Controlling air quality is the route to reforming smoking bans

Controlling air quality is the route to reforming smoking bans first published by ThinkScotland

A DAY DOES NOT PASS when we are not asked to believe that a substance that most people were breathing since the beginning of time – smoke from ordinary plant materials – cannot be dealt with using modern air cleaning technology. For all the literature produced about it, there have been no medical cases where causation of medical conditions has been categorically proven to be due to low levels of exposure to tobacco smoke – a fact that has made many people question the need for any smoking ban, never mind one as comprehensive as the one found in Scotland.

Recently I proposed, on behalf of Freedom to Choose (Scotland)¹, Scottish Parliament petition 01451 (Review of smoking ban) in order to challenge the assumptions of the health lobby, whose underlying motivation is to discourage smoking, that smoke is a toxin that no air cleaning technology can now or will ever be able to deal with safely, that there is no safe level of tobacco smoke, and, most definitely, that ventilation doesn't work.

Declaring that never will technology be able to clear the emissions from smoking seems to be the product of a mindset that does not want to enable smokers to be catered for either in the workplace or in recreational venues. The position of Freedom to Choose (Scotland) is that society's interests should be met rather than resisted. A blanket prohibition on smoking makes it harder for people to get together socially, and this affects people more in districts where concentrations of smokers are higher, aggravating inequalities in many ways.

It is generally true that in workplaces there is a principle that exposure to toxins is best avoided if at all possible, however it has also always been recognised that different workplaces involve different sorts of exposures to different levels of risks from different sources that are difficult to avoid without fundamentally challenging the nature of that workplace.

Asking schoolteachers and children to put up with classrooms that had tanning lamps installed and running in the ceilings would be unacceptable, yet we allow restaurants to install patio dining and drinking facilities where their workers are "forced" to expose themselves on a daily basis to the risk of malignant melanoma from solar radiation. Just as with any Class A carcinogen, there is, theoretically, no safe level of exposure to sunlight, yet we do not ban patio dining: we accept that workers can reduce the risk through partial protection provided by clothing, awnings, and sunscreen use.

We tolerate workers being exposed to levels of carbon monoxide and diesel exhaust products in indoor garages that would never be acceptable in a day-care centre: we do not simply ban indoor garages, however we accept the partial protection afforded by modern ventilation and air filtration technology.

Freedom to Choose (Scotland) is urging that the same sort of thought be applied to allowing pubs freedom of choice in deciding their own smoking policies based upon the wishes of their owners, workers, and clientele.

The ambient air, into which tobacco smoke is released, is not clean in the first place, making it well nigh impossible to isolate secondary smoke as the cause of sickness because pollutants contained in smoke are not limited to smoke. So not only is smoke not avoidable, but removing it still leaves air containing viruses, bacteria, spores, pollen, and plain old smells.

If the advocates of smoking bans are interested in clean air, their method of extracting one specific source of so-called ‘toxins’ (tobacco smoke) and leaving us with record-breaking pollutant levels in the general atmosphere lacks all logic. Their purpose is clearly and simply to discourage tobacco use by pinning all kinds of respiratory, heart and lung conditions on to smoking (or secondary smoke), in spite of the exposures to other toxins or adverse environmental conditions in the workplace, on the battlefield, or even in the home.

There are specific, measurable standards of occupational exposure to airborne contaminants, and permissible exposures vary between different jurisdictions. In saying that there is ‘no safe level’, the enemies of tobacco smoke declare that there is no point in measuring tobacco smoke which, because it is so lethal, one cannot be exposed to at all. In fact it is a mix of particles and gases, each constituent of which can be said to have a permissible safe level expressed in parts per million or billion. If people are smoking in a given air space and these permissible levels are not exceeded (for whatever reason: the room is large with a high ceiling, the window is open) there cannot be said to be a danger. When the level of smoking approaches impermissible levels, air-cleaning equipment can be used. Permissible standards are the guide regardless of whether or not a facility allows smoking.

