Dutch activists seek to stub out smokers' corner in cafes

[maxcjs0101]

 

Quote

The Hague (AFP) - Dutch anti-cigarette campaigners Thursday launched a lawsuit against the government calling for an end to spaces reserved for smokers in cafes and bars.

Despite a general ban on smoking in restaurants, pubs and bars introduced in 2008, more than 25 percent of the country's cafes still have an enclosed area inside where patrons can legally light up, campaigners say.

"More cafes are creating designated smoking areas. That doesn't fix the problem, it is working the other way around," Floris Van Galen, the lawyer for Clean Air Nederland told AFP.

"We have a smoking ban, but if there are more designated smoking areas in cafes, people will see others smoking, younger people will be tempted to enter the smoking area to also start smoking."

The organisation says that the number of smoking areas in cafes shot up from 19 percent in 2014 to 25 percent in 2015.

Under Dutch law, cafes which are smaller than 70 square metres (753 square feet) can set aside a screened-off area for smokers behind floor-to-ceiling glass windows.

But it must be less attractively decorated than the rest of the cafe, and no food or drink is allowed to be served inside.

The Netherlands is a signatory to the World Health Organization's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control signed by 168 states and which entered into force in February 2005.

And Clean Air Nederland put forward the convention as the basis for its argument in court for a total ban.

But lawyers for the government said it is working "as part of a process" towards the "final result in which there are no cigarettes in 100 percent of all public places" adding no deadline had been set to implement a total ban.

The existing arrangements meant "people can go to these places and not be bothered by cigarette smoke," said lawyer Bert-Jan Houtzagers.

The court in The Hague is due to deliver its ruling in about six weeks.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/dutch-activists-seek-stub-smokers-corner-cafes-143412892.html

Are the young so dumb these days? 

[wabashcr]

I've been on record here (contentiously so) in support of smoking bans in bars and restaurants, to allow employees the benefit of a smoke-free workplace.  A glassed-off smoking area doesn't seem to be a threat to anyone other than smokers who choose to go in there.  The argument that kids will see people smoking and want to smoke themselves is pretty ridiculous.

[NSXCIGAR]

Two thoughts:

The government thinks that it is so god-like in its powers and ability that it can actually suppress "temptation" among humans. The height of arrogance and temerity.

Second, the government thinks it can eliminate smoking by 100%--completely-- in public places. Ha ha! 

When politicians even begin thinking these delusions of grandeur, they have too much power and influence, and need to be reminded of their limitations as mere mortal legislators.

Amazing how the push for a total ban of public smoking continues full-throttle all over the world, despite the revelation and enormous body of recent evidence that second hand smoke is almost totally harmless, exposing it as a mere bogeyman for the fear-mongering politicians.

[potpest]

Meanwhile in certain dutch cafes smoking weed is allowed as long as you don't mix it with tobacco.

I'm not in favour of banning either , but does anyone else not find this ridiculous?

[planetary]

3 hours ago, NSXCIGAR said:

The government thinks that it is so god-like in its powers and ability that it can actually suppress "temptation" among humans. The height of arrogance and temerity.

Correction: no, not the government (at least not yet).  This was said by an interest group's lawyer.

[JohnS]

4 hours ago, potpest said:

Meanwhile in certain dutch cafes smoking weed is allowed as long as you don't mix it with tobacco.

I'm not in favour of banning either , but does anyone else not find this ridiculous?

Ridiculous...or more broadly, downright absurd! (As it makes no sense!)

[westg]

33 minutes ago, JohnS said:

Ridiculous...or more broadly, downright absurd! (As it makes no sense!)

The volume of marijuana smoke is not comparable to the volume of cigar smoke ...pretty sure the last time I was in Amsterdam and bent as a dogs leg that you had to smoke inside. So you new what you were in for .....now when you are smoking a cigar outside a café and stinking the whole place out ... we generally upset the majority ..pretty simple.. embrace the change and move on.

[MIKA27]

 

[Fosgate]

Activist=People who want everyone else to lead as miserable existence as themselves. 

[NSXCIGAR]

I'm not sure when it became politically incorrect to point out facts, but the anti-smoking lobby may be the champions of false information and ignorance. Second hand smoke being harmful has been totally, unequivocally debunked. There isn't and never was any compelling evidence that it was harmful. But it is still stated as fact on all the government and national health websites, and public smoking bans plow forward.

One of the most revealing facts is that cigarette smoking in the developed world has been on a steady downwards trend since the mid-1960s. Today's per capita cigarette consumption is about the same as it was in 1925. In fact, the rate of decline was actually faster between 1965 and 1995 (before any public smoking laws or high tobacco taxes were implemented) than it has been from 1995-2015. So the rate of decline has actually slowed since the government began its "war on smoking." Imagine that...

 

[planetary]

25 minutes ago, NSXCIGAR said:

I'm not sure when it became politically incorrect to point out facts, but the anti-smoking lobby may be the champions of false information and ignorance. Second hand smoke being harmful has been totally, unequivocally debunked. There isn't and never was any compelling evidence that it was harmful. But it is still stated as fact on all the government and national health websites, and public smoking bans plow forward.

