Full Version: Surgeon General's Report On Second Hand Smoke
Here's the story:
Link
To be debated:
Does this new report justify banning indoor smoking in workplaces and public buildings?
Link
QUOTE
Separate smoking sections don’t cut it: Only smoke-free buildings and public places truly protect nonsmokers from the hazards of breathing in other people’s tobacco smoke, says a long-awaited surgeon general’s report.
Some 126 million nonsmokers are exposed to secondhand smoke, what U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona repeatedly calls “involuntary smoking” that puts people at increased risk of death from lung cancer, heart disease and other illnesses.
Moreover, there is no risk-free level of exposure to someone else’s drifting smoke, declares the report issued Tuesday — a conclusion sure to fuel already growing efforts at public smoking bans nationwide. Fourteen states have passed what are considered comprehensive smoke-free workplace laws, those that include restaurants and bars.
Some 126 million nonsmokers are exposed to secondhand smoke, what U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona repeatedly calls “involuntary smoking” that puts people at increased risk of death from lung cancer, heart disease and other illnesses.
Moreover, there is no risk-free level of exposure to someone else’s drifting smoke, declares the report issued Tuesday — a conclusion sure to fuel already growing efforts at public smoking bans nationwide. Fourteen states have passed what are considered comprehensive smoke-free workplace laws, those that include restaurants and bars.
To be debated:
Does this new report justify banning indoor smoking in workplaces and public buildings?
QUOTE(Victoria Silverwolf @ Jun 29 2006, 06:07 AM) 
Does this new report justify banning indoor smoking in workplaces and public buildings?
This isn't a "new report".
QUOTE
The report won't surprise doctors. It isn’t a new study but a compilation of the best research on secondhand smoke, the most comprehensive federal probe since the last surgeon general’s report on the topic in 1986, which declared secondhand smoke a cause of lung cancer in nonsmokers.
The "best" research.
This new report relies partially on a link found in a study between second hand smoke and breast cancer. Except, that link has not been found in other studies. I guess they aren't the "best" research.
No study has ever proven a link between outdoor second hand smoke and increased risk of disease.
QUOTE(MSNBC article)
"There is no longer a scientific controversy that secondhand smoke is a killer," he said. "The report eliminates any excuse from any state or city for taking halfway measures to restrict smoking, or permitting smoking in any indoor workplace."
Where have I heard that line before?
At least the report said one thing that makes sense:
QUOTE
On the plus side, blood measurements of a nicotine byproduct show that exposure to secondhand smoke has decreased. Levels dropped by 75 percent in adults and 68 percent in children between the early 1990s and 2002.
Exposure to second hand smoke (as measured by nicotine blood byproducts) has dropped by a huge percentage in the last 10 years. Without onerous bans on smoking habits. What worked is common courtesy and raising people's awareness.
I am a non-smoker. I don't want the government telling me or anyone else where I can partake of a legal substance. If you want to ban tobacco, be my guest. But that is a political question. If smoking is that bad, let's ban it, not dance around the issue and tell people "Here is okay, but not over here." It's baloney.
To answer the question, there isn't anything new in this "report". I know of virtually no workplaces that allow indoor smoking, except bars and restaurants. The patrons there want to smoke and the workers accept the risk (and the reward) of working there.
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