Lauren A Colby, a practicing lawyer and author of In Defense of Smokers, says that the representation of tobacco in today’s culture is undue, rash and malicious. Colby believes that “smokers everywhere are hounded and persecuted” as a result of the faulty and fabricated health studies against tobacco. Having participated in more than 250 civil lawsuits, and more than 50 appeals to federal courts, Colby sees a trend in society that is directed against civil liberties. He believes that if the war on tobacco continues to influence our legislation then all of our rights will be contested and nothing will be held sacred.
But Colby has a quieter voice than the Surgeon General, claiming that without a doubt tobacco smoke, first, second and even third hand has a huge health risk and should be stopped by way of legislation. The EPA reports that “3,000 non-smoking adults die of diseases caused by exposure to second hand smoke every year (Lung.org 2012).” With this as their assertion, those who have been campaigning against tobacco have brought up a proposed need that in the last 30 years has been satisfied by court cases, appeals, hearings and proposition elections. This is the Smoking Ban, and many are in favor of its proposed goal despite that nearly one fifth of the American people are smokers (howmanyarethere.org 2012).
Who is doing what?
Anti-Tobacconists
have been running campaigns for decades to eliminate the amount of smoking in
all public places, based on popular health studies they themselves have
conducted. The Pro-tobacconists, the
minority, have been on the receiving end of diminished freedom and the
partiality of the government. The result
has been victory for the Anti-Tobacconists; less smoking in bars. But what are the real facts about
smoking? Is it as bad as these people
say it is? They treat it like it is genuine
rat poison, but anybody’s experience with the socially suggestive plant might
preach otherwise. Luckily, in Jacob
Sullums book, For Your Own Good, he writes of someone in the
anti-tobacco camp that was honest saying, “The reality is that the risk of
getting lung cancer from living with someone who smokes is really small; It
seems to be there, but it’s an extremely weak effect (Sullum 172).” Elizabeth Whelan said this and what might
make you more than confused is that Whelan was the President of the American
Council on Science and Health. She, if
anyone, should be credible. If you
re-examine the data and where it all came from, Whelan’s statement is more
right than you know.
The words. What do
they mean?
The
term that is fought over between the two camps is “risk”. How much is too much risk? Risk is something inherent in all things and
should be expected; there is inherent risk from activity to activity, because
at any moment the most un-assuming thing might have the potential to kill
you. Second hand smoke is a risk but
when you cannot prove the causality through correlation then you cannot treat
smoking as too risky. When it comes down
to logic, this is all that the anti-tobacconists have to go on: risk
factor. Say if anybody who ever smoked a
single cigarette died soon afterward, then they would have very good reason to
ban the use of it at all. It would then
be proven to be no-question-about-it poison.
But we all know smokers are still among the living and some of them are
pictures of health. They are all the
proof needed to say that smoking does not necessarily kill. Anti-tobacconists find themselves wishing and
wishing that tobacco were a poison, so as a result they create studies perhaps
with an ulterior motive to demonize tobacco and its users. The reality of their distaste lies in the
likelihood that they just don’t like the smell.
But of course they are able to take it to the courts and argue with the
utmost skill. Lauren Colby gives an
example of this in his book, In Defense of Smokers, writing, “I am a
lawyer, in particular, a trial lawyer.
In the law there is something called the burden of proof. The anti-smoking crowd insists that smokers
prove to them smoking is not harmful.
That’s a trap. Nobody can prove a
negative, i.e. that something is not so (lcolby.com 2006).” It is imperative that when we examine a
practice to conclude whether or not it should be eliminated as an activity, we
cannot, as humble seekers after truth, say that the burden of proof lies with
someone else to disprove it. Much like a
child that first discovers his ability to manipulate by claiming he
accomplished a grand feat and requesting proof that he didn’t do as he claimed,
this behavior has been observed in the courts.Anytime you come across a statistic that uses the phrase “smoking related disease/illness”, turn away and ignore it. The word related is a little Freudian slip they use to convince you that smoking is more dangerous than it really is. For example, the American Lung Association has on their website this statistic from the EPA: “About 8.6 million people in the U.S. have at least one serious illness caused by smoking. That means that for every person who dies of a smoking related disease, there are 20 more people who suffer from at least one serious illness associated with smoking (lung.org 2012).” When they use the word related the statistic ends up telling us absolutely nothing about smoking and it’s risks. All that it tells us is how many people have been dying of a category of sicknesses. This is the anti-tobacco camp’s desire to have their cake and eat it too. Not only do they want to find some risk in smoking, but they want to make sure it is directly responsible for the deaths of millions. This is demonization and it has largely gone unnoticed.
