Comments on: Smoking bans and public norms

By: lemuel pitkin

lemuel pitkin — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 18:19:21 +0000

tatistics being quoted showing how the smoking rate is going down – please be advised that these statistics are based only on the sale of legally taxed cigarettes.

Nope, wrong.

By: Bob

Bob — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 17:43:00 +0000

Here in Chicago, now that the warm weather is here, some bars that comply with the ban are getting hassled by police if a patron standing outside uses the bar house phone to call about a disturbance down the street. The police immediatly want to blame the bar. One police officer was shouting at the lady bartender that “I’ll close this place down” Show me your license” (which is posted on the wall) The poor lady was almost in tears. The bars that ignore the ban are having no problems with the patrons safely inside, bothering absolutly no one,and not getting involved with what is happening down the street. For the bars that comply with the ban, DON’T USE THE BAR HOUSE PHONE TO CALL POLICE if the patrons see a problem in the area. The bar will be blamed for the problem. Use a cell phone.

By: AC

AC — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 01:22:56 +0000

i could not go through all the comments, but the answer is quite easy. The smoking bans worked well because smokers actually want to either smoke less or quit; and this ban actually helps them.

By: JR

JR — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 20:14:45 +0000

Smokers are a minority, and many nonsmokers think it’s a repellant habit. There are few animal studies on secondhand smoke because most animals react with terror and panic to the idea of being suffocated by tobacco smoke. Given that, it is curious why nonsmoking bars have never succeeded.

But it’s likely that every bar has a large, silent plurality of people who would rather see the smoking ban work.

By: flex

flex — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 13:27:06 +0000

There has never been a law to prevent anybody from operating a non smoker bar or restaurant. Some was nonsmoking before the bans. McDonald, for example.
The trend was there, smoking was declining gradually and it stands to reason that more nonsmoking restaurants and bars was on it’s way before the forced bans on civil liberties sponsored by Big Pharma got into high gear.
The international Big Pharma financial muscle will soon be felt once again by tax payers in developed nations after the current G8 meeting as an agenda has been proposed which will force western nations to PURCHASE left over drugs from International Pharmaceutical companies. This will cost western countries hundreds of BILLIONS and both smoking and nonsmoking taxpayers will pay the bill.

By: Michelle Gervais

Michelle Gervais — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 12:28:25 +0000

You are all quite mistaken and so is the author of this column.

The “success” of the smoking ban had nothing to do with societal norms. It has to do with deputizing every bar/restaurant and wait staff. Its one thing to treat smoking ban laws with the contempt they deserve and have to pay a fine as the price for civil liberty.

It is quite another to cause the owner to receive a $5,000 fine or lose his liquor licence now isn’t it?

As for the success of smoking bans – with statistics being quoted showing how the smoking rate is going down – please be advised that these statistics are based only on the sale of legally taxed cigarettes. In most jurisdictions now, taxed cigarette sales have been overshadowed by the purchase of black-market cigarettes and the government hasn’t got a clue how many smokers there are!

Michelle

By: JoB

JoB — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 12:58:21 +0000

It’s also more effective against lower back pain than acupuncture as it makes you stand up and walk about every hour or so. Not to mention the liberation you feel of not being steered by the constant desire to ‘live long and prosper’.

I doubt a lot whether death has got a lot to do with stopping. It’s the stink, the irritation of eyes and lungs, the impact on those not choosing to smoke, the social pressure, & the humiliation of being addicted.

By: Tim Wilkinson

Tim Wilkinson — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 10:19:32 +0000

roy belmont @60: there’s a lot in that, but wasn’t smoking ubiquitous among adult and juvenile males (in Europe anyway; maybe not with the Mayflower crowd), with the C20th marketing drive only operating to extend it to the more profitable cigarettes – and of course to women? Though the latent promotion-rather-than-brand-competition function started to operate once abstinence became a significant issue.

Bloix @61: It was a way to connect with total strangers that’s one benefit of smoking outside (as obviously one should, except in places that non-smokers can avoid without bearing unfair disadvantage). Also it gets you breaks at work which the non-smokers don’t feel they can demand.
If didn’t kill you, we’d all still be smoking. In some cases it doesn’t – the human genome project can help there…

@62: It’s as if a lot of smokers really wanted a self-signalling excuse to give up. ‘As if’ in what sense? In the minds of the legislators? And surely precisely not self-signalling?

