a human carcinogen. The judge said EPA cherry-picked studies to support its position, misrepresented the most important findings, and failed to honor scientific standards. Carmona's report relies on the same studies and makes the same claims EPA did a decade ago.

Did Carmona and coauthors cherry-pick the data? Absolutely. They ignore the largest and most credible study ever conducted on spouses of smokers, by Enstrom and Kabat, published in the May 12, 2003 issue of the British Medical Journal. The authors found:

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

Carmona mentions the Enstrom study just once, in an appendix listing studies too recent to include in the report. But Enstrom's study was published four years ago, and Carmona cites more recent studies. In fact, Carmona's principal "findings" were taken from a 2005 report--not a scientific study, merely another report--from California's Clean Air Resources Board, mostly citing the very studies the federal judge rejected in 1993.

The Enstrom study isn't the odd exception among all the available studies on secondhand smoke. A 2002 analysis of 48 studies, also published in the British Medical Journal, found only seven showed a relationship between secondhand smoke exposure and lung cancer, while 41 did not.

A 1998 World Health Organization (WHO) study covering seven countries over seven years actually showed a statistically significant reduced risk for children of smokers and no increase for spouses and coworkers of smokers.

[Razor1979]

No one is saying being around smokers is good for kids' health. The WHO study simply shows the largest and longest studies on secondhand smoke are most likely to find no effects.

There is a reason for this. In an August 2005 essay in PloS Medicine, Tufts University epidemiologist John Ioannidis explains:

"There is increasing concern that in modern research, false findings may be the majority or even the vast majority of published research claims. However, this should not be surprising. It can be proven that most claimed research findings are false."

Ioannidis writes that when tens of thousands of researchers are conducting thousands of small and short-term epidemiological studies, all of them seeking to find evidence of a small or nonexistent effect, and when academic journals are predisposed to publish studies claiming positive correlations (no matter how small) that support the conventional wisdom, the result is that "most published research findings are false."

Far from being the last word on the health effects of secondhand smoke, Carmona's report and its uncritical acceptance by frequent commentators on smoking raise questions about bias, error, and the deliberate orchestration of public opinion. The commentators who echo the Surgeon General's claim fall into one or more of five groups:

•Liberal advocacy groups such as the Center for Tobacco Free Kids, American Cancer Society, and American Legacy Foundation, which clearly profit from increased public attention to secondhand smoke.

•Government agencies, including the Office of the Surgeon General, the Department of Health and Human Services, and EPA, which exist largely for the purpose of discovering and publicizing health risks, even if they are backed by dubious research.

•Some corporations--notably Johnson & Johnson, which makes smoking-cessation aids--which give liberal advocacy groups hundreds of millions of dollars to demonize smoking and compel more consumers to use their products.

•The news media, which simply publish the news releases from the first three groups.

•Politicians, who read the newspaper stories and hear from the advocacy groups and rationally calculate their odds of being reelected improve if they proclaim deep concern over secondhand smoke and propose solutions that will cost taxpayers and consumers billions of dollars annually.

[Razor1979]

WHAT DOES ALL THIS MEAN?? You get more heavy handed government.

The idea that smokers and nonsmokers might solve this problem voluntarily is dismissed out of hand by those who claim secondhand-smoke exposure is a public health crisis. The "solutions" they want all require bigger government: higher taxes on cigarettes, bans on smoking in public, restrictions on advertising and health claims, etc.

Oddly, these solutions all work to advance the self-interest and agendas of the five groups that repeat Carmona's claim of "consensus." What are the odds this correlation is coincidental?

[Razor1979]

Decisions are made in this society like witch hunts in the 1800's someone gets on their soapbox makes a claim they can't backup but uses slide shows, scare tactics, aand small scale "subjective studies" to start an uproar. then it just snowballs.

I could give a million examples....lets start a discussion about what foods are good to prevent cancer, or to improve memory....100 people could cite 100 different studies that all had "facts" leading to different conclusions. then 100 other people could present another study saying that the 100 before were incorrect.

[Nash]

tru dat.....

typical long winded libertatian rant.

It's a damn good thing more Libertarians don't talk in public, it might start catching on.

I think they would be a viable third party if they would drop some extreme views like legalizing weed.