Posted by
kirkthompson on Sunday, March 23, 2008 9:22:59 PM
The smoking bans that are sweeping the nation are burning through Mississippi. What began the most recent call for smoking bans was "The Health Consequences of Involuntary Exposure to Tobacco Smoke: A Report of the Surgeon General" released in June 2006. The report stated that there is "no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke." That is very choice language. "No safe level" leaves a lot of wiggle room.
There are other reports about second hand smoke (SHS), including one from the EPA that had such lax scientific standards that it would have disqualified any graduate student using it to get an advanced degree. These kinds of reports have something called a Confidence Interval (CI), which determines the margin of error regarding calculated data. Initially, the EPA report had a CI of 95%, but that level didn't render the results that the EPA had already announced. Yes, you read that correctly. The EPA announced results and then discovered that the margin of error didn't support the results. In the private sector that's called a mistake. It would be time to trash the report. In government, that's a reason to "redo" the math. So, the CI was reduced to 90%. That five point drop is bigger than it looks. The EPA basically doubled its margin of error for the report. Guess what? The results were finally in line with the announcement. It's good to be the government.
There is another report that I would like to bring attention to - "Environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality in a prospective study of Californians, 1960-98." This study, which was published in the British Medical Journal, is the single most comprehensive, long-term study ever conducted on SHS. The goal of the report was to gauge the relation between SHS and long-term mortality. From the dates given, you can see that the study spanned 39 years. The location was of study was California. The participants totaled 118,094 with specific attention placed on 35,561 never-smokers married to smokers. And this report did have a CI of 95%, much higher than the EPA report.
The conclusion of the report reads as follows:
The results of the California CPS I cohort do not support a causal relation between exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality, although they do not rule out a small effect. Given the limitations of the underlying data in this and the other studies of environmental tobacco smoke and the small size of the risk, it seems premature to conclude that environmental tobacco smoke causes death from coronary heart disease and lung cancer.
In the late 1990's, the World Health Organization also conducted a study of the effects of SHS. Surprisingly for the WHO, the study found no statistically significant risk from ETS. The WHO dropped all other activities that day and immediately called the British newspapers and TV stations, and held a press conference announcing its results.
No, wait a second. That's what they should have done. Instead, the WHO buried the report faster and deeper than a Walter Mondale presidential campaign. It was only due to the relentless pursuit of the British press that the report ever saw the light of day (which is more than can ever be said for Mondale's presidential aspirations.)
Finally, after a month or so of digging, The Telegraph released the following report in March, 1998: "The world's leading health organization has withheld from publication a study which shows that not only might there be no link between passive smoking and lung cancer but that it could have even a protective effect."
At last, the WHO saw no reason to hide its findings any longer and came completely clean. Right? Well, not quite. Honestly, it was so hard to get the actual findings of this report out of the WHO, it was like searching for facts in a Michael Moore film.
The headline of the WHO press release regarding the study read "Passive Smoking Does Cause Lung Cancer - Do Not Let Them Fool You." Then, the release went on to say, "The study found that there was an estimated 16% increased risk of lung cancer among nonsmoking spouses of smokers. For workplace exposure the estimated increase in risk was 17%. However, due to small sample size, neither increased risk was statistically significant." In other words, "Um, can we get the EPA on the line? We hear they have experience with this kind of situation."
Of course, all of this talk of studies regarding SHS simply builds the utilitarian argument one way or another for this issue. What is truly at stake here is individual rights, specifically the right to private property.
The only interested party that should be involved with banning smoking inside a restaurant, or any other private establishment, is the owner. A person patronizing a restaurant doesn't diminish the owner's private property rights. There seems to be this idea that because a restaurant invites people in and serves them, then that restaurant is some form of public property. Frequently, these businesses are referred to as a "public place." When speaking of restaurants, malls, and other such businesses as a public place in regards to legislation, it leads to muddled thinking. Public place is confused with public property. And people begin to think they can change the atmosphere of a public place as they can with public property.
