Smoking bans in public places - how are they doing?

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Originally posted by Matthew Robinson:
"Tell what to Roy Castle?"

He died of lung cancer from playing in jazz bands at a time when everyone smoked and therefore is presumed to be a victim of passive smoking.

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i think there's enough reasonable evidence to suggest that was the case, although it cannot be proven.
smoking is an unsociable, filthy habit.
regardless of anything else, why should non-smokers be subjected to the fumes from cigarettes in public places?
yes, it's a free country and all that, but just as it's the smokers right to smoke, it's also the non-smokers right to breathe fresh air.
the undisputable fact is when smokers smoke out with the confines of their homes and go into the public domain, in doing so non-smokers lose the right to breathe air devoid of cigarette fumes, particularly in enclosed environments like pubs and restaurants.
it's very much like the effect inconsiderate road users have on others, being discussed on another thread, their selfishness and lack of consideration has a negative impact on the lives of everyone else.
i'm pissed off at going home after a night out in town and my clothes stinking of fag smoke, not to mention what 'poison' I might have inadvertently inhaled in the process!!!

TN

domfjbrown - as you are already addicted to smoking, you recognise all too well one of the unpleasant side effects on the environment - namely smelly clothes etc. Indeed, you find it so objectionable that you don't even smoke in your own house! So therefore can't you see why some people would like to see this banned in pubs and bars etc?
Entertaining posts by the way!
Cheers
Simon

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Hactually, according to a Reader's Digest article of at least 8 years ago, they reckoned that parents who smoke inadvertently conditioned their children to smoke, as the child would associate smoke with security from a VERY early age, and thus when older would potentially turn to smoking due to this odd conditioning.

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Both my parents smoked whilst my brother and I were young and we both hated the smell. Neither of us have ever smoked and we hate the smell now. Perhaps the smell, early on in age, conditioned both of us to find the habit repulsive.

Regardless of the smell, I would never smoke for the simple fact that it damages your health. It amazes me that so many people continue to smoke when they know that every puff is knocking time off their life.

Both my my parents haven't smoked for twenty years, because we used to nag them every day.

Rockindoc said " Even though I'm non-smoker, I have no real objection to smoking in public places"

I was suprised when a doctor said that. I would have thought after seeing endless patients over the years with smoking related diseases, that you would have had no tolerance for the habit whatsoever.

Matthew,

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We know smoking causes cancer on the basis of epidemilogical studies. The linked website (and again I stress that I am not qualified to say if it is correct and Joe's wife who is says he is a "wanker iwth an agenda") says that two major NGO studies should no evidence for a link. So if those studies and their interpretation by the website are correct you would actually be stupid to believe that passive smoking does cause cancer.

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I admit to being too lazy to check out the various links posted earlier but what I understand from what has been said is that the result was a 16% increased risk with a 95% confidence interval from 0.94 to 1.44 [Paul Ranson].

It's difficult to know what to say other than to repeat what I said before in more detail: smoking is known to cause cancer, therefore in the absence of evidence to the contrary it is safest to assume that passive smoking causes cancer. To say that one should not assume this is to be like the nuclear engineers of a previous generation who said, "who have no proof that radiation below a certain level is harmful therefore we'll assume it isn't harmful until we do have proof".

As for the research I have no idea what research has been conducted, or how, but it seems a particularly difficult thing to study. If the best available research shows that passive smoking may cause a 16% increase in cancer then the possibility that it is correct is too serious to ignore. After all, the choice of the 95% confidence interval is arbitrary - it is just a matter of convention.

Like you, I would be interested to know if there is proof to the accepted standard [i.e. within the 95% CI] that passive smoking causes cancer but I cannot understand how you could think it stupid to assume, for now, that passive smoking causes cancer. If it later turns out that passive smoking actually has a small preventive effect, I won't lose any sleep over it...

BrainD said "Thanks Matthew. I get it now. 116 instead of 100"

Actually "116 instead of 100" is not correct. Rather the correct conclusion is "It is equally likely to have no effect on rates of lung cancer as it is to cause a 16% increase" (At least that is my understanding).

"regardless of anything else, why should non-smokers be subjected to the fumes from cigarettes in public places?"

