Not only is the U.S. close to banning smoking across the country, but now the World Health Organization is getting on the action too. The WHO is calling for a worldwide ban on smoking at work and in public places. Representatives claim that 200,000 lives a year a lost due to smoke exposure in the workplace. These statistics, of course, don’t take into account the number of the deceased who were smokers. And considering that its impossible to prove whether second hand smoke alone can cause lung cancer (given the dozens of other harmful things in the environment), this is simply a case of a world government acting without the consent of the people who inhabit its countries.
They also say that 700 million children (no ages are given) breath air polluted by smoke, particularly in the home. This is also impossible to prove. A study like that would take so long that its outcome would be outdated by the time it was completed. And unless they conducted a poll of the entire world’s population, there really is no way to know. Besides, how many people breath in exhaust fumes from vehicles, or ammonia fumes from waste facilities? Why not just ban them as well?
The workplace statistic is not only heavily reliant upon people’s gullibility, but it doesn’t take into account the fact that if people don’t want to work in a place where they’d be exposed to smoke, they can find work elsewhere. Second-hand tobacco smoke isn’t even half as harmful as pollutants in crowded urban areas. This is further prohibition by a government that mot of the world’s citizens have no stake in whatsoever.
This is also a major privacy issue, because on June 30, the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control will meet to discuss the parameters of second-hand smoke. It can be decided through this treaty that outside your home is “the public”, and once again, people will be forced to make decisions based on laws they had no hand in passing.
John C. Keyser
May 30, 2007