Alcohol was brought in as an analogy on purpose.
I find this really, really funny.....and very typical.
One of the reasons for this ban is to protect the "greater good". However, when it is pointed out that more people die from alcohol related injuries/event/etc, than the "greater good" goes away and is replaced by whether or not the substance in question was used "properly".
And I quote:
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the harm to others caused by the irresponsible use of alcohol is completely different from the harm to others cause by the proper use of smoking tobacco.
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So, now the greater good is more considered about whether or not the act that is "killing" them is being done responsibly and properly?
Wouldn't the "greater good" benefit from a ban on alcohol and smoking? If we don't ban alcohol, won't more of the "greater good" die needlessly. Is that what we are trying to stop here folks, senseless deaths?
Or are we trying to accomplish something that has absolutely nothing to do with the "greater good", smoking or drinking?
If you are really, truly trying to protect the "greater good" (who just can't survive without your help, I might add) than you would be consistent and not try and change the rules mid-stream so we can sit down and figure out if the drunk driver used the alcohol properly or not.
How many deaths per year are directly/indirectly attributed to alcohol?
I bet the number is greater than smoking.
If you are so concerned about the "greater good", than you would ban alcohol as well as cigarettes, it is the only natural conclusion to this argument.
By the way - that "3,000 deaths" a year from second-hand smoke line came from a 1993 EPA report that was eventually overturned in court:
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Late last week a federal district judge issued a withering ruling on agency research purporting to link second-hand cigarette smoke - also known as environmental tobacco smoke - with cancer in non-smokers. EPA had claimed the smoke was a potent carcinogen that causes 3,000 cancer deaths a year, give or take several thousand. District Judge William Osteen, however, accused the agency of Alice in Wonderland-style justice, in which the verdict comes before the evidence.
"In this case," he wrote, "EPA publicly committed to a conclusion before research had begun, excluded industry by violating [statutory] procedural requirements; adjusted established procedure and scientific norms to validate the Agency's public conclusion, and aggressively utilized [statutory] authority to disseminate findings to establish a de facto regulatory scheme intended to restrict Plaintiff's products and to influence public opinion."
He continued: "In conducting the ETS Risk Assessment, EPA disregarded information and made findings on selective information, did not disseminate significant epidemiologic information; deviated from its Risk Assessment Guidelines; failed to disclose important findings and reasoning; and left significant questions without answers. EPA's conduct left substantial holes in the administrative record. While so doing, EPA produced limited evidence, then claimed the weight of the Agency's research evidence demonstrated ETS causes cancer."
In short, this risk assessment is worth every penny the recycling industry is willing to pay for it, but not much else. Even grading it on a government curve doesn't help. Still, EPA officials said they will probably appeal the decision. They also claim most scientists and health experts side with them about the potency of second-hand smoke.
Unfortunately for the agency, even if one is somehow able to overlook all of the errors in the study, second-hand smoke still doesn't amount to much of a risk. Said one of the report's co-authors, Steven Bayard, in the wake of its release, "I don't think the risk of lung cancer in non-smokers in general is very high." Likewise Morton Lippman, head of the EPA Science Advisory Board that reviewed the second-hand smoke findings, called it "a small added risk, probably much less than you took to get here through Washington traffic." The Congressional Research Service raised its own questions about the study, arguing, among other things, that the findings on the exposure levels of non-smokers to cigarette smoke were based on the their recollections rather than scientific measurements.
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Multiple sources for similar material
LINK #1
LINK #2
LINK #3
LINK #4 - This one is from PBS