Smoking Ban part 2, original by Timber Loftis

[WillowIX]

Originally posted by Thorfinn: 1. What is the level at which benzene (for instance) becomes a risk, and a risk of what? #The major effect of benzene from long-term (365 days or longer) exposure is on the blood. Benzene causes harmful effects on the bone marrow and can cause a decrease in red blood cells leading to anemia. It can also cause excessive bleeding and can affect the immune system, increasing the chance for infection. The Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) has determined that benzene is a known human carcinogen. Long-term exposure to high levels of benzene in the air can cause leukemia, cancer of the blood-forming organs. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has set a permissible exposure limit of 1 part of benzene per million parts of air (1 ppm) in the workplace during an 8-hour workday, 40-hour workweek.# From the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. 2. How much benzene is in passive smoke? "The level found in sidestream smoke was 222-313 µg/cigarette." From I don't know really. The references were not numbered which makes it difficult for me to say which reference it is. I think it's from "British Columbia Ministry of Health. Results by smoking conditions and smoke constituents." A simple google would have given you your answer Thorfinn.

Originally posted by Cerek: In one case, the rights of the individual supercedes the rights of the majority, in the other case it is the exact opposite.

So? Could it be that people actually are worried about their own health? I sure am, and if a smoker sits next to me I instantly ask him/her to put it out. Respect. A simple word with so much meaning. Unfortunately a lot of people do not know the meaning of the word.

Edit: Bah, those dang tags.

[ 05-13-2003, 05:54 AM: Message edited by: WillowIX ]

[WillowIX]

Originally posted by Cerek the Barbaric: Forgive me for making 3 consecutive posts, but I just spent almost 3 hours reading ALL 266 posts in BOTH threads before making my first response, so I feel I'm entitled. Not sure if I believe that. [img]tongue.gif[/img] j/k For the record, I am a dedicated non-smoker. I've never taken a single puff off one - not even out of curiosity. But I've been around it all my life because both of my parents smoke (as well as several other family members). I have suffered NO adverse side effects from growing up in a house of smokers. I do have severe sinus attacks sometimes, but these are caused by naturally occurring pollen. Admittedly, cigarette smoke aggravates my sinuses during these attacks, but it does not CAUSE the attacks itself. I'm sorry to bust your bubble but you can not with certainty say that. Effects from second hand smoke will take a VERY long time to assert themselves. I am talking about 30+ years. You see a tumor does not appear after one mutation. It takes at least 3 mutations for a tumor to develop. I am not trying to "scare" you in any way Cerek. [img]smile.gif[/img] *snip since I addressed the last part in another post*

[Donut]

[quote]Originally posted by Cerek the Barbaric:

Then why don't YOU walk the 5 yards outside and wait 5 minutes while your mates finish thier cigs? Since the pub allows smoking and you choose to go there anyway, that seems like a reasonable solution. That way, everybody really IS happy. Your mates get to enjoy their cigs and you get a few minutes of nice fresh air.

There is no break Cerek. It isn't just 5 minutes, there is always someone smoking. It in incessant.

Still, it will soon be summer and we can have the door open. BTW, there is no air conditioning.

[Cerek the Barbaric]

Originally posted by Thorfinn: BTW, I had only one quibble with your posts -- that thing about people being "entitled" to health care. I know that the state currently says that people are entitled to health care, but I believe that law is immoral. If someone is entitled to health care, that means that someone else is forced to provide that health care at no cost if need be, and no one should be able to force another to labor for him -- that is slavery. I think people are no more entitled to health care than they are entitled to a Corvette...

{SIDEBAR}I agree in theory Thorfinn. In fact, it is this very fact that is most likely going to cause the small rural hospital where I work to be closed within the year. [img]graemlins/verysad.gif[/img] Our demographic population consists of several older people and retiree's, who will have Medicaire. While the reimbursement received from Medicaire (and Medicaid for the younger county residents) is pitifully low (less than .50c on the dollar), at least we can depend on receiving at least that amount for services rendered.

The real problem for our little hospital is the increase in patients that are "private pay". Which means they have regular "commercial" health insurance or no insurance at all and are responsible for the bulk of their bill themselves. This group is notorious for paying absolutely nothing for the health care they receive. But since we are a public hospital, we cannot deny service to any person - even if it is one of our "regulars" that come to the ER at least once a month without ever paying one red cent.

The only hospitals that can deny health care are private hospitals, but I'm not sure how often they would actually enforce the policy because of the backlash of negative publicity such a policy would create.