Becuase the freedom of choice arumnet cuts both ways and the de facto state is that smokers already enjoy rights to smoke in public places where the proprietor allows it.

"it's very much like the effect inconsiderate road users have on others"

The crucial difference is that being hit by a car definitiely affectsd your health. A better analogy (if one assumes the health case not ot be proven) would be try to ban ugly cars in lurid colours on the grounds that it is anti-social and unpleasant.

Like I said, my view is that a ban can only be justified on health grounds. If there is good evidence that it harms people then it should obviously be banned.

Matthew

"but I cannot understand how you could think it stupid, for now, to assume that passive smoking causes cancer"

Becuase if (as the link claims) the two most quoted studies showed that there was no link then you are denying the evidence and might just as well have gone with the intuitive feeling that it probably is dangerous. I tend to think of ignoring the science as wrong and was just echoing your choice of word in calling it stupid.

It is of course an enirely reasonable assumption that passive smoking might be dangerous.

Matthew

Matthew,

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Actually "116 instead of 100" is not correct. Rather the correct conclusion is "It is equally likely to have no effect on rates of lung cancer as it is to cause a 16% increase".

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Are you sure this is correct? We seem to be able to say is that there is a 95% chance that the figure is somewhere between -6% and 44%.

[I hope your realise how daring it is of me, as a supposed maths student, to potentially reveal my statistical confusedness!]

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Becuase if (as the link claims) the two most quoted studies showed that there was no link...

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Oh! I thought they had failed to show a link to the standard of the 95% CI, which is quite another matter. Failing to show a link and showing that there is no link are two quite different things.

So they claim to have a result with a 95% CI that shows there is no link? I'm getting really confused now - poor me!

Sorry, I'm out of here - back another day.

Veering off the road a bit I found http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/short/336/7/453 interesting for another example of where evidence doesn't guide law making...

And relatedly http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/abstract/344/2/79

Good examples of the presentation of figures.

I'm pretty sure that the main reason for agitating to ban smoking in privately owned 'public places' is that it's OK to dislike smokers and discriminate against them. Bear in mind that the studies quoted up this thread relate to living with a smoker rather than sitting across the room from one for a couple of hours every week or so, and that there's a strong link between dose and risk with tobacco smoke, and I think there's no good health reason to force changes to pubs.

There's an extremely good health reason to ban tobacco outright, or to make moves in that direction. I'm opposed to banning sponsorship or advertising, the health warnings and the irritating public information films, it's all so hypocritical. Just phase tobacco out. Cut lung cancer by 90%, all cancer by 30%, where's the argument against?

Paul

"We seem to be able to say is that there is a 95% chance that the figure is somewhere between -6% and 44%"

And that all those figures are equally likely. Or something. Like I said I barely understand the mathe and certainly not the science.

But the point (or rather his point) is that these numbers in these studies (which in the case of the EPA report is a meta-analysis of other studies) found no statistical evidence of a risk -- so say that the figures indicate a increase in cancer cases of 16% is wrong (or at least not justified).

"Failing to show a link and showing that there is no link are two quite different things"

Yes I understand the disctinction -- his point is that if at least two large scale studies found no evidence then its looking like on the balance of probabilities there is no increased risk. Of course he might be wrong (he might be a wanker with an agenda) and there might well be other studies that do show there is a link .

Matthew

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Originally posted by Simon Perry:
domfjbrown - as you are already addicted to smoking, you recognise all too well one of the unpleasant side effects on the environment - namely smelly clothes etc. Indeed, you find it so objectionable that you don't even smoke in your own house! So therefore can't you see why some people would like to see this banned in pubs and bars etc?

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Simon - yeah, I can understand, but it's not like people HAVE to go to the pub or whatever. Stale smoke though IS disgusting - I fail to see how any smoker could actually LIKE that smell. Stale tailor-made smoke is the worst - rollies aren't as bad.

I'm not PHYSICALLY addicted to smoking; I can go days without a smoke. It's the mental conditioning of pub/beer/smoke that I find addictive. I don't need a cigarette when I get up in the morning, and I don't really crave them - unless I'm really drunk and without a cigarette.

