Do As You Are Told!
Unsurprisingly, there’s another ‘campaign’ about second hand smoking.
Campaign launched about dangers of children’s exposure to second-hand smoke
I thought that this particular part of the anti-smoker arsenal had long since been over utilised, it turns out I was mistaken.
Y’see, in April this year one particular anti-smoking group kicked the bucket. It became an ex-anti-smoking group. Most folk I know celebrated the demise of Healthier Futures, which followed on from the demise of Smokefree South West – both groups tried a last ditch re-brand in order to stay current with “public health epidemics” – with Fresh NE taking ownership of the Healthier Futures IP.
Now it seems that Fresh are intent on swinging a club towards taking control of what you do in your own home.
About 85% of secondhand smoke is invisible and odourless but many people are not aware that steps like opening a window, smoking by the back door or smoking in another room does little to protect children and other non-smoking adults.
That’s a large percentage of the “secondhand smoke” to worry about isn’t it? So only 15% of the smoke from a lit cigarette or an exhale is actually visible? I call bollocks on that. In fact, I can go one better than that (h/t Bill Gibson for reminding me of these):
Our results indicate no association between childhood exposure to ETS and lung cancer risk. We did find weak evidence of a dose-response relationship between risk of lung cancer and exposure to spousal and workplace ETS. There was no detectable risk after cessation of exposure.
A sample of 650 lung cancer patients, and 1542 control subjects up to 74 years old interviewed about Environmental Tobacco Smoke (Second-Hand Smoke for you public health types) who had not smoked more than 400 cigarettes in their respective lifetime. The result?
ETS exposure during childhood was not associated with an increased risk of lung cancer
Well I never!
Further to that, in a submission to the Department of Health & Human Services (DHHS) in the US, there is this gem to admire. Specifically the following table:
To reach the lower threshold for each of the listed components, a vast quantity of cigarettes would be necessary. So much for the “harms of secondhand smoke”.
Which, Fresh try to make sound worse than it is by:
“However, many smokers think they’re already doing enough by opening a window or smoking the back door, without realising how poisonous secondhand smoke spreads around the house and lingers long after you can see it or smell it.”
Ah, creeping close to the thirdhand smoke bollocks, as I’ve written before is utter tripe. So now we have another campaign from the useless bed wetters, using the usual imagery natch, to get folk to stop smoking in their own home.
https://twitter.com/FreshSmokeFree/status/876720930608869376
Yep, an image of a kid wearing a t-shirt with “smoke blackened lungs” meant to be “hard hitting”. Complete with hysterical nonsense such as:
Every time you smoke, you breathe out secondhand smoke. The particles are so small 85% of them are invisible and odourless.
Oh no! Particles! Never mind the particles from normal, everyday pollution eh?
Let’s not forget my personal favourite:
The harmful chemicals creep from room to room, waiting for your child to breathe them in.
Those nasty chemicals eh? How dare they creep from room to room!
Then there’s this:
If you can’t get outside and aren’t ready to quit, could you go longer between cigarettes until you next go out? You could try nicotine spray, gum, patches or lozenges to get you through? Or if it helps keep your home smokefree, evidence suggests e-cigarettes are 95% safer with no evidence of harm to bystanders.
Look, just fuck off. It isn’t up to you what folk do in their homes. There’s scant evidence on the supposed harms of cigarette smoke already, and if folk don’t want to stop smoking then frankly, there is absolutely fuck all you can say that will encourage them to do so.
Here’s hoping that now Fresh have the Healthier Futures IP, they’ll quickly follow them into oblivion thereby freeing up more cash for useful things.
I think what we have here is a cross between The Greedy and The Idealists. With a healthy dash of The Controllers thrown in for good measure. Not exactly a winning combination.
Smokefree homes my arse. Just leave us alone!
(image credit alice-photo/shutterstock.com)