PGHIMC - Pittsburgh Independent Media Center

Smoking Ban Laws Bogus
by Watchdog Thursday, Sep. 21, 2006 at 3:34 AM
j_jonik@yahoo.com

Seemingly wholesome, healthful, Smoking Bans greatly help the cigarette industry, including its pesticide suppliers, chlorine/dioxin interests, big insurance, and complicit public officials. About protecting health? Hardly.

Here are reasons why Philadelphia's Smoking Ban is illegitimate on many grounds. Philadelphia's bill is virtually identical to most others, probably the same as Pittsburgh and Allegheny County and elsewhere.
A question here is: are such tricks, omissions, lies, and misstatements necessary if a law is legit?
Answer: Never.
This may be a tad long, but it will confirm anyone's suspicion that corporate media and corporate-serving officials are not on the side of the public.
It may persuade that the "smoking bans" are injustices perpetrated on the popularly disliked "smokers" in order to protect the cigarette industries...ironically enough.
See: http://fauxbacco.blogspot.com for more.
This was submitted to Phila City Council as official testimony,on the public record, accompanied by back-up documentation. Links to that at the "fauxbacco" site.
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TWENTY REASONS WHY Philadelphia's “SMOKING BILL”, IS UNNACCEPTABLE

1) It accepts deceptive, misleading, unqualified
cigarette industry marketing language about the
products being just tobacco, or being tobacco at all.
(See accompanying pages with patents for fake tobacco
processes.) [or search "US Patents tobacco
substitute material"] [That is...the basic focus is
about Harms Of Tobacco Smoke...yet no such thing may
come from many typical cigarettes. THAT thread alone
can undo the whole deal.]

2) It accepts EPA material on “secondhand” smoke
despite that very material having been declared
“fraudulent” in Federal Court years ago. (Though the
judge was later ruled to have been outside of his
jurisdiction, the substance of that condemnation of
EPA tactics remains intact. Even the EPA has not
done anything to challenge.) [Search "Judge Osteen
EPA]

3) The bill fails, as much as the cigarette
industry does, in describing what, exactly, is meant
by “cigarette”, “tobacco” or “smoke”, words integral
to the issue.
a) “cigarette” is a catch-all term, like
“sandwich”. It can contain just about anything.
b) “tobacco” is just a category. Qualifications
regarding Contaminated Tobacco, or
Un-contaminated Tobacco, or
Pesticide-Contaminated Tobacco, or Radioactive
Tobacco, etc., are crucial in matters
relating to medicine and science.
c) “Smoke” can be from an infinite number of
things and combinations. Smoke from
natural plants or incense may be either an
irritant or pleasant. Smoke from industrial
chemicals and other substances can be and
often is deadly.

4) The bill speaks of “69 known or probable
carcinogens in tobacco smoke”, yet some of those
carcinogens cannot possibly be from a tobacco plant
or its smoke.

5) The bill speaks of “4000 known chemical
compounds” in” tobacco smoke” and in “secondhand
smoke”. Staff at Council Member Tasco’s office 3
days before this hearing did not know what these
chemicals were or where to find a list. We do not
know how many of the “chemicals” are natural to
tobacco, how many are natural in smoke from any
plant, how many are exclusively in tobacco smoke, or
how many are INDUSTRIAL chemicals that contaminate
tobacco in most cigarette products.

6) It proposes the Most Burdensome “solution” to the
health problems. Instead of addressing the SOURCE of
the problem at the cigarette production end with the
many pesticide residues, chlorine contamination,
radiation contamination from certain fertilizers, and
the over 1000 un-tested cigarette additives, the bill
would involve thousands of businesses, more thousands
of workers and even more thousands of patrons. It
would involve the time and cost of police, health
officials, prosecutors, courts, jurors, and on and
on. This bill just “swats the flies”, so to speak,
created by the garbage sneaked into typical
cigarettes with full approval of government
officials. The bill fails to take the Least
Burdensome route of addressing the garbage.

7) The burdens and costs of this law are to be
unjustly put on the victims and uninvolved parties,
those who had no part in recklessly making typical
pesticide- and radiation-contaminated products, had
no part in approving those and other contaminants,
and had no part in keeping the information from
consumers.

8) The bill refers to fire dangers but ignores the
matter of still-legal Burn Accelerants added to
typical cigarettes in order to speed up use of the
products for the sake of maximized sales and
profits--- and “sin” tax revenues.

