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There's no relation between public accommodations and public health issues? If that's true, why are we even having this conversation?
Talk about deflecting! I am the one who has said all along that public accomodations are subject to public health concerns. I don't know where you got that from my post, except as an opportunity to "deflect and discredit". Nice try, no cigar.
And, if hotels were allowed to decide for themselves, you would be equally free not to stay there if they chose to allow smoking, right?
That's not the question at hand I was addressing. Was responding to his claims of "losing his freedom." I don't make the rules about if hotels can or can't allow smoking.
But, as you well know, the conversation turns on what level of SHS is deemed to be dangerous and, correct me if I'm wrong, you're one of those who believe no level of exposure is justified, no matter how slight. There is no limit at which it is safe and your position is that laws are necessary to eliminate the threat of exposure.
So, the level of SHS in a tunnel you might use is very much germain to this conversation. So too would a discussion on any other place you might be exposed to trace amounts of SHS simply because it would reveal the depths of your commitment to the principle that no exposure is safe.
If a debater stands on a principle, it's well within the bounds of debating etiquette to question the sincerity of that principle, is it not?
LOL Stillkit? I am afraid you can talk and make common-sense points about the relationship to the overall principle until Hell freezes over, and you will stick get cries of "deflection" and how "fat foods, etc, are not the same as smoking."
The fact is, this ilk is either incapable of seeing the larger point most of us are trying to make about how the Health Police will not stop with smoking in restricting/banning what private businesses can do in the name of "public health" and under the auspices of "public accomodations". OR...they just do not want to address it because upsets their tunnel visioned world.
But that's ok. Keep trying anyway. After all, as MJM said in effect earlier, it is really not so much getting to these anti-smoking zealots as it is to make the case for the larger audience of thread readers who may not have made up their minds yet.
That's not the question at hand I was addressing. Was responding to his claims of "losing his freedom." I don't make the rules about if hotels can or can't allow smoking.
But the larger point was, as several of us have been making, such laws should not be a function of government. That is, regulating/resticting private property rights in the name of "public health". Let the business owner (bar, restaurant, motel, etc) decide for themselves whether or not to either ban or permit it outright, or restrict it on some level in-between the two. If someone doesn't want to be around smoking, then don't go to a place where it is permitted.
For tobacco, I say raise the taxes until they are high enough to discourage people from starting to smoke. Current smokers would pay the higher price or quit.
While that would discourage new smokers it's not going to help much with current smokers. There is a fledgling black market now and that will expand as the prices go up. If the prices continue to expand we will begin to see a lot more crime typically associated with other drugs. Do you really want to go down that road?
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My insurance company has an incentive program. Healthy activities, like quitting smoking or losing weight or controlling diabetes earn points which can be redeemed for cash. It in essence gives you a discount on your insurance to be healthy. the amounts of money are not large, but apparently they do not have to be to make some people change their behavior.
There is a distinct difference between a private company encouraging behavior that will improve their profits than the government mandating said behavior.
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But many people just do not understand basic nutrition. It will take a massive educational program to change that.
Sorry but I don't think that education is the problem, I know some very smart people that are obese. The primary issue as I see it is people too lazy to cook their own meals combined with a lack or physical exercise and this starts when they are young.
The thread is about smoking in motels/hotels. It's not about being exposed to cigarette smoke from another car in a tunnel. The lengths smokers will go to deflect is incredible!
The problem here Katiana is you see it as a health issue, I see it as a freedom issue and it's understandable why you would want to steer the conversation away from that because you can't win that argument.
He used only white males, and he really did not control specifically for those "other things" you wonder about.
How were the subjects chosen? Pearl says, "These men were an unselected lot except as to their tobacco habits. That is to say, they were taken at random, and then all sorted into categories relative to tobacco usage." In other words, he selected the participants first, then sorted them by smoking status. That probably would not be the preferred way to do it today, of course, but he was aware of the necessity for the selection to be as random as possible.
He says, "For the maximum effectiveness of this methodology in the premises, the groups to be compared should be each as heterogeneous or random as possible in their compositions relative to all other characteristic except the one of degree of habitual usage of the particular material under discussion, and as homogeneous as possible relative to that. We shall then have a dispersed and counterbalancing effect within each group of all such factors as economic and social status, occupational and racial differences, etc., the plus variants relative to each such factor offsetting more or less evenly the minus variants; while there will be a concentrated, unidirectional and statistically cumulative effect, if any, of the habitual usage factor under test, since all components of a group will be alike in respect of it."
A wordy way to say that you want to offset those "other things" as much as possible.
Pearl was making an observation. He wanted to know whether there was a difference in mortality rates between smokers and non-smokers. Since he was the first one to do this, he had no preconceived notions.
Also, this was all cause mortality. He was not looking at the specific diseases we associate with tobacco use today. So there were probably deaths from everything from pneumonia to accidents to suicide in his totals, but the relative numbers of those things should have been distributed similarly in the three groups.
All he showed was that smokers die earlier than non-smokers. He did not show why. That came later.
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