Radio Netherlands Worldwide

SSO Login

More login possibilities:

Close
  • Facebook
  • Flickr
  • Twitter
  • Google
  • LinkedIn
Home
Saturday 26 May RNW - NEWS AND ANALYSIS FROM THE NETHERLANDS IN 10 LANGUAGES, WORLDWIDE 24/7 ON RADIO, TV AND ONLINE

No exceptions to smoking ban, Dutch court says

Published on 23 February 2010 - 3:01pm
More about:

An exemption for small pubs from the public smoking ban has been quashed by the Dutch Supreme Court. Ruling in an appeal case, the court argues that the smoking ban - introduced in bars, cafés and restaurants in July 2008 - should also apply to owner-run pubs and cafes without personnel.

Legal experts say the Supreme Court decision probably means that one-man businesses will no longer be exempt from the smoking ban. Health Minister Ab Klink had temporarily tolerated the exemption for these smaller premises, pending the Supreme Court ruling.

The ban was introduced primarily to protect employees from having to work in an unhealthy atmosphere. The Supreme Court quashed verdicts handed down by lower courts which had cleared two small pubs which refused to enforce the ban, saying they had no personnel which needed protection. The cases against these pubs, the Kachel in Groningen and the Victorie in Breda will now have to be rerun before a court in the city of Arnhem.

© Radio Netherlands Worldwide

Discussion

michael33 11 May 2011 - 4:10pm

I suppose it's quite difficult for the bar owner to accept the smoking ban, their business was seriously affected by the new rules. It's rather unfair they don't have an option but that's how things are now, we all have to submit to the law eventually. I'm grateful that I could finally quit, I got full support from drug rehab Oregon for that, the smoking ban helped me set my mind on quitting.
Bookmark

Anonymous 26 February 2010 - 8:10pm / the Netherlands

Would you like to get support in a new way during an attempt to quit? From the 1st of March 2010 a new iPhone app will be available to support people who would like to quit! Go to: www.mystopbuddy.com

Anonymous 23 February 2010 - 3:20pm / usa

The new Tobacco Prohibition

I would like to take the time to tell the entire community about a falsehood so big that everyone who believes in freedom should be appauled.
This falsehood is so big it resonates from historical fact forward to this day. This falsehood is so big billions of dollars have been spent to make it believable to those of us who dont take the time to look up the facts.
We all remember reading about alcohol prohibition,but did you know there was also tobacco prohibition going on before alcohol became such a target of the last nanny staters.
Our great grandparents lived thru prohibition and the great depression,they also lived thru tobacco prohibition.

Heres a time line starting in 1900,dont be surprised to see the same thing playing out today nearly 100 years later.

1901: REGULATION: Strong anti-cigarette activity in 43 of the 45 states. "Only Wyoming and Louisiana had paid no attention to the cigarette controversy, while the other forty-three states either already had anti-cigarette laws on the books or were considering new or tougher anti-cigarette laws, or were the scenes of heavy anti- cigarette activity" (Dillow, 1981:10).

1904: New York: A judge sends a woman is sent to jail for 30 days for smoking in front of her children.

1904: New York City. A woman is arrested for smoking a cigarette in an automobile. "You can't do that on Fifth Avenue," the arresting officer says.

1907: Business owners are refusing to hire smokers. On August 8, the New York Times writes: "Business ... is doing what all the anti-cigarette specialists could not do."

1917: SMOKEFREE: Tobacco control laws have fallen, including smoking bans in numerous cities, and the states of Arkansas, Iowa, Idaho and Tennessee.

1937: hitler institutes laws against smoking.This one you can google.

Now onto the falsehood......

We have been told for years by smoke free advocates that second hand smoke is the cause of everything from johnnys ear ache to cousin ED'S lung cancer. But wheres the proof!!!

Remember they claim 50,000 deaths a year yet,there are no bodys not even mass graves of the dead to second hand smoke.We await the names of these victims.

A simple stroll down historys road say 10 years or so and we start to get at the truth......

A federal Judge by the name of osteen got a case dropped in his lap in North Carolina,the case was that of EPA'S study on second hand smoke/environmental tobacco smoke.The judge an anti-tobbaco judge by reputation spent 4 years going thru the study and interviewing scientists at EPA and came to the conclusion :

JUNK SCIENCE

''EPA's 1992 conclusions are not supported by reliable scientific evidence. The report has been largely discredited and, in 1998, was legally vacated by a federal judge.Before its 1992 report, EPA had always used epidemiology's gold standard CI of 95 percent to measure statistical significance. But because the U.S. studies chosen[cherry picked] for the report were not statistically significant within a 95 percent CI, for the first time in its history EPA changed the rules and used a 90 percent CI, which doubled the chance of being wrong.

This allowed it to report a statistically significant 19 percent increase [a 1.19rr] of lung cancer cases in the nonsmoking spouses of smokers over those cases found in nonsmoking spouses of nonsmokers. Even though the RR was only 1.19--an amount far short of what is normally required to demonstrate correlation or causality--the agency concluded this was proof SHS increased the risk of U.S. nonsmokers developing lung cancer by 19 percent.''

So here we find that second hand smoke was made a political scapegoat by EPA.Lets not forget how EPA has reworked the global warming studys just this last summer. Where its top scientists paper was rebuked because it didnt carry the EPA'S stand that global warming was real.

