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Passive nonsense

August 27, 2007 on 8:05 am

Andrew Stuttaford writes that “passive smoke” campaigns have “very little to do with healthcare and a great deal to do with bossiness, moral preening, and, let’s face it, neurosis.” I couldn’t agree more.

In the United States some are already basking in the state-induced bossiness. This women in Sweden got a taste.

The Environmental Court in Växjö has banned a woman from smoking in her own garden, Sydsvenkan reports. The 49-year-old single mother is enraged by the decision but says that she will obey the ruling to avoid having to pay a fine. …

The lawyer initially requested his neighbour to pay 15,000 kronor ($2,000) to compensate for his suffering, along with an additional 2,000 kronor for each time she lit a fresh cigarette. While the court did not grant him this wish, the woman is not willing to take any chances.

Wow, that would make it 40,000 bucks a pack — nearly as much as NYC cigarette prices.

In any event, delegates took meticulous notes and drew a scale diagram of the two gardens. After reviewing all the data, the court ruled most of the woman’s garden was, henceforth, smoke free.

2 Comments

  1. Lets hope this doesn’t become common knowledge the anti smoking zealots are already going after pub gardens in the UK.
    Bob Feal-Martinez (Life Long Never Smoker)
    www.freedom2choose.co.uk

    Comment by Robert Feal-Martinez — August 28, 2007 #

  2. Fact: No one has ever proven that second-hand smoke has resulted in anyone’s death. It’s a guess, a loose supposition based on considerations of the deceased’s lifestyle and the cause of death (e.g. lung cancer). In the UK, it has been “estimated” that 600 people die each year from exposure to second-hand smoke. Interestingly, one can never find an actual source for that figure. Whose estimate is it? It’s always “doctors” or the “NHS” and never citing a report. Because there are no actual data in support of it. It’s a figure someone is pulling out of their ass because no one really knows what caused the disease. It’s a guess, and that’s all has it been.

    But here’s a theory, and it’s fairly obvious. If 600 people die from possible exposure to smoke, how many of those people have been exposed to car exhaust? London is one of the most polluted cities in the world. A one-hour walk through central London (outside) will fill your nostrils with nasty black boogers. The walls of the buildings are covered with black and grey soot. That’s not from smokers standing outside on the pavement, I assure you. Hmm… moreover, if you put a non-smoker in a small, enclosed room with a dozen chain smokers for twelve hours straight, that non-smoker will exit the room alive and well (yet probably displeased). But if you put anyone in that same room, only this time with a running automobile, what are the chances of that person coming out alive after twenty minutes to an hour? Fairly slim. Actually, less than fairly slim. That person is a goner.

    Finally, a wood fire (in a fireplace), emits all of the same chemicals found in cigarette smoke, not all of it escaping up through the chimney, by the way. Burn any plant matter and you get formaldehyde and other carcinogens. The amount of those chemicals found in cigarette smoke are trace amounts, but a wood-burning fire produces substantially more. Shall we ban fire?

    Comment by HSO — August 28, 2007 #

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