As your example shows, it may take some people years to draw the right conclusions. I have no doubt that one day the majority of people - and authorities - will understand that what going on here is utterly wrong. But such wisdom will not always come to them by itself; someone will have to stand up and make them understand.
It may take years, though - at least a whole lot more than thirteen. But of course, I hope that I will be proven wrong about that.
The proposed banishment of smokers also raises the question why we are having a debate about alcohol consumption efter milleniums worth of experience that drinking alcohol is unhealthy. In fact, I'm almost sure that the very man proposing banishment of smokers, probably drinks alcohol in some quantity. If this were to be taken up with him, I'm sure he would enter into a debate with claims that drinking alcohol in moderation can be 'healthy'.
Alcohol is not 'healthy'. Period.
Nevertheless, consuming it can be enjoyable. And that goes for a lot of other stuff as well.
Unfortunately, some people are forgetting that life is something we should all try to enjoy.
Mike wrote:
"Obese employees are 4 times more likely to be hospitalized in a given year than non-obese employees. Eliminating smoking applicants from job consideration while retaining obese applicants seems nonsensical."
I agree. Melbourne would be more logical, consistent and health promoting if also required obese people to lose weight if they wanted to get a job with the city.
Rimshot, I certainly agree that consuming alcohol can be enjoyable. I think every man and woman has the right to enjoy in that indulgance. However, I do not believe that they should do it under the impression that it is 'healthy'.
Does Mr. Godshall drink alcohol? I alredy gather that Michael Siegel does.
Does anybody recognize that these types of columns, while possibly meaning to show the fallacy of one side of this argument, are going to be taken seriously by some of the more, shall we say zealous persecuters of nannyism's? I see several points in this article that could be latched onto as media sound bytes that will encourage the discrimination against the next class of citizens who are already becoming targets in the discrimination ring. This type of story will give ammunition to those seeking to attack their next deep pocket business, big food. Carefull how you make your analogues.
People seem to be forgetting that smokers and non-smokers alike share in the ownership of all things "public." Smokers pay their share (and then some) for the jobs, buildings, parks, sidewalks and beaches they're increasingly barred from enjoying. We do have the right to be accommodated. And we need to let our representatives know that we demand equal opportunity and reasonable public and private space in which to partake of a legal product.
Can someone explain to me,[a resident of the Norther Empire of Free Healthcare] exactly how companies in the US pay for their employees health costs? Do they essentially pay all of the miscellaneous charges or is it along the same principle of life insurance where smokers and non-smokers simply pay different premiums regardless of other heath concerns?
Thanks,
Chunk
What's really scary IMO is who is enacting, or want to enact, such a discriminatory policy.
If it's a private company, well it's disgusting anyway but at least a private employer can argue with something like "it's my f***ing society, i risk my own money in it, so i hire who the f*** i want!"
But in this case, it's the very same public administration that wants to turn a relevant portion of its citizens into workplace outcasts. What's the purpose of that? Obviously not public health. What then? Some arrivists in seek of RWJF grants? Some hidden RWJF grants already delivered? I wouldn't be surprised of that.
Well, at least we have something in common. I see that even in the USA national politicians SUX, but local politicians are quite often real stinkers.
Never try and win an argument with someone that buys ink by the barell or public funded anti tobacco activists that can afford to buy ad spots on Super Bowl Sunday.
Did someone say a government of equal representation??
jreth wrote:
"Smokers pay their share (and then some) for the jobs, buildings, parks, sidewalks and beaches they're increasingly barred from enjoying."
Please cite just one law that bars smokers from jobs, buildings, parks, sidewalks or beaches.
Despite the fact that no such laws actually exist, cigarette company propagandists and a few selfish smokers have no qualms about framing and repeating those blatent lies in a pathetic effort to portray smokers as victims and public health advocates as evil.
That also explains why most of the comments containing fraudulant claims (that are posted on this blog) are posted by people who refuse to even identify themselves.
My only question is how many of those people hiding behind aliases (who post on this blog) have been paid by cigarette companies and how many are posted by delusional smokers who are afraid to reveal their true names.
This is my real name, email and website for the group I represent as Director - media relations. I personally, and this group do not receive one red cent from any tobacco company, pharmaceutical company, government or anyone else for who we can be accused on being a shill.
Can Bill Godshall say the same?
So much for Bill's distracting, off-topic digression. We are not talking about using parks or sidewalks here.
We are talking about being discriminated against in the job market and for health care based on personal and legal lifestyle choices.
As one public corporation as already discovered, such unfounded discrimination merely limits one's choice in the labour market and affects the company's bottom line in unexpected ways. We can expect this to get worse as experienced baby boomers retire and there is a shrinking pool of experienced labour to take their place.
Personally, I don't like working for bullies. Once you submit to a bully by giving him your lunch money once (or giving up smoking to keep your job) you can clearly expect the bully to come back with more demands, such as Weyco now going after the overweight. Better to give up your job immediately under such demands. At least then you won't spend 25 miserable years on the job only to find yourself fired before you can collect a full pension, Remember their loyalty is to the bottom line - not to you. They have made that perfectly clear. Why should they continue to employ over-50 workers?
