UPDATE January 18, 2006:
I see the old guard die hard - and the idea of a smoking ban is one of the die hard issues for them. Ty Lund, a Klein Conservative if ever there was one, and I think one of the most under-rated government Ministers of his day, is ticked at Hancock on the smoking ban proposal.
This reaction is going to be framed as a rural urban wedge issue by some political players. It is not that - it is a public health issue that impacts all of us, even if only in our pocketbook as taxpayers. This issue will be a major test of the Stelmach government and governance style to see if it is different and progressive and responsive.
UPDATE January 17, 2006:
I see the Edmonton Journal Editorial Board is applauding this effort by Hancock as a preventative health care initiative.
Who in their right mind would want to be the Minister in charge of heath care anywhere in Canada today? Regular reader of this Blog will know I am a big Dave Hancock fan and worked on his campaign. So for me to support him on this idea politically will not be surprise. I also support the idea as a public policy position - beyond the politics involved.
Hancock’s first foray out of the blocks is to propose and promote the much overdue ban on smoking in public places all over Alberta as provincial policy – not as a local issue. We know second hand smoke kills so it is not just an individual choice issue anymore. It is a limitation on individuals that is needed for the greater public good.
If the Stelmach Caucus supports this initiative it will go along way to breathing life into the prevention and wellness side of heath care in Alberta. That is were the big gains are to be made and that is as much an individual choice and responsibility as it is a public policy concern. This is not social engineering any more than a stop sign at a roadway intersection is interference in how we drive. It is all about the greater common good.
Hancock is big on the prevention and wellness side of the health equation and he is spending some serious political capital to prove it. This issue never got past the former Premier because he did not want to alienate a certain segment of Albertans. That attitude costs lives that could be prevented and tax dollars that could be put to better use.
I think the overarching policy issue is still you are free to do whatever you want so long as it does not hurt me…my health, my family, my community, my environment or my pocket book. Smoking is proven to harmful all of those aspects and so it is not appropriate in public places any more.
Stay the course Dave and don't blink
I've been trying to think of why the smoking ban has been on hold for so long. I can't think why.
ReplyDeleteTotally agree with you on the smoking ban. I hope the caucus has the guts to go through with it. We can lead the country on this initiative.
ReplyDeleteStay the course!
Big mistake! Dave Hancock has just blown away any credibility he ever had, and will take the Stelmach government's credibility down with him.
ReplyDeleteThe Auditor General's report, which revealed that Lloyd Carr, the head of AADAC's Tobacco Control program for the last five years, stole $640,000 of the programs funds, exposed Alberta's tobacco control cabal for the collection of crooks and con-artists they have always been.
The stolen monies were funnelled to accounts controlled by Carr, through phony consulting contracts for teen smoking reduction campaigns that never existed. The contracts were "processed" by Action on Smoking and Health (Canada), the Alberta Lung Association and a consulting firm - all of which retained a 20% "fee" for accepting the monies and then redirecting them to Carr's accounts. Effectively, these organizations "laundered" the stolen cash on Carr's behalf.
By proposing to implement ASH and Lloyd Carr's entire tobacco control agenda, Hancock reveals himself to be a puppet of unelected lobbyists with an unsavory lust for our tax dollars. This makes a farce of the whole "vote for me, I'm an honest guy" Stelmach campaign.
The premises are all fraudulent as well. Dr Michael Siegel, a twenty-year veteran of tobacco control, has been publicly exposing his colleagues for deliberately exaggerating the dangers of SHS exposure - specifically for the purpose of manipulating policy-makers and the public:
http://tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.com
Furthermore, smokers do NOT impose a burden on the health system. The direct cost of treating all smoking-related illness in Alberta was calculated, by health promotion advocates themselves, to be $295 million/year. In 2005, the Alberta government collected over $660 million in tobacco taxes - more than double the total costs imposed by smoking-related illness.
Furthermore, As documented in the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) study:
http://www.acestudy.org/
there is an overwhelming correlation between being a heavy smoker and having experienced serious abuse, neglect or other trauma in childhood. Furthermore, smoking rates have been and continue to be much higher in lower income populations than in upper income populations.
