Stop It—You're Killing Me!

Jacob Sullum | January 30, 2006

Michael Siegel lays into Action on Smoking and Health for pushing outdoor smoking bans by claiming that transient exposure to secondhand smoke might just kill you. "Breathing drifting tobacco smoke for even brief periods can be deadly," ASH claims in a background document that accompanied a press release it issued on Saturday. "For example, the Centers for Disease Controls [CDC] has warned that breathing drifting tobacco smoke for as little as 30 minutes ( less than the time one might be exposed outdoors on a beach, sitting on a park bench, listening to a concert in a park, etc.) can raise a nonsmoker's risk of suffering a fatal heart attack to that of a smoker." Siegel, who supports smoking bans for indoor workplaces, says this scare mongering is "the lowest I have observed the anti-smoking movement sinking in terms of misleading the public." He elaborates:

It is simply not the case that breathing drifting tobacco smoke for as little as 30 minutes can raise a nonsmoker's risk of suffering a fatal heart attack to that of a smoker, and in my view, it is not the case that CDC made such a claim.

The truth is that an otherwise healthy nonsmoker cannot suffer a heart attack as a result of 30 minutes of exposure to secondhand smoke. A nonsmoker's risk of a heart attack from breathing tobacco smoke for 30 minutes is not the same as that of a smoker. It is actually ZERO.

You are not going to have a heart attack if you don't have coronary artery disease; and 30 minutes of exposure to secondhand smoke is not going to clog your coronary arteries.

I cannot over-emphasize the fact that ASH's claim is completely fallacious. It's not like ASH is distorting the truth here. In my opinion, they are just completely making this up, or at least, misinterpreting the data so badly that it has the appearance of coming out of nowhere. You simply aren't going to get atherosclerosis and clogged coronary arteries in 30 minutes!!!

Siegel worries that such baseless claims will hurt the credibility of the anti-smoking movement and weaken public support for indoor smoking bans. I wish. But it seems to me that people will pretend to believe almost anything, no matter how ridiculous, if it helps them get what they want, and most people want to avoid cigarette smoke.

Comments

|1.30.06 @ 12:01PM|#

While we're making stuff up, the NIH has declared that a constant input of marijuana in vaporized form from around age 16 is essential to healthy growth, and cocaine has been found to be actually safer than coffee. Hallelujah! Legalize it, and dammit, subsidize it!! (I propose a zero-balance trade, in which we eliminate corn subsidies to pay for a massive marijuana cultivation project headed by Dr. Lyle Craker of UMass-Amherst and that guy Soma, cuz he's a cannabis genetic genius.

Also a note, a doctor at a hospital in upstate NY today had a letter published in a local paper that said flat-out that the smoking ban has already caused a decrease in smoking-related deaths in New York. No data cited of course, but she had an M.D. after her name so it must be true. It also appeared next to a letter calling for "death by hanging" of sexual predators and drug dealers. (Reading the Opinion page is my morning bit of masochism.)

|1.30.06 @ 12:07PM|#

One of my first jobs was to file transaction slips in a brokerage house in Manhattan. This was the early 80s and a majority of the employees in this back room ops center smoked, some up to three packs a day. You'd see these guys (and a few girls) lighting one smoke from another.

According the the smoke nazis, half of these people should have died in the 6 months I worked there, but none ever did. I've also read an opinion by an old time newspaperman (Sidney Zion?) that if second hand smoke really killed epople then all the old reporters would have died years ago.

I guess it's impolite to bring up these questions?

|1.30.06 @ 12:09PM|#

They mean thirty minutes PER DAY right?

|1.30.06 @ 12:21PM|#

It appears they are speaking of a one time 30 min exposure. Evidence be damned.

|1.30.06 @ 12:35PM|#

One wonders why smokers bother to buy their own insteadofjust walking through someone else's cloud.

Captain Holly|1.30.06 @ 12:45PM|#

"Breathing drifting tobacco smoke for even brief periods can be deadly,"

Breathing in any kind of smoke can be deadly if you do it for too long. There's nothing magical about tobacco smoke; you'll breathe in essentially the same carcinogenic compounds sitting by a campfire roasting hot dogs and marshmallows.

I've never smoked in my life, and I don't really want to breathe in someone else's smoke, but the anti-smoking movement has really gone bonkers.

|1.30.06 @ 12:49PM|#

"I think I've contracted the black lung. Cough, cough."

|1.30.06 @ 12:50PM|#

I spend about an hour pre day walking near or crossing the I-75/I-85 connector in Atlanta, and I'm sure the fumes I breathe are much worse than cigarette smoke. Can my family sue the car makers after I die of heart attack at the tender age of 34?

Captain Holly|1.30.06 @ 12:56PM|#

Come to think of it, if you want to die early forget smoking.

For something that's really deadly, there's nothing better than a hot dog cooked over a campfire, with a crispy black skin and smokey taste but juicy in the middle.

mmmmm....nitrosamines

|1.30.06 @ 1:07PM|#

For example, the Centers for Disease Controls [CDC] has warned that breathing drifting tobacco smoke for as little as 30 minutes ( less than the time one might be exposed outdoors on a beach, sitting on a park bench, listening to a concert in a park, etc.) can raise a nonsmoker's risk of suffering a fatal heart attack to that of a smoker

So then if you spend 30 minutes or more a day in close proximity to a smoker, there's no point in giving up your own pack-a-day habit since your risk of cancer is just as high?

Dammit, I quit smoking for NOTHING.

R C Dean|1.30.06 @ 1:33PM|#

Not quite, Jennifer. Its not per day. If you are exposed to 30 minutes of drifting smoke in your lifetime, you gave up your relaxing, ejoyable cigarette habit for nothing. Nothing at all, except the transient joy it gave some bluenose neo-Puritan.

|1.30.06 @ 1:36PM|#

All that this claim really does is make people believe (for those that believe it at all) that being a full-time smoker is no more harmful than being a regular person unfortunate enough to come across smokers from time to time.

I mean, if I can have a heart attack by sitting at a bar stool for half an hour, why not just go ahead and smoke, too? At least then I'll look cool while I'm dying. :)

|1.30.06 @ 1:43PM|#

If you are exposed to 30 minutes of drifting smoke in your lifetime, you gave up your relaxing, ejoyable cigarette habit for nothing. Nothing at all, except the transient joy it gave some bluenose neo-Puritan.

Which of course means that if you've spent thirty minutes actually smoking in your life, there is absolutely no point in quitting.

Dammit, who told these fools that it is against the law to THINK before you speak?

|1.30.06 @ 2:20PM|#

Or against the law to simply tell the truth?

|1.30.06 @ 5:05PM|#

http://time.blogs.com/daily_dish/2006/01/paying_for_jour.html

Wintermute|1.30.06 @ 11:57PM|#

If this behavior were associated mainly with right-wing thinking, one might hope it would stop when they lose control. But it is not. Even in liberals, it activates the little tyrant in so many people.