Equipment that cleans air employs various technologies: extraction and filtration, ionising technology, and others: sometimes combined within a single unit. Any equipment that cleans air has to be maintained and serviced to ensure efficient running.

Any venue that wishes to permit smoking needs to ensure that its air-flow can cope with it. The industry should carry an audit of recommended equipment for all sizes of venue and price ranges but with specific air quality requirements in mind. Establishments that wish to allow smoking can then obtain the equipment, and once in place, patrons can be invited to smoke.

The result should be that ambient air, even with the addition of smoking, treated with air cleaning equipment, gives a cleaner result than ambient air in a non-smoking establishment where no treatment of air has taken place.

Of course upholding such standards would be an ongoing concern of the industry, with the assistance of environmental officers. But using local environmental officers to uphold and maintain air quality standards rather than simply hand out tickets to smokers is a far better use of local resources. This is about priorities.

Freedom to Choose (Scotland) believes that smoking bans damage people, increasing their isolation; and damage businesses, when they are helpless to alleviate a problem because of overzealous regulation. Taken to extremes, both isolation and business failure are measurably detrimental to health. With the rapidly increasing air pollution rates and increasing numbers of lung cancers found in non-smokers (Glasgow is one of the most polluted cities in the UK), sending people outside on to the street to smoke is worse than fiddling while Rome burns.

The power of the health lobby is a significant obstacle. We should be able to allow the hospitality industry (together with the appropriate government agency) to set standards for air quality, to give the air-cleaning industry the specifications it needs for improving ambient air, and in doing so create spaces with improved air quality where smoking can take place with the minimum of inconvenience to anyone else.

¹ Freedom to Choose (Scotland) includes both smokers and non-smokers and receives no support from any industry.

In Switzerland, smoking rooms nearly over the experimental phase

Source

On one side are coffee tables and oak chairs covered with leather. On the other side, there are Egg armchairs by Arne Jacobsen, a black Bakelite telephone and an old flea market record player. It hardly comes as a surprise that in this era of ever more restrictive smoking laws, when people often have to brave the elements just to take a drag, the Bon Génie would be an instant hit among smokers. Besides offering a roof, which is something smokers already appreciate, it also provides an environment with real style. 

It is not, however, the only such place in Switzerland catering to the needs and tastes of smokers. Several other refined smoking rooms have opened in recent years, including the vast Cigar Lounge at the Schweizerhof Hotel in Bern, which is also inspired by the 1950s post-war style, and the more modern Fish Tank at the Lausanne Palace & Spa, which was refurbished two years ago. These successful examples are leading more and more hotels, such as the Beau Rivage Palace in Lausanne, to also consider smoking lounges. 

“Today’s smoking lounges don’t have anything to do with the old smoky rooms for Havana cigar connoisseurs, or worse yet, the smoking areas in airports,” says Antoine Wasserfallen, a professor at the Hotel School in Lausanne. “They are the result of careful research in design and new technologies.”

Wasserfallen foresees that smoking lounges, still in their experimental phase, will evolve in the near future. “People like smoking lounges. But most of them aren’t profitable enough,” he says. “In some cantons, waited table service is banned, so you have to find solutions to make the sales easier, such as installing a serving hatch,” the expert notes.

This smoking room is the initiative of someone who wanted an alternative to seeing smokers booted out into the cold, and believed that technology would deal with the smell of smoke, which some people find objectionable. They struggle to cope with food service being banned in some smoking rooms – but throughout the UK, this whole arrangement would be illegal, because smoke is so, so poisonous that even the most up-to-date technology can't deal with it.

Heaven forbid that anyone should be allowed to use their skills to address a problem (whether perceived or real) like secondary smoke. Tobacco control and all its friends in government have decreed that their way is the only way and it's not up for discussion. Non-negotiable. You cannot now, or ever, devise a system that will stop smoke from killing people. They have declared it to be impossible, now and for all time. (Flat earthers!)

