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Smoking Ban Based On Bad Information,Questionable Connections
Paul Soutar/KansasWatchdog.org
During this year’s legislative session Kansans made the decision to ban smoking in most public places statewide. Proponents said a ban would result
in a quick and significant decline in heart attacks and businesses would not suffer because of the ban.Opponents to the statewide ban point
out that anti-tobacco advocates used false information. According to several recent studies bans do not dramatically reduce heart attacks and businesses do suffer under the bans.In the weeks leading to the legislature’s
vote, a Kansas University Medical Center study claiming bans correlated to at least a 17 percent reduction in heart attacks was used to justify the ban. Proponents failed to include to say that the study had been corrected nullifying the 17 percent claim. Ban advocates and news outlets continue to quote the uncorrected study.Government officials and advocates
claimed that the ban would not harm businesses but recent studies in Ohio, England and elsewhere show hospitality businesses such as bars took a significant hit.Ban opponents contend that the ban that began July 1 was approved based on false information. They have an unlikely ally in Michael Siegel, a medical doctor and professor of community health sciences at Boston University’s School of Public Health who has been
an advocate for smoking bans. In a story published Feb. 18 on his weblog, "The rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary," Siegel said bad science used to infringe upon the freedom, autonomy, and rights of individuals is irresponsible.In a phone interview he told Kansas Watchdog, "I believe that anti-smoking
groups have been recently exaggerating the evidence in several ways. To me, the truth is enough. I really don’t understand why these groups are exaggerating when I think it would be enough to tell the truth."One possible reason is profit.
Smoking rights advocates point to the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation’s
spending on anti-smoking efforts. The foundation was created in 1968 by the founder of Johnson & Johnson and became the largest single investor in the world’s largest health products and pharmaceuticals maker. Johnson & Johnson and its subsidiaries make and market more smoking cessation products than any other company and critics say RWJF’s anti-smoking advocacy is merely a way to redirect tobacco money to smoking cessation product sales.Millions of dollars from the RWJF trickles into state and local government through health advocacy organizations including the American Cancer Society. Local newspapers in Kansas received thousands of dollars in advocacy advertising before state and local bans were enacted. State and local governments, including schools and county health departments, received money through grants for advocacy programs.
In early June the Kansas Department
of Health and Environment mailed businesses the "Kansas Smoke Free, Indoor Clean Air Act Business Guide," a flier provided by the American Cancer Society. The guide tells employers to help employees by, "offering prescription and over-the-counter smoking cessation aids (patches and gum)."Some smoking ban advocates have
connections to organizations that profit from the ban and use public resources in the effort.Teresa Walters, who helped lead ban efforts by Clean Air Emporia and was the Southeast Kansas representative for Clean Air Kansas, is an employee of the Flint Hills Regional Prevention Center, an addiction treatment center. She also used an Emporia school district email account even though she was not a district employee.
The bottom line issue for many ban opponents is government intervention in private choices. They say a bar owner should have the right to allow smoking so long as it is clearly marked and no minors are allowed, the conditions of
Wichita’s ban which is now nullified by the more stringent state ban."Whenever the people are well-in formed, they can be trusted with their own government;... whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights."
Thomas Jefferson to Richard Price,
1789. ME 7:253
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Get your Thunder Roads Magazine of Kansas T-shirts. Don't want to wait to catch us at the next rally, we
now have T-shirts available for purchase, only $10 + $5 s&h
Simply send a check or money order to:
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P.O. Box 267
Lindsborg KS 67456
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