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Originally Posted by raveneye
The whole big vs. small government is really a red herring wrt. the smoking ban. Government is always involved, whether or not smoking is banned. The question is not whether to involve it, the question is how to involve it.
If public smoking is not banned, then second-hand smoke causes cancer, disability, and death, and government is involved in paying out the medical costs, the unemployment payments, the disability payments, the life insurance payments, higher health insurance rates, litigation costs, court costs, etc.
If smoking is banned, then government is involved in enforcing the ban.
Which option involves less government?
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Red Herring?
If this was really a health issue, couldn't we just ban alcohol. It is poison. Also, I would argue that the costs of alcohol far outweigh second-hand smoke. If you can find a study that suggests a few hours in a bar a week next to a guy smoking a cigarette kills
17,013 a year, I'd be glad to read it. I might be able to find a study that shows a few hours a week in a bar drinking alcohol leads to astronomical government/societal costs when compared to second-hand smoke ($
185 billion!).
I just don't see how this is a societal health issue if alcohol is not.
PS. I think the $185 billion thing is probably high.
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Originally Posted by raveneye
On the economic impacts of smoking bans: there have been several peer-reviewed studies published that have showed that the only impact of bans, if any, has been to increase profits of restaurants and bars in NY, Florida, Texas, and elsewhere. Here's a popular article on the subject:
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The Atlanta Journal and Constitution is hardly Peer-Reviewed. If smoking doesn't hurt sales,
explain this (pay careful attention to where it says "Closed."
The article you posted seems to focus on restaurants, rather than bars. Also, the part about 76% of business owners saying the lost business... can we really just toss that out because it was just an opinion poll? I understand that it is not scientific, but that does not mean that there claims are unfounded.
Not that any of this really matters to me. As I said before, for me it is a freedom issue.