Someone from the mainstream media called me today about our new petition 01451 (calling for a review of the smoking ban), which addresses this very issue. We know, and have known for some time, that the European Commission has air quality standards and techniques for ventilation, and tobacco smoke is dealt with here. It is absolutely pointless for the authorities to hide any longer behind the mantras, 'there is no safe level of secondary smoke', and 'ventilation doesn't work'.

It is up to those in office to devise systems that will work. Set standards, and if the standards are met there is no problem. If the standards are not met, that is what technology is for. And the technology will clean all the muck. Not just the muck from tobacco smoke, but all the other airborne pollution.

Is it really too much to ask, when humankind has learned to kill by remote control weaponry, to allow the use of technology to enable people to sit and have a drink together?

Scotsman: World is adopting the smoking ban: denying the wisdom of ages

Surely the message from this piece by Scotsman consumer affairs correspondent Jane Bradley is that the rest of the world isn't adopting the smoking ban – at least not with the 'zero tolerance' approach adopted throughout the United Kingdom.

Bradley claims that the smoking ban has halved children's exposure to smoke (this seems a bit unlikely to me but no doubt she has studied the 'correct' sources) and that the smoking ban was 'likely' to be here to stay. She speaks of other 'countries' going further than the UK (referring to individual US states and possibly states in Australia), but also refers to countries, like the Netherlands, where the ban has not gained popular support.

Simon Clark of Forest is quoted as having pretty much given up on Scotland as a lost cause ('I think we are resigned to the fact that we are unlikely to make much headway in getting the ban reverted in Scotland'). Never say die, Simon. Bradley does however acknowledge the unpopularity of the ban with publicans:

Limited opposition to the ban in Scotland, makes this option unlikely, though it would be a welcome move for disgruntled publicans who say people are staying at home to drink while smoking. It is estimated that more than 450 pubs have shut down in Scotland since the ban was introduced five years ago.

The ever present Sheila Duffy of ASH Scotland deplores the suggestion of amending the ban declaring that 'only a blanket ban offers complete protection from second-hand smoke'. She then urges people to ban smoking in their own cars in order to achieve even more protection from second-hand smoke – she's nothing if not thorough.

The article finishes with the nonsense that smoking while driving is not safe – typical of the tunnel vision adopted by people from every walk of life who wish to discourage smoking. The number of journeys completed safely on a daily basis is testament to the nonsense of this statement. The only things that make driving unsafe are inattention, faulty mechanics, alcohol and certain other medications, and bad luck/other drivers. (You can see road casualties from this link here: Table ras:10001 for numbers of accidents and Table ras:30002 for numbers of casualties. Clearly it would be better if we didn't have so many, but I don't see how you can come out with smoking as a factor on the basis of anything better than supposition.)

Bradley claims that the smoking ban is likely to stay, and even Forest despairs of removing it. But no smoking ban is needed. And while the ban hasn't brought demonstrators to the streets in Scotland as it has in the Netherlands or Spain, there is no doubt that smokers would increase their attendance in public venues if there were no ban. It is simply normal behaviour to congregate, whether over tea and coffee or over a drink.

No smoking ban is needed, because smoke is only one of a number of pollutants that were discussed in an air quality standard that was drawn up in 2007 for the whole of Europe. Table A1 shows levels of pollutants in indoor air (four levels, of which smoking takes place in levels 2, 3 and 4), and there are detailed descriptions of how to dispel the pollutants. Technically beyond my comprehension, but it certainly doesn't say: 'Don't even try and get rid of tobacco smoke. Can't be done – but here's how to deal with kitchen and garage exhausts, paints and solvents.'

All this technology exists because somebody has identified a need to extract pollutants from air. The need is there, followed by the application of science to meet the need. The wisdom of 'anti-smoking' seeks to overturn the wisdom of centuries in the words of Rollo Tommasi (comment 15). 'No air management system can protect people in a room from smoke produced in that room.' We can make aeroplanes, rockets, perform surgery, make bridges that can carry formidable amounts of traffic – design all manner of hardware, software, learn languages, apply computer languages to make virtual reality. But we can't move smoke? ever?

Try this, Rollo.