The fact that I have to call Fado, an Irish pub in LoDo, to inquire whether smoking is allowed feels like an assault on my fundamental understanding of freedom. If you can’t smoke at an Irish pub, where can you smoke?
“Smoke ’em if you got ’em,” they say.
I was on my way to discuss a recent study that alleges heart attack rates in Pueblo had dropped an implausible 27 percent since a smoking ban was imposed in bars, restaurants and other public places in July 2003.
When I get there, Jimmy Powell, my affable bartender, mulls it over for a moment. Nope. In the six years he’s been working there, not once has a customer dropped dead from a heart attack.
“Listen, smoking is one of those things I deal with to make a living,” explains Powell, a nonsmoker. “But if I thought it was dangerous, I’d get another job.”
Never mind, Powell says, that he engages in an array of other, truly dangerous activities. Extreme sports, for instance.
And need I mention that the cheeseburger (with bacon) and fries I devour while at Fado poses a significantly higher health risk than the secondhand smoke I was inhaling.
Alas, some things are worth dying for.
“When you can prevent 108 heart attacks in an 18-month period, that is significant,” explained Karen DeLeeuw, director of the state’s Tobacco Education and Prevention Partnership, as she referred to the Pueblo report earlier this week.
How do you quantify such a “significant” number, I wondered?
When I call the state’s Tobacco Education and Prevention Partnership to inquire about the report, I am forwarded to a public relations firm person, who tells me the study isn’t available. It’s still waiting to be accepted by a medical journal.
Why don’t they wait for peer review before scaring everyone? Well, it’s standard procedure for health autocrats.
Step one: Release the mind-boggling numbers and generate plenty of press. Next – just as the Environmental Protection Agency did with its report on secondhand smoke and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did with its sham of an obesity study – wait for your work to be utterly and incontrovertibly debunked by statisticians who value truth over political correctness. By that time, no one will be paying attention.
Studies – or rather, paper with predetermined outcomes typed on them – can be tough to decipher. This is why I call on Steven Milloy, perhaps the nation’s leading debunker of junk science.
Milloy, who holds a master’s in biostatistics, a juris doctorate and a master of laws, explains that similar reports have been “garbage,” and, without seeing this report, he’s relatively sure this one is “100 percent garbage” too.
“I haven’t seen this study,” he explains. “But there are definitely annual variations in the number of heart attacks for a number of reasons, most of which are not known. They cherry-pick data, when it could be attributable to a million things.”
Oh, and then there is that pesky question of freedom.
“We cater to a certain clientele,” Powell says. “I think if the owner decides that he wants to allow smoking, he should. If he wants to ban it, he should. It shouldn’t be up to some legislators to decide.”
The Constitution had a similar system in mind. Many legislators in Pueblo, and in Denver, however, disagree, placing a higher value on a smoke-free utopia than property rights.
But if safety is the overriding factor in throwing the Bill of Rights in the trash, why not really go for it? We could reduce smoking deaths by 100 percent and simply ban the practice altogether.
On that note, there are many ways to save lives. Why not reduce the speed limit to 35 mph on highways? That would unquestionably reduce vehicular fatalities by at least 27 percent.
“Look at these guys watching soccer. They’re having a heart attack,” interrupts Powell, pointing to about a dozen guys watching Turkey take on Switzerland. “Maybe we should ban soccer on television. The stress is killing those guys.”
Why not? This way we’ll all be perfectly healthy when we die. Unless, of course, we die of boredom first.
David Harsanyi’s column appears Monday and Thursday. Reach him at 303-820-1255 or dharsanyi@denverpost.com.