What this means, is that the increasingly persecutorial tactics of the Tobacco Control movement are directed primarily against the most vulnerable people - lower income survivors of abuse, neglect and childhood trauma, the poor, the elderly and the disabled
"We know second hand smoke kills"
ReplyDeleteWe do? May have some names? Just one???
Thanks...
OK. So as someone who's worked on Hancock's campaign, maybe you can solve this riddle for me:
ReplyDeleteWhy on Gawd's Green Earth is Hancock a Tory?
Has anyone considered, how a comprehensive province-wide ban on "smoking in the workplace" would affect people like farmers? A farmer's entire property is effectively his/her "workplace", which would mean a farmer couldn't smoke in his/her own barn, on their own property. They likely do their accounting in their house, which would make their home a workplace also - so no one could ever smoke in their home again including the property owner/ farmer themselves!
ReplyDeleteHow can anyone believe such ludicrous, overly zealous over-regulation makes any sense at all?
"...smokers do NOT impose a burden on the health system..." WRONG. My father spent the last six months of his life in a hospital as they tried everything to fight the cancers he got from a life of smoking - and that says nothing of all the health care he needed before the final months set in. No matter how you want to cut it, my father took up space and dollars that could have gone to someone else. Oh and by the way, not a pretty way to die.
ReplyDelete"We know second hand smoke kills" We do? May have some names? Just one??? Thanks...
OK, here is one: HEATHER CROWE. Here is the link.
I wouldn't care if people smoked if they perhaps wore a mask while smoking that they can't take off until all the smoke is gone. That would be fine with me. I think they'd be dead within a few months at that rate though.
The more that smoking becomes difficult or socially unacceptable (which it is quickly becoming) the more people that will stop, cut down or not start. This should be our primary goal as a society. Just because people are poor and uneducated doesn't mean we shouldn't care as they damage themselves and their families.
For more info on second hand smoke related diseases.
ReplyDeletePlus the argument that the government gets from tobacco taxes is more then enough to pay for these long drawn out deaths related to smoking or second hand smoking is ludicrous. It does not even begin to take into account the true impact of these deaths; on families, in communites, to our economy, opportunity loss costs, filling up our health care centres, etc.
A smokeless environment
ReplyDeleteI believe that non-smokers, like anyone else, have this right. But how far does that right extend? Should it take priority over someone else's rights? Airplanes, court houses, publicly owned buildings and anywhere else an individual might be forced to go should properly be included in any smoking law. What should not be included are places located in or on private property, providing an individual is not compelled by necessity or law, to frequent or work at that specific location.
Second-hand smoke is not a significant health risk.
Thomas Laprade
480 Rupert St.
Thunder Bay, Ont.
Hi Kuri - Hancock is an Alberta PROGRESSIVE Conservative. We are the endangered species known as Red Tories.
ReplyDeleteWe are not aligned with what has come to be known as a Tory in the Stockwell Day or Ted Morton mould. There are a lot of us who are social progressives and fiscal conservatives.
BTW Dave Hancock is a past President of the Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta and appreciates the role of a political party too.
For the real story behind False Martyr Heather Crowe, try this:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.geocities.com/defendliberty2004/heathercrowe.html
and this:
http://surrealitytimes.blogspot.com/2006/05/false-martyr.html
And for Allie - "the true impact of these deaths; on families, in communites, to our economy, opportunity loss costs, filling up our health care centres, etc." has nothing to do with costs to the health care system. The argument that smokers impose a cost burden on the health system is FALSE.
Smokers not only cover their own costs, through the tobacco taxes they pay, they subsidize everyone else's costs - such as the cost of MLA Dave Rodney's sport-related injuries and treatments: "The same man [Dave Rodney] who broke his back in four different places and had reconstructive knee surgery four times":
http://www.wcr.ab.ca/news/1999/0621/sacredmountain062199.shtml
These anti-smoking laws are completely unconstitutional. I am all in favour in keeping smoke away from non-smokers, but smokers must still have the right to get together amongst themselves in a separate and ventilated area. To dismantle all those separate smoking sections is unconstitutional.
