Arkansas Blog

So we can be assured that Riverfest patrons will have to endure at least one more fest contaminated with secondhand smoke.

How about one for no screaming kids, or dogs, or unhealthy food, no cooked meat, no perfume or cologne, or no toxins used on the landscaping? Maybe we should all just have a live web cam hook-up to a virtual park with no people allowed in order to assure nobody gets upset.

Outlawing smoke outside should begin with coal plants and other industrial polluters first. The rest is beyond ridiculous.

I was agianst smoking in restaurants and bars because of the restricted air flow. I am astounded that we used to have to put up with smoking in airplanes back in the "good old days" but across the board banning smoking in parks seems extreme.

But as I type this I find it hard to fine tune the restrictions. Is Rebseman Park Road "in" Murray Park? Would smoking in your car as you flip off bikers in the bike lane be illegal?

There are trails way off in Allsop and Boyle Park that would could be allowable. How about within 100 feet of others?

I am torn here. I am for freedom and wish gov't would get out of our lives but I detest smokers. I bike all over town and am discusted with all the cigarette butts on the streets. If I had created the world I would never have created tobacco but obviously I did not create the world. Many others would feel the same about alcohol and still others think same sex marriage is "an abomination" but I say let adults do whatever they want as long as it doesn't infringe on others but smoking can sure annoy (possibly infringe on) others. I have read many many studies about second hand smoke dangers but how do we know if Cig smoke caused a cancer or if Radon gas from the basememnt did?

I am inclined to err on the side of freedom and banning smoking in all parks in all situations seems to be erring on the side of less freedom.

no fireworks

no burning leaves

outlaw clothing!

Jim Bergman with the Center for Social Gerontology once said that there are levels of truth when dealing with the public health. Initially the reaction is ridicule and denial but as the science becomes evident public health efforts are accepted and then taken for granted. Such is the case with allowing tobacco use in public. Just a few days ago the big island in Hawaii followed a growing trend worldwide by making all of its parks, beaches, and recreational areas smoke free. The right to breathe always trumps privilege.
The science surrounding secondhand smoke has grown leaps and bounds in just the last few years making apparent that tobacco smoke is not merely offensive but quite dangerous and in very minimal doses. Most of all allowing public tobacco use is the free advertising on which an industry that calls children "replacement smokers" depends.

The confusion of a public health issue with one of rights is the result of massive public relations campaigns started in the 80s by the PR giant Burson-Marsteller. It is important to clarify that tobacco free space is not directed toward smokers but toward an industry that profits obscenely from addiction and illness and has done so even to the point of a RICO conviction in 2006. Their terrible success is evident in way too many reactions to public health measures like tobacco free parks.
After the General Assembly here recently voted to allow spitting on the floor of the house I actually had legislators equate nicotine addiction with personal liberty and heterosexual sex. Yeah. Bizarre. But then the tobacco industry spends $18,000 an hour in Arkansas alone marketing a historical anomaly. A history that our policy makers would do well to acquaint themselves, not to mention the science.
What about the Surgeon General's "No safe Exposure" is so hard to understand?

Damn. You can't do shit anymore. Becoming quite boring. Really. the no smoking in public places is over the top in my opinion.

I was out at Rivertrail Park this weekend. It was quite busy. I did not see one single person smoking. Why ban something that few are doing anyway? As a nurse, I would be overjoyed to see smokers out exercising at the park. And seriously, how many hardcore Doral 100 smokers are going to get up the energy to go to the park?

So, we ban smoking at outdoor music fests, but the musicians themselves are probably wacked out on any number of drugs!

Bill Hicks, come back, we need your biting wit.

I'm a smoker, but several years ago, around the time that The Truth Campaign started, I really felt for anti-smoking lobby, but then something changed. What was it...

Oh yeah, y'all became assholes.

I'm a non-smoker, other than an occasional cigar, and just find overall that the United State is becoming so damn priggish about everything. Damn, so now you can't find an out-of-the-way spot in a park and grab a quick smoke. WTF. Lighten the %^&* up about it. Smokers, be reasonable and don't smoke in the midst of a crowd, find a spot where you won't bug anyone. And non-smokers, BFD if they do. This kind of legislate-us-to-death shit about every little thing just pisses me off on principle.

We're so damn uptight about things like this but we'll trash the earth to smithereens within the next 50 years. I don't get it.

Think about this one as the city's mosquito abatement truck goes by, fogging the entire area with toxins! Get a life people, what's wrong with taking a walk in our parks while enjoying a cigar?

The difference between a peer reviewed journal and a blog is that blogs rarely require disclosing competing interests. When one hears rhetoric parroting tobacco industry horseshit you have to wonder if they are on the dole or just not paying attention. You're getting played like a drum. Is it for free or are you just cheap?

Zarathustra - Just occurred to me.. I never see tobacco ads on the web or anywhere else I read or view. Haven't got a clue what their talking points are these days.

At my name

"Vulcan Project produced a carbon-doixide emissions map of the U.S. Using direct CO2 measurement, we saw this first-of-its-kind map. "

Ignoring that may kill 6 out of every 7 people on the planet.. I think it's just a matter of prioritizing correctly.Second hand coal, oil, and natural gas are the things we all need to face, pronto.

I tolds ya and I tolds ya...if you give the anti-smoking Nazis an inch, they'll take a mile, then 2 miles, then 4, then 10. And when the last smoker dies off hiding in a cave way up in the mountains, they'll go after something else.

