Welcome to the Nanny State 2008

[korbel]

Hello JB,

There is a difference between what people do to themselves without generally affecting others and poisoning the air with smoke where it cannot be avoided.

Cheers,

Korbel

I wish...

Bwahahaha Roland,

Yeah, I thought about that too. Nothing like a little unexpected adventure to make life interesting...hmmm...as long as "she" isn't from the second floor at Cleo's...you big guy...lol.

Toodles,

Korbel

 

[metoo4]

...
And these objections are still avoiding the point I've now made a couple of times, i.e. that the goverment should prioritize issues, and first tackle the most pressing ones. That's not occuring presently, they just choose the easiest targets.
...

What point? Prioritizing doesn't mean ignoring the small, easy stuff! And you really think smoking laws are easy stuff? Some bar owners "went to the front" against these laws. That's lots of electorate potential lost for the government who vote these laws! That's not easy!

Driving and drinking is a MORTAL problem who's being tackled agressively. Pedophiles have seen their lives getting harder and harder, Pollution is being adressed. Those aren't trivial easy stuff!

What are these big causes you feel are being ignored? Are they really ignored or just not handled fast enough for you? Is it possible these issues can't really be handled faster for a few million of reasons? It's always easy to criticize when we don't have all the facts and refuse to see half of the ones presented.

 

[JustBob]

Hello JB,

There is a difference between what people do to themselves without generally affecting others and poisoning the air with smoke where it cannot be avoided.

Cheers,

Korbel

But those examples I gave are still "a cost to us all" in terms of their impact on the health care system for example. So I'm still paying to sustain other people's bad habits.

As far as being personnally affected, health wise, by smoke, you can choose to avoid private establishments which allow smoking. Regardless, unless you're around smokers 24 hours a day, you're far more likely to fall ill from the air you breathe outside. I suggest you write your congressman about that.

 

[metoo4]

...I suggest you write your congressman about that.

That would be extremely difficult for us!

Now if we could stop all that pollution coming from the south, this would be a plus! It's incredible how much stuff gets funneled by the St-Laurent valley and end-up in Montréal's air! Check any weather map or weather radar data.

http://www.weatheroffice.gc.ca/radar/index_e.html

 

[Ben Dover]

If science had never shown us precisely what smoking did to us we could all be pretty sure inhaling smoke was a very bad idea without scientific proof of it. In the end people do damaging things to themselves because they fail to or don't want to control their bad indulgences.
Korbel

In 1964 (or thereabouts) the surgeon general of the US informed the public that smoking caused cancer. Prior to this many people considered smoking to be medicinal and it was often recommended as a good remedy for coughs.

It's a wonderful new and tingly feeling, but I have to admit that I find myself agreeing with JB quite a bit on this thread. The "nanny state" issue which is the topic of this thread, and the topic we are supposed to be sticking to here, is one that includes smoking as well as dozens (if not hundreds or thousands) of other facets of our lives. My previous point, one certain parties were not able to discuss normally, was that society is putting a tremendous focus on smoking, while ignoring other much more serious societal ills. Is it possible to remove the blinders and see that although smoking is bad etc etc, we have much bigger problems to worry about?

BD

 

[korbel]

But those examples I gave are still "a cost to us all" in terms of their impact on the health care system for example. So I'm still paying to sustain other people's bad habits.

As far as being personnally affected, health wise, by smoke, you can choose to avoid private establishments which allow smoking. Regardless, unless you're around smokers 24 hours a day, you're far more likely to fall ill from the air you breathe outside. I suggest you write your congressman about that.

Hello JB,

No one is saying every bad human habit should be regulated. That would be asking the impossible...and it is just simply insane anyway. But what good is smoking??? It does nothing but harm to everyone involved, the tobacco industry is purely parasitic because it promotes physical degeneration and passes on enormous health costs to everyone, and smoking is so addictive within a very short time that few seem to ever break the habit no matter how much they try.

