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MyChoice.ca is a member of TICAP (The International Coalition Against Prohibition)
Click here to visit their site
(Your donations go
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account)
The dominant issue influencing smoking policies and regulations today is second hand smoke (SHS), also known as environmental tobacco smoke (ETS). This emotionally charged issue is used to justify extreme actions being taken against smokers by governments and other authorities.
Smoking ban advocates have been extremely effective in using claims, guestimates and selective studies while ignoring all evidence that contradicts them. They have succeeded in getting laws and regulations adopted at the provincial, municipal and regional levels that have reached to the extreme:
• Seniors suddenly denied the opportunity to smoke in their retirement homes
• Hospital patients, including those in palliative care, forced to quit or take to city streets
• Total smoking bans given priority over actual treatment of patients in mental facilities and addiction centres
• Veterans banned from smoking in desginated clubs
• Charities forced to close because their bingos are no longer allowed even separately enclosed and ventilated smoking rooms and suffer large drops in attendance
With questionable research and wildly varying estimates, arbitrary decisions have been made to treat SHS as a zero tolerance substance. This despite the fact that governments have deemed certain levels of numerous toxins and pollutants – from lead to asbestos – as acceptable in work and public places.
Here is just one example of how illogical this is. Under Ontario’s laws, it is deemed tobe acceptable for a person to work in a large underground parking garage and breathe in massive amounts of toxic exhaust fumes all day, but it is considered a health risk if someone smokes a cigarette there.
The issue is not whether second hand smoke carries health risks – but whether the risks it carries are greater than many other things that are allowed by law and whether the actions now being taken against so many people can be justified. An increasing number of people, including scientists and doctors, are concerned that so much effort has gone into trying to bolster the extreme claims made about second had smoke that real research and other greater risks are being ignored or overlooked.
• More independent research into SHS is needed based on sound research principles
• Research should be devoted to finding the fact and should not be funded with any preconceived desired outcome as an objective
• All research, including that which may contradict official government policy, should be reviewed on its merits
• All laws that infringe on individual rights and legal choices should be assessed based on the principle of justifiable and appropriate responses to demonstrable risks
• Smokers should not be subjected to extreme infringements on their rights that are out of proportion to the actions taken against other groups in the name of public health
• The SHS issue should not be allowed to divert attention away from other health problems. For example, blaming increases in respiratory problems when smoking rates have and continue to decline, seems illogical and begs the question, what is the real reason for this increase?
The impression given by proponents of total smoking bans and other infringements on the lives of smokers in all walks of life is that second hand smoke is a proven leading cause of death and is so dangerous that extreme measures are needed to combat the problem. However, the estimates used to support this claim vary widely and are not based on actual events but on guesses. These guesses include the acknowledgement that it is difficult to determine to what effect differing contributing factors (bad diet, poor exercise, alcohol) might come into play.
There are also legitimate questions being raised as to what the claims of increased risk actually mean in real terms. For example, if the risk of something happening under normal circumstances is one in a million, but studies show that if you factor in some particular element, the risk appears to be two in a million, that is a 100% increase in risk. But it still only means there may be a two in a million chance of something happening, as opposed to one in a million.
It can be argued that if even one life is saved, then the actions taken to save it are warranted. But if that argument was applied to everything, it would mean that none of us would be allowed to drive cars, or work in factories that pollute the air. The Ontario Medical Association estimates smog kills 5,800 people in the province every year and hospitalizes more than twice that amount. Health Canada estimates second hand smoke may contribute to the deaths of 1,000 people in Canada a year.
We also certainly would not be allowed to sell or consume fattening foods or high-sugar content products.
Society recognizes that there are numerous factors that have to be considered and weighed before infringing on rights and freedoms to determine appropriate measures.
In this context, it seems fair to ask if it is an appropriate justification for creating laws that, as just one example, imposes the kind of infringement that denies seniors in retirement homes any opportunity to smoke in their sunset years – or to force them outside in the dead of winter? Unfortunately, such debates were squashed before governments and other authorities such as health boards, began imposing these measures on others.
They are debates that need to be held now.