Merged Anti Smoking Ban Thread

[Hajo Flettner]

Journal of Theoretics Vol.1-4
Oct/Nov 1999 Editorial

Smoking Does Not Cause Lung Cancer
(According to WHO/CDC Data)*

By: James P. Siepmann, MD

Yes, it is true, smoking does not cause lung cancer. It is only one of many risk factors for lung cancer. I initially was going to write an article on how the professional literature and publications misuse the language by saying "smoking causes lung cancer"1,2, but the more that I looked into how biased the literature, professional organizations, and the media are, I modified this article to one on trying to put the relationship between smoking and cancer into perspective. (No, I did not get paid off by the tobacco companies, or anything else like that.)

When the tobacco executives testified to Congress that they did not believe that smoking caused cancer, their answers were probably truthful and I agree with that statement. Now, if they were asked if smoking increases the risk of getting lung cancer, then their answer based upon current evidence should have be "yes." But even so, the risk of a smoker getting lung cancer is much less than anyone would suspect. Based upon what the media and anti-tobacco organizations say, one would think that if you smoke, you get lung cancer (a 100% correlation) or at least expect a 50+% occurrence before someone uses the word "cause."

Would you believe that the real number is < 10% (see Appendix A)? Yes, a US white male (USWM) cigarette smoker has an 8% lifetime chance of dying from lung cancer but the USWM nonsmoker also has a 1% chance of dying from lung cancer (see Appendix A). In fact, the data used is biased in the way that it was collected and the actual risk for a smoker is probably less. I personally would not smoke cigarettes and take that risk, nor recommend cigarette smoking to others, but the numbers were less than I had been led to believe. I only did the data on white males because they account for the largest number of lung cancers in the US, but a similar analysis can be done for other groups using the CDC data.

You don't see this type of information being reported, and we hear things like, "if you smoke you will die", but when we actually look at the data, lung cancer accounts for only 2% of the annual deaths worldwide and only 3% in the US.**

When we look at the data over a longer period, such as 50 years as we did here, the lifetime relative risk is only 8 (see Appendix A). That means that even using the biased data that is out there, a USWM smoker has only an 8x more risk of dying from lung cancer than a nonsmoker. It surprised me too because I had always heard numbers like 20-40 times more risk. Statistics that are understandable and make sense to the general public, what a concept!

The process of developing cancer is complex and multifactorial. It involves genetics, the immune system, cellular irritation, DNA alteration, dose and duration of exposure, and much more. Some of the known risk factors include genetics4,5,6, asbestos exposure7, sex8, HIV status9, vitamin deficiency10, diet11,12,13, pollution14 , shipbuilding15 and even just plain old being lazy.16 When some of these factors are combined they can have a synergistic effect17, but none of these risk factors are directly and independently responsible for "causing" lung cancer!

Look in any dictionary and you will find something like, "anything producing an effect or result."18 At what level of occurrence would you feel comfortable saying that X "causes" Y? For myself and most scientists, we would require Y to occur at least 50% of the time. Yet the media would have you believe that X causes Y when it actually occurs less than 10% of the time.

As ludicrous as that is, the medical and lay press is littered with such pabulum and gobbledygook. Even as web literate physician, it took me over 50 hours of internet time to find enough raw data to write this article. I went through thousands of abstracts and numerous articles, only to find two articles that even questioned the degree of correlation between smoking and lung cancer (British lung cancer rates do not correlating to smoking rates)19,20 and another two articles which questioned the link between second hand smoke (passive smoking) and lung cancer.21,22 Everywhere I looked, the information was hidden in terms like "odds ratio," "relative risk," or "annualized mortality rate." Most doctors probably could not accurately define and interpret them all these terms accurately, let alone someone outside the medical profession. The public relies on the media to interpret this morass of data, but instead they are given politically correct and biased views.

If they would say that smoking increases the incidence of lung cancer or that smoking is a risk factor in the development of lung cancer, then I would agree. The purpose of this article is to emphasize the need to use language appropriately in both the medical and scientific literature (the media, as a whole, may be a lost cause).

Everything in life has risk; just going to work each day has risk. Are we supposed to live our lives in bed, hiding under the blanket in case a tornado should come into our bedroom? We in science, have a duty to give the public accurate information and then let them decide for themselves what risk is appropriate. To do otherwise is a subtle imposition of our biases on the populace.

We must embrace Theoretics as a discipline that strives to bring objectivity and logic back into science. Every article/study has some bias in it, the goal is to minimize such biases and present the facts in a comprehensible and logical manner. Unfortunately, most scientists have never taken a course in logic, and I'm sure that English class was not their favorite. Theoretics is a field of science which focuses on the use of logic and appropriate language in order to develop and communicate scientifically credible theories and ideas which will then have experimental implications. As someone whom I respect says, "Words mean things." Let us use language and logic appropriately in our research and in the way that we communicate information.

* * * * *

Yes, smoking is bad for you, but so is fast-food hamburgers, driving, and so on. We must weigh the risk and benefits of the behavior both as a society and as an individual based on unbiased information. Be warned though, that a society that attempts to remove all risk terminates individual liberty and will ultimately perish. Let us be logical in our endeavors and true in our pursuit of knowledge. Instead of fearful waiting for lung cancer to get me (because the media and much of the medical literature has falsely told me that smoking causes lung cancer), I can enjoy my occasional cigar even more now...now that I know the whole story.

* * * * *

The Untold Facts of Smoking (Yes, there is bias in science)

1. USWM smokers have a lifetime relative risk of dying from lung cancer of only 8 (not the 20 or more that is based on an annual death rate and therefore virtually useless).
2. No study has ever shown that casual cigar smoker (<5 cigars/wk, not inhaled) has an increased incidence of lung cancer.
3. Lung cancer is not in even in the top 5 causes of death, it is only #9.**
4. All cancers combined account for only 13% of all annual deaths and lung cancer only 2%.**
5. Occasional cigarette use (<1 pk/wk) has never been shown to be a risk factor in lung cancer.
6. Certain types of pollution are more dangerous than second hand smoke.3
7. Second hand smoke has never been shown to be a causative factor in lung cancer.
8. A WHO study did not show that passive (second hand) smoke statistically increased the risk of getting lung cancer.
9. No study has shown that second hand smoke exposure during childhood increases their risk of getting lung cancer.
10. In one study they couldn't even cause lung cancer in mice after exposing them to cigarette smoke for a long time.23
11. If everyone in the world stopped smoking 50 years ago, the premature death rate would still be well over 80% of what it is today.1 (But I thought that smoking was the major cause of preventable death...hmmm.)

*This article was revised after errors in the data and calculations were noticed by Dr. Charles Rotter, Dr. Curtis Cameron and Dr. Jesse V. Silverman. This is the corrected version. A special thanks to both.

**WHO data of member countries

References (I back up my statements with facts, will those who respond do the same?)

