Firstly, I need to address the debate for those who read it. I began speaking of some statistics that I'll state later, following which the person in question wished that I would catch lung cancer. I responded by calling her something unsavory through several posts in a protracted debate. I should have been smart enough to not allow myself to be provoked into making myself look like an idiot. I'm not always the smartest person in the world. I have a short fuse and I don't suffer fools gladly. And, while I don't believe in astrology at all, I fit the textbook definition of a Libra, if someone does something unjust or evil, I'll pull out all the stops to call them out on it, even if my own actions in doing so are unjust or evil. It's wrong of me, and I genuinely regret it.
NOW, to the point at hand:
New York City is planning a vote on a bill to ban smoking in public OUTDOOR places. This is on top of an indoor ban several years ago, because of the alleged dangers of secondhand smoke.
The numbers on secondhand smoke are twisted, abused, and hyperinflated. One true claim is that exposure to secondhand smoke will increase your odds of catching lung cancer by 25%. This claim is 100% true. But what does it MEAN? It INCREASES the odds from 10 cases per 100,000 to 12.5 cases per 100,000. An increase of 2.5 per every 100,000 or 25 per million. That's an actual increase in population of 0.0025%. There's 300 million people in the United States. roughly 40% of us smoke (so we can't be included in secondhand smoke statistics), which leaves a base of 180 million. 25 in every million of those leaves 4,500 cases of secondhand smoke.
This is a tragic figure... but let's put it in perspective: 33,808 people died in 2009 as a result of drunk driving. In 2007, the most recent year I could find figures, handgun violence killed 12, 632 people.
Now, here's the real kicker. That 4,500 cases of lung cancer caused by secondhand smoke ISN'T EVEN AN ANNUAL FIGURE. That's the number of people who, at some point in their life, will develop lung cancer. To get an annual figure, I've divided that 4500 by the average life expectancy of 74 years, and I come up with 60.8108(and a long string of decimal places) instances per year. FEWER THAN 61 instances a year. For this, 120 million smokers in this country are having people wish death upon them, and their right to enjoy their vice eroded.
My question to the anti-smoking establishment is this: What are you doing about the REAL dangers in life? Are you so uppity about alcohol? How about fried foods? Handguns? Domestic violence? Trichinosis? ANY of the other thousand things more harmful than secondhand smoke?
This is America. You have the right to not like smoke... and I have the right not to care. What you do NOT have the right to do is to create an entirely fictitious hazard to public health and use it to ban those vices that are different than your vices.
There are those who argue that the NYC bill doesn't ban smoking or tobacco. The city enacted an indoor smoking ban years ago. While I don't entirely agree with indoor smoking bans, I can understand them. Certainly when there are people indoors with allergies and asthma who can be affected even if they don't count among the lung cancer statistics. Now the city is attempting to ban smoking OUTdoors, where the smoke dissipates quickly in the open air and is blown away on the breeze. So, it's true, they're not banning tobacco. That would be un-American... but when you ban someone from smoking indoors or outdoors, it really has the same effect. I suppose, if you can find one, you'd be free to light up in an underwater cave in NYC.
If you want to ban smoking for the presumed (and non-existent) dangers of secondhand smoke, you need to ban all of the other activities and substances that take more than 61 lives per year. If you do anything less, you're a hypocrite. You're banning this substance because you don't like it, rather than because of any legitimate danger to the public.
Feedback always welcome.
No comments:
Post a Comment