Do you have an unsightly mole on your face or neck? If so......

Is your kid ugly? oh oh

Is your husband fat and prone to show ass crack wearing shorts in the summer?

Have a fireplace in your home? OUT!

Does yer Mom use a walker that might trip someone, some time, somewhere?

Does your cat shit?

Do you eat Twinkie...I mean actually shop for them in public?

Wear hot pink and green in the summer?

Go to the wrong church?

Don't go to church!?

Ever put on a Batman costume before sex?

Trust me there is an anti---Nazi for anything you can name. Every year it gets worse, they grow like The Blob. Picking picking picking all the time. Watching you....watching watching. Removing what little joy we got left in America.

If you're suddenly feeling like you can't breath....it's not emphysema....it's the hand of an anti-Nazi on your throat. Come on Rapture!!!

PS.....Yes Z....I know tobacco companies are evil bastards just like all the rest of big businesses who try every second of the day to sell you their products. It's purely the American way.

Oh this is just crap...governmental crap. And I've never smoked. It's one thing to ban smoking indoors...though I'd argue that private businesses/individuals have a right to smoke-filled rooms that are clearly designated as such...it's another to tell people they can't smoke outside. And, quite frankly I'm tired of this sanctimonious trend of government (guided, of course, by its handlers within the insurance industry). It's un-American and grossly hypocritical for the government to step in front of us and dictate, rather than respond to, our desires. My god...big polluters have been given carte blanche since President Shit for Brains took the helm, but our bodies and outdoor areas must conform to insurance companies' bottom lines...their version of health perfection. Makes me want a cheeseburger, beer and a cigarette....and ride a motorcycle without a helmet!

Played like a drum. Public health advocates are not anti anything except maybe an industry that preys on children and spends enourmous amounts of money funding PR campaigns that make people confuse their predation with personal liberty. You bitch about corporate subsidy but don't recognize the enormous preventable debt our society pays to allow a morally bankrupt industry to continue to stack up obscene profits. Phillip Morris International just split from PM USA and saw its stock rise 29% on its way to killing 10 billion people in the next decade.
Just FYI indoor air is much more of a hazard than out door pollution. We spend more time there. One cig smoked in an average sized room will exceed EPA particulate standards for outside air by 53 times.
Another FYI is that President Shit for Brains and his tobacco lobbyist brain sweet old Karl baby quashed OSHA plans for national standards for smoke free air and downsized the CDC's Office on Smoking and Health almost as soon as they assumed the throne.
Grab that smoke and hop on the Harley but don't confuse that with anybody's rights. There's your talking points Eureka. Its all blame the victim. Freedom of choice for an addiction you only had much of a choice about as a child.
Played like a drum.

Strolling down a trail in a park whilst smoking tobacco is not going to affect anybody but the smoker or his/her companions. However, smoking in a crowd as in Riverfest or a football game at War Memorial will definately inpact the health of those around him/her. On second thought, maybe that's not such a bad thing considering the smells of beer, funnel cakes, puke, and the Great Unwashed. I'm sure many of you have noticed that smokers tend to congregate with other smokers, so when one lights up, instinctively the others follow suit.

I was camping once in the wilderness along the Buffalo River with a group of friends and was amazed that I was getting smoked out in the great outdoors. When it's humid out and there's no breeze the smoke can linger for several minutes. The smokers would flick their cigs into last night's fire ring where they would smoulder for a few more minutes. My point here is that the offending party may not be aware of their offense.

When the government finally bans secondhand smoke in all public areas, including public parks, government will, indeed, be responding to the demands of millions of Americans who believe they should be able to enjoy public space without having to endure or evade secondhand tobacco smoke. This ban will be enacted in Arkansas, and enacting the ban will not require that the state convince a few unenlightened loudmouths that it is the right thing to do.

"Public health advocates are not anti anything except maybe an industry that preys on children and spends enourmous amounts of money funding PR campaigns that make people confuse their predation with personal liberty."

Are you talking about the Disney corporation?

Yeah Inchman, Disney, check it out.
http://www.thetruth.com/videos/

Banning outdoor smoking is ridiculous. I'll offer any nic-nazi a chance to prove how deadly second hand smoke is. I'll sit in my car with the windows rolled up and the engine running and hotbox Salems while you sit in your car with a garden hose fed in your window from the exhaust pipe. I will continue to smoke until it is time for me to help drag your corpse out of your car. I guarantee this outcome.

We're banning little tiny cigarettes from polluting outdoor air while allowing cars to drive on our streets and coal plants to operate? What's that in the Bible about motes and beams?

And just exactly what are motes and beams?

This link deals with the CO in tobacco smoke versus auto exhaust: http://faculty.washington.edu/djaffe/ce3.pdf . This link http://www.tobaccofreemc.com/dr_kh_ginzel.htm is the most comprehensive secondhand smoke fact sheet of which I'm aware. For what it makes up in being compiled in 2005 it makes up in being comprehensive. Dr. Ginzel is an Emeritus Professor from UAMS. There has been a great deal of research damning SHS in the last 3 years. If I were you I wouldn't wager too much on anecdotal or conventional wisdom regarding tobacco. You may find somebody has been blowing a lot of smoke up your ass.

Max--Thank you for a blog that allows well educated adults to exchange opinions and experiences. For those that support preventing second hand smoke exposure in congested areas such as the 10,000 seat riverfront amphitheater, take a look at www.smokefreeparks.com