1. Articles:
* Pisani P, Parkin DM, Bray F, Ferlay J, Estimates of the worldwide mortality from 25 cancers in 1990, Int J Cancer 1999 Sep 24;83(1):18-29; "Tobacco smoking and chewing are almost certainly the major preventable causes of cancer today."
* American Thoracic Society, Cigarette smoking and health.. , Am J Respir Crit Care Med; 153(2):861-5 1996; "Cigarette smoking remains the primary cause of preventable death and morbidity in the United States."
* Nordlund LA, Trends in smoking habits and lung cancer in Sweden, Eur J Cancer Prev 1998 Apr;7(2):109-16; "Tobacco smoking is the most important cause of lung cancer and accounts for about 80-90% of all cases of lung cancer among men and about 50-80% among women."
* JAMA 1997;278:1505-1508; "The chief cause of death included lung cancer, esophageal cancer and liver cancer. The death rate was higher for those who started smoking before age 25. If current smoking patterns persist, tobacco will eventually cause more than two million deaths each year in China."
* JAMA 1997;278:1500-1504; "We have demonstrated that smoking is a major cause of death in China...."
* Hecht SS hecht002@tc.umn.edu, Tobacco smoke carcinogens and lung cancer, J Natl Cancer Inst 1999 Jul 21;91(14):1194-210; "The complexity of tobacco smoke leads to some confusion about the mechanisms by which it causes lung cancer."
* Sarna L, Prevention: Tobacco control and cancer nursing, Cancer Nurs 1999 Feb;22(1):21-8; "In the next century, tobacco will become the number-one cause of preventable death throughout the world, resulting in half a billion deaths."
* Liu BQ, Peto R, Chen ZM, Boreham J, Wu YP, Li JY, Campbell TC, Chen JS, Emerging tobacco hazards in China: 1. Retrospective proportional mortality study of one million deaths, BMJ 1998 Nov 21;317(7170):1411-22; "If current smoking uptake rates persist in China (where about two thirds of men but few women become smokers) tobacco will kill about 100 million...."
* Nordlund LA Trends in smoking habits and lung cancer in Sweden. Eur J Cancer Prev 1998 Apr;7(2):109-16; "Tobacco smoking is the most important cause of lung cancer and accounts for about 80-90% of all cases of lung cancer among men and about 50-80% among women."
* Skurnik Y, Shoenfeld Y Health effects of cigarette smoking, Clin Dermatol 1998 Sep-Oct;16(5):545-56 "Cigarette smoking, the chief preventable cause of illness and death in the industrialized nations."

2. Websites:

* JAMA Website: http://www.ama-assn.org/sci-pubs/sci-news/1996/snr0424.htm [link no longer active as of 2004]; "Yet huge obstacles remain in our path, and new roadblocks are being erected continuously," writes Ronald M. Davis, M.D., director of the Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention, Henry Ford Health System, Detroit, Mich., in urging a review of the effort against "the most important preventable cause of death in our society."
* JAMA Website: http://www.ama-assn.org/sci-pubs/sci-news/...203.htm#joc6d99 [link no longer active as of 2004]; "According to the authors, tobacco use has been cited as the chief avoidable cause of death in the U.S., responsible for more than 420,000 deaths annually ...."
* JAMA Website: http://jama.ama-assn.org/issues/v281n2/ffull/jwm80010-2.html [link no longer active as of 2004]; "The researchers reported that deaths caused by tobacco...."

3. The World Health Report 1999, chapter 5 and Statistical Annex and CDC data (http://www.cdc.gov/scientific.htm).

4.Mutat Res 1998 Feb 26;398(1-2):43-54 Association of the NAT1*10 genotype with increased chromosome aberrations and higher lung cancer risk in cigarette smokers. Abdel-Rahman SZ, El-Zein RA, Z

5. Schwartz AG, Rothrock M, Yang P, Swanson GM, "Increased cancer risk among relatives of nonsmoking lung cancer cases," Genet Epidemiol 1999;17(1):1-15

6. Amos CI, Xu W, Spitz MR, Is there a genetic basis for lung cancer susceptibility?, Recent Results Cancer Res 1999;151:3-12

7. Silica, asbestos, man-made mineral fibers, and cancer. Author Steenland K; Stayner L Cancer Causes Control, 8(3):491-503 1997 May

8. Lam S, leRiche JC, Zheng Y, Coldman A, MacAulay C, Hawk E, Kelloff G, Gazdar AF, Sex-related differences in bronchial epithelial changes associated with tobacco smoking, J Natl Cancer Inst 1999 Apr 21;91(8):691-6

9. Ignacio I. Wistuba, MD, Comparison of Molecular Changes in Lung Cancers in HIV-Positive and HIV-Indeterminate Subjects, JAMAVol. 279, pp. 1554-1559, May 20, 1998

10. Kumagai Y, Pi JB, Lee S, Sun GF, Yamanushi T, Sagai M, Shimojo N, Serum antioxidant vitamins and risk of lung and stomach cancers in Shenyang, Cancer Lett 1998 Jul 17;129(2):145-9 China.

11. Nyberg F, et al., Dietary factors and risk of lung cancer in never-smokers, Int J Cancer 1998 Nov 9;78(4):430-6

12. Sinha R, Kulldorff M, Curtin J, Brown CC, Alavanja MC, Swanson CA, "Fried, well-done red meat and risk of lung cancer in women." Cancer Causes Control 1998 Dec;9(6):621-30.

13. Young KJ, Lee PN, Statistics and Computing Ltd, Surrey, UK. Intervention studies on cancer, Eur J Cancer Prev 1999 Apr;8(2):91-103

14. Long-term inhalable particles and other air pollutants related to mortality in nonsmokers.
Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 1999 Feb;159(2):373-82.

15. Blot WJ, Fraumeni JF, Lung Cancer Mortality in the US: Shipyard Correlations Source, Ann N Y Acad Sci; 330:313-315 1979 UI: 80659437

16. Lee IM, Sesso HD, Paffenbarger RS Jr, Physical activity and risk of lung cancer. Int J Epidemiol 1999 Aug;28(4):620-5

17. Kamp DW, Greenberger MJ, Sbalchierro JS, Preusen SE, Weitzman SA, Cigarette smoke augments asbestos-induced alveolar epithelial cell injury: role of free radicals, Free Radic Biol Med 1998 Oct;25(6):728-39

18. The Complete Reference Collection, 1996-9, Compton's.

19. Lee PN, Forey BA, Trends in cigarette consumption cannot fully explain trends in British lung cancer rates, J Epidemiol Community Health; 52(2):82-92 1998

20. Pandey M, Mathew A, Nair MK, Global perspective of tobacco habits and lung cancer: a lesson for third world countries. Eur J Cancer Prev 1999 Aug;8(4):271-9

21. Jahn O, [Passive smoking, a risk factor for lung carcinoma?], Wien Klin Wochenschr; 108(18):570-3 1996

22. Nilsson R, Environmental tobacco smoke and lung cancer: a reappraisal, Ecotoxicol Environ Saf; 34(1):2-17 1996

23. Finch GL, Nikula KJ, Belinsky SA, Barr EB, Stoner GD, Lechner JF, Failure of cigarette smoke to induce or promote lung cancer in the A/J mouse, Cancer Lett; 99(2):161-7 1996

[Hajo Flettner]

I tried to upload the image of the graph showing data (a 49K gft file) that is part of this article but for some reason I couldn't make it work. If anyone has any ideas about what to do about it let me know.

[Hajo Flettner]

I have decided to post a series of articles opposed to the tobacco prohibition lobby mainly because I’ve recently grown unable to abide the ubiquitous politically motivated junk science being used as a justification for social conditioning and control.

