Smokers rights groups, both pro- and anti-smoking, go toe- to toe
By Andria Lam
Smokers’ rights groups have been toe-to-toe with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s administration since it made the proposal to ban smoking from all bars and restaurants. The plan is intended as a way to protect the health of restaurant and bar employees, stating that a typical work shift in a smoke environment is the equivalent of smoking half a pack of cigarettes a day. The current law prohibits smoking in any restaurant with more than 35 seats.
It should come as no surprise, then, that anti-smoking pundits and smokers’ rights groups are spinning the issue into something that fits their agenda, often accusing their opposing group of lying or misstating the facts. With smokers’ rights groups feeling that their rights are being taken away and anti-smokers championing the health issue, both sides have managed to rationalize the issue into something that, for them, is a cut-and-dry problem that demands a single-sided solution.
One group that has been actively opposed to the mayor and his proposal is the aptly named NYC CLASH, or Citizens Lobbying Against Smoker Harassment. CLASH’s goal is to end the discrimination of smokers by exposing anti-smoking lies. For founder Audrey Silk, the proposal is more than just an effort to eliminate smoking from restaurants and bars. She believes that the Bloomberg administration is trying to strip the public of yet another freedom.
Likening Bloomberg to a totalitarian dictator and New York City Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden to the Gestapo, Silk argues that the claims of second-hand smoke being dangerous are nothing more than outright lies.
"This is how Hitler did it," she said. "He had his doctors present the case that Jews are a disease - and I’m Jewish so I can say these things. This is what Frieden is doing. He’d be a mockery of integrity making the claims he’s making about second hand smoke."
Science or fiction?
The assertions about the dangers of second-hand smoke are dismissed as "junk science judo," according to Silk. "If it wasn’t for the science that says ‘second hand smoke kills,’ we wouldn’t need to attack the science, which is a joke," she said.
As reference, CLASH points to Steven Milloy, a scholar at the Cato Institute and the person who coined the term "junk science" used in reference to the alleged risks of second-hand smoke. In 1993, the Environmental Protection Agency reported that secondhand smoke increased the risk for lung cancer by 19 percent in people who lived with smokers for decades. What people do not know, Silk said, is that the report was eventually thrown out by a federal court as inconclusive.
Another point people aren’t aware of, however, and what anti-smoking groups are all too eager to point out, is that Milloy also worked for Multinational Business Services, a Washington lobby group established by Philip Morris, one of the world’s largest tobacco manufacturers. Milloy later became the executive director of The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition, another organization created by Philip Morris, whose sole purpose was to generate controversy regarding the dangers of second-hand smoke.
"The anti-smokers are only a very tiny, loud, well-funded organized group trying to push their agenda on everybody else," Silk said. Nevertheless, the same can be said about tobacco companies. Though CLASH does not receive monetary support from cigarette manufacturers, it stands to reason that profitable corporations like Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds carry weight, especially in Washington and with legislation that is trying to prohibit smoking.
The Other Side
Anti-smoking campaigns and groups like The Truth have been trying to educate and enlighten the public on what they call they call the "real" truth. The Truth’s goal is to expose the deceptive practices of tobacco companies and to inform the public about the addictive nature of nicotine.
Through a series of aggressive, guerilla-style ads on television, radio, the Internet, and magazines directed at young people, The Truth has been one of the most outspoken smoking awareness groups around. One television ad showed a team of Truth volunteers dumping 1200 filled body bags in front of an office building, the number of deaths caused by tobacco every day.
The Truth maintains that they are not trying to tell people what to do. In spite of this claim, funding for The Truth comes from the America Legacy Foundation, an organization whose single purpose is to reduce the use of tobacco in the United States. The ALF was created after the Master Settlement Agreement, a $206 billion court settlement between the major cigarette manufacturers and 46 state attorneys general that mandated compensation to state governments for the expenses incurred in the treatment of tobacco-related illness. The agreement ordered the five major cigarette companies to fund government-sponsored health insurance programs, as well as forbid the manufacturers from targeting youths in advertising campaigns.
With that kind of backing, and the decidedly anti-smoking tone of its ads, can The Truth really afford to say that they are not trying to tell people what to do? What kind of effect do these groups, either pro- or anti-smoking, have on the public? With each group telling two different truths, how does anyone come to an enlightened conclusion?
"The truth is always relative," said Chris Teng, a non-smoker student at Cornell. "I mean, if you repeat certain things often enough, they become the truth, don’t they?"
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