What is the correct course of action?
Smoking
bans are poor for governing the populous, because of the partial legislation
and the lessened freedom of American citizens.
For the owner of the business when they are told they cannot allow
smoking in their business this takes away freedom from one person and gives
tyrannic control to the government. Much
like in Nazi Germany, Lauren Colby says, “The notion that doing away with
smoking leads to an elimination of disease and a longer healthier life is
scarcely born out of the German experience (lcolby.com 2006).” In other words, the actions of forbidding
smoking originated from Nazi Germany and continues to control our lives today;
even in a free America,
this seems to go unnoticed. What are the
values that we are trying to protect by banning smoking? Is it not all just a power grab? There is strong evidence of this that cannot
be ignored and must be investigated. I
do not necessarily fear that in our present day we should fear another Nazi
regime, but these are things that if they go unchecked we will suffer
loss. And what can we lose, but our
rights? The Nazis have a lot of
similarities with that of today’s anti-tobacconists. When Hans Muller, who was a Nazi Scientist,
sent out to prove that smoking causes lung cancer he distributed a
questionnaire to the families to find out how much (if at all) the deceased
smoked (lcolby.com 2006). Lauren Colby
had this to say about the test, which has received so much praise for it’s
scholarliness and brilliance. “Muller
compared apples with oranges. He
compared the recollections of relatives concerning the smoking habits of the
deceased lung cancer victims, with the recollections of living people
concerning their own smoking habits.
That is a no-no (lcolby.com 2006).”
We are continuing this today with our smoke “related” diseases. A health study cannot be done via survey of
people who have various feelings about a controversial topic. This is not a reliable method; since it does
not gather information from the smoker, but from people who really have no clue
of how much their deceased partners smoked in a day.
Who ought to be in charge here?
Who
has the power? Who deserves the
power? These two questions have
different answers which is a significant problem. The citizenry has got it in to the minds that
if you want something changed you go to the government to get it fixed. Jacob Sullum related in his book, For Your
Own Good, that Congressman Richard J. Durbin finding himself on flight that
allowed smoking asked the flight attendant, “Can’t you do anything about
it?” They replied back saying, “No, I can’t,
but you can, congressman. (Sullum 138)”
The truth is that he does have the power to get rid of smoking on
airliners. But if we want an honest
society Durbin should have no more power than the next American citizen. But I do not speak of voting to get results. If the problem is that some one is in an area
that has smoking in it, the natural answer would be for them to leave that
area. Nobody is keeping them there. If a person doesn’t like smoke, they don’t go
to a private area and complain about the smoke.
Neither should they go to their senators and representatives and
petition them to ban smoking in all public private businesses just so that
merely they can be there. Of course in
most areas they are having court hearings or elections to decide the fates of
businesses, in which case it is up to the majority to vote against the smoking
ban if they want to maintain their freedom.
Back in April of this year, New York’s
Mayor, Michael Bloomberg proposed a bill that would disallow all residential
buildings with three or more units to have smoking in, on or around the
premises (Hartocollis 1). There was no
talk of any opposition to this bill and was assumed to be accepted. Again, we forget a whole 20% of the
population what their feelings may be on the issue. The people are in charge in a democracy. Why are we not consulting them in this
issue? We consult the masses for a
president, representatives, governors and many other social issues, and yet
somehow this topic is ignored. And the
topic is ignored because a decision has already been made.But what is the ordeal? Many people are unaware that there is a controversy because for them they have only had access to one perspective on the issue; there was no mentioning of another view. Basically, the discussion is whether or not smoking is as deadly the reports say and whether or not the use of tobacco should be limited to only private residences. Are the health risks certain enough to consider the substance a poison in which case to legislate it out of public places? Is smoking in public equivalent to that of gassing your fellow citizen for no apparent reason? These are the base questions that both the anti-tobacco camp and the pro-tobacco camp have considered; but of course this is not without a pretext. Many people were certain of these answers before and studies were done. But as society continued the anti-tobacconists are to be considered the current victor. Their studies are the ones being published; not the pro-tobacco folk. Even though it discourages tobacco use, this does not keep people from opposing smoking bans. There is always a group ready and willing to make their case for why smoking bans are bad. But if we are going to understand what it is that both sides are saying then we will need to gather some history. And much of this history is in favor of the pro tobacco camp.