I suppose that my unwillingness to allow the neo-Bolshevik anti tobacco lobby to maintain a near total monopoly on subject of tobacco occurred about 12 years back when I was forced to attend an anti tobacco lecture. The lecturer was atypical in that her harangue was directed against cigar smoking rather then cigarettes although like all tobacco prohibitionists the gist of her position was that all cigars are merely huge, unfiltered cigarettes and as menace that needed to be taxed out of existence and cigar smokers ostracized for indulgent, filthy and evil proclivities. She also described cigars as a great threat to health as a result of the then recent trend of high-priced cigars becoming a status symbol. While the Orwellian speaker made endless reference to studies saying why cigarettes represented a public health threat equal to the Black Plague she inferred that cigars presented a far graver menace without ever presenting any support for that contention outside of the relative amount of tobacco found in the largest of commercially available cigars.

During the question and answer session I endured listening to an endless procession of lemmings grovel before this self righteous commissar of public health until I finally could endure no more. Stepping up to the microphone, I proceeded to list the ways in which her fundamental premise, that cigars are merely massive unfiltered cigarettes, was wrong.

I started out by explaining that the analogy she presented was reasonable only insofar as machine made, unfiltered cigars wholly made of tobacco were concerned. I explained that such cigars used filler tobacco very similar to that found cigarettes but that the binder was composed of homogenized tobacco sheets. While I indicated that if such a product was smoked (i.e., inhaled) like a cigarette her inferences to the weight in tobacco found in unfiltered cigarettes was reasonable. However, such a comparison was flawed insofar as no evidence of any kind existed to indicate that the consumers of said cigars smoked the same percentage of their cigars as would a typical cigarette smoker. Further more, no evidence existed to indicate if the smoker of the previously described machine-made cigar was as likely to inhale as are cigarette smokers rendering her presumptions methodologically flawed. I further pointed out that she gave no indication of the average product weight consumed in a given time frame by machine-made cigar smokers as another flaw with her conclusions while pointing out that a large percentage of machine-made cigars are in fact filtered and contain large amounts of paper and those facts made her analogy even less convincing in terms promoting her public policy agenda.

Although the health commissar mumbled in disagreement she was clearly so unaccustomed to hearing her position challenged that sat slack jawed with a look of wide-eyed horror as I continued to refute her poorly framed agreement.

Emboldened by the lack of opposition I then proceeded to explain to the audience that the increases in cigar sales mentioned by the health commissar was a result of the growing popularity of high priced handmade cigars which differed dramatically from both cigarettes and machine-made cigars.

I do so be briefly detailing that handmade cigars are constructed solely of de stemmed tobacco leaf and as a result, the tobacco used in hand made cigars contains less nicotine per unit of weight then the tobacco used in cigarettes which also typically contains stems and root fragments which naturally have higher concentrations of tar and nicotine then found in de stemmed tobacco leaf.

I also spoke quickly about the extended fermentation and curing processes used by premium cigar makers results in significant losses of both tar and nicotine as a means of pointing out that the weight of tobacco found in handmade cigars and cigarettes should not be assumed to imply a relative equivalency of tar and nicotine. I also pointed out that handmade cigars are available in a wide variety of sizes and that to base a comparison on the weight of tobacco consumed is not relevant when it is assumed without supporting evidence that the largest of cigars should serve as the basis of comparison. While it is true that very large cigars are available anecdotal evidence and cigar trade publications seem to indicate that rubustos and smaller sized handmade cigars are more popular due to modern time pressure is just another facet of cigar consumption the tobacco prohibition lobby chose to overlook as they peruse the suppression of pass-times they object to.

Finally I described the difference in the manner of consumption between handmade cigars and cigarettes as yet another reason why argument presented by the speaker was untenable. Most smokers of handmade cigars don’t inhale but rather taste the smoke which has different epidemiological implications from practices common to cigarette smokers. The relative weight of tobacco consumed by most handmade cigar smokers is different from the typical cigarette smoker making such comparisons highly dubious. While it’s common for cigarette smokers to consume all or almost all of the tobacco in a given session, a typical consumer of handmade cigarettes will leave behind any where from a quarter to a third of any cigar they smoke. The reason for doing so is simple in that the accumulation of tar and nicotine found in last third or so a high quality cigar often results in a harsh flavour that is unappealing to most.

After completing my spontaneous rebuttal I was simply told by the health commissar that I sounded like a spokesman for a tobacco manufacturer and was asked who paid me to speak. I replied that she was the only paid speaker present and that I have been paid anything by any company in the tobacco industry. Undeterred, the health commissar implied that I was lying and made a few bland comments about how the scientific community agrees with her and how it was evil for me to downplay the threat of smoking to public health. When I attempted to argue the point, she simply stormed out of the auditorium in anger ending the debate.

This little incident eventually prompted to read up on the tobacco prohibition movement and investigate the research used as a basis for demonizing smokers and the industries that cater to them. What the public confrontation above foreshadowed was a pattern of public policy advocation using sloppy, biased research as a means to advance state power and oppress behavior objected to by would be health commissars. Those interested these matters should read the books I recommend and seek out the books I will be mentioning.

[Hajo Flettner]

The Case Against Smoking Bans
THOMAS A. LAMBERT
University of Missouri–Columbia School of Law

In recent months, dozens of localities and a number
of states have enacted sweeping smoking bans. The
bans generally forbid smoking in “public” places,
which are defined to include not only publicly
owned facilities but also privately owned properties
to which members of the public are invited (e.g.,
bars, restaurants, hotel lobbies, etc.). Proponents of
the bans insist that they are necessary to reduce risks to public
health and welfare and to protect the rights of nonsmoking
patrons and employees of the regulated establishments.
Specifically, ban advocates have offered three justifications
for government-imposed bans: First, they claim that such
bans are warranted because indoor smoking involves a “negative
externality,” the market failure normally invoked to justify
regulation of the ambient environment. In addition, advocates
assert that smoking bans shape individual preferences
against smoking, thereby reducing the number of smokers in
society. Finally, proponents argue that smoking bans are justified,
regardless of whether any market failure is present,
simply because of the health risks associated with inhalation
of environmental tobacco smoke (ets), commonly referred to
as “secondhand smoke.”

This article contends that government-imposed smoking
bans cannot be justified as responses to market failure, as
means of shaping preferences, or on risk-reduction grounds.
Smoking bans reduce public welfare by preventing an optimal
allocation of nonsmoking and smoking-permitted public
places. A laissez-faire approach better accommodates heterogeneous
preferences regarding public smoking.

THE EXTERNALITY ARGUMENT

The conventional justification for regulation of the ambient
environment (i.e., outdoor air and water) is that it is necessary
to combat the inefficiencies created by negative externalities.
Negative externalities are costs that are not borne by the party
in charge of the process that creates them. For example, the
owner of a smoke-spewing factory does not fully bear the
costs associated with the smoke, stench, and health risks his
factory produces; many of those costs are foisted onto the factory’s
neighbors. When conduct involves negative externalities,
participants will tend to engage in that conduct to an excessive
degree, for they bear the full benefits, but not the full costs,
of their activities. Quite often, then, government intervention
(e.g., taxing the cost-creating behavior or limiting the amount
permitted) may be desirable as a means of ensuring that the
cost-creator does not engage to an excessive degree in the conduct
at issue.