Now, other things like drinking are deadlier in the short term. That is being dealt with as much as possible. But it is not nearly as addictive and in the long run the damage is far less than smoking. Compare somewhere around 400,000 related smoking deaths per year to 42,000 total driving deaths in the U.S. in 1999, and that is from all causes not just drinking.

http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/factsheets/cig_smoking_mort.htm

Cigarette smoking is the single most preventable cause of premature death in the United States. Each year, more than 400,000 Americans die from cigarette smoking. In fact, one in every five deaths in the United States is smoking related. Every year, smoking kills more than 276,000 men and 142,000 women.1

http://www.unitedjustice.com/death-statistics.htmlhttp://www.alcoholalert.com/drunk-driving-statistics-2005.html

There were 16,885 alcohol-related fatalities in 2005 – 39 percent of the total traffic fatalities for the year.

Whether anyone is affected by second hand smoke we all pay the cost in health care costs and there is no escaping that FACT! An activity that kills 24 times as many people per year as drunk driving, and obviously leaves society with the cost of caring for many millions living with degenerating physical conditons, demands regualtion. Attempting to compare what is probably the greatest health care drain on the national economy to even drunk driving doesn't measure up statistically. So if you want to prioritize starting with the worst problem...here it is. It certainly isn't binging on burgers or donuts...lol.

Pure and simple,

Korbel

 

[JustBob]

I'll be damned, all these premature deaths might not be such a bad thing after all!

"Cold" economists say that a person who dies prematurely saves the Federal purse and private pension plans the costs of Social Security benefits and retirement annuities.

Smokers have more disease than nonsmokers, but nonsmokers live longer and can incur more health costs at advanced ages.

Conclusions: If people stopped smoking, there would be a savings in health care costs, but only in the short term. Eventually, smoking cessation would lead to increased health care costs.

http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/abstract/337/15/1052

 

[eastender]

Winning

In 1964 (or thereabouts) the surgeon general of the US informed the public that smoking caused cancer. Prior to this many people considered smoking to be medicinal and it was often recommended as a good remedy for coughs.

It's a wonderful new and tingly feeling, but I have to admit that I find myself agreeing with JB quite a bit on this thread. The "nanny state" issue which is the topic of this thread, and the topic we are supposed to be sticking to here, is one that includes smoking as well as dozens (if not hundreds or thousands) of other facets of our lives. My previous point, one certain parties were not able to discuss normally, was that society is putting a tremendous focus on smoking, while ignoring other much more serious societal ills. Is it possible to remove the blinders and see that although smoking is bad etc etc, we have much bigger problems to worry about?

BD

Society tends to put tremendous focus on issues that are winnable. At the start of the 20th century the focus was health - infant mortality, tuberculosis, polio and other diseases. Building on previous succesful efforts the health focus has turned to smoking, eating, early detection and other winnable battles.

Road safety was another issues - safer cars, safer roads, seat belts, air bags, motorcycle helmets - again winnable issues.

Simply a question of building on success and focusing on issues that cannot be sidetracked by partisan politics.

 

[mtwallet]

metoo4, in a previous post you mentioned that polution was being addressed. Could you please elaborate? The only new thing that governments have come up with to curtail pollution is ....drum roll please....a carbon tax. Gee. A new tax. Big surprise. If I correctly understand how the new system works, carbon based corporations will pay a surcharge for the amount of polution they generate. And they will be able to buy or trade additional "credits" with other corporations. Basically, there will be a lot of money moving around, but no real effort to actually clean things up. Example: Air Canada, huge polluter, carries mail for Canada Post. Canada Post not only pays Air Canada to carry the mail with cash, but with carbon credits that weren't used because they were able to park some trucks. I can guarantee that a Boeing 767 is going to pollute much more than a parking lot full of trucks, and was going to be flying anyways. How is this going to have an impact? Yes, big fines have been handed out to companies caught dumping in ways and areas they shouldn't. Then those same companies have had to pay for the clean up. What happened to money from the original fine? Yes, the average car has been laden with so much emmisions control equipment that you can no longer see the engines. Check out the gas mileage numbers for Honda over the last 15 years. As the cars got newer, the gas mileage got worse, not better. Higher consumption means more ehaust. A little cleaner perhaps. But one balances the other.

JustBob, I think the government has already prioritzed. It goes after the cause of the month. One month smoking, next month pollution. The month after that....Let's wait and see what's popular.

