Flunk or fluke: Did Lodi deserve failing grade on tobacco policy?

Editor: Lodi’s grade of an “F” from the Lung Association is a good thing.

Putting aside city politics and posturing and my bias as an ex-smoker and cancer survivor, getting an “F” from a non-governmental organization (NGO) promoting political correctness and bad science is to Lodi’s credit, not discredit.

(Lung Association lights up Lodi, Lodi News-Sentinel, January 28, 2017) Open-air smoking has been considered twice before by the Lodi City Council, once in 2011 and again in 2015. Beyond the politics, the science behind “open-air smoking” was shown to be a fraud.

California’s most notorious agency, the California Air Resources Board (CARB), developed an untested 2006 theory that open-air secondhand smoke was harmful. Two peer-review, empirical-data based studies were performed by Stanford (2007) and Georgia (2009). Both failed to validate CARB’s theory except in extreme circumstances (smoker within 18-inches and oriented directly upwind of test subject).

In fact, Georgia, when using indoor smoking as a control, cast doubt that CARB’s secondhand indoor smoking theory met the standard for toxicity. The NGOs promoting bans on secondhand smoke of all types all hang their hats on the Surgeon General’s statement that studies show “there is no risk-free level of exposure to secondhand smoke, and that ventilation cannot eliminate exposure of nonsmokers to secondhand smoke.”

This appears to be based on the conclusions of the Georgia study wherein their disappointment in failing to prove toxicity stated an opinion of “the current view is that there is no level of personal exposure to SHS that can be regarded as safe.”

All of this is nonsensical on its face. Why set a toxicity level for secondhand smoke if the government and their NGOs imply that, arguably, exposure to a single toxic molecule is dangerous.

In conclusion, Lenin was correct, “A lie told often enough becomes the truth.”

If Lodi creates laws based purely on people’s likes and dislikes, fine with me. But please do not justify it on corrupt science and political agendas.