Wednesday 18 January 2012

Campus smoking bans

Who would say something as stupid as this?

"We don't want your car to be a safe haven"

Read my blog post at the Adam Smith Institute to find out...

5 comments:

Malenfant said...

On a happier note, swivel-eyed anti-smoking loon, Paul Bartlett, is reported as being 'disappointed' according to the BBC.

"... A plan for a total smoking ban in public in Stony Stratford was first put forward in 2011 by independent councillor Paul Bartlett.

After protests, it was amended to limit it to certain public places, including play areas and car parks, but it was turned down by seven votes to one.

Mr Bartlett said the decision was "very disappointing". ..."


:-D

Ref: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-16607263

Anonymous said...

Let a campus cop try and enter your car,it constitutes car jacking and you can shoot the bastard the moment he forces entry!

Anonymous said...

Who does such a ban save and from what?

Average campus age must be about 20 and American govt data shows few smoking related deaths below the age of 45 and 73 is the average age of smoking related deaths.

Can't be lung cancer.

The lung cancer death rate for never-smokers(no SHS exposure) is 2/10,000 and SHS exposed never-smoker death rate is 2.5/10,000.

The exposed never-smoker has 99.995% of the unexposed never-smoker's chance of not dying from lung cancer.

Gary K.

Michael J. McFadden said...

The money that was being pumped into bar/restaurant smoking bans in the US wasn't needed any more. The people making fat paychecks promoting those bans weren't needed any more. So obviously something had to be done.

Enter the multi-millions (not yet documented, but most assuredly there) now being pumped into "Smoke Free Campuses."

I've been watching it build over the last four years or so. They use the "bandwagon argument" by saying "Over 300 (or 500 or whatever) campuses are now smoke free! Don't let your school be behind the times!" Of course they never mention that there are about 6,000 campuses in the US.

Here's the general sort of posting I've been making about the issue:

===

My problem comes when the university authorities use lies to promote the behavior controls they're after. There is no "protecting nonsmokers from secondhand smoke" going on. There's no threat, not in any actual English usage sense of the word, from the exposures to wisps of smoke that students are getting on campuses nowadays. Even if you accept the Antismokers' own figures, the EPA Report, once you adjust for durations and intensity of exposure for the average non-smoking student you'd be speaking of roughly ONE extra lung cancer for every TWO HUNDRED MILLION STUDENT-YEARS of exposure. (Calculated on the basis of a 19% increase over a base nonsmokers' rate of .4% after 40 years of continuous indoor exposure and accounting for outdoor dilution.) Even with U of CA's coterie of perpetual grad students I don't think waving the "threat" of outdoor campus exposures counts as something I'd characterize as the truth. The campus bans are simply a behavior modification tool: meant to treat the children as "lab rats" who can be "shocked" into the preferred behavior of not smoking by simply making it more difficult for them to smoke comfortably. The social engineers don't usually like to admit it, but that's really what it's all about.

===

To get an idea of the sort of resources behind this, check out what's going on right in my home town here:

http://smokefreephilly.org/take-action/support-smoke-free-campuses/

As usual, if you dangle enough money in front of them the Antismokers will do anything.

- MJM

Anonymous said...

Who would say something as stupid as this?

"We don't want your car to be a safe haven"


Oh, perhaps George Wood, thick-as-a-plank-but-earnest ex police officer & Auckland City (pop. > 400,000>) councillor, yesterday on the radio (http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/kiwisummer/20120119) saying "I do think there's a um a grow- um a large level of support out there for Council to do something to stop this filthy habit that's happening around our, ah, town centers in the Auckland City."
_

In support of THIS latest assault by anti-tobacco:

http://www.3news.co.nz/Smoking-ban-sought-for-much-of-Auckland/tabid/423/articleID/239836/Default.aspx

and a good-cop/bad-cop style set-up where the possible costs are moaned, but not the idea of citizen ratepayer freedoms impinged,

http://www.3news.co.nz/Policing-of-Auckland-public-smoking-ban-questioned/tabid/423/articleID/239941/Default.aspx

(with comments:- the NZ Herald allows a few in opinion pages, else none:)

Brian Rudman: Hounding of cowed cigarette smokers is vindictive
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10779883
(with comments}

Backing for public smoking ban
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10779911
(no comments allowed)

Should smoking be banned in outdoor public areas?
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=10779710
(comments allowed:- no comments!)

Also amazingly, an editorial with comments allowed:

Editorial: Care needed so rights don't go up in smoke
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/smoking/news/article.cfm?c_id=321&objectid=10780125
(with NO comments!)
_

and another councillor, well-fed young fat-cat Cameron Brewer positioning himself as defender, yet obviously not, of those who like to smoke, also in the radio transcript - last year tweeting:- with fake popular concern:

http://i42.tinypic.com/wb6u7o.jpg

and hours ago again:

http://i39.tinypic.com/1zo9kx5.jpg

seems to be basically saying, we'd clean the Jews out if we could, but it'd be too expensive (but I invite you to gainsay me!) so far... to me!

This is a step up from Councilor Bartlett in Stony Stratford, I think;- this is NZ's largest city, recently made a "Supercity", by amalgamation, under attack by The Zealots - and, you know what?

There is not (as far as I can see) a single NZ blogger even aware of, let alone tackling, (with the honourable exception of Eric Crampton at Offsetting Behaviour who sometimes touches on it) any anti-anti-smoking dialogue...

So, in comparison, there is a real & present danger that this will go entirely unmarked, locally...

Truly, it seems to me sometimes that NZ is the secret "The Island" (film) poster-child of the anti-smoking cabal - isolated, cut-off, the ideal target for "social marketing" (engineering would seem derogatory) - and full of sheep!

Young people, oblivious!

OK, I need to start a web blog myself...

Please forgive my reaching out, internationally! ;=})

~ Ross

(actually the last few links I've just discovered, further researching this, & so will make comment!)

(and, actually, again;- "young people, oblivious" - is entirely the point. Most I speak to on the street in a busy nightlife area have no idea about what seems to be coming down... !)