 

[korbel]

Also, regarding statistics... They're great since you can make them say whatever you want them to. For instance:


TYPES OF ACCIDENTAL DEATHS, USA 2002
(MVA = Motor Vehicle Accident)

ACCIDENT PERCENT

(1) Motor vehicle (MVA) 44.3%
(2) Falls 17.8%
(3) Poison,liq/solid 13.0%
(4) Drowning 3.9%
(5) Fires, Burns,Smoke 3.4%
(6) Medical/Surgical Complication 3.1%
(7) Other land transport 1.5%
(8) Firearms 0.8%
(9) Other (nontransport) 17.8%

[Source: National Vital Statistics Report, Volume 50, Number 15 (September 2002)]

Do you notice anything about #1?? Compared to all the rest of the "accidental deaths," like smoking, it could be easily avoided all together. Nearly 50% of ALL the accidental deaths could be erased! But, I somehow just don't see a mad rush to ban cars, and make public streets "car free" with big black covers hiding all the car maker logos... Why is this? On a side note, I'm surprised how high the percentage is of poison drinking! Seems like drinking the ol' bottle o' poison never goes out of style.

The car accident death stats above are overall. They get higher and higher in terms of their percentage of total deaths when you look at younger age brackets such as 18-35. And of course NONE of that takes into account the second-hand exhaust that the whole planet is choking on...

But we're doing great things when we stop an old man from being able to have a beer and a smoke in his local dive bar.

It's madness!

BD

Hello all,

Yes, you can make statistics say anything you want. Thanks for the example BD. My statistics were 400,000 deaths apx directly related to smoking versus 16,885 due to car accidents. As I noted in my previous post, that 400,000 did not include deaths due to accidents involving cigarettes that killed people in fires. You chose to focus only on accidental deaths, which leaves out the 400,000 that would complete the picture of all deaths related to smoking. So you elevated the impact of driving deaths by leaving out about 95% of the impact of smoking. If you wanted to focus only on accidental deaths that's one thing. But this interesting choice in data usage is miles short of the true picture of the smoking tragedy. And if approximately 17,000 auto fatalities are 44.3% of all accidental deaths, that would put the total number of accidental deaths somewhere around 40,000...still only 1/10 of 400,000 smoking related deaths ( not including accidental smoking related fire deaths ) that are NO ACCIDENT!

You also once again indicate that someone is seeking a ban on drinking, BD. Where on this thread was that said by anyone??? Or do you mean the old man should be able to drink excessively as much as he wants???

I'll be damned, all these premature deaths might not be such a bad thing after all!

http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/abstract/337/15/1052

Advocating that everyone should die earlier to avoid being a financial burden on others??? Interesting joke!

Cheers,

Korbel

 

[eastender]

Correcting.........

Many successful business people know that the only way to truly win and WIN big is in effect not to procrastinate by focusing on the small winable battles, but rather to go for the gusto and fight the big battles.

My personal opinion is that if all the time and effort and funding that was being focused on ridding society of smoking was instead focused on creating and mandating the use of alternate fuel sources, or cleaning the air, or the oceans, we would ALL be a wee bit better off as a whole.

From a business standpoint there is merit to your point BUT the legislation in question and the efforts to change habits are the results of business going full steam ahead and building great empires - the tobacco industry, petroleum industry, and so forth that have to be checked and pulled back at various levels.

Correcting previous errors or slipshod work is always more time consuming and costly than doing things properly from the start.

 

[eastender]

Informed Choice - Part III

Hello all,

This all makes perfect sense to me, from end to end. However, while scientific proof can give final confirmation of the cause of damage; the sensible, logical, reasonable conclusions anyone can make from circumstantial evidence and experience should be enough to inform us. Why must scientific proof be necessary to make an informed choice to convince us. Just because instinct does not offer the proof science does it has allowed the human race to survive well before the rise of science. Mankind was able to make informed choices based on good sense well before any established scientific method. The thing of it is...what is so difficult about understanding what is bad for you. Drinking...making a fool of yourself, ending up in bed with who knows, driving badly and having an accident...hmmm...excessive drinking...BAD! Over eating...getting out of breath easily, tiring easily, high blood pressure, etc...hmmm...over eating...BAD! Smoking...hacking cough, respiratory problems, damage to gums and teeth, cancer...hmmm...smoking...BAD!