Maybe it's stated that way because there's an overwhelming amount of evidence?  Countless independent, unabiased medical studies by researchers in all nations have indicated that it's harmful.  (There may also be many biased studies, but I'm ignoring all of that.)  I'm certainly willing to concede that it may be an open question about the degree of harm (especially compared to other other activities in modern life which we accept), but I think it's foolish to deny that it is at least somewhat harmful.  Furthermore, when the smoking community questions things like this in public political debate, we are all very quickly marginalized as anti-science, irrational, conspiracy theorist truthers, which does our cause more harm than good.

Despite the winds of political discourse of late, even if we could make headway by riding surges of irrational bluster, I for one do not believe that the ends justify the means.  If we are to make progress, let us do so through reason.

[NSXCIGAR]

2 minutes ago, planetary said:

Maybe it's stated that way because there's an overwhelming amount of evidence?  Countless independent, unabiased medical studies by researchers in all nations have indicated that it's harmful.  (There may also be many biased studies, but I'm ignoring all of that.)  I'm certainly willing to concede that it may be an open question about the degree of harm (especially compared to other other activities in modern life which we accept), but I think it's foolish to deny that it is at least somewhat harmful...

The most comprehensive and controlled study ever done shows otherwise, conducted by Stanford researchers, among others, and is highlighted in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute: http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2013/12/05/jnci.djt365.full

It's been long understood that the previous research was very problematic: ...But many studies that showed the strongest links between secondhand smoke and lung cancer were case–control studies, which can suffer from recall bias: People who develop a disease that might be related to passive smoking are more likely to recall being exposed to passive smoking...

Here's a good summation on how the previous data and research was manipulated and misinterpreted by the EPA to further the anti-smoking agenda:  http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/secondhand-smoke-charade; and here: http://www.yourdoctorsorders.com/2009/01/the-myth-of-second-hand-smoke/

The best research available today simply shows no statistically significant link between cancer or other diseases and passive smoke. The only significant effects are to those with existing respiratory problems like asthma. The accepted conclusion when it comes to passive smoke is that like many other potentially harmful substances, the dose makes the poison, and one simply cannot receive the concentration of carcinogens necessary to cause cancer or disease from anything other than direct inhalation of tobacco smoke.

[wabashcr]

8 hours ago, NSXCIGAR said:

The most comprehensive and controlled study ever done shows otherwise, conducted by Stanford researchers, among others, and is highlighted in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute: http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2013/12/05/jnci.djt365.full

It's been long understood that the previous research was very problematic: ...But many studies that showed the strongest links between secondhand smoke and lung cancer were case–control studies, which can suffer from recall bias: People who develop a disease that might be related to passive smoking are more likely to recall being exposed to passive smoking...

Here's a good summation on how the previous data and research was manipulated and misinterpreted by the EPA to further the anti-smoking agenda:  http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/secondhand-smoke-charade; and here: http://www.yourdoctorsorders.com/2009/01/the-myth-of-second-hand-smoke/

The best research available today simply shows no statistically significant link between cancer or other diseases and passive smoke. The only significant effects are to those with existing respiratory problems like asthma. The accepted conclusion when it comes to passive smoke is that like many other potentially harmful substances, the dose makes the poison, and one simply cannot receive the concentration of carcinogens necessary to cause cancer or disease from anything other than direct inhalation of tobacco smoke.

You're presenting woefully dishonest conclusions that even the researchers in the study you linked go out of their way to disavow.  From the Stanford study:

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So does secondhand smoke cause lung cancer or not? “We can’t say it’s not a risk factor,” said Wang.

Quote

“We don’t want people to conclude that passive smoking has no effect on lung cancer,” she said. “We think the message is, this analysis doesn’t tell us what the risk is, or even if there is a risk.”

Quote

Meanwhile, said Winn, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (as well as NCI) has said unequivocally that passive smoking is a cause of lung cancer. “You shouldn’t conclude from this study that it isn’t,” she said.

If you want to make the claim that second hand smoke may not be as harmful as once thought, or that there are problems with previous studies about the effects of second hand smoke, or that the anti-smoking lobby has used dodgy science to further their agenda, there's certainly a case for that.  But your previous statement, that "Second hand smoke being harmful has been totally, unequivocally debunked" has no place in an honest discussion.  I agree with @planetary that this approach does more to harm our cause than help it.

[Puros Y Vino]

11 hours ago, Fosgate said:

Activist=People who want everyone else to lead as miserable existence as themselves. 

Activist is on par with Puritanism.

“Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.”

― H.L. Mencken, A Mencken Chrestomathy

[demer]

I am in between 10-15 bars and restaurants a day for work and I am so happy they have smoking bans in bars and restaurants. I might be in the minority here and I do enjoy a good cigar friendly establishment but to have to deal with it all day is pretty awful. You reek of cigarettes and cant breath for most of the day. On a side note there are a few people making a lot of money going into old bars and buying the bar tops and then reselling them to new bars because the wood will never look like that since the smoking bans.