9) The bill persistently refers to “smoking”---that
is, the behavior of the defrauded, uninformed,
unprotected, insufficiently-warned, secretly
poisoned, and uncompensated smokers---victims of
products they think, and are told, are just
“tobacco”. The bill does not address Reckless,
Homicidal, Public-Endangering Product Manufacturing.

10) The bill creates inconvenience and nuisance to
neighbors of “no smoking” establishments by a)
pushing smokers out doors to smoke, and b) by pushing
them in some cases onto sidewalks and proximity to
neighbors who are just outside the 20 foot no-smoking
zone around entrances. We also do not know if the 20
ft. measurement is taken from the edge of a door, the
woodwork, the center, or what.

11) The bill, as written, could snare any smoker
walking past an unidentified “no smoke” building, and
even those in cars on the street within the 20 feet.
As written, the bill forbids even smoking on one’s
own property in areas that may be within the 20 ft.
limit.

12) Many theatrical plays involve smoking
characters. So may films or TV programs being
produced in the city. Some magic and circus acts
involve cigarettes and flames. The bill, as written,
would cancel all such performances. This may
constitute a Free Speech issue. If there is no
enforcement in these artistic areas, while there is
enforcement elsewhere, an injustice will be taking
place.

13) The bill is so vaguely and generally written
that it would prohibit church candles and incense,
candles in any of the “no smoke” places, Bunsen
burners, welding equipment, stoves and even fire
places.

14) The Bill is extensively arbitrary and selective
in “protecting workers” from air pollutants. Nothing
in the bill protects workers from exhaust in indoor
parking lots or auto repair shops. Nothing protects
workers from fumes from plastic and other synthetic
building and furnishing materials. Nothing protects
workers from chlorine disinfectants and cleansers or
indoor pesticides…or from sawdust, paint fumes,
welding fumes and on and on. And the bill does
nothing to protect workers or anyone from pollutants
unconscionably permitted in tobacco products and the
smoke.

15) The bill, ostensibly crafted out of concern for
worker’s health and well being, fails to address the
matter of worker compensation for being unknowingly
exposed to smoke from cigarette contaminants known to
the world to be among the worst industrial
pollutants. Nor are workers even yet advised or
warned about the dangerous non-tobacco components of
most (not all) cigarettes.

16) Nothing in the bill offers the Constitutionally
Guaranteed compensation for such a Public Interest
“takings” (as per Fifth Amendment) of profits or
business…not that a public interest has been
adequately proven. Supporters of this bill claim
that bans are “good for business”, yet at the same
time call for bans in neighboring areas to prevent
bar, restaurant and bowling patrons from flocking to
the still-smoking establishments.
No method of determining business losses has been
established, yet widely criticized claims of business
gains due to bans are accepted without scrutiny.

17) Nothing in the bill offers compensation to
business proprietors for the expense of posting signs
and perhaps even training employees to police any
smoking violations on the premises.

18) The bill creates the endangerment of employees
who are compelled to step 20 feet away from the
safety of entrances, sometimes in dark alleys, to
legally catch a smoke. Increase of muggings in such
instances are being reported.

19) Supporting testimony for the bill from certain
entities must be questioned or dismissed. The NCI
(National Cancer Institute) is notorious for being
composed almost exclusively of members of the
chemical/chlorine/pharmaceutical industries, the very
entities that make and supply non-tobacco cigarette
ingredients…and who understandably do not care to be
implicated. “Tobacco Free Kids” (who testified in
2005) had as its first president the founder of a top
pesticide PR firm. TFK accepts funding from top
chlorine AND alternative nicotine delivery product
interests. TFK, therefore, fails to say or do
anything about pesticide residues in typical
cigarettes, about chlorine content, about the
resultant dioxin in the smoke, OR about how these
things are especially harmful to children (i.e.,
“kids”) and fetuses and pregnant mothers...and etc.