By: ejh

ejh — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 09:45:36 +0000

I suppose it is difficult for anyone living in a foreign country to work out which laws it is generally accepted can be broken, in what ways, and by how much.

Yep

By: Alex

Alex — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 09:09:56 +0000

It’s as if a lot of smokers really wanted a self-signalling excuse to give up.

By: CharlieHipHop

CharlieHipHop — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 03:09:44 +0000

If smoking is so bad for you, why are the longest-lived men in the world the Japanese, who are also among the heaviest smokers? Second longest-lived are the French, also heavy smokers.

If smoking is so godawful bad, why are cancer mortality rates, heart disease mortality rates, and—most notably—asthma rates rising even as smoking rates plummet. Correlation is not causation, but shouldn’t we expect these to be falling after 40+ years of anti-smoking propaganda and legislation?

I’m not saying that smoking is good for you, but the facts on the ground are pretty clear: It’s not the devil incarnate.

By: Bloix

Bloix — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 00:56:22 +0000

“Media seduction did it, and media seduction undid it.”

I enjoyed being a smoker. It was social, it was pleasurable. The physical object was elegant, and the things you could do with it in your hands made you feel sophisticated. It was a way to connect with total strangers and a way to relax with your friends. I miss it terribly. If didn’t kill you, we’d all still be smoking.

By: roy belmont

roy belmont — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 22:20:35 +0000

In the 60s and 70s, everyone smoked in eating/drinking places all the time, it was just part of how they were. By the 90s, it was much less common
Me and Virgil X share a chunk of the timeline that predates this “just part of how they were” lacuna.
Non-smoking adults were so anomalous in my early youth that it was a ponder, and one would naturally want to ask them why not. Adults were as known by the brands of their cigarettes as by their names.
No one here, or virtually anywhere now for that matter seems to think it of much import to wonder how exactly it came to be the case that something so unnatural and unhealthy was near universally adopted in less than a century.
Well I’ll tell you what I think, I think it was done through the same mechanisms that undid it.
Brainwash subliminal seduction charismatic example and pretty constant social reinforcement. Going in as well as coming out. There’s unsubstantiated rumor-level indications that opiates were used periodically as adulterants in the early days of tobacco as mass-produced cigarettes, and documented tales of college BMOC’s hired to smoke and distribute particular brands in pre-WW2 America.
The default assumption which I think is the most pernicious aspect of the whole thing is that free choice, unhealthy hedonistic pseudo-sophisticated, brought it on and free choice, health-conscious valiant new, undid it.
No.
Media seduction did it, and media seduction undid it. Co-driven going in by corporate interests and going out by pablum-scented health warriors.
Best image of the strange bifurcated mind set around smoking in the 90’s transitional period:
An artistic intelligent socially responsible mother holding a babe in arms chastising her husband for indulging in a quick smoke of American Spirit before he played a barn dance gig in the California hills, a real quick blast of negativity from her viz. that nasty smoking second-hand business, all the while she’s standing by a roughly idling 8-cylinder American station wagon, less than three feet from the tail pipe.
It’s like listening to the Eloi discuss their morning papaya, reading this thread.

By: Tim Wilkinson

Tim Wilkinson — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 21:15:02 +0000

JoB @56 Yes – I missed the fact that you referred to absence of pre-warnings, rather than what I mentioned which is failure to mitigate the impacts of a transition (regardless of whether the end is for the better).

I can cope with warnings but the pictures are just wretched – AOT, attempting to bypass the conscious rational faculties altogether in a way I find pretty creepy.

By: JoB

JoB — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 19:32:45 +0000

Tim, no, not even an italicized problem. Even more annoying then getting banned is an endless flow of warnings. I’d happily trade a smoking ban for a ban on pre-warnings, as if we’re all little children in need of CAPITAL LETTERS reminding us of what has been in the news for the past decades. Or, alternatively, a warning to go with the warnings: ‘if it is for sale than this warning may legally be neglected. You are free to make up your own mind.’