[NSXCIGAR]

4 hours ago, wabashcr said:

You're presenting woefully dishonest conclusions that even the researchers in the study you linked go out of their way to disavow.  From the Stanford study:

If you want to make the claim that second hand smoke may not be as harmful as once thought, or that there are problems with previous studies about the effects of second hand smoke, or that the anti-smoking lobby has used dodgy science to further their agenda, there's certainly a case for that.  But your previous statement, that "Second hand smoke being harmful has been totally, unequivocally debunked" has no place in an honest discussion.  I agree with @planetary that this approach does more to harm our cause than help it.

The researcher's comments are not in accordance with their data, and my view is that it is their statements that are woefully dishonest in interpreting their own findings. Even they apparently feel the need to take a side and remain politically correct by hedging. Keep in mind, these researchers have a direct interest in the debate and the research continuing--new studies, additional funding, etc. Never will a scientist say a case is virtually settled since that means the monetary spigots are shut down or they may be shamed for their correct interpretation of data that contradicts the popular sentiment or opinion.

"There's no evidence, but we can't say it's not harmful" is about the most rhetorical double-speak possible. Of course no one can say anything's not possibly, potentially harmful in some way, depending on dose, exposure time, intake methods, etc. Please. Can one say water isn't harmful? People drown every day. College kids drink too much water during hazing rituals and die. So even with water, one could say "we can't say it's not harmful"--a total cop-out equivocation with caveats for days. 

For contrast, eating Big Macs and milkshakes does cause disease. That's what the old and new data shows, with many good, reliable research methods and decades of data, all agreeing for the most part. That's what it should look like when there's actually a statistically significant relationship. Same for direct tobacco smoke inhalation. Loads of solid, reliable data, with very little of it disagreeing. One will find nothing of the sort in regards to passive smoke. The history of the research in this area is riddled with unreliability and political bias and the most comprehensive, most unbiased and also, most recent research shows NO statistically significant links to cancer or disease (except of course for the borderline significance for those living with smokers for 30+ years). 

A claim has been made that can't really be supported. The fallback to "we don't know" is an admission of this. If you don't know, the claim must be dropped. Not guilty, at least at this point. To be clear, I never said passive smoke is safe and harmless. I said there's no evidence that it's harmful, and the claim that it's harmful in any measurable way has been totally debunked. Might that change? Yes. But for anyone to say that passive smoke causes cancer, as Dr. Winn has stated, is a flat-out deception and false statement based on what we now know taken as a whole. I would put that in the category of opinion only--and a biased one.

[Fugu]

The problem with all those studies: risk assessment and evaluation/quanitification. But there isn't any sensible way of how the effect of second-hand smoke could be studied in a scientifically sound way, outside a model organism.

And please let's not forget: Red meat bears a significant cancerogenic risk, as we all learned recently... How do we handle that? Politics couldn't be quick enough to placate the public and state that no one has to fear any real cancer risk by continuing with their "normal" meat consumption. Strange, isn't it?

[Orion21]

The anti-smoking zealots will never accept anything but tobacco kills, so ban it everywhere.  They will never ever accept a middle ground with any thoughtful people.  They will never say "You know what we feel bans that cover 90% are sufficient, so we will leave your cigar bars, restaurant patios etc alone."  This will never ever happen because these people make a living trying to expand their influence and the regulations banning smoking.  The problem is we are mostly very thoughtful and gracious people.  The zealots are not.  They can't even live with a sealed off smokers area because just merely seeing someone smoke is enough to encourage the habit...

They don't back this up with data, but it doesn't matter.  No one will hold their feet to the fire for it.  And if they did they would be "labeled" something nasty to discredit their views.  Such is the world we live in today.  

[maxcjs0101]

13 hours ago, demer said:

I am in between 10-15 bars and restaurants a day for work and I am so happy they have smoking bans in bars and restaurants. I might be in the minority here and I do enjoy a good cigar friendly establishment but to have to deal with it all day is pretty awful. You reek of cigarettes and cant breath for most of the day. On a side note there are a few people making a lot of money going into old bars and buying the bar tops and then reselling them to new bars because the wood will never look like that since the smoking bans.

If one doesn't want his/her clothes to stink of smoke, wouldn't the logical choice would be to sit in a non-smoking area?

[srbbones]

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2017/02/secondhand_smoke_isn_t_as_bad_as_we_thought.html

 

There needs to be respect for the data, not the biases, around second hand smoke.  There needs to be a recognition that adults should not be treated like Children by government overlords.  

 

 

[NSXCIGAR]

4 hours ago, srbbones said:

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2017/02/secondhand_smoke_isn_t_as_bad_as_we_thought.html

 

There needs to be respect for the data, not the biases, around second hand smoke.  There needs to be a recognition that adults should not be treated like Children by government overlords.  

A great article that highlights much of the unreliability and bias of the vast majority of decades of data showing any links between passive smoke and disease.(excluding of course the aggravation of existing asthma). It's just not there, folks. But the pointless bans and laws are here to stay, I'm afraid--bans and laws that seem to have decreased the rates of quitting smoking.