I dunno why I'm so on-side with full-time smokers really - I guess being in a minority (disabled) is something I've been used to all my life, so I'm more sensitive to standing up for my "rights" as a minority.

You wait - it's happened for racial minorities - as soon as the smokers are REALLY a minority they'll have more rights than you. Just watch

To be honest though - I'd have hoped to have given up by then!!! Ironic eh?

Matthew - well, that might be true in some cases, but ALL bar staff should be intelligent enough to read or write otherwise they'd not know how to use a cash register. If you can read and write you can learn to type.

I went to uni before the tuition fees came in, but after the grant was ~20% LESS than my hall fees every year. Since I was disabled I wasn't even able to get work cleaning out ship cabins, let alone the halcion echelons of a bar job. I must have applied to about 60 places including scummy Burger King and MacDonalds and got a big fat zero. Anyone who has normal ability and is intelligent enough to go to uni can probably find work-from-home WP stuff or something similar - they don't have to work in a pub.

__________________________
Make your choice, adventurous Stranger;
Strike the bell and bide the danger
Or wonder, till it drives you mad,
What would have followed if you had.

The physical addiction to smoking is laughably minor. Nicotine withdrawal can be likened to a constant feeling of slight peckishness.

Of course smokers have a vested interest in talking up this side of it.

Matthew

THIS is a scientific fact - you are reckoned to gain 2 stone (I'm SURE that's what it was, but that seems waaay too high!) if you give up smoking.

There IS a solution to that too - eat less! Or drink water instead.

__________________________
Make your choice, adventurous Stranger;
Strike the bell and bide the danger
Or wonder, till it drives you mad,
What would have followed if you had.

I think you'll find that's 2 stone +/- 2lbs depending on how much you save due to tumour size.

Matthew

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Originally posted by Paul Ranson:

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It seems to me that the only research trying to cast doubt on the passive smoking link is that funded by the tobacco industry, that well known bunch of public spirited philanthropists.

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We're looking at a World Health Organisation report, which would presumably be funded by the UN. Which research are you referring to?

Paul

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I don't have references to hand and frankly think it would be pointless chasing them up. What I do know is that of all the news articles I've seen on TV, radio, and the press virtually the only folk denying the link between passive smoking and disease are unprincipled apologists funded by the tobacco industry. Even the report referred to a few times in this thread and published by the GMC was partially funded by the tobacco industry. Every single doctor I've ever spoken to, in fact every member of the medical profession I've heard speaking about this, has been quite certain about the link.

Don't get me wrong. I have absolutely no objection to every single smoker having the right to smoke himself or herself to death. Don't expect me to join them though. Nor should you expect me to avoid certain public places just so these same people (one third of the population) have the right to spew their obnoxious toxic fumes over me and the rest of the long-suffering majority.

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What I do know is that of all the news articles I've seen on TV, radio, and the press virtually the only folk denying the link between passive smoking and disease are unprincipled apologists funded by the tobacco industry.

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Are you easily lead?

I've done a bit of poking about over the last day and every time you get down to the numbers it's 'not proven'. There's a very clear link between the amount of smoke you ingest and the risk to your health. As a passive smoker you're ingesting very small amounts, so the risk is very small, so small as to be hard to detect. It's obviously there.

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Nor should you expect me to avoid certain public places just so these same people (one third of the population) have the right to spew their obnoxious toxic fumes over me and the rest of the long-suffering majority.

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As a publican I have every right not to want you in my bar.

Or, 'Why should I avoid pubs just so that I don't have to be exposed to loud drunk people who may vomit in the toilet?'

Your attitude to other people you disapprove of is rather old-fashioned. I think you should examine your conscience.

Paul

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Originally posted by Matthew Robinson:
Becuase the freedom of choice arumnet cuts both ways and the de facto state is that smokers already enjoy rights to smoke in public places where the proprietor allows it.