While I am great believer in science and it's benefits, scientific proof of what is bad or damaging to the body isn't truly necessary to make an informed choice. Experience is enough without the scientific method to fall back on. People should not be excused for making bad decisions that simple instinct told them was the wrong choice. Science has been a great boon to humanity, but without it their was plenty in the human capacity to inform us when we were making bad decisions. If science had never shown us precisely what smoking did to us we could all be pretty sure inhaling smoke was a very bad idea without scientific proof of it. In the end people do damaging things to themselves because they fail to or don't want to control their bad indulgences.

Use sense,

Korbel

There seems to be a slight diversion to the concept of "Informed Choice". Somehow it has become linked to science and scientific proof which is far from accurate.

Simply "Informed Choice" is about having access to as much information and knowledge as possible. Ideally this would allow each individual the opportunity to make the best possible decision in every circumstance.

Unfortunately information and knowledge do not come with a crystal ball that allows the individual to look far into the future and anticipate that today's best choice might be problematic many years down the road.

There are many examples of this. A caring and loving parent may give a crying child a sweet to calm and pacify them without realizing the impact such a gesture may have on the child's eating habits in the future.

History has shown us that change is a constant. For centuries crude oil was viewed as a useless pollutant, today it is a valuable asset. As mankind learned how to harness the environment the perception of useless changed drastically.

 

[korbel]

There seems to be a slight diversion to the concept of "Informed Choice". Somehow it has become linked to science and scientific proof which is far from accurate.

Simply "Informed Choice" is about having access to as much information and knowledge as possible. Ideally this would allow each individual the opportunity to make the best possible decision in every circumstance.

Okay Eastender,

My mistake. Because you mentioned that "the knowledge about the harmful effects of smoking - link to cancer, etc is fairly recent, post WWII"...I presumed you were linking the advanced scientific data that has been gathered since World War II to the understanding of how you defined "Informed Choice". Clarification accepted.

Cheers,

Korbel

 

[JH Fan]

People

The thing is... if you guys want to continue arguing this smoking stuff on this thread...

Can we agree in 2008 that smoking isn't good for your health ? that there is a real pollution problem because of driving too much and our eating habits in North America aren't the healthiest in the world ?

If you can't than there is no point in arguing anything.
You simply have to wake up or grow up.

Having said that. I am in this as much as anyone else.

Now should we ban everything completely ? No. this is stupid. Should we argue about who's fault it is ? Again this is stupid because you solve problems in society with a team spirit not by staying in a corner.

Is a smoker should be allowed to smoke ? yes in some places and we should be more aware that this is f*#ng hard to stop.

But just like trying not to drive our car all the time to go to the corner store and trying something else to eat than the fri*ken fast food. We have to do our part if we want anything to say about this.

It's nice to argue but if you don't do anything about it than there is no point for the whining and bitchin'.

Conclusion ? Yes we are sometime with a Nanny State but...sometime it's the opposite in having way too much freedom here that creates all kinds of problems in our own legislation both in Canada and the US.

It's just doesn't make sense and unless we get back on track we all gonna go bezerk in the years to come.

 

[JustBob]

Hello all,

Yes, you can make statistics say anything you want. Thanks for the example BD. My statistics were 400,000 deaths apx directly related to smoking versus 16,885 due to car accidents.

Note that you can also inflate numbers using flawed methodology in multivariate studies that ignore or underweigh factors like pre-existing conditions, the issue of confounding and infection. Considering the list of diseases in the CDC article, how did they come to the conclusion that these 400,000 deaths were directly related to smoking?

Regardless, and as I stated earlier, I'm all for education, prevention and legislation as it pertains to minors. I'm against the government forcefuly trying to save me or others from our "bad habits".

Advocating that everyone should die earlier to avoid being a financial burden on others??? Interesting joke!

No, just addressing the health care burden/cost issue. Actually, I also thought this was true, until I went hmmmm as people get older they incur more healthcare costs so the burden on health care argument might not be necessarily true. Then I went to look for documentation on this issue.

