<html><body bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><div>I say yes too. I wonder what Gary thinks.<br><br>Sent from my iPhone</div><div><br>On Jul 24, 2009, at 12:20 PM, Sunil Ramalingam <<a href="mailto:sunilramalingam@hotmail.com">sunilramalingam@hotmail.com</a>> wrote:<br><br></div><div></div><blockquote type="cite"><div>
Gary,<br><br>Should we decriminalize currently controlled substances so that adults can make their own choices regarding the risks those substances may pose?<br><br>I say "Yes." I'm curious about your position.<br><br>Sunil<br><br><hr id="stopSpelling">From: <a href="mailto:lockshop@pull.twcbc.com"><a href="mailto:lockshop@pull.twcbc.com">lockshop@pull.twcbc.com</a></a><br>To: <a href="mailto:tim.rigsby@hotmail.com">tim.rigsby@hotmail.com</a>; <a href="mailto:starbliss@gmail.com">starbliss@gmail.com</a>; <a href="mailto:vision2020@moscow.com"><a href="mailto:vision2020@moscow.com">vision2020@moscow.com</a></a><br>Date: Fri, 24 Jul 2009 09:11:36 -0700<br>Subject: Re: [Vision2020] "Please do not continue to confuse people with facts."<br><br>
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<div><font face="Arial">It would seem that you, Mr. Moffet, and our city council
have a mighty low opinion of the intelligence of the patrons and employees of
bars and taverns. I can't speak for your students but, I find it very difficult
to believe that by the time a citizen reaches the age of 21 in the United
States he hasn't heard the anti-smoking mantra to the point of
nausea.</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial"></font> </div>
<div><font face="Arial">How lucky we are that there are people out there who will
take it upon themselves to prevent emancipated Americans from making their own
decisions with regard to the risks they take in life.</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial"></font> </div>
<div><font face="Arial">g</font></div>
<blockquote style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); padding-right: 0px; padding-left: 5px; margin-left: 5px; margin-right: 0px;">
<div style="font-family: arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 10pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; -x-system-font: none;">----- Original Message ----- </div>
<div style="background: rgb(228, 228, 228) none repeat scroll 0% 0%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; font-family: arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 10pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; -x-system-font: none;"><b>From:</b>
<a title="tim.rigsby@hotmail.com" href="mailto:tim.rigsby@hotmail.com">TIM
RIGSBY</a> </div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 10pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; -x-system-font: none;"><b>To:</b> <a title="starbliss@gmail.com" href="mailto:starbliss@gmail.com"><a href="mailto:starbliss@gmail.com">starbliss@gmail.com</a></a> ; <a title="vision2020@moscow.com" href="mailto:vision2020@moscow.com"><a href="mailto:vision2020@moscow.com">vision2020@moscow.com</a></a> </div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 10pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; -x-system-font: none;"><b>Sent:</b> Friday, July 24, 2009 7:47 AM</div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 10pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; -x-system-font: none;"><b>Subject:</b> Re: [Vision2020] "Please do not
continue to confuse people with facts."</div>
<div><br></div>I would like to add the idea of this saying,<br><br>"Don't let
the facts get in the way of a good story."<br><br>Either way Ted, you brought
up some very valid points that tend to be forgotten when people discuss
tobacco/smoking regulation and legislation. What scares me as a Health
Teacher is when I hear my junior high and high school aged students talking
about how safe, they think anyway, Hookah bars are. When asked if they
would ever smoke cigarettes, they claim that they won't. Yet what these
students don't realize is that they are actually smoking tobacco at the high
school hookah parties. What is even scarier is a lot of the parents
think that hookah is a safe alternative as well. <br><br>The hookah bar
closest to my house in Boise is constantly packed with young people all of the
time. Often times, other substances are being laced into the tobacco as
well and these young people are unknowingly smoking illegal drugs along with
their fruit and tobacco mixture.<br><br>I predict in the not so distant
future, Boise and possibly the State Legislature will enact legislation to
regulate/control these hookah establishments.<br><br>Here is a question to
ponder. By definition based on Idaho Code, what is a hookah bar
categorized as? A restaurant, a bar, a private club? If it falls
under the bar definition, then people under 21 should not be allowed in.