No matter what term we choose for a privately owned business, it is still privately owned. And that owner should be allowed to determine what legal activities occur within his or her establishment.
Many public officials have resigned themselves that these smoking bans seem to be something that is inevitable. Why? Because there are people signing petitions? This is not inevitable. Forces of nature can be called inevitable - not legislation. Legislation requires origination, deliberation, and execution. None of which is inevitable.
The crux of the matter is people not wanting to be around smoke when they go out. But that preference does not and should not topple the private property rights of business owners. Think about what is being said and what is being advocated. It boils down to one of two concepts.
When customers are inside a privately owned business, they have some right to determine what happens inside. But once they have left, they relinquish any rights to the establishment.
Or: Whether a person is a customer or not, he or she has some right to determine what happens inside any given privately owned business.
That's it. Either the owner has the right to run his business as he or she sees fit or not. And if not, then that right is shared with some other party. And the question must be asked: by what right and what conditions does the other party exercise control over another's property?
Think about the destructive nature toward private property rights of either of those concepts. And this will not stop with restaurants. It will continue to roll through every possible private establishment. The Surgeon General report mentions the remaining exposure to children in homes with parents who smoke. Does anyone really think that this will not lead to a smoking ban in private homes with children? If so, then remember one thing: Smoking bans began with exemptions for bars, requiring restaurants to have a no smoking section, and banning smoking on continental flights with a duration of less than two hours. Look where the bans are today.
And the bans don't end with smoking. The New York City Board of Health banned restaurants from frying foods with most oils containing artificial trans fats by July 2007. New York City restaurants have until July 2008 to completely eliminate trans fats from all fried foods. Today, there are calls for statewide bans of trans fats in California and Pennsylvania. Keep it in mind it was less than twenty years ago that, in 1987, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) campaigned for trans fats against saturated fats in its Nutrition Action newsletter. And CSPI defended trans fats all the way up to 1992 - five long years! It was at that time the CSPI said, "Oh, trans fats are bad for you, too."
This is wrong. It does not matter even if a majority wants a ban of smoking or trans fats. That equates to numerical majority rule —something the Founding Fathers of this nation adamantly opposed. It equates to a majority of people being able to vote, petition, or regulate your rights away. That is the very reason that there is not a national referendum in the United States Constitution. And it is also the reason for two crucial political structures of the United States, the "Great Compromise" and the Electoral College. Those two structures created a government that rules by a distributed majority as opposed to a numerical majority.
Join me in a thought experiment. Imagine that there is a city that has a majority of residents who smoke. And in that city there is a restaurant owner who puts up a sign that says "No Smoking" in his or her establishment. But a majority of the customers smoke and they want to be allowed to smoke inside that restaurant. Those customers go to the city council and lobby for the restaurant to allow smoking. What would you think if the smoking customers were able to convince the city council to coerce that restaurant owner into allowing smoking?
That scenario is no different philosophically than a city council banning smoking in private establishments. It renders the same result - a template for a governmental body to control activities that it shouldn't. And it is very seldom that a government tires of using templates to control activities. In fact, I am trying to think of an example when that has occurred and I can't.
Any time a governmental body makes a move, there should be a question asked: By what authority is this decision made? And it is by authority that government acts, not by a right. The term "right" is often misused when referring to government action. We hear it in statements such as, "the city council has the right to..." No, government has no rights. Those belong to individuals.
This is not about whether businesses lose money if a smoking ban is instituted and enforced. Neither is it about patrons wishing to avoid a smoky environment. All of that is nothing more than fluff and dressing for the real issue, which is: who actually owns the property and can determine its use. It is about whether or not an owner of private property has the right to determine if his or her patrons can participate in a legal activity or not.
What is the point of pursuing property, one of our inalienable Rights, if that property is to be controlled by government, petitions, and the majority of the population? When government is allowed to dictate which legal activities we may or may not partake on private property, then government has been allowed to cut out a little piece of our individual rights. Again.