What a lot well educated people are mistaken about it is how long ago this debate started. The standard assumption is that back in the 1950’s the first studies were done to discern what health risks were there in smoking tobacco. And the story goes that after the publication of this data, tobacco companies were indignant of it and campaigned much harder to get people to continue smoking and recruit new ones; putting out ads that talk about which brand of cigarettes that the majority of doctors prefer. And the commentary is mockery at the expense of the big tobacco companies. By all reports, they were caught dishonestly manipulating the readers of magazines with no prayer of covering up with data. But if one dives into history they discover that this is a propaganda ploy. The truth is that ever since Europeans in the early 1600’s began smoking pipes and cigars the “cranks” (as the anti-tobacconists have been referred to) have always been writing full books of the “devil’s weed” that is tobacco. John Bain Jr. writes in his book, Tobacco in Song and Story, a quick piece of fiction, “She (Crank): Is there anything worse than a man smoking a nasty cigarette? He: Yes; a women minding someone else’s business (Bain 97).” This was written in the early 1900’s which means this has been an issue long before we realize. The most prominent early anti-tobacconist book is King James the First of England’s Counterblast to Tobacco. In this book he expresses his personal utter distaste for tobacco second hand smoke. But not only does he give his feelings, he gives his medical advice. Claiming that tobacco is “a custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black stinking fume thereof, nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless (Sullum 18).” This comment examined in hindsight is very troubling. What we find is that there is no way for him to have credible authority on this subject. For James the First to say that it is bad for the brain and for the lungs is unfounded and especially for a time period where they had no means of testing it is foreshadowing of what was to come. He has no quotations of any study in the entire thing. No studies were conducted, since no studies were done until the Nazi regime’s war on smoking, and yet he continued to knock the practice as though it were devil worshiping (lcolby.com 2006). James hated tobacco so much that he felt it was legitimate to accuse it slanderously based on nothing. This hate carried on through the centuries and all the way to modern America where it is difficult to light up a cigar or cigarette without getting scowls or the blatant exaggerated coughing of a particularly “entitled” citizen. And so, why would we not consider that the same attempt has been made today with our health studies? One must not assume that the 21st century has bred nothing but noble, honorable truth telling authorities. A man in a white lab coat holding a clip board is not infallible.
Though there was much more literature that opposed tobacco in the 1600’s there was a certain diplomat who felt it necessary to argue in fairness with tobacco. Thomas Mann, himself was not a smoker, but since he did not mind other people doing it, as well as taking in second hand smoke, he was more than happy to give tobacco a fair trial. Published in 1602, Mann’s book, A Defense of Tobacco, goes point by point through another book published at the time that was anti tobacco. A lot of what we find in this book are arguments against the arguments that people are still using today. He notes that one of their reasons is that a singular group of people are abusing and disordering the substance. Mann replies with, “The lack of discretion of the party that useth it is no dispraise to the thing that is abused (Mann 10)!” If a man abuses food and becomes fat are we then to remove all culpability and say that it was the food’s fault? This is applicable anywhere in life and it sounds absurd in all circumstances; except of course when we speak of tobacco.
Of course it is an addictive substance that cannot be resisted, so therefore we must eradicate it. This is the reasoning and it does not hold up, even to this day. And on the contrary as well, tobacco if it is used skillfully then it “deserveth great commendation (Mann 11).” These things are never taken into account. What does tobacco do that is not a negative accusation? These “dangers” have always been made up about tobacco; the authors are people who have no good reason to suppress it. They merely do not like the smell. If we look at the history of man, we will see that since tobacco became widely used we have not seen any evidence that more people are getting lung cancer because of it. Rather, lung cancer has only come on at the rise of the industrial revolution. What we should be looking at are the car’s exhaust that we breathe in everyday. Doctors, as much as they hate to admit it, have to agree with this claim. Wray Kephart, a present engineer and former autopsy performer, having done more than 1500 autopsies, notes that while he does autopsies there is absolutely no way to tell if the deceased was a smoker (lcolby.com 2006). The lungs are actually not what the pictures say they are; filled with black tar that is slowly deteriorating the lining and giving the first, second and third hand smoker cancer. If this were true we should be seeing millions of people developing cancer very quickly. It would be obvious to reject smoking. Kephart goes on to say that sometimes there are traces of carbon monoxide in the lungs, but this due to people living in high traffic areas like Los Angeles breathing in the exhaust from all of the cars (lcolby.com). These are noticeable scare tactics; these are used because the anti-tobacconists do not have a single good reason to get people to stop smoking and out of the bars.
