CBC News
Tue, 15 Nov 2005 12:00 UTC
Smoking has been banned in workplaces, restaurants and theatres, leaving the great outdoors as the next frontier for anti-smoking campaigns.
"People understand the concept of air pollution, that it may be everywhere," said Roberta Ferrence of the Ontario Tobacco Research Unit and the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto. "Somehow [with] second-hand smoke outdoors they feel it's magically whisked away, and it isn't."
Newfoundland and Labrador, and Nova Scotia are working on provincewide bans on smoking on restaurant patios, which is already the law in 16 municipalities across Canada.
The governments have acted although there is little published research on levels of outdoor second-hand smoke or its health implications.
Ferrence's colleague, Pam Kaufman of the Ontario Tobacco Research Unit, points to other reasons to ban or reduce outdoor smoking. "Studies have shown that with restrictions, people are more likely to quit and possibly cut down on the amount that they smoke, even if they don't quit."
For Filip Palda, an economist and senior fellow at the Fraser Institute, the move to restrict or ban smoking outdoors is less about protecting people's health than preaching.
"It's a big business, the anti-tobacco lobby gets a lot of government funding," said Palda. "I'm not saying this in a cynical way, but where there's funding to study something and even to repress it, there will be people who come to take the funding."
The lobbyists' activities are so intense that Palda questions why they don't seek to outlaw smoking altogether. Some smokers lighting up on a sidewalk outside a hospital in Halifax asked the same question.
For their next move, anti-tobacco advocates say they want governments to address what they consider a form of child abuse: parents who smoke in their own cars or homes with children present.
Comment: Ah, yes. The anti-tobacco facists move on to the next step in eliminating smoking altogether. Now it is a question of air pollution, banning smoking outdoors. We all know that global warming is being caused by cigarette smoke, right? You didn't? Well, there are certainly any number of scientific studies coming down the pipeline to make the argument. Forget factories and cars as contributory factors to air pollution. It's all cigarette smoke! Ban cigarettes to end global warming!
Does that sound absurd? Do you think we are pushing things too far? Well what about this:
The danger and the extremism of the anti-smoking movement is clearly shown in the final paragraph of this article: if the anti-smokers get their way, parents who smoke in their own homes and cars with children present may one day be charged with child abuse! It doesn't matter what kind of parents they are, smoking will automatically qualify them as child abusers!
Where will it end? The hysteria directed at smokers is reminiscent of the anti-communist hysteria in the United States at the height of the Red Scare. Smokers are made to be completely Other. Smokers are labeled junkies, killers and murderers (because of second-hand smoke. They are dehumanised. The debate is not scientific, logical, and disinterested; it is emotional and fed by scare tactics.
We understand that there are people who are allergic to smoke. We are not saying that every public space should be a smoking zone. However, it is a far cry from restricting smoking areas to going so far as to ban it altogether and label smokers child abusers! This is intolerance, and anti-smokers are encouraging and fomenting this intolerance.
And, fundamentally, who does such a climate of intolerance benefit?
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Comment: Ah, yes. The anti-tobacco facists move on to the next step in eliminating smoking altogether. Now it is a question of air pollution, banning smoking outdoors. We all know that global warming is being caused by cigarette smoke, right? You didn't? Well, there are certainly any number of scientific studies coming down the pipeline to make the argument. Forget factories and cars as contributory factors to air pollution. It's all cigarette smoke! Ban cigarettes to end global warming!
Does that sound absurd? Do you think we are pushing things too far? Well what about this:
The danger and the extremism of the anti-smoking movement is clearly shown in the final paragraph of this article: if the anti-smokers get their way, parents who smoke in their own homes and cars with children present may one day be charged with child abuse! It doesn't matter what kind of parents they are, smoking will automatically qualify them as child abusers!
Where will it end? The hysteria directed at smokers is reminiscent of the anti-communist hysteria in the United States at the height of the Red Scare. Smokers are made to be completely Other. Smokers are labeled junkies, killers and murderers (because of second-hand smoke. They are dehumanised. The debate is not scientific, logical, and disinterested; it is emotional and fed by scare tactics.
We understand that there are people who are allergic to smoke. We are not saying that every public space should be a smoking zone. However, it is a far cry from restricting smoking areas to going so far as to ban it altogether and label smokers child abusers! This is intolerance, and anti-smokers are encouraging and fomenting this intolerance.
And, fundamentally, who does such a climate of intolerance benefit?