As for refusal of health care benefits, isn't the reason health care insurance is cheaper than paying for health care directly because you have a large pool of people each paying monthly dividends? Now what would happen if 20 % of the adult population demanded that all tobacco taxation cease, the money left in the hands of smokers to pay for health care directly and every smoker were to then bow out of the insurance pool.
I hate to point this out but this is a knife that cuts both ways. If the rest of the population doesn't wish to "subsidize" the health care of smoker's - why should smokers have any interest whatsoever in continuing to support a health care system that is becoming increasingly unrealiable for smokers?
I don't wish to subsidize the health care of the obese or those idiots who jog/cycle on a busy highway on a smog day or the ones who go mountain climbing. Who is going to pay for all the therapy and joint replacement operations for all the joggers. Should vegetarians continue to subsidize meat-eaters health care costs? Why am I paying health care costs for people who can't limit their fertility to 1 or 2 children.
Its time to start campaigning for changes to the way tobacco taxes are collected and used and how health care is provided!
Michelle.
Bill wrote:
"That also explains why most of the comments containing fraudulant claims (that are posted on this blog) are posted by people who refuse to even identify themselves."
I didn't know that "Bill Godshall" was an alias. What's your true name?
"Please cite just one law that bars smokers from jobs, buildings, parks, sidewalks or beaches."
What I said was that smokers pay their share for the jobs, buildings, parks, sidewalks and beaches that they are increasingly barred from enjoying. It doesn't matter whether smokers are perceived as delusional, selfish or victimized, so long as it's understood that we don't enjoy being forced to endure long periods of time without smoking, and that we do indeed pay our share for all those public amenities in which we're provided no place to smoke.
If we own it, then we have the right to be accomodated in some way. It used to be that many places offered outdoor glass enclosures for smokers, but even those have been eliminated despite the fact that their purpose was to protect nonsmokers from ETS. In any case, it's an absolute fact that going long periods without smoking causes withdrawal symptoms that are physically and mentally very intolerable. That's why so many can't quit and it's why smokers will do anything to avoid settings where they can't duck into a designated smoking area. I'm saying those areas should be provided because we want them to be provided - and because we pay, we do get a say in this matter.
"My only question is how many of those people hiding behind aliases (who post on this blog) have been paid by cigarette companies and how many are posted by delusional smokers who are afraid to reveal their true names."
That's "delusional TAXPAYING smoker" to you, pal. And I'm not afraid to reveal my true name, which is jreth, short for Judy Reth. I don't work for a cigarette company, but I was a founding employee of one of the nation's largest private providers of supplemental education to children. I spent the last 6 years of that career as head of International Development for the firm. Since then, my husband and I have established a successful aerospace engineering firm specializing in guidance navigation and control systems - and smokers are most definitely welcome to apply.
I'll conclude here by saying that I find your name-calling and denigration of smokers to be shameful and offensive.
jreth wrote:
"In any case, it's an absolute fact that going long periods without smoking causes withdrawal symptoms that are physically and mentally very intolerable."
I fully concur, as do all other experts on nicotine addiction.
That's also one of the reasons why some employers adopt smokefree employment policies for prospective employees (and even for current employees), as they don't want their employees going though nicotine withdrawal while at work.
That's also one of the reasons why Smokefree Pennsylvania and I have been urging cigarette smokers to switch to far less hazardous smokeless tobacco products or NRT (although NRT products deliver smaller nicotine doses than do tobacco products).
Smokers can also use these noncombustible nicotine products as substitutes for cigarettes when in smokefree environments.
Ah, so you're a lackey of smokeless tobacco! How much is Skoal paying you?
Not quite Walt, but you were close, Bill, as he stated above "That's also one of the reasons why Smokefree Pennsylvania and I have been urging cigarette smokers to switch to far less hazardous smokeless tobacco products or NRT (although NRT products deliver smaller nicotine doses than do tobacco products). ", is nothing more than a schill for bug Pharma, IE: RWJF, etc, etc. Not to mention the personal fortune he's made in his 'Generous' litigations for 'nominal' fee's in fighting the evil smokers of the world.
Neither Smokefree Pennsylvania nor I have ever received funding from a tobacco company, drug company, RWJF, or the Master Settlement Agreement.
Perhaps Walt and Jerry Thomas could reveal the other fraudulant claims they've posted on this blog.
Ok Bill, exactly where does smokefree pennsylvania recieve all of it's funding? I would love to see the finaincial reports, do you have a link to where your organization recieves ALL of it's funding?
Then talk to me about "fraudulent claims", as far as stating that you, personally, have recieved any funding from any organization, tell me where in that post I said that, what I said is that you are a schill for big pharma, not neccessarily a paid svhill, and as far as your recieving money, what I said was the "'Generous' litigatins for a 'nominal' fee" as you yourself eluded to in another post when you recommended litigation as a way to try to hold tobacco companies responsible for ecerything from killing innocent bystanders, to not taking responsibility for their own actions.