ReplyDeleteProtecting one group's rights, while taking away and trampling on the rights of another is not my idea of democracy.
I will oppose such anti-libertarian moves wherever I find them.
Also, non-smokers watch out: now that the government has seen how far it can go in trampling on people's rights, some of your precious rights will be eroded next.
It IS social engineering of the worst kind.
ReplyDeleteAnd is he going to ban smoking from streets? That'd be a joke: the exhausts from cars are more harmful than some person having a cigarette on a sidewalk.
The cars will kill you much faster and sooner than any smoke.
Good Morning Werner...I accept that all public policy is social engineering to some degree. Every law that passes in a society is social engineering at its core.
ReplyDeleteThe test ought to be is how justifiable is it as enforceable public policy? We have to evaluate the social engineering tradeoff based on what social purpose it serves and how well it serves that purpose. Bad laws for good reasons are not good enough.
Does the greater good trump individual rights? Does the majority always rule as the expense of the minority?
Social values and principles are constantly shifting and priorities are always in flux. There are necessary trades offs that are being made between values and principles in the consciousness of individual citizens and throughout our society. That is why God invented politicians. We elect them to listen to the public debate, initiate the dialogue and encourage the conversation - and then to make those value choices and trade offs on our behalf. Piece of cake - right?
Perhaps car exhaust is more harmeful that second hand smoke. I don't know. To frame and extend the argument and to imply the heath prevention aspect of banning smoking in public places turns on if one person smoking on a sidewalk is relatively less harmful to ones health than pollution from automobiles does not add much.
The purpose that drives the issue is that we need to start getting serious about prevention in our health care and culture. So lets deal with both issues of smoking and pollution, and not settle to trade them off and then do nothing about either of them. And lets not stop there as we get serious about health, wellness and prevention.
Timely access to quality health care when we need it is important but creating a culture of wellness that sees individual actively trying to live in ways that keeps them out of the health care system is equally as important.
Stoping smoking, or not starting, is one of the best health prevention and wellness levers we have in our society today.
Werner - re 9:14 am - I have no problem with creating and keeping smoking sections in separated ventilated areas for those who are addicted to nicotine. In fact they are a necessity and should be encouraged.
ReplyDeleteAddictions, including tobacco are serious health and social issues we need to deal with individually and as a society.
I see such smoking rooms like needle exchange programs for the benfit of dealing with other kinds of addictions. I think they too are a necessity and should be encouraged. Just don't ask me to use their needles afterwards.
I am really surprised at the venom unleashed on this board over this "proposed proposal" to institute a provincewide smoking ban. Personally I am not sure where the idea ran amok that smoking would soon be banned on the streets. Whether this was one person's assumption, hope, or fearmongering - I don't know and I don't care.
ReplyDeleteA smoking ban inside public buildings would be a good idea. Hard to argue against it, unless you are an unabashed libertarian in the truest sense of the word. If you are, good for you. But please do us the favour of extricating yourself from the use of public healthcare. Tobacco taxes are insufficent to provide coverage for healthcare costs because (a) we don't know what the true cost of healthcare is, and (b) even given the first point, the cost continues to climb, even as the number of smokers declines (gee, wonder why that is? ;-).
P.S. I did not know the concept of a "libertarian Liberal" could exist in reality. Seems like a Star Trekian matter/anti-matter relationship. The two items cannot co-exist.
Hancock is too liberal for most Liberals. He swallows his philospohy so that he can be elected. He is more ambitious than he is interested in his left wing ideology.
ReplyDeleteFor once though, he is on the right track.
Smoking bans should have been here a long time ago because smoking does kill and harm others. The best thing would be to ban smokers from anywhere in the public. Even better would be to ban smoking altogether but as we all know people will still do it just like illegal drugs, at least if it is not banned we don't have to hire new police to fight against it just to fight the bans. We need all these bylaw officers to ticket smokers because alot of smokers don't listen to these laws because they don't care about them. Smokers don't care about nothing except for their dirty habit which is number one.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteson of gaia - I deleted your 6:16 pm Comment on this blog because it contained some defamatory statements about certain individuals.
