Second-hand smoke and mirrors… Putting out the (wrong) fires California's breaking new ground in controlling the spread of fire… Unfortunately, it's not the rampant wildfires that each year menace or destroy some of the most valuable real estate in the nation they've targeted. Rather, it's the small fires on the ends of people's cigarettes the Golden State's legislature has chosen to try and quench. Again. Home of arguably the most Draconian array of anti-smoking laws in the nation, California broke even more extreme ground just days ago, when it became the first U.S. state to classify secondhand tobacco smoke an environmental toxin in the same class as diesel exhaust, arsenic and benzene. This, despite a 2004 report from the U.S. Surgeon General's office which refutes any link between secondhand smoke and disease… So how did the left-coast's Air Resources Board come to this conclusion? By accepting as the Absolute Gospel a September 2005 report supposedly linking secondhand smoke exposure to as much as a 120% increase in breast cancer risk. There's only one problem: That report is likely as far from objective as cigarette smoke is from diesel exhaust! Here's what I mean: This "research" was conducted by the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment - a body whose sole job is to calculate the impact of anything released into the air, ground or water by any kind of industry, mode of transportation, personal habit or recreational activity. The raison de` etre of this agency is not to ensure public safety (as its name would imply), but to find new ways to tax, fine, or otherwise squeeze revenue from people and business… And such is the case with this latest finding. How do I know this? Because the California state legislature hasn't BANNED smoking. That would lose them tens of millions in sales and tobacco taxes. Yet if they truly believed that smoking in any form (firsthand, second-hand, or whatever) is a health hazard, they'd ban it for the good of their people - cost be damned - right? No, because that play wouldn't allow them to have their take and eat it, too. Their game is obvious: It's all about simply forcing individuals and businesses to spend money to comply with a never-ending litany of regulation. Whether it's by walling off smoking-only sections in restaurants, installing smoke-eating ventilation in bars, or any number of other things businesses are forced to do to stay legal in the face of the smoke-Nazis, the revenues from this process trickle down to all levels, which is exactly what the legislature wants. Keep reading… **************************************************** Lawmakers aren't stupid-just stupefying in their corruptness Since I'm not a resident of California, I can't comment specifically about any particular law there, but I can use a generic example: Let's say a fictional state called Califorcia (get it? Cali-force-ya?) passes a law stipulating that all restaurants must have separate sections for smoking and non-smoking patrons within 90 days. This supports revenue at least 4 ways… First, it takes contractors to build the walls and re-design the floor space in the state's umpteen restaurants. These contractors must pay taxes on their earnings. Second, the contractors must hire more employees to meet the demand. These employees pay income taxes. Third, there are contractor's licensing fees and building permit costs which flow directly into the government's till. Fourth, the new law breeds the need for more state-licensed inspectors to certify the work meets code, simultaneously expanding the size of government and boosting income taxes from these new busybodies - er, I mean "inspectors." And don't forget: fines -and more SMOKE POLICE! The following year, utopian Califorcia passes a law that all bars and restaurants must also have a smoke-eating and filtration system of a certain CFM (Cubic Feet per Minute) air-processing capacity. The same thing happens all over again. The year after that, they expand this requirement to include semi-outdoor areas, too, like stadiums… Meanwhile, since smoking is still technically legal in Califorcia, the state still rakes in the revenues from cigarette sales. It's a racket that never ends, see? Believe me, one doesn't have to make up a state to see this process for real. And now that good ol' California is classifying second-hand smoke as an environmental pollutant, who knows what kind of new ways they'll find to make money off it (we'll see soon, I'm sure) - but from a selfless, public safety standpoint, of course… Tired of their second-hand smoke-and-mirrors, William Campbell Douglass II, MD | 