BTW, where did you get your "fraudulent" information when you accused me of being a front for Bit Tobacco, or FORCES?
Bill asks:
"My only question is how many of those people hiding behind aliases (who post on this blog) have been paid by cigarette companies and how many are posted by delusional smokers who are afraid to reveal their true names."
So in the interest of full disclosure my name is Mark Wernimont I am a non-smoker, I have asthma, and I have never taken tobacco money, though I would gladly accept it for two reasons:
1) the pro-smoking ban advocates, backed by pharmacetical nicotine interests, have eliminated my livelihood of 15 years. I used to sell Smokeeter air cleaners to bars and restaurants, but the unjustifed smoking bans have eliminated that as a source of income for me now.
2) the air quality data that I provide as proof against the pro-smoking ban claims, comes from a government health department. It doesn't matter where my funding comes from that data is consistant and not influenced by either side of the issue. As a matter of fact the testing was most assuredly designed to prove how hazardous SHS is, when what it proves is quite the contrary.
So RJR, Phillip Morris, Johnson & Johnson, or even RWJF please spell my name correctly on the check if you please.
Mark Wernimont (AKA marcus aurelius) has relied upon the cigarette industry and smokefree advocates for his livelihood.
If not for tobacco smoke pollution and smokefree advocates, virtually nobody would have ever bought the so-called air cleaners and ventilation systems that have been marketed via fraudulant health claims regarding tobacco smoke pollution.
Also, if it weren't for the false claims made by cigarette companies, ventilation sales reps and FORCES, managements at tens of thousands of restaurants, hotels, bars, bowling alleys, pool and bingo halls, etc. would never have wasted their money buying those defective devices.
Relied upon cigarette industry?
False claims? Defective devices?
Bill that sounds like language bordering on libel. Are you sure you're an attorney?
If anybody has a lawsuit claim, it is people like myself, who should be able to sue the pharmaceutical nicotine industry and their non-profit mouthpieces who have deceived and misled lawmakers into eliminating our jobs and livelihoods.
And if you ask me 152 times safer than OSHA guidelines goes a long way to punching a hole in the local government justification of "health hazard."
http://
cleanairquality.blogspot....secondhand.html
In other words these smoking bans will be declared void of merit and repealed upon challenge.
Bill-
If you are making an accusation that an identified individual on this blog made fraudulent health claims, you need to document it. Otherwise, if it's just a general statement not regarding any particular individual, please make that clear. For now, I'm assuming that it was just a general statement.
The accusation of "selling defective devices" seems quite clear and quite clearly aimed at a particular individual here.
To Mr.Godshall,
I am a smoker (an Italian smoker for that) And i am NOT paid by anybody.
I like Mr. Siegel's point of view, who is seing his believe going berserk because of others.
By the way, Mr. Godshall, how much is Big Pharma paying you?
I think all of this sytupidity is going to end only when people gather again control of their brains!
Mike Siegel wrote:
"Bill-
If you are making an accusation that an identified individual on this blog made fraudulent health claims, you need to document it. Otherwise, if it's just a general statement not regarding any particular individual, please make that clear. For now, I'm assuming that it was just a general statement."
Dozens (and perhaps hundreds) of fraudulant health statements have been posted on this blog, including many by marcus aurelius about the so-called "safety" of tobacco smoke pollution.
If you were truly interested in debunking fraudulant health claims,
you would start with those that have been posted on this blog.
But if you did, FORCES would stop praising you, and the folks who call me lots of silly names on this blog would begin calling you those same silly names.
Funny Bill. First you claim that dozens (or perhaps hundreds) or fraudulent health statements have been posted on this blog, then you preach on the Doc because he has failed to debunk them so far. Didn't you say a few time ago that the burden of proof is on those who make the accusation?
Bill scribbled in crayon:
"and the folks who call me lots of silly names on this blog would begin calling you those same silly names."
You started it. Nyah-nyah.
Bill-
Opinions posted on a blog are not fraudulent health claims. They are just opinions. If an individual thinks secondhand smoke is not harmful and they state so, they are not guilty of fraud; they are just, at worst, wrong. If they were a tobacco company, then it would be an entirely different matter. But we have something known as free speech where people can offer their opinions. It's not fraudulent for someone to opine that secondhand smoke is not harmful. It's only fraudulent if they state that it is not harmful when they know that it is not.
Doc, perhaps you meant "when they know that it is." ?!?
Thanks tR1cKy. Yes, of course that's what I meant. It's old age setting in. Or else just frustration from banging my head against the wall for weeks to get some U.S. anti-smoking group to speak out against discrimination against smokers to no avail. I guess banging one's head against the wall can cause some brain damage.
"I guess banging one's head against the wall can cause some brain damage."
How about trying some second-hand banging (i.e. banging somebody else's head.. 
)
Bill--
Professional anti-smokers rely upon the cigarette industry for their livlihood, just as the Drug Warriors rely on the illegal drug business.
All the arguments on both sides of this issue that claim monetary interest proves a speaker to be wrong are so infantile I'm amazed anyone who makes them is allowed outside.
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