ReplyDeleteThe main theme and substance of the Comment did not offend just the defamatory statements. Since you post anonymously I don't feel compelled to be part of such inapproprate commentary.
If you want to repost your comments without defaming anyone, please do so.
I'd be happy to sign my postings on your blog in the future, Ken, if that would make you more comfortable. For the record, this posting is by Roy Harrold of Edmonton, AB. Also, for the record, I'd welcome a defamation lawsuit from any tobacco control con-artist who dares to face me in court. I never make a statement I can't back up with facts.
ReplyDeleteYou are on the wrong side of this issue, Ken. It's like what I said about people who claim to be environmentalists but drive huge gas-guzzling SUVs - it's hypocrisy. And when people who claim to champion social justice participate in campaigns that "denormalize", marginalize, scapegoat and persecute social minorities - composed overwhelmingly of lower income, elderly, emotionally traumatized and disabled persons - that is hypocrisy.
Any person who claims to support smoking bans out of concern for their own or other people's safety, but drives around spewing fine particle pollution in the faces of their family members, friends, co-workers, hospitality staff, pregnant women and little babies in strollers - is a hypocrite.
The health care sustainability rationalization is a falsehood. Preventing illness doesn't reduce the cost burden on the health system - that idea was debunked long ago:
http://www.chsrf.ca/mythbusters/pdf/myth9_e.pdf
"...supporters of health promotion
and illness prevention don’t need to depend on cost-saving rhetoric to make their arguments, and
they probably shouldn’t, because the evidence is simply not there."
Historically, preventing various illnesses has led to increased cost burden on the health system, as more people are enabled to live long enough to develop even more costly illnesses. By far the most costly of the chronic illnesses is adult dementias, including Alzheimer's. The fewer smokers who develop and die of smoking-related illnesses, the more will live long enough to develop the far more costly Alzheimer's.
Ken, I've refuted all of your rationalizations (and backed that with outside links to objective sources). In my opinion, an intellectually honest person faced with such evidence would consider the possibility that (a) they might be mistaken (b) they might be motivated to retain their position regardless, because of an underlying predjudice they don't wish to acknowledge holding or (c) they stand to gain financially by promoting their old position even if they don't really believe in it.
I hope you are capable of being honest with yourself.
Thx Ron for the posting response and the identification and the challenge. I am working on some deadlines not related to "promoting old positions" but financial gain implications none the less.
ReplyDeleteI want to consider your refutations and will do so over the weekend and reply as best I can on Monday.
As for your aspirations to be sued, I am fine with that but please use your own blog as the medium to create your Defendant status. I am not interested in being a third party to any such action.
BTW. What is the origin of "son of gaia" as you blog handle?
Ken - "sonofgaia" is a Blogger log-on, shared by several people which is why it isn't name specific. And my name is Roy, not Ron.
ReplyDelete"As for your aspirations to be sued, I am fine with that but please use your own blog as the medium to create your Defendant status. I am not interested in being a third party to any such action."
[Laughter] - I have no fear of being sued by anyone. You are the lawyer, not I, but my understanding is that defamation only occurs if the statements are false and fall outside the realm of "fair comment" on political activity. Have you read Surreality Times? My little avatar means "no bull", and I pull no punches. But I respect your position vis-a-vis your own site and will do my best to abide by your wishes.
Thank you for taking the time to consider what I've said. Please do look through Dr Siegel's blog - his revelations about his colleagues in tobacco control intentionally manipulating people with false statements about the harmfulness of SHS are very disturbing. He is genuinely an expert on the subject and his credibility is beyond question.
Sorry ROY - that much of a mistake in your name can't even be blamed on a typo.
ReplyDeleteI don't practise law any more but retain my membership in the Law Society of Alberta...kind of like Linus' blanket I think.
As for defamation I always remember the lecture in law school called the "wrapped up defence to defamation." The first defence is "I didn't say it," the second is "If I said it I didn't mean it," and the third line of defence is "If I said it, and I meant it, it must be true."
