THANK YOU for finally posting a link indicating where you were getting your information. Now that I read it, I understand how you were confused.
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The Facts about Secondhand Smoke
The Facts about Secondhand Smoke
Secondhand smoke is the third leading preventable cause of death in the U.S. killing 38,000 to 65,000 nonsmokers every year.
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I see this at the top of the page. Unfortunately, it is not cited anywhere. I did my own search on google and found that it might have been said by a US Attorney General, but nowhere is the study that found this listed. This number is insane, and is even far above the EPA's bullshit 1993 assessment that ETS kills 3,000 people per year. If you can find this study, not some repetition of something everybody says, I will be happy to reconsider.
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Each year environmental tobacco smoke kills approximately 53,000 Americans, the same number of Americans killed in the Vietnam War. (Action on Smoking and Health, Special Report, Involuntary Smoking: The Factual Basis for Action, 1993)
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This is also listed on the ACS website. I have been looking online for an actual copy of this report, but as of yet, I have been unable to locate it. I will not accept the word of the ACS as to the study's content or veracity. When dealing with this issue I like to have the actual report to read to determine if the report is scientifically valid. There is too much political nonsense on each side to take the word of any summary or one sentence statement. I grant you, that if this statement is true, then banning smoking in public would be appropriate. However, until I read the report I will not simply accept it as fact.
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Im sure, Master Shake, you'll just come back and say "Yeah well, she shouldn't have worked there
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This is anecdotal evidence and is useless for proving your contention. I have no idea what the particulars of her situation were. She may have had a special sensitivity to lung cancer and have gotten it anyway. My father was not a smoker, did not grow up in a smoking house and worked as a Realtor in a smoke free office building. But he died of lung cancer. Correlation is not causation. You might as well say the sun rising in the morning killed this woman without some kind of scientific study to back it up.
And yes, people with asthma or special sensitivity to smoke should not work in the smoking section of bars or restaurants. That's just common sense.
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There are many reasons to ban smoking, and i don't think you've succesfully shot down any of them.
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Name one. And if it's legitimate I'll consider it. If you're going to claim it kills people, please point to a study.
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How does not being able to smoke indoors affect smokers, other than being a mild annoyance?
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You're right, it doesn't. But in order to annoy one group of people, I think the government should have to demonstrate that there is a legitimate reason for doing so. You may disagree, and feel that the government should just go around annoying whomever it pleases. If so, that's just where you and I differ.
But keep in mind that if your new standard from laws in this country is "Will this law create anything other than a mild annoyance," then there's no reason the government couldn't prohibit people from bringing children into movie theatres because How does not being able to hold a screaming child indoors affect parents, other than being a mild annoyance?
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If all you're concerned with is the free market, you're living in the wrong country.
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I never said that's all I was concerned with. If you show me that second hand smoke is killing people then I'll be happy to speak with you about
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I trust all of you free marketeers never fly, since the airline industry is propped up by federal funds, rather than market forces. I trust all you free marketeers are making concerted efforts to remove "big government's" prohibition of the consumption of alcohol by minors.
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Yes, I am opposed to federal funding of the airline industry but I don't see why that means I shouldn't fly. And yes, were we having a discussion about prohibiting the consumption of alcohol by minors, I would oppose it. But that's not the issue here.
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Government regulation is often a good thing, to claim that you don't favor the government telling people what to do shows a fundamental misunderstanding of what it means to be a citizen of any country. Hello laws? Hello OSHA? Hello Bill of Rights?
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Just because I disagree with some laws doesn't mean I disagree with all laws. Hello Declaration of Independence.