Austin Council plans to ban smoking in city parks (Dallas: sale, home)

[austinrebel]

Originally Posted by Michael J. McFadden

Jay, you seem to have had some difficulty reading what I wrote. My initial scenario dealt with fairly constant exposure to smokers in the park who were just five to fifty feet away. Under those conditions a simple 200 million years of exposure would produce a lung cancer.

You then go on to say, " there is really no reason to argue with people who insist that second hand smoke is negligible." Jay, I say no such thing as an absolute: if you were locked in a phone booth with 80 burning cigarettes (which is what some of these studies have done in terms of rat concentrations) then yes, the smoke would certainly NOT be "negligible." In terms of encounters with smokers in a park or in a decently ventilated indoor setting however, they ARE negligible.

You then say, "Most doctors and cancer institutes disagree with you," and that's quite true. But the REASON they disagree is because they know that the fear of secondhand smoke and the bans that such fear will bring are an effective path toward pressuring smokers to quit.

And finally you say, "I can't argue with people who insist that water is dry, fire is cold, and smoking is healthy." Since I've insisted on none of the above I assume you are not talking to me there.

Brilliant post. Thanks for posting that. I wish you could speak to the Austin City Council.

[capcat]

I think health danger from second-hand smoke in a large, open area is a stretch.

However, litter is a significant problem. We "adopted" a park one year and the task of cleaning up cigarette butts on the grounds was overwhelming.

I think a better solution than a ban would be to create designated smoking areas with fire-safe receptacles. The butts can't go in a regular trash can without risking a fire. Since there's really no place to discard cigarettes safely, they're extinguished on the ground or in the parking lot. I suppose smokers could take discarded butts with them when they leave, but many people (non-smokers alike) won't even pick up a water bottle, let alone take cigarette butts with them.


Designated areas and proper receptacles are all that's needed. Anything greater than that is more government regulation than I think is desirable. Next step would be regulating legal activity in private homes, which is alarming. It is possible to compromise and protect the rights of those who want to stay away from smoke, and those who choose to smoke.

[Michael J. McFadden]

Thanks for the kind words Austin. Ten years ago, before I'd gotten comfortable enough with the research to be confident in speaking about it, I used to get so frustrated when the Antismokers used to fly in all their big professionals from the SG office and suchlike to spout their "knowledge" and shut down the poor bar owners and ordinary people who didn't have much to go on other than a gut feeling that the mandated bans were wrong.

Heh, first time I spoke was at a NY City Council hearing in 2000: I remember being so uncertain about it all after listening to the skilled presentations that I simply mumbled some stuff about how once they banned smoking in the combo bar/restaurants they'd keep rolling on because they "wouldn't even want to smell smoke, or even see smokers smoking." Heh, you can imagine the amount of "Boy, is HE a nut!" eye-rolling that little speech got.

[Michael J. McFadden]

Capcat, if your true concern is litter I think you'd find more support among smokers if you dropped the ghetto area thing and simply pushed for a few more receptacles and perhaps an increase in fines for general littering.

There was a Councilman in California a number of years ago who was making a big thing about the increasing number of butts on the beach and using that argument to advance a beach ban. I sent him some research indicating that most of the beach butts were probably being washed up from storm sewer overflow catching all the butts from the smokers there who'd been thrown out onto the streets to smoke. I suggested the provision of separately ventilated smoking rooms in office buildings and allowing at least a moderate number of bars and restaurants to choose on their own whether to allow smoking.

Oddly enough, he never responded after that.

[capcat]

Originally Posted by Michael J. McFadden

Capcat, if your true concern is litter I think you'd find more support among smokers if you dropped the ghetto area thing and simply pushed for a few more receptacles and perhaps an increase in fines for general littering.

There was a Councilman in California a number of years ago who was making a big thing about the increasing number of butts on the beach and using that argument to advance a beach ban. I sent him some research indicating that most of the beach butts were probably being washed up from storm sewer overflow catching all the butts from the smokers there who'd been thrown out onto the streets to smoke. I suggested the provision of separately ventilated smoking rooms in office buildings and allowing at least a moderate number of bars and restaurants to choose on their own whether to allow smoking.

Oddly enough, he never responded after that.

Ghetto area thing? I don't understand that in reference to my post. My guess is that you're referring to designated smoking areas, but I'll wait for your explanation.

[Michael J. McFadden]

Originally Posted by capcat

Ghetto area thing? I don't understand that in reference to my post. My guess is that you're referring to designated smoking areas, but I'll wait for your explanation.

Yes, the designated smoking areas. I gather you may not have noticed, but part of the social conditioning involved over the past ten years has been to deliberately make such areas as unpleasant as possible: ghettos. As Mayor Bloomberg said a year or so ago, his commitment is "to make smoking as difficult and expensive as possible."

Things like separately ventilated, comfortable, and attractive smoking lounges are thus completely unacceptable. Making the "designated areas" undesirable adds a little extra ooomph to the electro-shocks for conditioning the rats.

[CarnivalGal]

Exposure to second hand smoke in parks may not cause me to get lung cancer, but is sure as heck is unpleasant, and I should not be forced to inhale it.

As I mentioned before, it is akin to someone blasting loud music. The music won't kill me either, but I have a right not to be subjected to it. That's why blasting music is illegal. Smoke is no different.

[oldtoiletsmkgdflrpots]

After this thread we can now believe: Seriously, smoking isn't bad for you at all, it's just "the man" bringin yah down. Please, don't believe years and years of evidence, "they're" just tryin to brainwash yah! It's the government trying to control you!! Get yer guns!! This is Texas, we know different, we're an exception to the rule! Smoking is GOOD for you!! Smokers have "rights"!! picture of smokers lungs - Google Search

[Michael J. McFadden]

mm, you wrote, "Exposure to second hand smoke in parks may not cause me to get lung cancer, but is sure as heck is unpleasant, and I should not be forced to inhale it."

mm, if you wanted to campaign for a law to remove something from the parks that you found was unpleasant, I would have no severe objection (although I haven't really fully thought out the "shared commons" argument on that.) As long as you're not making false claims as part of that campaign.

You also wrote, "As I mentioned before, it is akin to someone blasting loud music. The music won't kill me either, but I have a right not to be subjected to it. That's why blasting music is illegal. Smoke is no different." mm, It's "akin" but by no means the same. Go back fifteen years ago and you could walk into hundreds of restaurants in Austin where they had rules against "blasting loud music" but very few with rules against smoking. Obviously most people felt there was indeed a very big difference. If you truly equate the two then you are obviously not in the mainstream.

- MJM

[Michael J. McFadden]

Originally Posted by oldtoiletsmkgdflrpots

After this thread we can now believe: Seriously, smoking isn't bad for you at all, it's just "the man" bringin yah down.

Toilet, would you care to point to anyplace here or in any of my hundred-odd postings on City Data where I have ever said anything like that? Of course you may simply be responding to others...

In terms of your "smokers lung" picture: while I don't know about the one you showed, are you aware that they used to send cops/healthfolks etc around to schools with blackened pigs lungs in jars while telling the students that they were human smokers' lungs?

- MJM