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that's fine in such establishments, although I personally wouldn't eat at a restaurant permitting cigarette smoke to exist near or around food and where the atmosphere is thus polluted.
it's also absolutely disgusting to have to sit down at a table in a pub with an ashtray full of spent fag ends before a member of staff has the time to clear it away!
if I have to wait until a table is cleared of fag ends before I can sit down to eat or drink then smokers, inadvertently or not, are affecting my "freedom of choice".
cigarette fumes and ash are also unquestionably unhygienic, and if you accept that hygiene is of the utmost importance anywhere food is served to the public, then for that reason alone smoking has no place in such establishments.
everyone should be able to eat where they want in an environment free of cigarette smoke and ash and not have their choice of where to eat restricted because of the habits of smokers.
this is the case if the owner of a restaurant is unwilling to make his establishment non-smoking because of the fear of scaring off the smokers and thus losing profit in the process.

the fact is that non-smokers going about their daily lives have to constantly endure the unhealthy elements of smoking and also the filth it causes on their clothes, etc, whether they like it or not. so where's the "freedom of choice" for them?
what effect for example does the ignoramus who lights up a fag on a bus or on a train where there is clearly a NO SMOKING sign have on the non-smoking passengers "freedom of choice" to be able to breathe smoke-free air?
smoking in public places where others are forced to breathe in the fumes is totally inconsiderate. just like the selfish motorist who doesn't give a damn about others and does as he pleases and whose actions directly affect other road users on the road, the smoker who smokes in public places doesn't give a damn about how his smoke impacts on the lives of everyone else around him.
that's why smokers are utter twunts!

TN

In no particular order...

Matthew --

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And that all those figures are equally likely.

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Not quite. The confidence interval is the range of values that has a 95% chance of including the correct figure. But the calculated figure is the most likely value.

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I am quite prepared to beleive Joe's wife (since I know Joe would never marry a poorly trained scientist)

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Well, who would marry a poorly trained scientist?

To be fair, Suzanne was commenting only on the Epi 101 and 102 sections of the guy's site, since that was all the time she could spare. She did find it a bit ironic that Dave Hitt cautioned his readers about agendas, yet his homepage starts with a rant about anti-smoking crusaders, so he's hardly without an agenda himself. She also thought it was a bit odd that he lectures about the perils of statistics -- that results can't be reported with 100% certainty -- yet rattles off "fact" after "fact" as though he is absolutely certain.


Paul --

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I've no idea what Suzanne's agenda is...

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She's a university prof who studies the association between smoking and Alzheimer's disease. She has a passing interest in smoking and lung cancer, but her expertise is in senile dementias. (For what it's worth, it appears that smoking increases your odds of losing your marbles, but there's no established link between secondhand smoke and dementia.)

She didn't think much of Dave Hitt's site mostly because many of his "facts" are either wrong or simplified to the point of being misleading.

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but what does she say to...

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If she has time, I'll ask her to look at the article. But, unlike me, she's important and productive, so I can't promise anything.

Joe

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Originally posted by Trevor Newall:
the fact is that non-smokers going about their daily lives have to constantly endure the unhealthy elements of smoking and also the filth it causes on their clothes, etc, whether they like it or not. so where's the "freedom of choice" for them?

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Back to my comment wrt cars - I have to put up with car drivers belching crap into my lungs all day long, but I don't have any "freedom of choice". If you drive a car, you're as socially irresponsible as smoking - you produce toxic fumes, rubbish for landfills (old junkers etc), waste oil, ruin the country with all your roads, and clog up the towns on the school run.

I have to breath all that crap in on my way to work, so a couple of fags in a pub of an evening is not going to make me feel guilty. Cars = asthma and that's a proven fact.

__________________________
Make your choice, adventurous Stranger;
Strike the bell and bide the danger
Or wonder, till it drives you mad,
What would have followed if you had.

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Originally posted by Paul Ranson:
Or, 'Why should I avoid pubs just so that I don't have to be exposed to loud drunk people who may vomit in the toilet?'

Paul

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By all means ignore the obvious if you want, but if you genuinely can't see the difference between this and the desire of the majority of the population not to go home with streaming eyes, sore throats, smelly clothes, fag burns in their clothes, all of which are undeniable effects of passive smoking then there's nothing more to be said.

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streaming eyes, sore throats, smelly clothes, fag burns in their clothes, all of which are undeniable effects of passive smoking then there's nothing more to be said.

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I suffer none of those when I go to a pub where smoking is permitted. Sorry.