In a Heartlander article by Dr. Jerome Arnett, there is revealed a huge flaw in scientific study of tobacco, which lacks integrity. Basically, in 1992 the Surgeon General was conducting studies of tobacco with the scientific standard confidence interval (CI) of 95%. But the results were not satisfactory for the anti-tobacconists which gave them a small non-report worthy risk factor of 1.19%. So what did they do? They changed the CI to 90% which gave them a risk factor of a hefty 19%. Arnett pointed out that this was the first time ever that the EPA changed the confidence interval (Arnett 2008). It is clear that our scientists and doctors have bias are willing to bend the rules to get their desired answer.
Another myth that is perpetuated by anti-tobacconists is that all tobacco is the same; there is no less risk in a cigar, a pipe or a cigarette. Jacob Sullum would argue differently saying that the dangers vary in form to form and that if anything were true about the studies it is that cigarettes are more dangerous than pipes or cigars (Sullum 278). Why is this? You actually don’t inhale the smoke of a cigar or pipe; you just bring it into you mouth and push it out. These forms of tobacco are not about the nicotine fix and never have been. It is all about enjoying the taste of a good smoke. They may as well be second hand smokers since they don’t really inhale any of the smoke until afterward.
But where does this lead us all? We find ourselves in a battle of the wits and the field is politics. If anything good came of all this it would be the social/political intrigue of the debate. There is a constant down pour of campaigning commercials to get people to boycott smoking and advocate the investigation of the big tobacco companies. The popular “Truth” organization has been putting these ads out for at least the last decade. They cast themselves as the righteous humble seekers after truth, when they are actually being what Mr. John Bain Jr. would have described as a crank; some one who fails to mind their own business. Again, Jacob Sullum has seen this trend himself and he wanted to clear up any bad information saying, “There is almost no evidence that advertising gets non-smokers to start smoking (Sullum 278).” Rather, the ads that you used to see, but do no more, only created a shift of current smokers changing their preferred brand. When an advertisement pitches any product, most of the time you have already made up your mind about it before the ad has finished.
The social view point is that Big Tobacco is immoral and smokers are sprinting to their deaths like pigs to the slaughter. But these attempts at governing your life don’t do as much as they would like and so the anti-tobacconists head to Washington to have the government outlaw the things they don’t like. The story that Jacob Sullum had in his book, For Your Own Good, about representative Durbin is a fantastic example of the busy bodies. What many anti-tobacconists have realized is that their complaints to the smokers, themselves isn’t doing much good. Smokers keep smoking and the world keeps spinning. The thing is that the busy-bodies would happily stop the entire world on their behalf just so that they can be comfortable. So they turn to those in office, because of their power to control the people and have them abuse this power for the sake of one single group of people. One example of this was one Ahron Leichtman. Leichtman was on a radio show and his host was smoking a cigar “blowing smoke in his face”. This brought Leichtman to sue the radio host for giving him headaches and sinus problems (Sullum 139). Later Leichtman was at the head of the non-smoker’s rights strike, which later became the Group Against Smoker’s Pollution (GASP). This full on attack became so hopeless for the tobacco companies that they were willing to take anything they could get that was short of a total ban. These bans rest solely on the data that the health institutes have published.
In the movie directed by Jason Reitman, Thank You for Smoking, a film adaptation of Christopher Buckley’s novel by the same name, a CEO, Nick Naylor represents and defends the tobacco industry. At the end of the movie there is a scene which is a court hearing on a proposal to put a “skull and crossbones” with the word poison printed on it, on all packages of cigarettes to deter people from smoking. At one point an anti-tobacconist, Senator Finistirre said, “The death toll from airline and automobile accidents doesn’t even skim the surface of cigarettes.” Naylor then rebutted with this comment: “Oh, this is from a Senator who calls Vermont home. The real demonstrated number one killer in America is cholesterol and here comes Senator Finistirre who’s fine state, I regret to say, is clogging the nation’s arteries with Vermont Cheddar Cheese.” What this quote shows us that if we are going to give this treatment to one substance why don’t we give to all other substances that have been deemed dangerous? That would be fair and equal treatment. But we enjoy our cheese too much.