The political shenanigans surrounding SHS/ETS go deep not only with the government and its health agencies but also to the big pharmaceutical companies and non-profit orginizations aka ACS,ALA,AHA and a meriad of others. All lobbying for smoking bans and their weapon of choise Propaganda paid for by big pharma and tax dollars. Studys made to order that second hand smoke is deadly. Take a memory note here too,over 250 studys on shs/ets have found it safe.

Yet a simple look at the chemistry shows us that its:

94% of secondary smoke is composed of water vapor and ordinary air with a minor amount of carbon dioxide.

3 % is carbon monoxide.

3 % is those supposed 4,000 chemicals to be found in tobacco smoke. Unfortunatley for the smoke free advocates these supposed chemicals are more theorized than actually found.What is found is so small to even call them threats to humans is beyond belief.Nanograms,picograms and femptograms......
(1989 Report of the Surgeon General p. 80).

Now, how odd that when we search the smoke free activists sites not one of them mentions that water vapor and air are the main components of second hand smoke. Is this just a fluke or an outright omission to further their political healthscare against the general public.

The last informative tid bit I have for you is what does OSHA have to say about all this secondhand smoke stuff.

Here is where it gets interesting,it seems John Banzhaf, founder and president of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) decided to sue OSHA to make a rule on shs/ets not that OSHA didnt want to play ball with him,its just that the scientific facts didnt back up a rule to start with.

Now for a rule to happen Osha has to send out for comments for a period of time and boy did the comments fly in, over 40,000 of them....Osha has whats called PEL'S and limits for an 8 hour period of exposure to chemicals in indoor environments...[epa is in charge of outdoor air]

This is where second hand smoke really becomes a joke,remember its nearly 94% water vapor and air.....now lets get to the facts of toxicology and dose makes the poison:

According to independent Public and Health Policy Research group, Littlewood & Fennel of Austin, Tx, on the subject of secondhand smoke........

They did the figures for what it takes to meet all of OSHA'S minimum PEL'S on shs/ets.......Did it ever set the debate on fire.

They concluded that:

All this is in a small sealed room 9x20 and must occur in ONE HOUR.

For Benzo[a]pyrene, 222,000 cigarettes

"For Acetone, 118,000 cigarettes

"Toluene would require 50,000 packs of simultaneously smoldering cigarettes.

Acetaldehyde or Hydrazine, more than 14,000 smokers would need to light up.

"For Hydroquinone, "only" 1250 cigarettes

For arsenic 2 million 500,000 smokers at one time

The same number of cigarettes required for the other so called chemicals in shs/ets will have the same outcomes.

So,OSHA finally makes a statement on shs/ets :

Field studies of environmental tobacco smoke indicate that under normal conditions, the components in tobacco smoke are diluted below existing Permissible Exposure Levels (PELS.) as referenced in the Air Contaminant Standard (29 CFR 1910.1000)...It would be very rare to find a workplace with so much smoking that any individual PEL would be exceeded." -Letter From Greg Watchman, Acting Sec'y, OSHA, To Leroy J Pletten, PHD, July 8, 1997

WHAT! DILUTED BELOW PERMISSABLE LEVELS

By the way ASH dropped their lawsuit because OSHA was going to make a rule and that rule would have been weak and been the law of the land,meaning no smoking bans would ever have been enacted anywhere,simply because an open window or a ventilation system would have covered the rule.

Let me also tell you that the relative risk for shs/ets by the SG report of 2006 was a 1.19 ''EPA study is whats used to call it a carcinogen''......milks is a 2.43 and that glass of chlorinated water your about to drink is a 1.25 yet these things aren't determined to be a carcinogen....The gold standard in epidemiology is a 3.0....Now had the SURGEON GENERAL included 2 other shs/ets studys the relative risk for disease from shs/ets would have been nearer a.60-.70 meaning it would have a protective effect against ever getting disease.

But,what each of us has is years and years of exposure and the knowledge that our kids all grew up around shs and generations of others,yet we are here alive not dead from a lousy 30 minute exposure to shs as stanton glantz tries to claim.....thats another story and its just as crazy as all the rest of smokefree's claim about shs/ets.

Oh! have you heard the one about ''laugh'' thirdhand smoke or third hand drinking.
Like I said their claims border beyond that of any reasonable persons commomsence.

The next time you see a healthscare claim
consider the source.Especially if it comes from a government or non profit agency!

Post new comment

Please be reminded all comments must be in English, short and to the point - guideline 250 words. Abusive and inappropriate comments will be removed.

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
  • Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd> <p> <br>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.

More information about formatting options

Video highlights

Dutch beachcombers: a dying breed
Dutch beachcombers are a dying breed. In the past, objects would regularly...
Shell presented with "Oily Mary" cocktail from Niger Delta
Friends of the Earth Netherlands has offered "Oily Mary"...

RNW on Facebook

Sign up for our newsletters

Email news bulletin

What's on - Programme Preview

Press Review - of the leading Dutch newspapers every weekday

Media Network

Euro Hit 40 - Europe's No. 1 chart show

RNW - News and analysis from the Netherlands in 10 languages, worldwide 24/7 on radio, television and online