No deal yet on smoking ban in Michigan bars and restaurants

[PicassoIII]

KHartman wrote:

But lung cancer is a DELAYED effect of smoking. A reduction in SHS exposure today will result in less lung cancer DECADES from now.

Today?
Well that's been tried with CVD and Asthma ... oops.
Gary is talking a much longer time frame. Both smoking and therefore non smokers exposed have gone way down in numbers and a benefit has not been seen.

In California (screw Minnesota) there has been a lowering smoking rate and the oldest ban
OVER a decade now ... in Stanton Glantz's back yard there's no miraculous reduction in lung cancer rates?!?
They've pretty much made every other CLAIM or 'press release'.
Where are the benefits of 20 years (86 SG report) of anti smoking, health driven social engineering ... huh?

[Gary K]

Clancy posted:
"Did I miss where you got these facts from? Unless my math is bad (which it could be) 165,000,000 non-smokers today, leaves approx. 140,000,000 smokers, that's like 45% of the population, I find that hard to believe. And if that is less than in 1990, then half the population was smoking then. I gotta say both you and the "anti's" you got these numbers from may not be very smart."
..........
Your math is bad and your reading comprehension needs improvement.

You missed the part about ADULT smoking rate.
USA population= 300 million, adults = 75% or 225 million, non-smokers = 80% of adults or 165 million.

The basic proportions hold true for 1990.
Population = 250 million,adults = 75% or 187.5 million, non-smokers = 75% or 140.625 million.

[Gary K]

Studies showing an increased risk of lung cancer for spouses due to SHS exposure are at home exposures.

We are talking about bans in bars and restaurants.

Most spouses spend at least 12 hours per day/7 days per week at home= 84 hours of exposure per week.

Hospitality workers spend 8 hours per day/5 days per week ar work = 40 hours of exposure.
This is less than 1/2th spousal exposure.

Average patron will spend about 4 hours per week in bars and restaurants= 1/20th the exposure.

Average home is doing well to have ONE air exchange per hour, bars and restaurants will have at least 8 to 10 air exchanges per hour.

Modern ventilation systems do not filter air and then return the same air into a room, they replace the air with fresh outside air and they do this 8 to 10 times per hour.

This is a river of air constantly moving through the establishment.

Exhaust fans are always in the ceiling;thus, SHS is constantly being taken upward and out on this river of air.

[Aloxety]

Gary K wrote:

Studies showing an increased risk of lung cancer for spouses due to SHS exposure are at home exposures.

We are talking about bans in bars and restaurants.
Most spouses spend at least 12 hours per day/7 days per week at home= 84 hours of exposure per week.

That's assuming the spouse is smoking the entire time he/she is home, which is unlikely. The average person is going to be asleep for at least six hours per night, so 84 hours of exposure becomes 42, or very close to the time exposed at work.

Gary K wrote:

Average patron will spend about 4 hours per week in bars and restaurants= 1/20th the exposure.

Average home is doing well to have ONE air exchange per hour, bars and restaurants will have at least 8 to 10 air exchanges per hour.

Modern ventilation systems do not filter air and then return the same air into a room, they replace the air with fresh outside air and they do this 8 to 10 times per hour.

This is a river of air constantly moving through the establishment.

Exhaust fans are always in the ceiling;thus, SHS is constantly being taken upward and out on this river of air.

True, but the maximum number of cigarettes at a time that someone would be exposed to in the home is typically one. At a bar/restaurant, you might have 35 people smoking at once. It's not so easy to draw a good comparison, which is why urine cotinine measurements are useful.

[PicassoIII]

Aloxety wrote:

... which is why urine cotinine measurements are useful.

Only if one wants to beat a dead horse...

Even at the inflated risk assesments it is still less hazardous a job than fishing, tree felling, roofing and even driving.
For those that insist that this very minimal risk need be countered, then one can simply measure particulates.

[PicassoIII]

Aloxety wrote:

The average person is going to be asleep for at least six hours per night, so 84 hours of exposure becomes 42, or very close to the time exposed at work.

Even though there is no 'active' smoking in a household for sleep hours, residual toxin levels will decay slowly with minimal ventilation. The exposure DOES continue if at a diminished level.
Workers don't sleep in the same building they work in (usually), they walk out the door and go elsewhere.

[MedicineTopic]

Smokers were 8 times more likely than never-smokers to report 'buzz' with first cigarette.

A gene variant that may influence a person's initial response to smoking and lifetime smoking habits has been identified by a team of researchers.

The finding about the variant in the CHRNA5 nicotine receptor gene may help explain how someone goes from trying their first cigarette to becoming a long-term smoker...www.medicinetopic.com

[Gary K]

Alexoty posted:
"At a bar/restaurant, you might have 35 people smoking at once. It's not so easy to draw a good comparison, which is why urine cotinine measurements are useful."
..........
Or you might have just one or none.

Cotinine is typically detectable for several days to up to one week after tobacco smoke exposure.

Nicotine is also found in other plants such as potatoes and tomatoes.