[LordKathen]

Originally posted by LordKathen: Very eloquant Cerek. [img]graemlins/awesomework.gif[/img] I had a thought. What may happen to all the smokers, smoking outside the bar at sporadic times crowding the sidewalk, loitering, making noise outside, bothering people walking inicently through a cloud of smoke. Will they next completly ban smoking within sight of the public? Maybe leaving their butts all over the place. They will then probly force the bar to hire security to patrol the croud hanging around drunk outside cousing a ruckis.

Hello? Did anyone read this, or is my cigarette bothering you? [img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img] j/k
Seriously, what do you think? Nobody has addressed this.

[LordKathen]

I feel kinda funny after quoting myself....Wait, thats just the cig. Nevermind. [img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img]

[Cloudbringer]

Originally posted by Larry_OHF: My grandmother died of Lung Cancer, due to smoking. I learned in this whole ordeal that women are more likely to develop lung cancer than men are, due to genetics that I really do not understand well enough to explain... One good thing came of her death... her son, my father, stopped smoking the day she died. The change in his health is very noticeable. Bottom line...smoking is kinda like suicide. Second-hand smoke could be considered involuntary manslaughter!

My grandfather died of lung cancer as well. He started smoking in his teens and only quit a year or so before he died, when my grandmother's latest stroke was bad enough to keep him from even smoking in another part of the house.

I learned that the addiction is pretty severe for some folk....my dad, even knowing his father's cancer was from smoking, and being pretty worried about it, didn't quit for several years.

[Desdicado]

Wow this thread really has grown arms and legs as we say in Scotland.
I guess we need somewhere to vent our spleen now the Iraq forum is closed.

It is getting heated isn't it, with Nazi comments flying about?.

Well here's one for you, who has killed more than the Nazis ever did and is continuing to blight lives all over the world, particularly now in the 3rd world?. Yes you got it the Tobacco companies.

If it was up to me I'd prosecute them like crack dealers, really that's all they are, legal drug dealers getting fat from the profits from other peoples misery.
Both my maternal Grandparents died from smoking related illness, when they were young adverts told you to smoke if you had a sore throat, I'm not kidding. I have a real disgust and antipathy towards tobacco companies. When he was young my grandad could lift a full grown man with his teeth, he was a bodybuilder like me, when very few were. Even in his 40s he could lift like this, he ran 10 miles most days with his dog.
When he was retired he couldn't walk to the end of the street, all due to smoking.

When I see someone smoking nowadays I usually think 2 things, just a gut reaction really, they either have no will power or they have no self respect.

I can't respect people who smoke as they don't respect themselves.

[ 05-13-2003, 07:45 AM: Message edited by: Desdicado ]

[LordKathen]

Originally posted by Desdicado: When I see someone smoking nowadays I usually think 2 things, just a gut reaction really, they either have no will power or they have no self respect. I can't respect people who smoke as they don't respect themselves.

Thats only your opinion. BTW

[Thorfinn]

Thanks for the data, Willow, but you do realize that as one of those wanting to restrict the freedom of others, this should have been your burden of proof anyway. I shouldn't have to prove a negative -- you should have to show a harm.

But let me run with the numbers quickly and see if there is a problem.

Let's take a rather smallish bar, 30'x30' with a 10' ceiling. For ease of use, let's switch to the rough metric equivalents, 10m x 10m with a 3m ceiling, or 300 m^3

Now, since we have the sidestream in micrograms per grit, and a PEL in ppms, we need to find the mass of air in the room. Air has a molecular weight of 29, and there are 22.4 l/mol, so some quick data crunching shows that there are 3.9*10^5 g of air in that hypothetical bar. One ppm is permissible, so that means we are allowed 3.9*10^5 micrograms of benzene in that bar.

Now divide 3.9*10^5 micrograms by 313 micrograms per cigarette (error on the side of safety, right?) and we find that this small bar's patrons have to smoke 1240 cigarettes, or 62 packs. Any less than this and you are still at the permissible exposure limit. Staying in there 8 hours at a time.

Recall also that this assumes no filtration, no circulation, no uptake of benzene by living tissues. And if there is no uptake, of course, there is no problem anyway. So the amount would have to be less, even in a hermetically sealed room.

Let's say you have 20 people in this small bar. Each needs to smoke slightly more than three packs right off the bat, then you all have to sit in the bar for the next 8 hours, without opening the doors.

Come on. This is ludicrous. The smoke from 62 packs in that small of a room would have anyone's eyes running off their face, and you are still at the 8 hours per day, 5 days per week, 30 years permissible exposure level of benzene.

Now, all you anti-smokers, you do the number crunching, and come up with one, just one, sidestream component that is a real possibility of being a threat. Don't make me do your work for you.