But these lawsuits and hearings have not stopped and for tobacco companies this has become routine. When these companies are asked to reply they find it easiest to ask the plaintiff if they bothered to read the warning labels or listen to the warnings of prominent physicians or public officials (lcolby.com). But even if the plaintiff loses that case it is an over all win for the anti-tobacconists. This is just as good as the tobacco companies admitting that smoking causes cancer, and so making them uncaring monsters. Some of the tobacco executives have even boasted that there is a risk even saying that they wouldn’t want their own children to smoke. These executives are given hard questions like for example: Can you prove to us that smoking does not cause lung cancer? But as any logician should be able to see this is a logical fallacy; since the executives cannot prove a negative they are left silent, not knowing they are being tricked. Nobody can prove a negative. Because they are not answering they presume that smoking causes lung cancer (lcolby.com).
There seems to be an overall confusion about tobacco. Most people don’t mind it all that much, but the ones that do have such an adamant distaste for it they cannot bear that people smoke even when they aren’t around. They create confusion between the words “risk” and “cause” and making believe they mean the same thing. This allows them to take any case of lung cancer and trace it back to that one cigarette they once had years ago, that one guy they walk by regularly who smokes, or even smoke residue left on other people’s furniture or clothes, and blame tobacco for all of it.
There is a solution and it has been suggested numerous times to no avail. When Melbourne, Australia was attempting to ban smoking in all restaurants and some of the Chefs who owned the restaurants wanted “the state government to butt out and let their diners continue lighting up on outside tables (Hargreaves 1).” By this quote we gather that the question isn’t “who is going to win the debate?” but are things going to stay the way they are (free), or is this group going to legislate their personal utopia on everyone else. In that same article a non-smoker chef Gary Mehigan was reported to say, “I’m a non-smoker, but it is ridiculous to ostracize smokers to such an extent. We should try to accommodate the small number of smokers out there (Hargreaves 2).” Is not this obvious? Our solution is in the mouths of the people. They understand what is at stake where as our government officials do not; they just see it as an opportunity to get what they want or the approval of a larger voting block. The people are asserting that it is absurd to force certain practices out of businesses, even if it is unhealthy. Food can be addictive for some and very unhealthy, but we have restaurants all over the nation enabling these “addicts”. Customer based businesses are called hospitality for a reason; as the saying goes, the customer is always right. They are having the government tell them to turn service away to a smoker who would like to enjoy a smoke in their business. Harry Mount reported that in Stony Stratford, England where they were trying to ban smoking in all public areas, Gary Stubbs said, “They’re little health Hitlers, wanting to stop people smoking. I don’t smoke, but I still object to the ban (Mount 2).” This is an honest approach; don’t legislate it, get out of it! The people see and agree, no matter their opinion on it’s health aspects, that getting the government involved is another step towards dictatorship.
Any place you go you will find these opinions; people who feel the government is interfering too much in their lives and some of them are not even smokers. And these bans have had a social effect as well as far as business goes. Bars have been losing business because of smoking bans. Now that bars can’t allow it, they cannot attract the whole smokers demographic. The bars that didn’t allow smoking in the first place, don’t see any change, so it was not necessarily to their benefit. It is to the nanny state’s benefit and those few who will make a fuss about smoke instead of getting out of it.
This has always been a strange debate since one group has always defined itself by it’s struggles with the other. There is no third party. Just the eradication of the other party. Early in it’s use tobacco was seen as a moral problem and as this failed the anti-tobacconists they revised their morality to the secular kind. This secular morality is preached by the health nuts. Eric Burns mentioned in his book, The Smoke of the Gods, what the Tsar of Russia’s, Michael Feodorovich, had in line for punishment with those who were caught smoking and his distaste was obvious, “A first time smoker was whipped with leather thongs until bloody and repentant; after a second conviction his nose was slit, and if caught a third time he would have his head removed in a ceremony to which one and all were invited (Burns 41).” Clearly, there is a grave over reaction. But if we consider the effects reported about second hand smoke perhaps these weren’t so extreme after all. If smoking is causing lung cancer then Feodorovich’s law was legitimate.