Advocates of smoking bans insist that indoor smoking
involves negative externalities. First, ban advocates argue that
nonsmoking patrons and employees of establishments that
allow smoking are forced to bear costs over which they have
no control. In addition, smokers impose negative externalities
in the form of increased healthcare costs, a portion of which
is paid from the public fisc. Thus, taxpayers are required to
foot the bill for some of the costs associated with smoking in
general. Examined closely, each of these externality-based
arguments for smoking bans fails.
PATRONS AND EMPLOYEES

Outdoor air pollution involves the sort of negative externality likely to result in both an inoptimal (i.e., excessive) amount of the polluting activity and a violation of pollution victims’ rights. When it comes to indoor
air pollution, by contrast, there is no such externality. That is
because the individual charged with determining how much,
if any, smoking is permitted in an indoor space ultimately
bears the full costs of his or her decision and is thus likely to
select the optimal level of air cleanliness. Moreover, nonsmokers’
“rights” are not violated, because they are compensated for the inconveniences and risks they suffer.

One might wonder how this could be. Because smokers in
a public space impose costs on nonsmoking patrons, who cannot
order the smokers to stop, will indoor smoking not entail
both the inefficiency (an excessive level of pollution) and the
injustice (an infringement of non-polluters’ rights to enjoy
clean air) associated with outdoor air pollution? In a word, no.
There is a crucial difference between outdoor and indoor air,
and that difference alleviates the inefficiencies and rightsviolations
normally associated with air pollution.

The crucial difference is property rights. Whereas outdoor air is common property (and thus subject to the famous Tragedy of the Commons), the air inside a building is, in essence, “owned” by the building owner. That means
that the building owner, who is in a position to control the amount of smoking (if any) that is permitted in the building, has an incentive to permit the “right” amount of smoking — that is, the amount that maximizes the welfare of individuals within the building. Depending on the highest and best use of
the space and the types of people who patronize the building, the optimal level of smoking may be zero (as in an art museum), or “as much as patrons desire” (as in a tobacco lounge), or something in-between (as in most
restaurants, which have smoking and nonsmoking sections).

Because patrons select establishments based on the benefits and costs of
patronage, they will avoid establishments with air policies they do not like or will, at a minimum, reduce the amount they are willing to pay for goods and services at such places. Owners of public places thus bear the full costs
and benefits of their decisions regarding air quality and can be expected to select the optimal level of air cleanliness.

Moreover, customers who do not like the air policy a space-owner has selected
will patronize the space only if they are being otherwise compensated by some positive attribute of the space at issue — say, cheap drinks or a particularly attractive clientele. They are, in other words, compensated for any “rights” violation. The de facto property rights that exist in indoor air, then, prevent the inefficiencies and injustices that accompany outdoor
air pollution.

But what about workers at businesses that permit smoking? Is there not an externality in that they are forced to bear costs (and assume risks) over which they have no control? Again, the answer is no. Workers exercise control by demanding higher pay to compensate them for the risks and unpleasantries
they experience because of the smoke in their workplaces. Adam Smith theorized about such “risk premiums” when he wrote in The Wealth of Nations:
The whole of the advantages and disadvantages of the different
employments of labor and stock must, in the same
neighborhood, be either perfectly equal or tending to equality….
[T]he wages of labor vary with the ease or hardship,
the honorableness or dishonorableness of employment.

He was right. A vast body of empirical evidence, including most notably that produced by economist W. Kip Viscusi, demonstrates that employers do in fact pay a premium for exposing their workers to risks and unpleasantries. Such
risk/unpleasantry premiums motivate employers to select the optimal amount of smoke in their restaurants. They also alleviate any injustices occasioned by what might otherwise appear to be a violation of employees’ rights. Thus, smoking in public establishments does not, in any meaningful sense, impose
genuine negative externalities in the form of risks and unpleasantries
to the patrons and employees of such establishments.

Any externalities produced are merely “pecuniary” externalities
— that is, externalities that are mitigated by the price mechanism
and thus do not create inefficiencies and injustices.

Public costs Ban advocates also seek to justify prohibitions
by pointing to externalities in the form of public healthcare
expenditures. The argument here proceeds as follows:

■ Smokers face disproportionately high health care
costs.
■ A portion of such costs is borne not by smokers
themselves but by the public at large.
■ Smokers thereby externalize some of the costs of
their behavior and thus will tend to engage in “too
much” smoking.
■ Therefore, smoking bans are justified as an effort to
cut back on the level of smoking that would otherwise
exist.

This argument suffers from several weaknesses. First and
most importantly, the initial premise is unsound. According to
a comprehensive study in the New England Journal of Medicine in
1997, smoking probably has the effect of reducing overall health
care costs because smokers die earlier than nonsmokers. The
study’s authors concluded that in a population in which no one
smoked, health care costs would be 7 percent higher among men
and 4 percent higher among women than the costs in the current
mixed population of smokers and nonsmokers. The
authors further determined that if all smokers were to quit,
health care costs would be lower at first, but after 15 years they
would become higher than at present.

Even if smoking were shown to increase public health care
expenditures, the argument here would seem to prove too
much. If increased healthcare costs could justify government
imposition of a smoking ban in privately owned places, could
they not similarly justify governmental regulation of menus
at fast food restaurants or mandatory exercise regimens? Serious
liberty interests would be at stake if a government were to
make its citizens “be healthy” so as not to impose health care
costs on others.

Finally, the assumption that public smoking bans reduce
the incidence of smoking seems suspect. As discussed below,
widespread smoking bans may actually increase the incidence
of smoking among young people. Externalities in the form of
increased public health care costs, then, likely cannot justify
widespread bans on smoking in public spaces.



THE PREFERENCE-SHAPING ARGUMENT

The argument above concludes that smoking bans are unnecessary
because market processes will ensure either that
patrons’ and employees’ preferences regarding smoking are
honored or that those individuals are compensated for not
receiving their preferences. That argument assumes, though,
that individuals’ preferences are unaffected by the legal rule
itself. A number of scholars have disputed the notion of
“exogenous preferences.” Instead, they claim that individuals’
preferences regarding activities like smoking are influenced by
the background legal rules themselves. Some theorists have
therefore sought to justify smoking bans on grounds that they
make smokers less likely to want to smoke and/or make nonsmokers
more likely to appreciate smoke-free environments
and thus more willing to pay a premium for such environments.
In the end, neither preference-shaping argument can
justify widespread bans on public smoking.

SHAPING ATTITUDES

In recent years, legal scholars have produced
a voluminous literature on the role of law in indirectly
controlling conduct by shaping social norms and individual
preferences. Smoking bans provide one of the favorite
“success stories” of those who laud the use of legal rules to
change norms and preferences. According to these scholars,
smoking bans affect behavior, even if under-enforced, because
they change the social norm regarding smoking in public.
With the advent of smoking bans, nonsmokers who previously
felt embarrassed about publicly expressing their distaste for
ets are speaking up. By providing a de facto community
statement that public smoking is unacceptable, the bans
embolden nonsmokers to confront smokers who are inconveniencing
them. Facing heightened public hostility toward
their habits, smokers are likely to revise their preferences
regarding smoking. Thus, by making smoking more socially
costly, the theory goes, bans reduce the number of smokers.
Of course, this is a good thing only if actual social utility
is increased by reducing the incidence of smoking. Ban advocates
assume that reducing smoking is welfare-enhancing for
the obvious reason that smoking carries serious health risks.
But ban advocates generally are not in a position to judge the
cost side of reducing smoking because they do not know the
degree of utility smokers experience by smoking. Smokers
themselves, who these days are aware of the risks of smoking,
appear to believe that the benefits they experience from the
activity outweigh the costs. It is thus not at all clear that eliminating
smoking will enhance social welfare.

