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Smoking issues
Published October 20, 2005


Shall we put this smoking issue in perspective?

Smoke from a handful of crushed leaves and some paper, mixed with the air of a well-ventilated venue is dangerous to your health?

If anybody believes that, then I have a bridge I would like to sell them.

It is not about health and it never was about health. It is all about de-normalizing smoking.

Unfortunately, the hospitality sector is caught in the crossfire.

Thomas Laprade

Thunder Bay, Ontario



Copyright © 2005, Chicago Tribune

Great letter! It puts everything in terms even the most dense layperson can understand.

....pithy, clever, thought-provoking and to the point.....good stuff...; letters to the editor are one of the few means to reach out to thousands with the truth about the dangers of smoking; one of the few ways to fight the nannies and the politiclly correct press that support them....I get a letter to the editor published 3 or 4 times a year in one of the 2 major Denver newspapers....

E-mail your letters to me and the topic that you are writing about. I like to put your letters in my Blog

Thanks

hm.

quote:

Smoke from a handful of crushed leaves and some paper, mixed with the air of a well-ventilated venue is dangerous to your health?

You make it sound so innocent.

Unfortunately, there isnt much interest in any ole' crushed leaf.

Unfortunately, there seems to be interest in one particular leaf.

Unfortunately, this leaf seems to contain over 4000 chemicals and 19 carcinogens.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Aaron,

quote:

Originally posted by Aaron:
hm.

quote:

Smoke from a handful of crushed leaves and some paper, mixed with the air of a well-ventilated venue is dangerous to your health?

You make it sound so innocent.

Unfortunately, there isnt much interest in any ole' crushed leaf.

Unfortunately, there seems to be interest in one particular leaf.

Unfortunately, this leaf seems to contain over 4000 chemicals and 19 carcinogens.

Yeah, almost the same amount of chemicals found in a char-broiled steak. Wash it down with the 13-19 carcinogens found in coffee and all of a sudden those chemicals don't seem so scary to anyone.

Shoe on the other foot

AAron - California is thinking of banning baking bread because of the supposed carcinogens produced in the baking process. How long has bread been baked on this planet and for what reason?

Please actually read the information on the studies at http://www.Forces.org. In terms of the 4000 number read the OSHA study that shows how many cigarettes would be required to raise the contamination to an unsafe level for each of the major components. You can't get that many people in a space to meet those levels.

Thanks for that link Bruce.

Thats a good source.

Bruce, I'd like to clarify what California is doing regarding baked food items. Back in the 1980's the good (and hysterical) citizens of California passed an initiative that required so-called public places to post signs warning the public about carcinogenic substances that are on the premises. Most often the warning is an all purpose "this establishment uses chemicals that may cause cancer". I don't have the exact verbiage. You see these signs in auto body shops, parking garages, etc. Particular food items - at the time they were focusing on alcohol - also must carry a warning. One sees idiotic warnings in restaurants and grocery stores warning about carcinogenic booze. As with all government programs the list has expanded.

After the war on obesity began a few years ago some researchers in Sweden released a study that found acrylamide, a cancer causing chemical, was created in the process of cooking. It appears in french fries and potato chips, both on the anti-fat hit list. Steve Milloy was thoroughly debunked the acrylamide research but, as with secondhand smoke, the media and nannies have embraced the con with open arms.

California's attorney general, firmly in the pocket of trial lawyers, health fanatics and anti-smoking zealots, is suing some food providers because they are not pasting warnings on their products or putting up signs in their eating establishments. In my opinion the reason the nannies want to require warnings on fast food is so that the lawyers will have a state-sanctioned basis on which to sue. I note that the attorney general's suit is selectively directed at only fast food type items. Acrylamide occurs, as you noted, in baked bread and many other items including olives! Only fast food is in the cross hairs.