So we see that all the data gathered there is a mess of propaganda and suppressed studies along with even more fraudulent studies. If these things are examined honestly then we will find that smoking has always been unjustly attacked, is not as dangerous as popular knowledge tells us and implementing smoking bans is nothing but a nanny state over reaching and trying to control what it should not. If you ever see this happening in your community, encourage others to take a closer look at the facts and appeal to them to act accordingly.
Annotated
Bibliography
Arnett, Jerome. News.heartland.org. Heartlander. 2008. Web. 2 December 2012
This was a fantastic that helps support my claims with a very credible
source. Dr. Jerome Arnett, a
pulmonologist, wrote the article himself in which he uncovers all of the
attempts to publish fraudulent data. He
speaks of scientists that change certain definitions in science so that they
can get a result that makes tobacco look bad.
They other wise had no evidence unless they bent the rules.
Bain, John. Tobacco in Song and Story. New
York. 1896. H.M. Caldwell. Print
This is a very enjoyable book for any smoker. It is a documentation of stories, fables,
histories all about tobacco. And it also
includes arguments and poems that praise tobacco for all of its merits. Being a smoker I see the angle. But in accordance with the general debate
this is a mock piece that takes any chance it can get to shame the enemy; in
the case I mention Bain calls the anti-tobacconists “cranks”. I recommend it as a source because it helps
one to better understand the smoker’s relationship to tobacco. Even if it were killing them they would not
care; it would be worth it for them.
Sadly, I could not find any information on who John Bain was but since
this is more of a satire/piece of art I think it matters little what his
credibility is.
Thank You for Smoking. Dir. Jason Reitman. Perf. Aaron Eckhart, Cameron Bright, Katie
Holmes, Maria Bello, David Koechner, William H. Macy, Robert Duvall. Room 9
Entertainment. 2005. Film
This movie is an adaptation of Christopher Buckley’s novel by the same
title. It follows the trials and
tribulations of a CEO, Nick Naylor, who represents big tobacco
corporations. This was a great source
which shows all of the unreasonable tactics of the anti-tobacconists. Naylor is an omni-competant rhetorician who
got his job because he was the only debater good enough to defend tobacco. It is a testament to the fact that public
beatings and shamings have “not gone out of style”; this is seen heavily in
regards to tobacco. It is an example of
what has happened in our courts and perhaps foreshadowing of what is to
come. Even though it is a fictional
story it is very accurate in it’s depiction of the state of the debate.
Burns, Eric. The Smoke of the Gods. Philadelphia.
2007, Temple University
Press. Print.
This book is a social history of tobacco, which gives some background
information about the substance. Even
though it does not follow the debate explicitly these things come up regularly
in the chapters. It was written to help
people decide for themselves what the effects of tobacco are. It is very useful since it fills in a lot of
the blanks about how tobacco came up and who were the first to oppose it. Burns, too has an extensive bibliography that
reassures you where the information cam from.
He is a former broadcast journalist and so it is safe to assume that he
has good credentials. Since it was
written in 2007 the information could not get much more recent. This is also a easy to peruse piece since a
journalist is always trying to get as many readers as possible.
Colby, Lauren. Lcolby.com.
2.5, 2006, web. 2 December 2012
Colby’s claim is that much of what you hear today from doctors and
scientists about tobacco is propaganda using fabricated studies and misleading
reports to have people believe a negative story of tobacco. It had been updated for 2006, but was written
earlier. It is very relevant for the
debate on smoking bans and thinks outside the box regarding it. It is a reliable source as far as legislation
goes because the author is a lawyer.
Otherwise, Colby does a good job of quoting authorities in medicine; even
some that agree with him. The reading
level is pretty high so it is not for everyone; this is very educated and smart
and it assumes that you know certain things already.
Hargreaves, Wendy. “Dirty Habit or Freedom of Choice?” Australia.
2012, Sunday Herald Sun, 19 August
2012
This article was written to give an accurate assessment of how many
people in Melbourne, Australia
support or oppose a smoking ban. It is
supposed to be unbiased but it seems the author is in opposition to the
ban. This is good as a source because it
helps you find common opinion of people who are directly effected by smoking
bans. The information is accurate as
well as the author’s reliability. She was
there, interviewing the public opinion.
It was written just his year so it has no other.