But even if it were clear that society would be better off with
less smoking, attempting to use smoking bans to influence
social norms may not represent wise policy. Sweeping smoking
bans may actually increase the incidence of smoking. A large percentage
of smokers acquire the habit at a young age, and they
frequently do so because smoking is “cool.” Smoking is cool, of
course, because it is rebellious. The harder anti-smoking forces
work to coerce people into quitting smoking, and the more they
engage the government and other establishment institutions in
their efforts, the more rebellious — and thus the “cooler” —
smoking becomes. Even advocates of the use of smoking regulation
to alter social norms acknowledge that overly intrusive
regulations may result in this sort of “norm backlash.” As an
empirical matter, then, it is not clear whether sweeping smoking
bans — highly intrusive regulatory interventions — actually
reduce the incidence of smoking in the long run.
WILLINGNESS TO PAY

The preference-shaping argument analyzed above focuses on the potential for smoking bans to shape the preferences of smokers (and potential smokers) by
manipulating social norms. Insights from cognitive psychology
suggest that smoking bans might similarly influence the
preferences of nonsmokers, making them more willing to pay
a premium for smoke-free environments and thereby encouraging
more business owners to adopt no-smoking policies.
Advocates of a laissez-faire approach to the issue of indoor
smoking maintain that an unregulated market will produce
an optimal number of smoking and smoke-free establishments
as business owners respond to the demands of patrons
and employees. If patrons and employees are willing to pay
more for a smoke-free environment (via, respectively, higher
prices for the business’s goods and services, or lower wages)
than smokers are willing to pay for the right to smoke, then
business owners will be motivated to ban smoking. Otherwise,
they will not. Thus, there is no need for the government to
force establishments to go nonsmoking; the market will provide
an optimal number of nonsmoking facilities.

This argument assumes, though, that nonsmokers’ willingness
to pay for smoke-free environments is unaffected by
the smoking laws themselves. If the laissez-faire approach
depresses the amount nonsmokers are willing to pay for a
smoke-free environment, then intervention in the market in
the form of smoking bans may be justified.

So why might the background rules on when and where
smoking is permitted affect nonsmokers’ willingness to pay
for smoke-free environments? In recent decades, cognitive
psychologists have conducted a number of experiments purporting
to demonstrate an “endowment effect,” whereby an individual’s valuation of an asset is determined, in part, by whether or not she owns that asset. The general finding is that people attach a greater value to things they own than they would attach to those things if they did not own them and had
to purchase them. In other words, ownership enhances subjective
value.

With regard to smoking bans, ban advocates may argue that
legal prohibitions effectively endow nonsmokers with the
right to smoke-free air, causing them to value it more than they
would if they had to “buy” it. If that is indeed the case, then
the laissez-faire approach to indoor smoking appears troubling,
for it is not, as its advocates maintain, merely a neutral
policy that facilitates satisfaction of existing preferences.
Rather than providing a level playing field on which privately
adopted nonsmoking and smoking-permitted policies can
compete, it biases the outcome of competition in favor of
smoking-permitted policies. Because a truly neutral market
solution is really impossible, ban advocates may call for the
government to weigh in on the side of public health and force
the no-smoking policies that will be under-produced by the
inherently biased free market.

There are several problems with this analysis. First, there is
a great deal of debate over the extent to which the endowment
effect really exists and the extent to which it applies to ownership
of intangible rights (e.g., the right to smoke-free air) as well
as to ownership of tangible property. In addition, given the number
of public establishments that have already gone smoke-free,
thereby “endowing” their patrons with the right to smoke-free
air, the argument is a little out of date. Nonsmokers have now
been exposed to enough facilities in which they have been
endowed with the “right” to smoke-free air that they likely have
adjusted upward their subjective valuation of that commodity
(assuming endowment would, in fact, occasion an upward
adjustment). Finally, the endowment effect argument would
support, at most, temporary smoking bans — i.e., bans that persisted
long enough to move the amount nonsmokers would be
willing to pay to avoid smoke from a “willingness to pay” measure
to a “willingness to accept” measure. If the justification for
the bans is a need to enhance nonsmokers’ valuation of smokefree
spaces so as to encourage market creation of such spaces,
then the bans need not be permanent.

THE RISK ARGUMENT

The first two arguments for smoking bans focus, to some
degree, on citizens’ preferences: the externality argument focus-
es on a purported market failure that allegedly prevents the satisfaction
of preferences regarding smoking, and the preferenceshaping argument focuses on the law’s inevitable role in shaping those preferences. By contrast, the third common argument for smoking bans ignores citizens’ smoking preferences altogether.

That argument asserts that smoking should be banned
in public places, regardless of individuals’ smoking preferences,
because the health risks it presents are simply too great. In
other words, smoking bans are justified on risk-based grounds
even if there is no need to remedy a market failure or to correct
a preference-shaping bias in the law.

Policymakers frequently invoke excessive risk as a sufficient
ground for regulating an activity, even when that activity does
not involve a market failure or reflect preferences that have
been skewed by the background legal rules. Consider, for
example, mandatory seatbelt laws. There is not much of an
externality involved in the failure to wear a seatbelt because the
costs of the conduct are borne by the person deciding to
engage in it. While mandatory seatbelt laws may have the
effect of altering preferences, there is no reason to think that
the background legal rule had previously biased preferences
against wearing seatbelts, and risk-avoidance is the sole reason
for altering citizen preferences in the first place. Thus, the
predominant justification for mandatory seatbelt laws, which
have been enacted in every state except “Live Free or Die” New
Hampshire, is risk-reduction — not externalities or a need to
shape preferences for some end other than risk-reduction.
Similarly, ban advocates argue, public smoking bans may be
justified solely on grounds of risk-avoidance.

But a purely risk-based argument likely cannot justify a
sweeping smoking ban. While risk, standing alone, is sometimes
deemed sufficient to justify government prohibition of
private conduct, such prohibition seems appropriate only
when the harm avoided is relatively great and the regulation’s
intrusion on personal liberty is relatively small. Again,
consider mandatory seatbelt laws. The risk associated with
not wearing a seatbelt is huge, and the regulation’s intrusion
on personal liberty is minor — no more than a slight inconvenience.
Hence, the laws may be justifiable on risk-reduction
grounds. Consider, by comparison, whether the government
could invoke risk as a legitimate basis for banning driving
after 1:00 a.m. Such behavior certainly presents a heightened
risk (late-night drivers are far more likely to fall asleep at the
wheel), but the magnitude of risk presented does not justify
the degree of liberty intrusion occasioned by the regulation.
Smoking bans look more like late-night driving bans than
mandatory seatbelt laws and thus likely cannot be justified
solely with reference to risk.

To see why this is so, we must first isolate the relevant risk.
Because public smoking bans do not prohibit smoking altogether
and may not even reduce its incidence, the risk the bans
aim to avert is not the risk to smokers themselves. It is instead
the risk to nonsmokers — i.e., the risks associated with inhalation
of ets. The key question, then, is whether these risks are
of sufficient magnitude to justify a significant intrusion on the
personal liberty of private business owners and their customers.
If one were to rely on the stated conclusions of federal
agencies (and/or the media reports discussing those conclusions),
one might conclude that the risks associated with
ets inhalation do justify significant liberty restrictions.
First consider the Environmental Protection Agency’s 1992
report, Respiratory Health Effects of Passive Smoking: Lung Cancer
and Other Disorders. That study, which concluded that ets
is a Class A (known human) carcinogen, purported to show
that inhalation of ets causes 3,000 lung cancer deaths per
year. Not surprisingly, the study fueled efforts to impose
smoking bans.

