Clearing The Air

Sunday, April 06, 2008

American Lung Association of Minnesota sends letter of threat to bars and restaurants exploiting a loophole in the state's smoking ban

(click on image to enlarge)

This is of course a hollow threat since neither the ALAMN nor the MN Health Department have the authority to override an exemption for actors in a theatrical production written into the "Freedom to Breathe Act" by MN legislators.

The letter ends with the outrageous lie by former Surgeon General Carmona, which led to his eventual dismissal "...SG has "estimated" that secondhand smoke has killed.....3,000 non smokers from lung cancer...." The 3,000 deaths claim was thrown out of court due to seriously flawed research methodolgy, therefore the later claim that 46,000 people also died from secondhand smoke due to heart attacks had no basis in fact whatsoever. But let's give them the benefit of the doubt to prove a point.

Let's assume that the SG Carmona was right and that nationwide 3,000 people died from secondhand smoke, that breaks down to 60 per state (3,000 divided by 50 states). Ok now let's contrast that "false claim" against the actual results of the Nicoderm funded smoking ban laws here in the Twin Cities area, where 182+ small businesses have had to close their doors permanently, laying off approximately 10,000 hospitality workers. It is very likely (or to use Carmona's language) "estimated" of those 10,000 laid off workers, 10% have experinced a life threatening stress that prematurely led to the death or serious illness......not to mention loss of health insurance benefits.

So the smoking ban law was enacted to save 60 people in the state of Minnesota, yet the effect of that rent seeking legislation killed or caused life threatening stress to 1,000 unemployed hospitality owners and employees.....not an equitable trade off by any stretch of the imagination.

As a side note, Nicoderm manufacturer Johnson & Johnson's private foundation, RWJF, which has funded the smoking ban movement to the tune of $446 million, conducted a study which showed that involuntary job loss has a very significant effect on health......that's what I call eerily ironic.

http://www.rwjf.org/pr/product.jsp?ia=141&id=15004