But the underlying point is that you have the choice not to patronise the establishment, yet you'd call for the law to regulate this freedom due to your personal taste. It's this I dislike. I'd rather like smoking to disappear altogether, if that was the desired aim it would be easy for government to arrange, and they choose not to.

Some smokers abusing non-smoking areas doesn't change the moral argument.

Paul

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Originally posted by domfjbrown:
I have to breath all that crap in on my way to work, so a couple of fags in a pub of an evening is not going to make me feel guilty. Cars = asthma and that's a proven fact.

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the difference is that car exhaust fumes are emitted in an outside environment, whereas the cigarette fumes I object to are emitted in enclosed areas such as restaurant and pubs often in rooms with poor ventilation.
I trust you appreciate what I'm getting at.
cars are also, rightly or wrongly, a necessity for a huge percentage of the population, so it's rational to tolerate the negatives.
there are no positives to smoking for anyone other than the pleasure the smoker gets from smoking or the person/organisation making a profit from it.
smokers also represent the minority of the population, so why should their smoking be allowed to have such a significant impact on the lives of the majority of people?

TN

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Originally posted by Paul Ranson:
I suffer none of those when I go to a pub where smoking is permitted. Sorry.

Paul

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Well I've suffered all of them on many occasions. I've had holes burned in shirts, I've had to go outside because the air inside was unbreathable, I've had to put clothes into the wash after wearing them for an hour, I've had coughing fits, I've had my eyes burning because a cretin next to me was smoking what smelled like rolled up linoleum. I've had to put up with this sort of stuff all my adult life and frankly I've had enough. For me this is not a game, nor an argument for the sake of argument. It's not to produce an essay for Moral Philosophy 101. Frankly whether there is a link between passive smoking and disease is almost irrelevant. If there is (and there's no doubt in my mind there is) it's merely icing on cake. The fact is that smoking causes many extremely unpleasant, harmful, and well documented effects on the people round about.

So you can argue until you're blue in the face about the whys and wherefores but whatever you think, there are shortly going to be far more severe restrictions on smoking. Eventually virtually nobody will smoke and the rest of us will look back and ask why on earth we put up with it for so long.

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Originally posted by Trevor Newall:
the difference is that car exhaust fumes are emitted in an outside environment, whereas the cigarette fumes I object to are emitted in enclosed areas such as restaurant and pubs often in rooms with poor ventilation.
I trust you appreciate what I'm getting at.
cars are also, rightly or wrongly, a necessity for a huge percentage of the population

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Hmm - well, ventilation would solve that. What about the poor gimp who sits in the box at the entrance to the multistorey carpark?

Cars are NOT a neccessity for the VAST majority of people. If petrol quadrupled in price and cartax tripled, we'd soon see who really needs a car. It's no wander there's so many fat gits in this country.

Taxis are fine for getting you from the supermarket/diy/whatever, and for longer journeys, use the train. If more people were less selfish about their transport needs, the whole country would be better off, not to mention the environment.

__________________________
Make your choice, adventurous Stranger;
Strike the bell and bide the danger
Or wonder, till it drives you mad,
What would have followed if you had.

Without the use of personal cars the UK (and every other country in the first worlds) economies would collapse - I certainly can't get to and from my work on public transport. Also, Taxis are cars, too.

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Originally posted by Paul Ranson:
But the underlying point is that you have the choice not to patronise the establishment, yet you'd call for the law to regulate this freedom due to your personal taste. It's this I dislike.

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ok, but what if you've just tried a new restaurant recently opened in your area that allows smoking, and although you absolutely hated having to inhale the fumes from other diners smoking, the restaurant served the best [insert your favourite dish here] you've ever tasted.
however because of the unpleasantness of having to inhale cigarette smoke, you reluctantly decide not to go there again.
the owner has done as much as he can to help improve ventilation, but there's not much he can do when someone a matter of feet away from you is chain smoking his way through a packet of citanes.
in effect, the smokers smoking has impinged on your freedom of choice.
why should your choice of where to eat be restricted because of someone else's filthy habit?
a non-smoking policy in all restaurants is entirely reasonable because smokers should learn to respect the wishes of the majority.

TN