As it turns out, the study hardly amounted to sound science.
A congressional inquiry into the methods the epa used
in the study found that “the process at every turn [was] characterized
by both scientific and procedural irregularities,”
including “conflicts of interest by both Agency staff involved
in the preparation of the risk assessment and members of the
Science Advisory Board panel selected to provide a supposedly
independent evaluation of the document.” The congressional
inquiry further concluded that “the Agency ha[d] deliberately
abused and manipulated the scientific data in order to
reach a predetermined, politically motivated result.”

The findings of the epa’s 1992 study have also been undermined
by court opinion. Charged with evaluating the agency’s
risk assessment in determining that ets constitutes a Class A
carcinogen, a federal district judge in the case Flue-Cured Tobacco
Coop. Stabilization Corp. v. U.S. EPA criticized the agency’s
analysis in terms that can best be described as scathing. The
court concluded:

[The EPA] publicly committed to a conclusion before
research had begun; . . . adjusted established procedure and
scientific norms to validate the Agency’s public conclusion[;]
. . . disregarded information and made findings on selective
information; did not disseminate significant epidemiologic
information; deviated from its Risk Assessment Guidelines;
failed to disclose important findings and reasoning; and left
significant questions without answers.

Thus, the epa’s purported finding that ets poses a serious
cancer risk — a “finding” that has been extremely influential
in motivating state and local smoking bans throughout the
United States, should be discounted.

Apparently undeterred by these congressional and judicial
reprimands, the U.S. surgeon general recently released a
report entitled The Health Consequences of Involuntary Exposure
to Tobacco Smoke, which purports to settle once and for all the
debate over the risks of ets inhalation. In releasing the report,
Surgeon General Richard Carmona confidently proclaimed:
The scientific evidence is now indisputable: secondhand
smoke is not a mere annoyance. It is a serious health hazard
that can lead to disease and premature death in children
and nonsmoking adults.

In presenting the report, the surgeon general’s office
emphasized to the news media that even brief exposure to ets
poses immediate and significant health risks. The press release

accompanying the report stated that “there is no risk-free
level of exposure to secondhand smoke” and that “even brief
exposure to secondhand smoke has immediate adverse effects
on the cardiovascular system and increases risk for heart disease
and lung cancer.” In his remarks to the media, the surgeon
general stated, “Breathing secondhand smoke for even
a short time can damage cells and set the cancer process in
motion.” In a “fact sheet” accompanying the report, the surgeon
general explained, “Breathing secondhand smoke for
even a short time can have immediate adverse effects on the
cardiovascular system.” These and similar statements, faithfully
repeated by the news media, create the impression that
science has determined that simply being in a smoke-filled
room exposes one to significant health risks.

Examined closely, the surgeon general’s report established
no such proposition. The underlying studies upon which the
surgeon general’s report was based considered the effects of
chronic exposure to ets on individuals, such as long-time
spouses of smokers. The studies simply did not consider the
health effects of sporadic exposure to ets and thus cannot
provide empirical support for the surgeon general’s statements
about short-term ets exposure.

Moreover, those statements are theoretically unsound, for
they conflict with the basic toxicological principle that “the
dose makes the poison.” According to a study published in the
New England Journal of Medicine in 1975, when many more
individuals smoked and there were much higher ets concentrations
in public places, exposure to an hour’s worth of prevailing
levels of ets was equivalent to smoking 0.004 cigarettes.
Put differently, one would have to breathe smoke-filled
air for 4,000 hours in order to inhale as much tobacco smoke
as a smoker inhales in a single cigarette. Given those concentration
levels, it seems implausible that short-term exposure
to ets poses serious health risks. Possessing neither empirical
foundation nor theoretical plausibility, the Surgeon General’s
public statements about the health risks of brief exposure
to ets were misleading.

But what about the actual findings of the surgeon general’s
report, as opposed to the hyperbolic (and widely reported)
accompanying statements? Those findings — even taken
at face value — do not provide a risk-based rationale for highly
intrusive smoking bans. The report concludes that chronic
ets exposure increases the risks of lung cancer and heart
disease by 20 to 30 percent. While those numbers sound fairly
large, one must remember that the underlying risks of lung
cancer and heart disease in nonsmokers are quite small to
begin with. A 20 percent increase in a tiny risk is, well, really
tiny — certainly too tiny to justify the substantial liberty
infringement involved in smoking bans. Indeed, risk alone has
not justified a ban on smoking itself, an activity that increases
the risk of heart disease by 100 to 300 percent and that of
lung cancer by 900 percent. How, then, could a much smaller
risk justify highly intrusive regulation of the voluntary
actions of individuals gathered on private property?

This analysis even assumes that the conclusions of the surgeon
general’s report are accurate. In fact, they probably are
not. The report is a meta-analysis, meaning that the authors
did not collect their own epidemiological data but instead
combined the results of previously published ets studies.
Meta-analyses are useful analyses, but they are no more compelling
than the underlying studies upon which they are based.
In this case, the meta-analysis rests on findings from a number
of discredited studies, including the 1992 epa study. Moreover,
the analysis treats all studies equally, regardless of their
scope and rigor. A number of the underlying studies purporting
to document correlations between chronic ets exposure
and cancer or heart disease were quite small, and most
employed “case study” methodologies in which individuals
with diseases were polled regarding spousal smoking habits
or the presence of ets at their workplaces. A superior study
would involve a large number of subjects — some routinely
exposed to ets, some not — and would follow them over time.
This sort of “cohort study” is more difficult to perform than
after-the-fact case studies, but it is also more accurate.
In fact, an extremely large cohort study has recently been conducted.
In 2003, James Enstrom of UCLA and Geoffrey Kabat
of the State University of New York, Stony Brook, published a
study of the health histories of more than 35,000 never-smoking
Californians who were married to smokers. Using information
gathered by the American Cancer Society, the
researchers collected data on the never-smokers for 39 years
(from 1959 to 1998). Their investigation revealed no heightened
lung cancer risk among study subjects. In fact, the authors
found no “causal relationship between exposure to [ets] and
tobacco-related mortality,” though they acknowledged that “a
small effect” cannot be ruled out. Enstrom and Kabat’s massive
study, which has been vociferously criticized by anti-smoking
forces, was not even included in the surgeon general’s metaanalysis,
which covered only studies published through 2002.
The bottom line is that the research on ets reveals, at
most, that even chronic ets exposure creates only a negligible
absolute risk of cancer and heart disease. Advocates of
smoking bans must therefore base their risk arguments on
non-disease risks.

Some have acknowledged that the purported link between
ets and cancer or heart disease is dubious but have nonetheless
maintained that other health risks justify sweeping bans.
For example, Dr. Elizabeth Whelan of the pro-ban American
Council on Science and Health chastised her fellow ban advocates
for “threaten[ing]” their cause with “hyperbole about the
likely effects of ets” — i.e., claims that ets causes cancer and
heart disease. Maintaining that the advocates should have
“simply stated that ets caused irritation of the eyes, nose
and respiratory tract and aggravated preexisting asthma,” she
insisted, that “surely that is enough of a reason to justify the
protection of all workers” via a sweeping smoking ban.
Surely it is not. As noted above, paternalistic regulations
aimed solely at reducing risks, not at correcting a legitimate
market failure, are justifiable only when the risk is relatively
serious and the liberty intrusion occasioned by the regulation
is relatively minor. Here, the potential harms at issue (a greater
number of watery eyes and runny noses, and aggravation of
complications among asthmatics who voluntarily patronize
establishments where smoking is permitted) do not seem
great enough to justify a governmental command that private
business owners force their invitees to refrain from an activity
that affects only other invitees. Hence, widespread smoking
bans are not justifiable solely on risk-based grounds.

