Even a 23% increase is hardly significant!

1000% (10dB) yes, anything less, no.

Tom

Unfortunately, I do smoke (only outside), but I can't stand it when people aren't conscientious of where their smoke is going. Thankfully, I live on an end apartment and my balcony isn't near any neighbor's windows.

I couldn't imagine being a non-smoker and having to constantly deal with a neighbor's smoke wafting into my apartment. Regardless of whether or not second-hand smoke can actually physically harm someone, it's disgusting. Even I find other people's smoke disgusting.

I actually wish cigarettes WERE illegal -- or cost a million francs per pack -- so I would have no choice but to quit. It's a terrible habit... and I think every smoker should have a certain level of respect for those who are fortunate enough NOT to smoke.

You shouldn't be tolerant to that and you have several action possibilities:

1. punch them in the face.
2. solve it in the Cuban way Plaff! http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/revi...50C0A96F948260 i.e. throw eggs at your naughty neighbor's door/outside windows etc. They will never know who was, the eggs make no damage but make a lot of mess to clean up.
3. solve it in the Swiss way, write a long boring letter to them.

The real question should be how do you make their smoking porch time not as fun so they move indoors, if this really bothers you so much?

I am thinking crying screaming baby on balcony coupled with a loud English telephone conversation to start?

I think everything in life has it's risks, and I think here in CH your children and yourself are exposed to significantly less than other places in the world. That's how I look at it anyway.

Unfortunately its not

I have done so much research on this it takes a lot for me to even bother looking at recited links of the pro anti smoke argument. I could paste just as many of the counter argument until the thread dies down for another year until some other poor soul smells a cigarette and panics about all their children dying through this demonic act.

First you have to understand how statistics are used in science. Not straight forward for many. When people read 60% or whatever increase it sounds quite alarming. In reality, it's not. It depends on the ratios involved.

There was another thread where I went into relative detail about all these studies.

But in summary, from memory, there have been around 30 studies, 6 found any statistic association to the argument, and none found a strong relative risk.

Some studies even found a reverse trend, where exposure to second hand smoke actually helped prevent disease.

But what is really important, in my opinion, is also evaluating what these exact studies were. For us to even consider to understand the statistics and reports, and not be mislead by headline grabbing articles or the title of the person publishing said reports i.e. "DR ATTORNEY GENERAL ON HEALTH" or something alike, where immediately the more gullible I shall say, will be mislead by this important / educated and who would dare question sounding person.

The studies were conducted effectively in an evironment akin to pumping cigarette smoke into an air tight greenhouse. This was to highlight the effect of smokers in households, claustrophobic spaces, with little to no air flow. This was all all in support of Dr Michael Siegels movement of banning smoking in work places ie restaurants, bars, offices etc. Which, is worth noting that I agree with by the way. Also worth noting that Dr Siegel himself has since come out and said that his movement has contributed to the distorting of science to his regret as the anti argument is pushed in an unscientifc factual manner.

So what we are talking about is a very unlikely environment for a start for many these days. Even the most hardcore smokers will have a window cracked if they choose to smoke inside their home thus immediately creating a greater air flow then allowed in the studies.

So, when we consider these studies were conducted in an environment of extreme condensed smoke, and still most of the studies found no link, let alone a strong one. Likewise, as part of these studies, non-smoking individuals subjected to second hand smoke in such environments for a sustained period, i.e. not an hour or a few, we're talking years, SOME had had show an increase in risk, NONE deemed significant when applying the same scientific risk association practices used for other scientific studies. In fact, they even lowed the risk association percentage for these studies to help support the argument and still could not find strong enough links.

So, to smell cigarette smoke or at worst even be exposed for 30 minutes or an hour or even a a whole day in an air tight container with another guy smoking is not going to be at all significant, and when is that going to happen? Or is it happening? Given the fact that most non-smokers are only ever exposed to the smell or a couple of second heavily air mixed cloud on the platform of a train station it really is a stretched cause.

I am not in denail that smoking is unhealthy. I am not in denial that smoker CAN develop cancers and other heart and respiratory diseases. But so can many other millions of people. Smokers are increasing THEIR risk.

One question that can not be answered is, why the number of non-smokers who die from lung cancer has neither increased in the last 40 years, nor decreased in this effort to ban smoking in public spaces. Of course, this is just one disease of many, but interesting is it not?

__________________
Small minds are concerned with the extraordinary, great minds with the ordinary, Blaise Pascal

Okay, I'll answer it.

Lung cancer isn't instantaneous. The smoking bans haven't really been around that long.
The results will be more meaningful in 20-30 years time.

