I like the smell of pipe tobacco, it makes me want to be trout fishing (especially brookies). I like the smell of cigar smoke, it makes me want to be fishing on a lake (trolling for pike or just with a worm/bobber rig for bluegills, bass...). Better go ahead and ban BBQ also, that hickory or mesquite is just way to annoying (yeh right). There had better not be any of those public charcoal grills in parks anymore. My gosh the fumes from the charcoal starting fluid!!. I've never been to the park in question here, but it must be inside of a bubble/biosphere. I like the smell of smoke most of the time, just not in the confines of a house, an ice shanty... If I want my clothes to smell like smoke I certainly won't go to a park (even if it was the "smokers park" (or the "path" back in high school)) I'll just go to a bowling alley or better yet a bar.

Ah, the anonymous defending the anonymous. That's rich. And with the same old tobacco-fomented hogwash.

Almost all anti-secondhand smoke propaganda is ultimately tobacco-derived; that's the fact.

And here this guy comes spouting the old "show me a birth certificate"--oops, I mean, "show me a death certificate" ruse (sorry, these certificate nutjobs are remarkably the same).

See this study of secret documents:

A new medical diagnostic code for secondhand smoke was created in 1994, but as of 2004 remained an invalid entry on a common medical form. . . . Tobacco industry documents reveal that Philip Morris budgeted over $2 million for an “ICD-9 Project” in the mid-1990s. Tactics to prevent adoption of the new code included third-party lobbying, Paperwork Reduction Act challenges, and backing an alternative coding system. A secondhand smoke code should be allowed on the Medicare form, and physicians should be made aware of its utilization within the new ICD-10 coding system.

www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=ICD-9_Project

Here's Philip Morris' 1988 "Whitecoat Project," meant to find, fund, tutor and promote scientists it could use to fight SHS science:

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/tobacco/stories/second.htm

The industry has a long and tawdry history of PR, arrant manipulation and secret, paid-for studies, articles, books and letters-to-the-editor. It is currently helped by dupes and/or minions anonymously posting its tripe on message boards.

You'd be a fool to think such conscienceless predators would suddenly decide to go straight, and forego using the new internet technology. In fact, you can bank that they are using it.

Yes, Virginia, "viral marketing" does exist.

SHS and cigarette butts a are the excuse for this latest harassment. If that's the case then NO MORE FOOD! Ban eating! People leave wrappers, paper cups etc. And then there is the FAT factor, I don't think I should have to be exposed to the sight of people that are obese, especially in the parks and especially in the Summer. Maybe one out of 20 people or more might be smoking but 8 out of 10 are FAT!
Obesity is by far more dangerous and has become a health crises in this country!
BAN FOOD!

I have read the studies that harley mentions in this post, and have talked to him privately, and read up on the studies he refers to in his posts. Like it or not, anti-smoking groups love hiding the fact that studies such groups attempted to do(such as the World Health Organization) to show the alleged 'risks' of secondhand smoke did NOT conclude a link between increased risk of disease and SHS exposure. In addition, virtually all studies that have ever been published on SHS have concluded the risks between contracting disease and SHS exposure are statistically insignificant.

I have testified in meetings before against smoking bans, and only wish I had the means to travel and testify at more city/county/etc. council meetings that aren't easy to reach without a car. (btw, love how this country all but regards non-car means of transportation as a joke!) You have an absolute right to disagree and deny to your grave that the truthful risks of secondhand smoke are exaggerated beyond belief, but your comparison of people opposing smoking bans to Birthers and Holocaust Deniers is ridiculous. Now those are 2 crazy movements that no sane being should support!

I would not be making this post if the truth was that SHS is harmful, but please show me a single death certificate that has ever declared SHS as the main reason for a person's death. Pro-banners should be absolutely ashamed with how much they manipulate studies advocating both indoor and outdoor bans, and I won't even get into how much I've seen anti-smoking groups manipulate studies allegedly showing a decrease in heart attack rates after strict indoor smoking bans were enacted!

This TC commission is out of hand, they think they're in charge of everyone and everything.

How about they focus on employee benefit costs and enlightened land use policy, and leave this kind of drivel to personal choice.

I'm offended by strong perfume and some kinds of accents. Should these be regulated next?

Second hand smoke outdoors is a pretty minor risk, it's a nuisance. Much less of a nuisance, in my opinion, than our Maryor Estes and his cronies.

Readers and the WPBN should know that "harley rider" is no ordinary commenter. He's a spammer.

His specialty is hijacking message boards like this one, manipulating them to function as his own freebie PR outlet. His boilerplate garbage is smeared over every board in the country (Google him). He's part of this weird cabal of maybe 10 nutjobs who try by sheer force of numbers to make their lies seem true, deluging boards with torrents of misleading sewage.