THE SUPERIORITY OF LAISSEZ-FAIRE

Controversies over smoking in public places are ultimately
controversies over property rights. Does a smoker have the
right to fill the air with his or her smoke, or do nonsmokers
have the right to smoke-free air? In other words, who “owns”
the air? A smoking ban effectively gives nonsmoking patrons
the right to the air. By contrast, the laissez-faire approach effectively
permits the owner of the establishment to determine the
proper allocation of air rights within his or her space. The
owner may choose to give the rights to smoking patrons (by
permitting smoking), nonsmokers (by banning smoking), or
to try to accommodate both by designating some parts of the
establishment nonsmoking but permitting smoking elsewhere
within the space.

However owners allocate the right to air among smokers
and nonsmokers, there will be some “winners” whose preferred
policy is adopted and whose happiness is therefore increased,
and some “losers” whose preferred policy is rejected and whose
happiness is therefore diminished. There is thus, as Ronald
Coase explained, an unavoidable reciprocal harm inherent in
any allocation of the right to the indoor air at issue. Adoption
of a smoking-permitted policy harms nonsmokers, but adoption
of a no-smoking policy harms smokers.

In light of this unavoidable, reciprocal harm, social welfare
would be maximized if smoking policies were set to favor the
group whose total happiness would be most enhanced by
implementation of its favored policy. So, if smoking customers
value the right to smoke in a particular place more
than nonsmoking customers value the right to be free from
such smoke, that place should allow smoking. Conversely, if
nonsmoking patrons value an establishment’s clean air more
than smoking patrons value the right to light up, the establishment
should ban smoking.

It should thus be clear why a laissez-faire approach of permitting
establishment owners to set their own smoking policies
will create more welfare than a ban on smoking in public
places. Under the laissez-faire approach, a business owner,
seeking to maximize his or her profits, will set the establishment’s
smoking policy to accommodate the patrons who most
value their preferred policy (and thus are most willing to pay
a premium to be in the proprietor’s space). This will result in
a variety of smoking policies at different establishments, as
business owners respond to the preferences of their customers.
Under a smoking ban, by contrast, business owners are
not permitted to cater to smoking patrons’ demands even
when those patrons value the right to smoke more than nonsmoking
patrons (and employees) value the right to be free
from smoke. A smoking ban, then, is less likely to maximize
social welfare than a laissez-faire approach, which ensures
that the right to any particular public place’s air is allocated
to the group that values it most.

CONCLUSION

Government-imposed smoking bans are unwise. Considered
closely, the arguments used to justify them falter. The externality
argument fails because indoor smoking creates, at worst,
a pecuniary externality that will be mitigated by the price
mechanism. Preference-shaping arguments are weak because
heavy-handed government restrictions create a substantial
risk of “norm backlash.” Risk-based arguments are insufficient
because the slight risks associated with ets cannot justify the
substantial privacy intrusion occasioned by sweeping smoking
bans. In the end, a laissez-faire policy that would permit
private business owners to tailor their own smoking policies
according to the demands of their patrons is most likely to
maximize social welfare by providing an optimal allocation of
both smoking and smoke-free establishments.

Readings:
■ “The Anti-Tobacco Campaign of the Nazis:
A Little Known Aspect of Public Health in
Germany, 1933–45,” by Robert N. Proctor.
British Medical Journal, Vol. 313 (1996).
■ “Concentrations of Nicotine and Tobacco
Smoke in Public Places,” by W. C. Hinds and
M. W. First. New England Journal of Medicine,
Vol. 292 (1975).
■ “Environmental Tobacco Smoke and
Tobacco-Related Mortality in a Prospective
Study of Californians, 1960-98,” by James E.
Enstrom and Geoffrey C. Kabat. British
Journal of Medicine, Vol. 326 (2003).
Gentle Nudges vs. Hard Shoves: Solving the
Sticky Norms Problem,” by Dan M. Kahan.
University of Chicago Law Review, Vol. 67 (2000).
■ The Health Care Costs of Smoking, by
Jan J. Barendregt et al. New England Journal of
Medicine, Vol. 337 (1997).
■ “Willingness to Pay vs. Willingness to
Accept: Legal and Economic Implications,”
by Elizabeth Hoffman and Matthew L.
Spitzer. Washington University Law Quarterly,
Vol. 71 (1993).

[Hajo Flettner]

Readers should please note that I posted this article because I think it is excellent and has many points we all should consider. My posting this article does not mean that I embrace libertarianism or that I have any connection with the Cato Institute.

[Hajo Flettner]

By Lauren A. Colby

October 27, 1996


In mid-October, tobacco stocks took a hit on the New York Stock exchange, on the announcement that a team of researchers had found the exact mechanism by which smoking "causes lung cancer". Tobacco industry executives were even reported, by the Wall Street Journal, to be ready to concede that there was a direct cause and effect relationship between smoking and lung cancer.

All of this panic was based upon a single article, published in Science magazine under the title, "preferential Formation of Benzo[a]pyrene Adducts at Lung Cancer Mutational Hotspots in P53", and authored by Dennisenko, Pao and Tang. Apparently, nobody read the original article with a critical eye because, if they had done so, it would be apparent, to put it charitably, that the study described in the article is underwhelming.

The authors of the article start out by pointing out that, in about 60% of lung cancer cases, there is mutational damage to the p53 gene, the so-called "guardian angel gene", which is thought by some to prevent cancer from developing. This is another way of saying, of course, that in 40% of lung cancer cases, there is no damage to the gene, meaning that people can get lung cancer even if their p53 genes are in perfect condition.

The authors did not study any actual human lung cancers. Rather, they studied cultured human cells. They exposed these cells to a "metabolite" of benzo(a)pyrene (BAP), benzo(a)pyrene diolepoxide (BAPDE). They then tested the cells for mutational damage, and claim to have found mutations at certain locations on the genes, similar to the ones found in 60% of lung cancer cases.

Before going any further, let's look at that word "metabolite". A metabolite is a substance produced by the process of metabolism in the human body. Metabolisis takes place in the gut and the liver, and the products of metabolisis flow into the bloodstream where they reach the lungs, during the process of re-oxygenation. BAP is a ubiquitous substance, produced by the combustion of vegetation and fossil fuels, and by burnt food. Earlier studies have shown that better than 90% of the BAP consumed by humans, even human smokers, comes from the food supply. The authors of the study apparently concede that BAP, in and of itself is not terribly carcinogenic (although, like any irritating substance, it will produce skin cancers in specially bred "nude mice"); it must be converted to BAPDE. There is no evidence that the lungs, themselves, can metabolize BAP into BAPDE. Even if they could, the amount of BAP reaching the lungs from cigarette smoke is dwarfed by the amount reaching the lungs in the blood supply (and already metabolized into BAPDE) from consumption of burnt food. Thus, at the outset, the study appears flawed. However, it gets worse!

