Clearing The Air

Some perspective on how insignificant secondhand smoke is.....especially if you consider how many jobs have been eliminated by smoking bans

The air quality testing conducted in bars and restaurants around the world measured for the trace chemical nicotine to determine real world secondhand smoke concentrations.

But the fact is the concentrations of secondhand smoke were so insignificant they had to be measured in nanograms, that's 10(-9) or 0.000000001 grams / cubic meter; which is 25,000 times SAFER than OSHA workplace air quality regulations.

The CO2 we inhale with every breath is more of a hazard than that 1 nanogram of secondhand smoke. CO2 is fatal at 20% (.20) concentration, yet the atmospheric concentration is 385 parts per million or .000385.

This extremely insignificant "hazard" from secondhand smoke becomes even more important to note when you consider the thousands of business closings, hundreds of thousands of job losses, brought about by unnecessary smoking ban laws. Laws which, in reality, were promoted by the very pharmaceutical nicotine manufacturers who would profit from a ban on tobacco use.

It's time for some perspective and common sense to prevail in the secondhand smoke debate, before more damage is inflicted upon our unstable world economy.

posted by marcus aurelius @ 9:37 AM