So, not that interesting, really

You have only looked at oneside of the statistics Tom. This is half the problem with the anti smoking brigade. I know you are better than that

I did not expect you to fall into the trap to be fair, but somewhat illustrates my poit

We draw the line wherever people act like jerks to innocent bystanders.

About your booze analogy: Drinking shouldn't be banned, of course not - been there, done that, and it doesn't work. But if people act like jerks, they should be treated like jerks. And that includes if they get all pissy and aggressive in public because they're drunk, obviously.

And obviously the unhealthy foods argument is just another red herring...eating unhealthy foods doesn't endanger or even annoy people in public places. Eating like a pig and throwing your garbage into the streets - sure, there I'd draw the line again, but that's a different story.

I have nothing against people taking all kinds of drugs and even hanging themselves from a rope - just don't force us to suffer with you. That goes for smokers who don't care if there are people around - even if the others got there first. You wouldn't believe how common it is for smokers to come to where my wife and little baby are standing or sitting, having just found themselves a spot in a park, at a cafe, at a bus stop - and light one up. Sure, it's not illegal, but it sure is rude.

For those who still think it's too hardline to expect smokers to leave non-smokers alone, let me turn it around for you: It's also not illegal (as far as I know) to carry around a box of rotton eggs, is it? How'd you feel if someone saunters up to your spot and opens a box of real stinky rotten eggs (or something else rotten) and starts waving it around so you can all smell it? Not illegal, but rude, right??
What's the difference? There are two: first, rotten egg odor is not at all harmful to inhale, while smoke is. Second, "rotten egg boxes" are not socially acceptable, but so what? That's just because not many people feel they need them.

Another version of the analogy: somebody would come right near you and start farting...non-stop. Yuck, right? But not illegal. But if you see they're doing it *fully aware* that you're there smelling it, wouldn't it make you angry?? And what if you kindly ask them to stop it - and they tell YOU to move if you don't like it?

Now add the fact that smoking is harmful and you've got your little toddler with you. Isn't it actually a no-brainer?

If you can give me a good argument to knock down my analogy, let me know.

Indeed.

If someone comes to my home, and complains that innocent bystanders are smoking, I invite them to leave.

Tom

I treat smokers just like sick people, I try to get away from them. If a heavy smoker moved below me I would prob sell my apartment and move somewhere else.

it is just a disease, hard to get away from it. Not to mention the mess they leave behind on HBs and stops.

I find it so funny when smokers use perfume lol They just don't realize how much they stink.

Basically this. It's a no brainer to ban smoking completely in any public area whatsoever.

Aaaand here is the Godwin connection: "Are all those non smokers nazis?"
A little titbit from history the first government backed anti smoking laws and laws for the protection of non smokers were concived in the NS peroid of Germany.
Hitler was a fanatical non smoker and ordered the first anti-smoking campaign that forbade smoking in trams, trains, busses and subways, also in public buildings and they raised the tax on cigaretts and tobacco, they also curbed advertising.
They where also the first to connect smoking and lung cancer.
So if you ever wanted to know what the Nazis did for us, that and the softdrink called "Fanta" but that´s another story.

__________________
Lummerland
Eine Insel mit zwei Bergen,
und im tiefen weiten Meer,
mit viel Tunnels und Geleisen
und dem Eisenbahnverkehr
nun wie mag die Insel heißen
ringsherum ist schöner Strand
jeder sollte einmal reisen
in das schöne Lummerland

newsflash: it's not 1940 anymore

No, but the Nazi mentality is still around.

Tom

objection

The noxious effect of second hand smoke has been known since at least the late 1970s. So you would expect that even if bans didn't come in until later, that people would have been taking measures to avoid it, and that these measures would have been at least partially succesful.

First, it's obvious big tobacco's ulterior motive here, they are going to fight and lie any and all restrictions - which they have been doing since their inception.

Second, people have been taking measures, in the form of laws to continually ban and restrict it. This graph is just from US parks and we all know more and more countries are leading the way with stricter tobacco laws.

No I wouldn't. The attitude of non-smokers here until quite recently was that smoking was legal and so people should just be allowed to get on with it and non-smokers had to put up with it - even if that meant their own children were subjected to the smoke too.


I'm sure even the Swiss with their heavy smoking rates are aware of the dangers but to chose to ignore them.

I just consider myself a smoker in the spring and summer the second hand smoke is so bad (windows open, smokers all around). But an airpurifier does help…

Ooh goody, another boring anti smoking thread!!

I missed this one first time around...!!

good lord that's disgusting