More:

"Obesity prevention, just like smoking prevention, will not stem the tide of increasing health-care expenditures. The underlying mechanism is that there is a substitution of inexpensive, lethal diseases toward less lethal, and therefore more costly, diseases." Table 1 gives the bottom line: At age 20, smokers' lifetime costs will total 220k Euros, obese peoples' costs will total 250k Euros, and the "Healthy Living" will cost 281k Euros.

http://medicine.plosjournals.org/pe...ocument&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0050029&ct=1

Of course whe should still be encouraging citizens to have healthier lifestyles thru education and prevention. Just don't force it down people's throats.

 

[eastender]

Fear of Knowing

People

The thing is... if you guys want to continue arguing this smoking stuff on this thread...

Can we agree in 2008 that smoking isn't good for your health ? that there is a real pollution problem because of driving too much and our eating habits in North America aren't the healthiest in the world ?

If you can't than there is no point in arguing anything.
You simply have to wake up or grow up.

Having said that. I am in this as much as anyone else.

Now should we ban everything completely ? No. this is stupid. Should we argue about who's fault it is ? Again this is stupid because you solve problems in society with a team spirit not by staying in a corner.

Is a smoker should be allowed to smoke ? yes in some places and we should be more aware that this is f*#ng hard to stop.

But just like trying not to drive our car all the time to go to the corner store and trying something else to eat than the fri*ken fast food. We have to do our part if we want anything to say about this.

It's nice to argue but if you don't do anything about it than there is no point for the whining and bitchin'.

Conclusion ? Yes we are sometime with a Nanny State but...sometime it's the opposite in having way too much freedom here that creates all kinds of problems in our own legislation both in Canada and the US.

It's just doesn't make sense and unless we get back on track we all gonna go bezerk in the years to come.

You make a very valid and interesting point.

I suspect that a large part of our response to the "Nanny State" comes under the heading of "Fear of Knowing". Depending on our respective ages each of us has experienced situations where some activity which previously was thought to be good has over time been shown to have many negative aspects.So we voice our concerns.

Today many people have a "Fear of Knowing" - they fear that the latest news will take away certain other pleasures or security blankets that they once enjoyed,.That a product that they bought in good faith years ago - like asbestos, is a greater health risk than the reduced risk of fire that it offered.

Not very comforting.

 

[JustBob]

I don't suffer from 'Fear of Knowing", I suffer from "Fear of Forcing", also known as "Fear of overpayed bureaucrats with nothing better to do than sit in conference rooms all day trying to figure out what's best for me".

 

[JH Fan]

I don't suffer from 'Fear of Knowing", I suffer from "Fear of Forcing", also known as "Fear of overpayed bureaucrats with nothing better to do than sit in conference rooms all day trying to figure out what's best for me".

Yep ! and don't forget. We tend to think bureaucracy is a term unique to governement but it applies also for large organizations. And a bureaucrat is also some of those CEOs that just sits on their a** in a conference room.
Rigidly devoted to the details of administrative procedure and just throw out hundreds of people on the streets to balance the sheet and then jump ship with a hefty bonus. Same thing applies to Union delegates that often cares only about their own career. And what about those who gets a million time more money than the normal guy and just sh*t in our face telling us they earned it.

That's why I'm telling you, we ain't gonna make this work properly or get some kind of justice if we're not responsible and just argue.

 

[korbel]

YOUR statistics were quoted by you as coming from some website called "unitedjustice.com" I checked this website and I certainly would not want to go around quoting anything from there as the gospel. If this is your "credible source" of information, it would explain a lot.

The CDC statistics illustrate 438,000 deaths which could be attributable to smoking -- over the span of 1997 to 2001 (or an average of just over 100,000 per year). I wonder which numbers are more accurate. The ones from CDC, an independent gov't agency, or from "unitedjustice.com"

You must have misunderstood me. I am not seeking a ban on drinking, nor did I indicate that this was said by anybody. What I do mean is that, in a society like ours in which soccer moms drive around in land rovers and occaisionally run over toddlers, the old man should be able to have a cigarette with his beer.

Personnally, and I know many others who share this opinion, I find it to be the biggest tradgedy when a life is cut short. And the younger someone dies, the more tragic the loss in most cases. In terms of deaths among people aged 24 (cdc.gov again) and less, smoking was attributable to less than 0.1% of deaths and car accidents were over 50%. So, based on your theories Korbel, do you not think we should enforce a ban on driving?