If you measure a non-smoker's cotinine level after they leave a bar,you are not only measuring their exposure from that episode, you are also measuring yesterdays exposure and the day before and the day before that,up to a week earlier.

You are also measuring the effects of all the potatoes and tomatoes they may have eaten in the last week.

Cotinine levels are a very,very poor measure of recent nicotine exposure!!

[Aloxety]

PicassoIII wrote:

<quoted text>Even though there is no 'active' smoking in a household for sleep hours, residual toxin levels will decay slowly with minimal ventilation. The exposure DOES continue if at a diminished level.

That exposure will be negligible compared to ETS exposure during times of active smoking. Your reasoning is the same that Banzhaf used for his 'smoking outside is still bad for kids' statement a month or so ago. Is that really what you want to be claiming here?

[Clancy]

Gary K wrote:

A number of posters have made much ado about the fact that they think SHS kills nonsmokers.
No one has ever said that anti-smokers were very smart.
Smoking bans cause more non-smokers to die!
Since 1965 there has been a 50% decrease in the adult smoking rate.
Since 1990 there have been literally thousands of smoking bans of one sort or another enacted.
Since 1965 the exposure rate to SHS has decreased by 75%.
The stated reason for smoking bans is that SHS exposure 'KILLS' non-smokers and smoking bans are needed to change that!!
In the early 1990's anti smoking groups claimed that 53,000 non-smokers died from exposure to SHS.
In the early 1990's there were about 140,625,000 non-smokers,53,000 deaths means that there was 1 death per 2,653 non-smokers.
In the current era, pro ban groups claim that SHS exposure causes about 65,00 non-smokers to die per year.
There are about 165,000,000 non-smokers these days, 65,000 deaths is 1 death per 2,538 non-smokers.
Sooo,the antis are saying that after a 75% decrease in SHS exposure and literally thousands of smoking bans of one sort or another, "THE DEATH RATE HAS INCREASED AND THUS, SMOKING BANS CAUSE MORE NON-SMOKERS TO DIE"!!!
At the very least, smoking bans and a 75% decrease in SHS exposure have not caused a decrease in the number of deaths.
Why do antis lie so outrageously?
No one has ever said they were very smart!!

Hey genius, you want to show me in here where it says ADULT smokers. It says 165,000,000 non-smokers, that leaves 140,000,000 smokers or 45% of the U.S. population, regardless of age. These are your facts. So your math and reading comprehension may need a little work.

[Gary K]

"Smoking bans cause more non-smokers to die!
Since 1965 there has been a 50% decrease in the

ADULT SMOKING RATE.

Since 1990 there have been literally thousands of smoking bans of one sort or another enacted."
..........

I am truly sorry that you can not comprehend "ADULT SMOKING RATE"!!

[Aloxety]

Gary K wrote:

Or you might have just one or none.

Sure, that's possible too. But you're much more likely to encounter 20+ people all smoking at the same time at a bar versus at home.

Gary K wrote:

Nicotine is also found in other plants such as potatoes and tomatoes.

You are also measuring the effects of all the potatoes and tomatoes they may have eaten in the last week.

Cotinine levels are a very, very poor measure of recent nicotine exposure!!

Actually, they're a very good indicator of recent nicotine exposure.

Here's an example of a paper comparing the number of smokers in a house vs salivary cotinine -
http://www.ajph.org/cgi/reprint/82/9/1225 . Look at Figure 1 and Table 1. You're not going to get that consistent of a distribution if tomatoes and eggplant were significant confounders.

Gary K wrote:

Cotinine is typically detectable for several days to up to one week after tobacco smoke exposure.

If you measure a non-smoker's cotinine level after they leave a bar,you are not only measuring their exposure from that episode, you are also measuring yesterdays exposure and the day before and the day before that,up to a week earlier.

Of course. So what?

If you want to get a baseline idea about a person's average exposure and draw generalizations from there, it's great. Sure, it's maybe a little iffy if you try and pinpoint a heart attack to a specific ETS exposure, but if you're getting a sample from someone following a typical daily exposure, where's the problem?

[Gary K]

Your study:

Despite the acknowledged importance
of smoking by parents in determining
their children's exposure to passive
smoking, detectable concentrations of cotinine
are found in the majority of children
from homes where there are no smokers.

In a study of 7-year-old children attending
primary schools in Edinburgh, Scotland,'4
we noted that three quarters of the children
from nonsmoking households had
detectable salivary cotinine, and 10% of
this group were in the upper two fifths of
the distribution of measured tobaccosmoke
exposure.

This suggested that factors
other than smoking by household
members may be significant influences on
exposure for some children.
Results
A number of independent predictors of cotinine were identified in addition to the main one of smoking by household members.
...
The effects were similar between children from smoking and nonsmoking homes.

[azmac]

I think all business that have been hurt by the bans should charge the non-smokers more to make up for the damage caused.

[Free_America]

azmac wrote:

I think all business that have been hurt by the bans should charge the non-smokers more to make up for the damage caused.