Harticollis, Anemona. “Bloomberg Calls for Residential Smoking Rules”. New
York, 2012, New York Times. 2 December 2012
This is a merely current source that I can relate to people who are
thinking in terms of how they are effected by these things today. This is to show that people can easily cite
this topic in large metropolitan areas.
Also, this article is an example of poor media representation and
democratic representation. The article
makes no mention of any opposing camp of the bill. It is as if they don’t exist and this lessens
the credibility of Harticollis. What the
article is talking about is evidential that government officials are not
seeking out any other solutions than the ones they came up with.
Instah.com, 2010. web. 2 December
2012
This web page gave me a plethora of information about smoking bans in the
U.S. They had a very easily understood graph to
look at where you can observe clearly a steady increase in the amount of
smoking bans across America. The page also came with valuable statistics
that helped support my claims about the anti-tobacconist camp. They use a lot of the same fallacies and
mistakes that I mention in my paper, such as tobacco “related diseases”.
Lung.org.
American Lung Association; 2012. Web. 2
December 2012
This website was made to give you statistics on what the current numbers
of smoking deaths are and related topics.
It was written to get people educated enough about tobacco to get them
to stop smoking. This is useful because
it gives me direct claims that make it easy to refute and understand the
enemy. The information is very accurate
since it comes from medical journals.
The author is unknown. The info
is probably as up to date as it can be and it is easily understood by
anyone. articles that can be more
current. It is as easy to use as any
news article would be.
Man, Thomas. A
Defense of Tobacco. Netherlands
1602, De Capo Press. Print.
This book was written by an Elizabethan to make a defense of tobacco
because of all the literature on why tobacco is bad. He wanted to give it a fair trial. He goes point by point to argue with another
piece at the time. It is not current by
any turn of the phrase, but since I plan to give some history of the debate,
this will prove useful to me. The information
is based on reality and experience so there isn’t a way to fact check this
document, but the arguments are sound in their proofs. It was written by Thomas Man was a prominent
diplomat and had published very many other works before that like essays or
translations of classical works. His
authority is very good for his time.
This is not by any means easy to use.
The grammar is old and out of date.
It was difficult to read.
Mount, Harry. “Health Hitlers and a Mutiny in the Town Trying to Ban Smoking”.
London, 2011, Daily Mail. 12 July 2011.
This article was written to give an accurate assessment of the public
opinion of a smoking ban in Stony Stratford, London. This is also useful if I want to get a wide
array of personal opinions to site.
Special cases are not just exceptions in these debates. This was written last year in 2011 so it has
nothing lacking in its currency. The
journalist is reliable since he writes for the London Daily Mail, and also easy
to read and follow along if you want to keep up with the debate.
Mulvihill, Kim. “Health Watch: Sitting vs. Smoking”. San Fransisco, 2011.
CBS. 2 December 2012
This article was astonishing when I first saw. On one side I was complaining and on the
other I could rejoice. It shows that we
will create a health scare out of anything and worry our heads over what we are
doing all day. On the other hand this
was an opportunity to show people that smoking was only just as deadly as
sitting. So smokers are not racing to
the grave any quicker than non smokers who are sitting down often. Since then there have been many other
articles that support this; so it was not just one crazy doctor with an absurd
idea.
Smoking-facts.net. 2004. Web. 2
December 2012
This is another web site that is very helpful in understanding the mind
of the anti-tobacconist. The very
website claims to be delivering “eye popping” statistics about smoking that
will blow your mind. They rely on hear
say for their credibility and ad hominem for their logos. It isn’t much good for anything else than to
understand these minds. But they have a
wide array of different and completely unrelated facts which leads me to
believe that the people who composed the website didn’t really know what they
were talking about.
Sullum, Jacob. For Your Own Good. New York:
1998, The Free Press. Print.
This book is all about the anti-smoking crusade and the tyranny of public
health. Sullum is against it. He writes to uncover some of the less than
prudent actions of the anti tobacconists.
It is useful for some one who has just entered the debate; seeing that
there are not a lot of resources out there for pro tobacco this hits the mark
in giving all the right info about how smoking bans came up. The author is very accurate since he gives an
extended bibliography of all his sources he used. These are very easy to look up. Sullum is a newspaper columnist and so his
credibility is sufficient. It is his
jobs too have the straight facts. It
isn’t that current since it was published at the turn of the century but these
things have changed very little since then.
The same things are still being said.
The reading level is low so it would not be difficult for and average
adult to understand fully.