BD

Hello BD,

I had something in mind when I inserted the link to United Justice that I never got around to doing. I never used anything from there. So that link in my previous post is deleted. The actual numbers for smoking related deaths per year were taken from http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data statistics/factsheets/cig_smoking_mort.htm and say precisely: "Cigarette smoking is the single most preventable cause of premature death in the United States. Each year, more than 400,000 Americans die from cigarette smoking. In fact, one in every five deaths in the United States is smoking related. Every year, smoking kills more than 276,000 men and 142,000 women."

I don't see why you made some of the inferences you did from my posts on smoking. I have stuck pretty firmly to this subject with some other added comparisons only to answer the points others wished to make. None of what I wrote implied any denial of the existence of many other tragedies such as teens or young children dying young. And there certainly is no cause for anyone to have taken an inference from anything I said as meaning I want to ban drinking, driving, or anything. You have imposed your perception on what I said, possibly because it provoked some specific quirk of yours. You have made presumptions about my logic that really reflect your own and have nothing to do with mine. In fact, I don't really find much to disagree with in your social positions except that you don't seem to want to give the smoking issue much emphasis in your priorities. Otherwise, I don't see many real differences between us besides the fact that I don't want smokers imposing their activities and the costs of caring for them on me.

Now, we all know there are far more issues to deal with than smoking in our society. None of what I have said denies any of that. So please try to avoid implying I am trying to minimize other very serious social ills or trying to ban any individual choices. By doing so you are displaying your own thought processes...NOT mine.

Cheerio,

Korbel

 

[metoo4]

metoo4, in a previous post you mentioned that polution was being addressed. Could you please elaborate?

Cars! Exactly! That's only one! The "carbon tax" is something being tried but as you said, likely won't work. BUT! Catalytics converter for example. Scrubbers for the factories, (I can go to Montreal Est now and breath where 20 years ago I was choking)

...a Boeing 767 is going to pollute much more than a parking lot full of trucks, ...

Actually, pound for pound, distance versus fuel used, the big plane IS more efficient than using trucks to do the same work over the same distance. Ask Air Canada! how they feel about WestJet? WestJet have all new planes who consume less fuel and polluting less, whaile making less noise. All this contribute in making WestJet cheaper to run so, they can offer better fares.

..Yes, big fines have been handed out to companies caught dumping in ways and areas they shouldn't. Then those same companies have had to pay for the clean up...

Already happening! Check your informations.

...What happened to money from the original fine?...

As all fines, it's going to the appropriate government's pockets. No control on that.

...Yes, the average car has been laden with so much emmisions control equipment that you can no longer see the engines. Check out the gas mileage numbers for Honda over the last 15 years. As the cars got newer, the gas mileage got worse, not better. Higher consumption means more ehaust. A little cleaner perhaps. But one balances the other.

What? Now check that carefully! You're playing in my turf big time and I can say this is baloney! I bought my first Accord early 1990 and now driving a 2008 Accord. Nothing but Accords in between. First Accord was outputting 130hp. Then it was 145. Now, the same 2.2l 4 cylinder develops 190hp!
Yup! Technology is all over the hood! The damn car almost know what type of underwear I'm wearing! Bunch of CPU, 2 separate high speed networks, more technology in that 2008 car than there was in a computer room in the 70's. Now fuel consumption: On the '90, I was making about 12L/100km. (that's driving highway, ~120km/hr) After that, it stayed close to the same but the car got more powerful and gained probably about 200 pounds. Now with the 2008, I'm currently close to 9.25L/100km (same speed). Have you compared a 2008 Accord with a 1990? The car went from a mid size 130hp to a FULL SIZE (comparable to an Impala!) and develops 190hp, and pollutes less! Now can you rehiterate your statement?

JustBob, I think the government has already prioritzed. It goes after the cause of the month. One month smoking, next month pollution. The month after that....Let's wait and see what's popular.

That's called democraty. These guys are elected to do exactly that: do what the population want them to do. Of course they'll do it more or less but, if a government would only do stuff nobody want, that would be the revolution! Look like they do a lot of stuff peoples want after all since we just kick them out in sequence every 4 years instead of killing them!