UN seeks world ban on indoor smoking
GENEVA -- The United Nations health agency yesterday issued its strongest policy recommendations yet for controlling tobacco use, urging all countries to ban smoking at indoor workplaces and in public buildings.
"The evidence is clear. There is no safe level of exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke," said Dr. Margaret Chan, director-general of the World Health Organization.
Tobacco use is the world's leading cause of preventable death, accounting for 10 percent of adult fatalities, according to the WHO. It is responsible for 5.4 million deaths each year, a figure that is expected to rise to 8.3 million by 2030, the agency says.
Increasing numbers of nonsmokers will also die unless governments take action, the WHO said in its 50-page report. It said governments of both rich and poor countries should declare all public indoor places smoke-free, by passing laws and actively enforcing measures to ensure that "everyone has a right to breathe clean air, free from tobacco smoke."
"This is not about shaming the smoker. This is not even about banning smoking," said Dr. Armando Peruga, who heads WHO's anti tobacco campaign. "This is about society taking decisions about where to smoke and where not to smoke."
He cited Ireland and Uruguay as governments that have successfully tackled smoking by creating and enforcing smoke-free environments.
GENEVA -- The United Nations health agency yesterday issued its strongest policy recommendations yet for controlling tobacco use, urging all countries to ban smoking at indoor workplaces and in public buildings.
"The evidence is clear. There is no safe level of exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke," said Dr. Margaret Chan, director-general of the World Health Organization.
Tobacco use is the world's leading cause of preventable death, accounting for 10 percent of adult fatalities, according to the WHO. It is responsible for 5.4 million deaths each year, a figure that is expected to rise to 8.3 million by 2030, the agency says.
Increasing numbers of nonsmokers will also die unless governments take action, the WHO said in its 50-page report. It said governments of both rich and poor countries should declare all public indoor places smoke-free, by passing laws and actively enforcing measures to ensure that "everyone has a right to breathe clean air, free from tobacco smoke."
"This is not about shaming the smoker. This is not even about banning smoking," said Dr. Armando Peruga, who heads WHO's anti tobacco campaign. "This is about society taking decisions about where to smoke and where not to smoke."
He cited Ireland and Uruguay as governments that have successfully tackled smoking by creating and enforcing smoke-free environments.
Once again, the UN is acting more and more like a world government. And not a world government based on the enlightened principles or liberalism, but the irrational principles of socialism and/or fascism. It's policies like this that make it hard for a country to reform soft drug laws......an example of this is the Netherlands. The Netherlands can't legalize weed or shrooms completely because other countries and international organizations will attack it (albeit economical or not). The the head of this "Govern like we say" movement is the UN and surprisingly the US.
The UN knows that they can't place tobacco in the list of illicit substances because too many people smoke tobacco. It's the same thing with alcohol and tobacco. So now they are slowly trying to sneak legislation in, until they can sneak prohibition laws.
And if they move towards tobacco prohibition, all the hard work of limiting tobacco use through proven methods like education will go to waste. As we all know, when a substance is banned or even severely limited, the use of it will go down for some time until the red-black market has been established, then use will skyrocket far above pre-prohibition use. And if this happens, expect to see many addicts robbing stores and people to get money for their fix. Remember that tobacco is more addicting than even heroin and cocaine (90% addiction rate)!
Now then, is this worldwide smoking ban desirable? Let's put aside the UN centralization argument and instead focus on the law itself. This law is wants to basically ban smoking in indoor places......mainly in business. What's wrong with this law?
The problem with this law is of course that whether or not smoking should be allowed indoors is up to the people that own the indoors. It doesn't matter if its residential or commercial, it is up to the people in charge of their business to decide on smoking and non-smoking. Let the free market (backed by the science of economics) decide whether smoking will be allowed in public places.
If enough public awareness is raised about the dangers of breathing tobacco smoke, then many people will start to go to businesses with non-smoking policies, and these businesses will then prosper more than the businesses that permit smoking. Or maybe not.......maybe some people believe that second hand smoke is bs and want to smoke in a restaurant. They should have the right to do so if the owners of the business permit it. It's as simple as that. Prohibition and regulation never work and create more problems than they solve. And whose to say whether these bigot regulation/prohibition policies work?
The UN knows that they can't place tobacco in the list of illicit substances because too many people smoke tobacco. It's the same thing with alcohol and tobacco. So now they are slowly trying to sneak legislation in, until they can sneak prohibition laws.
And if they move towards tobacco prohibition, all the hard work of limiting tobacco use through proven methods like education will go to waste. As we all know, when a substance is banned or even severely limited, the use of it will go down for some time until the red-black market has been established, then use will skyrocket far above pre-prohibition use. And if this happens, expect to see many addicts robbing stores and people to get money for their fix. Remember that tobacco is more addicting than even heroin and cocaine (90% addiction rate)!
Now then, is this worldwide smoking ban desirable? Let's put aside the UN centralization argument and instead focus on the law itself. This law is wants to basically ban smoking in indoor places......mainly in business. What's wrong with this law?
The problem with this law is of course that whether or not smoking should be allowed indoors is up to the people that own the indoors. It doesn't matter if its residential or commercial, it is up to the people in charge of their business to decide on smoking and non-smoking. Let the free market (backed by the science of economics) decide whether smoking will be allowed in public places.
If enough public awareness is raised about the dangers of breathing tobacco smoke, then many people will start to go to businesses with non-smoking policies, and these businesses will then prosper more than the businesses that permit smoking. Or maybe not.......maybe some people believe that second hand smoke is bs and want to smoke in a restaurant. They should have the right to do so if the owners of the business permit it. It's as simple as that. Prohibition and regulation never work and create more problems than they solve. And whose to say whether these bigot regulation/prohibition policies work?