As for fair comment I don't think "political activity" is the test for private citizens to make them subject to "fair comment." It applies to elected and appointed political officials and. to my mind, even to advocates as to the positions they take. But for sure fair comment on advocates does not allow personal attacks on advocates personal reputations.
The Blogosphere is a critically important medium for real democracy to be restored to citizens. BUT it demands we bloggers exercise respect, if not restraint, while differing. Ad hominem attacks, especially the anonymous ones, diminishes us all.
As promised, I will dig into your arguments re smoking this weekend and respond on Monday.
Ken, I just watched this article about Tobacco companies upping the nicotine levels in their products:
ReplyDeletehttp://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/ver/21/popup/?rn=952695&cl=1694206&src=news
Also, http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/increasing_nicotine
I *HATE* that this big companies knowingly add these carcinogenic, addictive compounds to their products in order to retain their users through physical (and psychological) addictions. I hate that these people pay their money to make these other people rich, people so removed from the equation that they do not care to know what kind of devastating impact their product has on families.
You know, I understand the argument that smokers need to make in order to tell themselves (reassure themselves) that smoking is safe or won't cause them or their families harm - mostly because I lived with it for years. My parent's smoking caused me many health issues (irritating asthma, reoccurring bronchitis and sinus infections etc etc) and their responses to that were largely based in denial.
My parents even found a doctor who was willing to tell them that they could/should continue smoking as it wouldn't hurt them or the children.
So, while I understand, I just can't sympathize with it anymore.
My father always said "It's not an addiction, my right," "I worked my whole life and I deserve this," "It's the only pleasure I get out of life," and so on and so on. My father was a smart man - deep down he knew he was addicted, he knew it would be hard to stop, he knew some big company had him by the short and curlies (taking btw, thousands of his dollars every year for the pleasure of ultimately causing his death).
When my Dad was on the brink of his own, horrible death he changed his mind. He wanted to live, very badly. He wanted to take it all back, to have the choices to make all over again, to die from ANYTHING other than the cancer eating away his lungs, esophagus and other itegral body parts. To not have caused his own death that would cause him to part from his family all too soon.
My Dad was only 67 years old.
Roy, I don't care if you think that Smokers pay for their own costs related to their deaths -thats not the point. The medical costs of my father's death were so minimal in comparision to the other costs (as I mentioned in my comment above) that no real monetary value can really be placed on them. That's the harsh reality of this disease/addiction.
My fathers life was priceless and unfortunatly he discovered that too late.
Allie, there are two basises for banning smoking: (1) The moral argument that the government should be saving lives; and (2) the negative externalities of smokers should not be borne by other citizens.
ReplyDeleteI prefer (2) as there is no need to get into fluzzy questions of morality (i.e. the libertarian argument that the state should not impose its authority on an individual - especially here with smoking where, while it is obviously addictive, an individual still has the ability to choose [while the addictiveness limites this] choice to quit). Having said that, the government should have a general duty to prevent unnecessary death. But where do we draw the line? What about trans fat - should be ban this? Even alcohol is certainly not good for one's body? Should we ban this?
Again, I prefer the negative externalties argument. Smoke at home if you want, but don't blow it in my face.
Allie - my father died at age 38, when I was eight. Life is tough, and death is tragic at whatever age by whatever cause.
ReplyDeleteYes, the tobacco companies are corporate scumbags (but, so are the multinational pharmaceutical companies and many others), but people who smoke are NOT the tobacco companies. I understand some people's desire to wreak vengeance on "big tobacco", or on the ignoramuses who blew smoke in their face in public places, but vengeance should never be allowed to direct public health policies.
Nor should greed or corruption. It's astounding, to me, that after the head of AADAC's tobacco control program - whose credibility was never questioned by any of his colleagues - was exposed by the Auditor General as having never been qualified for the job in the first place, hiding a criminal past and ripping off over $600,000 of our tax monies, some people refuse to let the implications of that sink into their consciousness and just pretend it never happened.
I have been on the website of mychoice.ca they seems to be some lies in there I noticed about how many members they have. The president of mychoice does say 41000 members but when you go to where it says how many members on the web site it only says 32000 and something that is far off for sure I think someone can't add properly lol.
ReplyDelete