Oakland Jr High students used as political activists by government
From March 2005 through December 2005 commercials ran on the
The Eagle - 93.9FM which were produced
by students at Oakland Junior High. These ads mention the chemicals in Second
Hand Smoke then close with the tagline "Take it outside".
Is it just a coincidence that these radio ads are running while the City
of Columbia is being lobbied to implement a strict smoking ordinance?
The answer is NO!
The
November/December 2004 (pdf) DHSS Tobacco Use Prevention Newsletter
has an article about a program called
Smokebusters (pdf). Smokebusters is a program for middle schools
which was created by Northeastern Missouri University. It has three phases.
- The first phase is educational to try and keep children from smoking.
- The second phase focuses on working with the mass media; learning how
to tailor a message for the mass media include print, radio, and tv; then
use these skills to reach community leaders and effect policy changes.
The program is funded by a combination of sources including local,
state and federal funds from the Chronic Disease Primary Prevention and
the Department of Health and Senior Services, as well as non-profit funds
from the American Lung Association.
Preventing children from smoking is good and necessary.
Using our tax dollars to turn them into political activists crosses the line.
Here is a news article from the Daily Dunkin Democrat about the program -
Smokebusters influence teens to be smoke free.
Kevin Goodwin's eloquent statement opposing the smoking ban
Kevin Goodwin, owner of Tinder Box/Vino 100 spoke eloquently at the March 7th
Board of Health Public Hearing on the proposed anti-choice smoking law.
He also spoke at the public hearing June 30th, 2005. If another hearing is
scheduled I would encourage others to attend just to hear Kevin speak to the
issues of freedom, liberty, and property rights. Thanks Kevin for allowing
me to post your remarks here:
I come here this evening saddened that I must again take time away from
running my shop and serving my customers to remind this body of the
principles, rights and ideals upon which this nation was founded. Among
these rights and ideals;
- We have the right to own private property.
- We have the right to freedom of association
- We have the right to engage in peaceful commerce.
The proponents of this un-American ordinance seem to have forgotten these
rights and ideals in their rush to social engineer public policy.
We mom & pop, small business owners own our property. We own it and we are
the ones who are responsible for it's operation. Every day we are required
to make many decisions that will affect our business and those decisions
will determine whether or not we will be successful and stay in business.
We have invested our money, our time and our dreams into our property. The
decision to allow or not to allow smoking in our places of business, our
property, is just one of those decisions, but it is our decision to make.
We should not have our property rights trampled upon by those who have no
investment of any kind in our businesses. It's not their property; it
should not be their decision.
As Americans we have the right to choose whom we associate with. Not a
single person is forced to patronize any business nor accept any offer of
employment with any business. These are decisions made by each individual
according to their own free will. The proponents of this un-American
ordinance are free to choose or not to choose, to patronize any business and
to accept or reject any offer of employment of their own free will. By what
right do they deny other Americans those same choices?
As small business owners, the backbone of America, we engage in peaceful
commerce. The fruits of our long hours of labor are that we attempt to
provide a living for our families and our employees, while contributing to
the public treasury.
Small business owners are not coming before the halls of government asking
for laws, ordinances and regulations designed to force free citizens to
patronize their establishments. We seek to attract customers in the free
market through peaceful, non-coercive means.
Conversely, the supporters of this ordinance wish to use the power of
government to force their social agenda upon the rest of society. Remember,
the terminal outcome for disobedience of any regulation, ordinance or law is
that a government agent, armed with a badge and a gun will be authorized to
use deadly force to enforce compliance. Taken literally, supporters of the
smoking ordinance are willing to deprive American citizens of their property
rights and deny the existence and inherent responsibility of free will in
order to enforce their social agenda at the barrel of a gun.
The difference between the supporters of our inalienable American rights and
ideals and the proponents of this policy of social engineering could not be
laid more stark.
It is my fervent hope that we as Americans still retain our most basic of
rights and liberties. By your votes, you will either uphold our rights to
private property and our ideals of peaceful interaction or continue this
Republics slide into regulatory malaise.
I therefore call upon the members of this board to uphold our property
rights as American citizens by rejecting this misguided attempt to social
engineer private property through public legislation.
Thank you for your consideration.
Kevin Goodwin, Owner
Tinder Box/Vino 100
2703 East Broadway, Suite 135
Columbia, MO 65201
(573) 256-5363
(573) 256-5350 fax
http://www.tinderboxcolumbia.com
My Board of Health Smoking Ordinance Public Hearing Statement
I will be addressing the issue of federal regulations regarding worker safety.
The Dept. of Labor Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) is the
primary federal agency responsible for worker safety.
From OSHA's mission statement:
"OSHA's mission is to assure the safety and health of America's workers by setting
and enforcing standards;"
OSHA in 29CFR (Code of Federal Regulations), Part 1910 - Occupational Safety
and Health Standards, Subpart Z - Toxic and Hazardous Substances, Standard 1000 -
Air contaminants; regulates exposure by employees to hazardous substances in the air.
I am familiar with OSHA standards for air contaminants. At one time I was
responsible for worker safety in an industrial environment and was trained
in Industrial Hygiene.
OSHA sets standards for the Permissible Exposure Levels to chemical contaminants
in air.
OSHA has never set standards for Second Hand Smoke. In a landmark near-court case,
the Action on Smoking and Health group sued OSHA to ban all smoking in workplaces.
When they learned the best OSHA could do would be to set permissible levels, they
dropped the case as this would have been harmful to anti-smoking efforts.
OSHA has, however, established PELs (Permissible Exposure Levels) for all the
measurable chemicals, including the 40 carcinogens, in secondhand smoke.
The bottom line -- you would have to be exposed to an extreme level of secondhand
smoke to surpass these PELs, and without the benefit of doors or air-exchange systems.
This chart is adapted from the Littlewood & Fennel "Toxic Toxicology" study,
a study commissioned by the government.
Permissible Exposure Levels are often expressed as a Threshold Limit Value.
A Threshold Limit Value (TLV) is the concentration of an airborne substance to
which an average person can be repeatedly exposed without adverse effects. TLV's
are usually expressed as a Time weighted average (TLV-TWA), based on an allowable
exposure averaged over a normal 8-hour workday or 40-hour work-week.
This chart shows how many cigarettes would be needed to exceed Threshold Limit
Values for those chemcials which are measurable in Environmental Tobacco Smoke.
The figures for ETS yields per cigarette come directly from the EPA. Then the
number of cigarettes that would be required to reach the lowest published
threshold for each of these substances was calculated.
- 222,000 cigarettes to surpass Benzopyrene
- 118,000 for Acetone
- 50,000 packs to surpass Toluene
- 14,000 cigarettes for Acetaldehyde or Hydrazine
- 1250 for Hydroquinone (the low end of the scale)
For a room the size of the City Council Chambers it would require over 8000
people smoking four cigarettes per hour to reach the most restrictive
permissible level. Without any ventilation.
Many of the chemicals in second hand smoke are common byproducts of combustion
which can be found in car exhaust and are produced by fireplaces and burning candles.
Those who advocate for a strict anti-choice smoking ordinance claim they are doing
it for the employees. But does the risk rise to the level of requiring government
regulation?
OSHA doesn't think so.
Littlewood & Fennel in their study concluded that
"Inadequate ventilation, not ETS, is the danger" and
"It is entirely possible that buildings ventilated to a level to comfortably
accomodate smokers would promote higher indoor air quality overall."