It may end up costing the states some day if it ever makes it from the supreme court.
http://banthebanwisconsin.wordpress.com/2008/...

[Aloxety]

Gary K wrote:

Your study:

First, thanks for reading the paper.

Gary K wrote:

In a study of 7-year-old children attending
primary schools in Edinburgh, Scotland,'4
we noted that three quarters of the children
from nonsmoking households had
detectable salivary cotinine, and 10% of
this group were in the upper two fifths of
the distribution of measured tobaccosmoke
exposure.

This suggested that factors
other than smoking by household
members may be significant influences on
exposure for some children.

That's incredibly poor wording by the authors. But, we can look at it another way.

Total smoking prevalence was approximately 30% at the time. Admittedly, I'm going to take some small liberties with the data here to make the math easier, so feel free to point out where you think I'm incorrect.

The first place I'm going to do so is in making all households with smokers single-smoker households. Then we can say that 30 out of 100 households allow smoking. According to the data in Figure 1 and Table 1, these households would both show significantly increased cotinine levels versus non-smoking households.

That means that 70 out of 100 prohibit smoking. According to the passage you cite, 75% of those 70 households had detectable salivary cotinine. Why? ETS from restaurants, etc. could be one reason, but you're right, certain veggies can also produce a minimally detectable cotinine reading.

They go on to say that 10% of that 75% measured in the upper two-fifths of the distribution of tobacco exposure (as measured by salivary cotinine). What I say to that is, OF COURSE THEY DO!

We've already established that 30% of households allow smoking, and that they'd fill the top 30% of the salivary cotinine spectrum. But the authors try to get sneaky by saying that some children of non-smoking households (~7.5%) are in the top 40% of the salivary cotinine spectrum. If you have 30 oranges and 70 apples, and want to identify the 40 orangest fruits in your group, some of them are going to be apples - there's no way of getting around it.

So, misleading rhetoric by the authors aside, salivary cotinine is still a valid way of measuring SHS exposure.

[PicassoIII]

Aloxety wrote:

That exposure will be negligible compared to ETS exposure during times of active smoking.

'Negligible' all depends on the ventilation. An average home with the a/c OR heat running and windows closed is close to a closed system. Unless there is HEPA/ionization filtration on the HVAC or the place is heated by steam ... where do the particulates and gasses go?
Anyone who has indoor cats or cooks fish knows this
Some may settle out, but, PM<10 could be put back in the air with the most minor disturbance.
Note btw, i didn't say completely.
But unless one is walking in/out often (like a bar door) or has windows open in spring/fall it is similar. In summer/winter the house may be near sealed for months at a time.

Aloxety wrote:

Your reasoning is the same that Banzhaf used for his 'smoking outside is still bad for kids' statement a month or so ago. Is that really what you want to be claiming here?

That was smoking outdoors and subsequently bringing IN the 'smoke' with them, here we're talking active smoking indoors.
Not a reasonable parallel at all.
The car interior situation, however disparate the size of the space, is a more reasonable parallel. Again, with no or only ‘seepage’ ventilation, where do the particulates/gasses go. They DO persist.
And i've seen very few houses going past me at 30mph......
This is day in/day out exposure with no time for extended recovery, while in a workplace situation people usually get two maybe three full days of non exposure.

In my interpretation the only time the risk is potentially real and measurable is in the case of long term spousal exposure to heavy smokers (raw data from Brownson, Frontham, etc, etc.) Even then it’s chicken or egg (plus proxy confounders) did they seem to be a heavy smoker because their spouse got cancer?
While certain tiny office situations could theoretically approach this under active exposure, it ends when the ‘whistle blows’. Not so in a domestic situation, certainly not during summer or winter.

Politically we cannot do anything about the domestic exposure (unless we as a nation completely go socialist) and workplace should be left to free market forces.
Not to mention it is hardly worth considering if smoking is limited to spaces with good ventilation.
IF we are to bother, I am simply stating a preference for measuring particulates over dealing with the vagarities of cotinine. It’s faster cheaper and can be done in real time.
Pi$$ing in a cup is for truck drivers and airline pilots only…
The Benowitz paper even agrees that cotinine correlates with PM pretty well (and vice/versa)

[Gary K]

This is all nice and mildly interesting;but, the fact remains that we are talking about smoking bans as a health program to reduce mortality in non-smokers.

Four decades of reduced smoking and two decades of hundreds of enacted smoking bans have lead to a 75% decrease in SHS exposure and have not lead to a decrease in the claimed mortality for non-smokers.

Since smoking bans do not save lives, if there is a possibility that even one hospitality worker will lose wages(suffer harm), smoking bans should not and must not be enacted.

[Eric]

This has nothing to do with government or politics. This is a public health issue!

[azmac]

Eric wrote:

This has nothing to do with government or politics. This is a public health issue!

Smoking bans are about control and money not health.
They make the trillion dollar a year drug companies even richer. They are taking away private property rights. Since the constitution is based on private property rights, they are also destroying the constitution.