Not having any humans to work with, the authors of the study compared the mutations which they had induced with specimens of DNA taken from a gene data base, compiled by others. Now, if the goal of the study was to prove that BAP from smoking causes lung cancer (and that was, indeed, the goal), it would seem to be scientifically necessary to compare the genes of smokers who fall victim to lung cancer with those of non-smokers who fall victim to the disease. Such a comparison would show whether lung cancer in smokers has a different etiology (cause) than in non-smokers.

The authors of the study, however, deliberately excluded from the study any DNA samples obtained from non-smokers or from "radon associated cancers". They did not say how they knew whether any particular samples came from non-smokers or were "radon associated"; apparently they took the word of the people who complied the data base. The point is, however, that while all experiments should always be controlled, these authors deliberately threw out the controls!

The authors make the astonishing statement that "This study provides a direct link between a defined cigarette smoke carcinogen and human cancer mutations". I say "astonishing", because the study dealt with BAPDE, not BAP, and there is no BAPDE in cigarette smoke. Thus, at best, the study could claim only an "indirect link". But, because the of the failure to take into account the BAP consumed in food, it isn't possible to claim even an "indirect link". The study could just as well be said to prove an indirect link between the consumption of burnt food and lung cancer. However, it doesn't prove even that, because (a) it does not explain lung cancer in the 40% of victims who have no p53 gene damage and ( the authors compared their results with DNA samples which they selectively picked and chose, throwing out which they deemed to be "radon associated" or from non-smokers (free translation: throwing out those that would not have validated their conclusions).

[Hajo Flettner]

My attempts at arousing some interest in bogus science underlying the anti-tobacco lobby failed miserably as did my attempts to refute the arguments underlying smoking bans. So it’s time to try another tactic to raise matters that need to be considered.

I suppose we all have been told about the horrid dangers of tobacco for so long that nearly all of use are willing to accept, or at least not challenge, that tobacco is as bad as we have been told it is or perhaps we could care less because we intend to enjoy it regardless. The problem is that this kind of attitude neglects the fact that supposed expert scientific opinion when promoted by mass media and government effects how pretty much everyone views the world around them which in turn shapes government policies.

Right now tobacco products of all kinds (even shisha) are heavily regulated throughout all of the Western world. Tobacco products (even shisha) are among the most heavily taxed consumer products world wide meaning that our choices for entertainment cost far more then any other, save perhaps alcohol, because of the kind of horribly biased research I posted about before.

An entire industry exists for the express purpose of suppressing and demonizing all forms of tobacco consumption and production (even shisha) and that industry is heavily dependant upon your tax dollars. In other words, you are forced to pay for the privilege of being criticized for your choice of a pass time. Shisha smokers are being forced to pay the anti-tobacco industry to indoctrinate themselves and the public into supporting ever greater restrictions on our freedom to consume tobacco in any form including shisha. You are forced to pay for the demonization of the companies you choose to support (even shisha manufacturers) and yet that is just the tip of the iceberg of the consequences of the research I mentioned earlier.

Public bans on tobacco use are so common that it seems doubtful that public consumption will be allowed anywhere in the Western world within the next 10 years. In case it has slipped anyone’s mind, those bans often do apply to shisha consumption as well. In California smoking bans have been extended to some private residences as well as cars with minors in them and it seems just a matter of time before such draconian restrictions are applied to other states.

Still, none these developments, or the arguments against such measures, seem to have sparked much interest here. I suppose that most of us smoke at home or we live in an area that has not been hit with a local ordinance that’s shut down our favorite hookah lounge. Yet the reality is that those fortunate enough to not be facing harsh restrictions soon will be. That is why I say we no longer have the luxury of being complacent. In the U.K. and several other European nations a strong push is underway to deny national health care benefits to tobacco users and I have yet hear anyone suggest that some sort of exception will be made for hookah smokers. In the U.S. several companies have decided to deny health insurance to tobacco users while private insurance costs for tobacco users are far in excess of actual health risks when coverage is provided at all. Again, no insurance company offers discounts for shisha smokers. I suppose we all better abandon our hookahs, hope we never need health care or stop being complacent.

Those of you that have children or might want to have them someday my be interested to know that in several countries, and occasionally in the U.S., tobacco consumption is a factor in cases involving custody and child abuse/neglect cases. I am aware of no case of judicial leniency being granted for shisha smokers. I suppose that if you use tobacco you better hope that you never have marital problems.

The public at large could, at best, care less about these matters or view them as positive. The government of basically every Western nation, the mass media and a the very influential anti-tobacco has institutional clout that is gaining momentum meaning things will get worse.

Yet the truth is that the anti-tobacco lobby wouldn’t be satisfied with even a uniform application of the harshest laws enacted currently. What we are ultimately looking at prohibition. When I say prohibition I don’t just simple banishment, although some tobacco prohibitionists demand just that, but defacto banishment via stratospheric taxes or declaring tobacco a controlled substance like various narcotics as well. If you think that such a prohibition is unlikely or somehow won’t effect shisha you are delusional.

The best way to make sure that something you don’t want to happen occurs is to do nothing in defense of your interests.

[Drake BBNR]

Haha, wow, way to deep for me. I'll just stay out of all that and keep smoking my hookah.

[Zerodynamic]

i agree! As someone who competes in academic debate, I'll add my analysis.

First and foremost, why all of these bans being implented? There is a general concensus that tobacco is bad. But most people forget that they still have the option of using tobacco, they just might have to make some sacrifices, like free healthcare.

In debate, this is called the "even-if" theory. Even if there are still restrictions on tobacco, people will still smoke it. The only other alternative is not to smoke. That is an alternative smokers and tobacco companies cannot accept. We need our nicotine fix, whether to feed an addiction or for pleasure, and the companies want to provide us with this commodity as it is cheap to produce, readily avaliable, and most PROFITABLE.

Lets go back to why its being banned. Currently there is over 20 years of public proof that tobbaco causes cancer, and classifed tobbaco documents going back to the 1960's stating that it could cause cancer. Hell even King James I of England considered tobacco "harmful to the brain and dangerous to the lungs" in the 1620's. Its obvious that there is overwhelming evidence tobacco, but futhermore, the politicans in power have to impose these laws. For example, a natural deterant to these laws would be tobbaco lobbying. But politicans cannot accept the money, cause it would look bad, right? You Mr. Whatsyourface accepted $100,000 from Phillip Morris, a company that happens to make its money off of the same customers that kills. Re-election? I think not.

So if the politicans cannot be bought, its very simple what we hookah smokers must do.. differienate hookah tobbaco from cigerette tobacco. We get it all the time. "dude, don't smoke that inside, it'll stink up the house." or "No I don't want to sick from the nasty taste" or some crap like that. Thats the only way we would be able to keep our tobbaco, otherwise we would have to vindicate cigerettes too. No matter how much money the tobbaco industry currently has, it can only be spent to indirectly influence you and I. They cannot directly spend their money on legislation, b/c it would deemed as "wrong" and "immoral" that the tobacco industry is only proprogating futher death.


Sorry, thats just my 2 cents. I was at a debate tournament all day, so I'm kinda in argument mode. Hopefully all that makes sense.

[ghostofdavid]

Rallying against tobacco seems like the new form of prohibition, only without the dispensational millenial theology associated with it. Also, I've yet to get a buzz from my shisha and rob a bank. YET.