Re: Smoking

Jim Carr <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I just don't like people hiding behind all the crappy science that says,
"We know smoking for 30 years gives you a 2,000% increase in risk for
lung cancer.
Therefore, in order to protect workers from dying, we're gonna ban smoking."

There are health hazards worth protecting people from that don't involve
death and cancer. It is *all* these hazards that the laws are being
passed to protect workers from.

Why do you persist on returning to death and cancer, which for both
active and passive smokers are the *least* of their worries,
statistically speaking.

If these laws were based solely on the risk of death by cancer from
passive smoking they undoubtedly wouldn't have been passed, although
people have indeed died from lung cancer where the most likely cause is
passive smoking.

The laws are based on the total health risk of allowing a completely
avoidable and unnecessary form of environmental pollution to continue in
proximity to healthy individuals who are just trying to earn their
living.

In other parts of this thread you crack on about how easy it is to avoid
the effects of passive smoking - simply don't go to smokey bars. That a
complete red herring. The laws aren't in place for that reason.

However, what if your vocation, say as an entertainer, which is after
all the common thread that links everyone here.

Imagine your vocation, skill and career path involve playing in smokey
bars? You haven't so much choice then have you.

You could, like myself, end up not following the career in music you
should have followed largely to avoid smokey bars. In some ways it has
been a positive aspect of my musical career in that I've found
alternate, interesting and largely smoke free outlets for my music. At
the end of the day though, I should have been playing bars on a regular
basis for the last 20 years and I haven't. My choice, but I do resent
the smokers who forced that choice upon me.

Or you could follow the path of Roy Castle.

Although never a smoker, he played trumpet, sang and danced for many
years in smokey bars.

An absolute trouper and consumate entertainer - he also had a very
successful career as an actor and television presenter.

He died of lung cancer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Castle
http://www.roycastle.org/

It is for people like Roy, who suffered unnecessary health issues, in
his case fatal ones, for simply trying to earn their living that these
laws are being put into place.

I really don't see how you can continue arguing that it is OK to promote
a situation where people have to choose between earning a living and
compromising their health even a small amount - when that health risk
can be simply and easily reduced to zero.

--- Derek

--
Derek Tearne - derek@xxxxxxxxx
Many Hands - Trans Cultural Music from Aotearoa/New Zealand
http://www.manyhands.co.nz/

.

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