| The Property Rights Newsletter
December 10, 2010 – Issue #595 “If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.” |
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 A Report of the Surgeon General: By Michael J. McFadden. The new Surgeon General’s Report, or at least the spin it’s being given in the press, can be summed up nicely in a single word: Nonsense. In an absolutist “crazy” sort of sense the slightest touch of sunlight or the ingestion of an even slightly sugary food like “healthy” cornflakes could be claimed to be “dangerous.” In any sane world of course such interpretations would be dismissed. Normal exposures to the levels of secondary smoke that would commonly be found in decently ventilated bars, restaurants, or other such venues are not dangerous in terms of any rational view of life of a normal human being. 40 years ago most people realized this and laughed at the nuts who worried about such things. But the last 40 years have seen an incredible amount of expenditure on studies, press releases, TV ads and such things all designed to play up the fear of wisps of smoke in pursuit of the strategy laid out at the 1975 World Conference on Smoking and Health chaired by Sir George Godber. The consensus of that conference was that to achieve the public support needed to eventually eliminate smoking it would first be necessary “to foster an atmosphere where it was perceived that active smokers would injure those around them.” Otsuka’s study used nonsmokers who religiously avoided smoke in their daily lives, forced them to sign papers acknowledging potentially dangerous conditions and then stuck them in a chamber filled with smoke levels literally 300% more dense than those measured in the middle of the smoking sections of pressurized aircraft back in the 1980s. There was no control. Even a school science project would have had a sham model and “protocol signing” with subjects exposed to harmless but irritating odors and fog. The control study results would probably have been identical. Temperence movements, whether for smoking, drinking, or drugs, often find their demise through overstepping their bounds and losing the faith and support of the public as they expand their claims beyond what even the most gullible are willing to believe. We may be about at that cusp in today’s Great Antismoking Crusade. OK: Dozens in Bartlesville protest for more conservative Oklahoma legislature. Ted King said “If the cities can make up their own rules, then there won’t be any protection for private property.” Banning smoking is nanny state politics. PA: Clearing the smoke. By Robert Gehrmann. Kudos to the Trib’s editorial staff (“Sunday pops” and TribLIVE.com) in exposing bias in the story “New study: Passive smoke kills 600,000.” SC: A warning for freedom lovers to take action on this unannounced rearing of a ban in Summerville. It seems, the only way these things pass in SC is if they are brought to a vote WITHOUT public announcement. SC: York County OKs exemption to smoking ban for nonprofit private clubs, it will take effect in two months. EU: Please sign the petition. Response to the European Commission’s public consultation document. Possible revision of the Tobacco Products Directive 2001/37/EC. |
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