20) The bill ignores these facts:
* According to other material by the EPA, there is
dioxin in cigarette smoke.
* According to that same material, dioxin is
“anthropogenic”, man-made, a by-product of industrial
chlorine, and “not likely in nature”. That is, it
is not from tobacco.
* Although this is public government information,
the NCI failed to list dioxin as one of the “69
carcinogens” in cigarette smoke.
(Think...National Chlorine Institute.)
* Typical cigarettes contain residues of chlorine
pesticides, and are and have been wrapped in
chlorine-bleached paper. A third source of chlorine
and dioxin is the added agricultural products, likely
contaminated with pesticides. A fourth source would
be any chlorine-treated paper waste cellulose used to
make fake tobacco.
* Many, if not most, “smoking related” diseases are
identical to symptoms of dioxin exposure…and are
impossible to be caused by tobacco or any plant, even
burned.
* Inhalation of dioxin is the worst possible exposure
route---because of the efficiency of the lungs. (If
there’s one place dioxin ought NOT be it is cigarette
smoke.)
* The notorious case of Agent Orange was a dioxin
matter. Few learned people can be unfamiliar with
the harmfulness of dioxin.
* The U.S. classified dioxin as a Known Human
Carcinogen…the worst class. There is no safe dose.
(Note that anti-smoking forces use the same
terminology regarding “tobacco”. They mean
Chlorine-Contaminated Tobacco, but forget to say so.)
* The U.S. signed the Stockholm Convention to rid
the world of dioxin and 11 other of the worst
industrial pollutants. (Fully 9 of which are or
have been tobacco pesticides and/or cigarette
contaminants!…dioxin being the worst.)

This bill accepts that it is legal to make and
provide such deceptively marketed, secretly toxic,
carcinogenic and fire-causing products, and that the
perpetrators may avoid exposure, scrutiny, liability
and criminal charges, and that it is right to make it
more and more illegal for uninformed, unprotected,
insufficiently-warned, poisoned, defrauded, and
uncompensated consumers to use them. This is pure
Backwards-Land. This bill, like its clones around
the world, greatly supports the very industry it
purports to condemn. It does a great disservice to
the public at large, be they smokers or consumers of
any products “regulated” in this manner.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A Few More Reasons the Bill is illegitimate….for good
measure:

* The bill claims that “nearly 75% of Pennsylvanians
do not smoke”.
- Is that really 74%, or some fraction beyond or
below?
- Does this refer to all Pennsylvanians, including
babies, prisoners, elderly and infirm, religious
groups who do not smoke, etc?
- Is this to pretend that this 75% therefore
disapprove of smoking and therefore support ban
legislation?
- How many non-smokers disapprove of smoke ban laws?
- How many do not smoke because of the effects of
contaminated tobacco, tobacco that the persons do not
know is contaminated?
- How many of those ex-smokers have been checked
for body-burdens of dioxin, radiation, and the
various tobacco pesticide residues? (How many of
their doctors have economic links with chlorine
industries or their insurers and investors?)
- Is this to imply that such matters ought be left
to a vote…by uninformed, mis-informed
voters?
- Did we outlaw murder because “nearly” 99% of
Pennsylvanians are not killers?
- How many Pennsylvanians would vote to outlaw
toxic, cancer-causing product adulterants? “Nearly”
100%, one would hope. Too bad they aren’t asked.
- Likely, 75% of Pennsylvanians do not play
classical music.

* The bill prohibits smoking of not only tobacco but
also “other smoke producing products” that are not
named nor, apparently, studied in order to show a
public interest purpose for the prohibition.
Understand that one can be fined or arrested for
allegedly endangering others with material that is
not named or studied, and for which no victim can be
found.

* The bill, mysteriously, exempts functions where
people are “seated at tables”.
- Does this therefore exempt poker establishments and
other sit-down gambling operations, bingo parlors,
etc?
- What if one gets up from the table to go to the
bathroom, to get a drink, to visit other tables, or
to dance?

* The bill exempts beauty parlors with ventilation.
Can customers have drinks and watch TV football while
sitting under hair dryers?

* The bill makes no exemption for Rastafarians who
years ago won the Constitutional right to smoke ganja
for religious purposes…as Roman Catholic children are
permitted to have wine with communion.

* Smoking is prohibited within 20 ft. of “entrances”.
Exits seem to be exempt.

* Though called the “Clean Indoor Air Worker
Protection Act”, the bill sneaks in prohibitions of
smoking in various OUTDOOR areas such as
sports/entertainment venues, and decks, patios, and
sidewalks associated with bars and restaurants…not to
mention that 20 ft. no-smoke area outside of
entrances. No studies have been presented, and no
victims have come forth, to show a public interest
justification for outdoor bans of tobacco smoke OR
Contaminated-Tobacco smoke OR smoke from fake
tobacco.

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