Blowing Smoke
This is not a new issue, but the desire to ban smoking continues unabated anyway on the grounds that secondhand smoke is harmful. [Kills more than 50,000 a year is one claim.] David Friedman reminds us that this is nonsense:
A 2009 NBER study analyzed all of the data and concluded that there was no effect from smoking bans—cities where the ban was followed by a decline in heart attack deaths were about as common as cities where it was followed by a rise.
No less, smoking is just disgusting. Banning it from public places just feels better.
So, we should do things just because they make us feel better?
Infringement on civil liberties in this instance is just another classic example of the tyranny of the masses.
Never did believe that nonsense about second hand smoke.
I’ve always suspected that you would have to live in a household of smokers — all of whom never leave the house — for second hand smoke to make a health difference. But, then again, maybe second hand smoke is more deadly if you yourself are also a smoker.
While I don’t enjoy having cig smoke blown in my face, I don’t support legislation to prevent anyone else from smoking. If I don’t like the smoke in a bar, I’ll go to a different bar.
James, if a bar, which is a private entity, wants to prohibit smoking, then they are entitled to. If you come to my house and don’t obey my rules, you are disturbing the peace and you will be forced to leave — same concept. However, in any “public” space, it makes sense that people have the freedom to smoke as long as it doesn’t start disturbing the peace.
Smoking can cause health complications to third parties (2nd-hand smoking), therefore, I am for banning smoking because it is no longer a liberty you deserve. I don’t have the liberty to kill someone, for example.
Second hand smoke in passing may be low risk. What about the waitress working for 8 hours a day breathing it in? Yes, in a free country she is free to quit and find another job. Still, I don’t like it. I recently went to a casino, I forgot how many people still smoked, I had to shower 3 times a day just to get the stench off me. It is very very very annoying.
Sometimes tyranny of the masses is okay. For instance, we have noise ordinances pretty much everywhere. Are we infringing 1st amendment rights to not allow you to blare loud music from you own home at midnight? Apparently not.
We also have ordinances against public nudity, and that really doesn’t hurt anyone.
You can of course be naked in your own home, and blast music into your own ears, and suck smoke into your own lungs.
Furthermore, what kind of science is this NBER study now? Really? Heart attack rates of people living in cities? And from this you draw a conclusion that second hand smoke doesn’t hurt?
We’re not living in the 19th century, we can do actual scientific research nowadays. You can understand what the nicotine and other chemicals do to the body on a biochemical level. No need to try to make a conclusion from a demographic trend. We know smoking is bad, and we know second hand smoking is bad. There is definite proof of that. Try Google.
As a libertarian I am in general for the freedom of a business owner to run a business as they see fit. But with freedom comes responsibility, and under such a regime I would also hold the business owner liable for any health problems attributed to the working environment that he did not disclose fully. Eventually the market would work to make most places smoke free naturally anyways.
If, of course, you honestly do not believe second hand smoking is bad. Take your kids or any pregnant friend or family member to a casino or something, if they can’t get in the gambling area just park them just outside the velvet rope. Give them a book to read. Would that make you uncomfortable?
I think there are two different issues here. One is whether smoking should be regulated in various ways, for one or another possible reasons, paternalistic or otherwise.
A separate issue is whether the argument being used about second hand smoke, the published figures on deaths due to it, is correct. If, as I think is the case, it isn’t, then it ought not to be used. If, as I suspect, it is based on fraudulent research–specifically cherry picking a single city where heart attack deaths happened to decline after a smoking ban and attributing the decline to the ban, then the fact that the research is fraudulent ought to be made public.
Are there commenters here who believe that the 50,000 figure is based on legitimate research, and if so can they point at the research it is based on?