And it's all anonymous; bad-boy harleyrider doesn't DARE stand up to spew this swill out in the open in front of a legislative body, where he might have to account for himself or his cowardly misrepresentations.

No I'll take my health advice from normal, open scientists who have names and educations and reputations, and show their faces at hearings--rather than anonymous Internet spammers like harleyrider.

Worse, once Holocaust Deniers and Birthers start following hareleyrider's despicable methods, message boards like WPBN's will become useless.

SECOND HAND SMOKE IS A JOKE. Ask the anti-tobacco folks to tell you what truly is in second hand smoke...when it burns from the coal its oxygenated and everything is burned and turned into water vapor..................thats right water..........you ever burned leaves in the fall...know how the heavy smoke bellows off.......thats the organic material releasing the moisture in the leaves the greener the leaves/organic material the more smoke thats made......thats why second hand smoke is classified as a class 3 irritant by osha and epa as of 2006........after that time EPA decided to change the listing of shs as a carcinogen for political reasons.......because it contained a trace amount of 6 chemicals so small even sophisticated scientific equipment can hardly detect it ........they didnt however use the normal dose makes the poison computation when they made this political decision. However osha still maintains shs/ets as an irritant only and maintains the dose makes the poison position.......as osha is in charge of indoor air quality its decisions are based on science not political agendas as epa's is. We can see this is true after a federal judge threw out the epa's study on shs as junk science......... Wednesday, March 12, 2008 British Medical Journal & WHO conclude secondhand smoke "health hazard" claims are greatly exaggerated The BMJ published report at:

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/326/7398/1057

concludes that "The results do not support a causal relation between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality. The association between exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and coronary heart disease and lung cancer are considerably weaker than generally believed." What makes this study so significant is that it took place over a 39 year period, and studied the results of non-smokers who lived with smokers.....

meaning these non-smokers were exposed to secondhand smoke up to 24 hours per day; 365 days per year for 39 years. And there was still no relation between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality. In light of the damage to business, jobs, and the economy from smoking bans the BMJ report should be revisited by lawmakers as a reference tool and justification to repeal the now unnecessary and very damaging smoking ban laws. Also significant is the World Health Organization (WHO) study:

Passive smoking doesn't cause cancer-official By Victoria Macdonald, Health Correspondent " The results are consistent with their being no additional risk for a person living or working with a smoker and could be consistent with passive smoke having a protective effect against lung cancer. The summary, seen by The Telegraph, also states: 'There was no association between lung cancer risk and ETS exposure during childhood.' " And if lawmakers need additional real world data to further highlight the need to eliminate these onerous and arbitrary laws, air quality testing by Johns Hopkins University proves that secondhand smoke is up to 25,000 times SAFER than occupational (OSHA) workplace regulations.

The Chemistry of Secondary Smoke About 94% of secondary smoke is composed of water vapor and ordinary air with a slight excess of carbon dioxide. Another 3 % is carbon monoxide. The last 3 % contains the rest of the 4,000 or so chemicals supposedly to be found in smoke… but found, obviously, in very small quantities if at all.This is because most of the assumed chemicals have never actually been found in secondhand smoke. (1989 Report of the Surgeon General p. 80). Most of these chemicals can only be found in quantities measured in nanograms, picograms and femtograms. Many cannot even be detected in these amounts: their presence is simply theorized rather than measured. To bring those quantities into a real world perspective, take a saltshaker and shake out a few grains of salt. A single grain of that salt will weigh in the ballpark of 100 million picograms! (Allen Blackman. Chemistry Magazine 10/08/01). - (Excerpted from "Dissecting Antismokers' Brains" with permission of the author.)

The Myth of the Smoking Ban ‘Miracle’ Restrictions on smoking around the world are claimed to have had a dramatic effect on heart attack rates. It's not true. http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/7451/

As for secondhand smoke in the air, OSHA has stated outright that: "Field studies of environmental tobacco smoke indicate that under normal conditions, the components in tobacco smoke are diluted below existing Permissible Exposure Levels (PELS.) as referenced in the Air Contaminant Standard (29 CFR 1910.1000)...It would be very rare to find a workplace with so much smoking that any individual PEL would be exceeded." -Letter From Greg Watchman, Acting Sec'y, OSHA, To Leroy J Pletten, PHD, July 8, 1997
-harleyrider1978

How many cigarettes would it take to create the same amount of air pollution that one diesel bus/semi/pickup would create if idling beside a park. Are you people expecting a smoking convention in the parks? Good thing the State Park isn't in the City. The smoke from camp fires can be a real problem for people with allergies. Now, that's smoke.

I still say if you are going to ban smoking everywhere, then ban drinking too. (Cherry festival, beer tent).

In my honest opinion, the smoking bans are far more political than realistic and the pro "banners" have tunnel vision.