It seems as though hookah bars would fall into an undefined gray area of the
Idaho Clean Indoor Air Act. However, Moscow seems to have covered hookah
bars in their recent ban of smoking, I could be wrong though.<br><br>"
'Politics is the art of controlling your environment.' That is one of the key
things I learned in these years, and I learned it the hard way. Anybody who
thinks that 'it doesn't matter who's President' has never been Drafted and
sent off to fight and die in a vicious, stupid War on the other side of the
World -- or been beaten and gassed by Police for trespassing on public
property -- or been hounded by the IRS for purely political reasons -- or
locked up in the Cook County Jail with a broken nose and no phone access and
twelve perverts wanting to stomp your ass in the shower. That is when it
matters who is President or Governor or Police Chief. That is when you will
wish you had voted." - Hunter S. Thompson<br><br><br><br><br>
<hr id="EC_stopSpelling">
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 2009 21:39:45 -0700<br>From: <a href="mailto:starbliss@gmail.com"><a href="mailto:starbliss@gmail.com">starbliss@gmail.com</a></a><br>To:
<a href="mailto:vision2020@moscow.com"><a href="mailto:vision2020@moscow.com">vision2020@moscow.com</a></a><br>Subject: [Vision2020] "Please do not continue to
confuse people with facts."<br><br>
<div>The "Off List" response referenced, from someone I regard as one of the
most educated and honest Vision2020 participants, that I received to my
post below on tobacco regulation, is in total what is stated in the subject
heading of this post. Wise words, no doubt, that I ignore at my own
risk... </div>
<div> </div>
<div>Notice there is limited or no discussion of some of the critical facts my
post presented: that tobacco (nicotine) is a
physically addictive drug, with underage tobacco addiction common,
raising questions if whether adult "choice" is in effect regarding employees
or consumers in tobacco related decisions; that tobacco is the leading
cause of premature death (nuclear waste or energy or even nuclear weapons
production is not even close as a cause of premature death); that other drugs
doing less harm to society than tobacco are criminalized and prosecuted
aggressively, involving civil and human rights violations, yet
who among those opposing regulation of tobacco, will as aggressively
advocate for these drugs to be managed by free choice and the
marketplace, rather than a government "Big Brother?" Some, perhaps...
While there are others who should know better playing some on this list
as fools, for the sake of debate, or political advantage, or popular image or
whatever... Or they are as deluded as those they are debating with...</div>
<div> </div>
<div>My response to the "Off List" comment discussed here:</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Ummm... OK, I guess... However, being an idealist in belief that
expressing the truth is morally mandated (where did I get that dangerous
idea? I''ll end up in serious trouble! Oh, I forgot, I already
am...), I may not comply. I recently read a variation of this same
expression in James Lovelock's "Revenge of Gaia:" "Don't confuse me with the
facts, my minds made up." Lovelock was referring to this mentality
regarding the rejection of nuclear power by many in the environmental
movement.</div>
<div> </div><span class="EC_EC_sg">
<div>Ted<br> </div></span><span class="q" id="EC_EC_q_122aa783745cbaea_2">
<div>
<blockquote class="EC_EC_gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
<div>
<div><font size="2">Please do not continue to confuse people with
facts. </font></div>
<blockquote style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); padding-right: 0px; padding-left: 5px; margin-left: 5px; margin-right: 0px;">
<div><span>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 10pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; -x-system-font: none;">-----
Original Message ----- </div>
<div style="background: rgb(228, 228, 228) none repeat scroll 0% 0%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; font-family: arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 10pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; -x-system-font: none;"><b>From:</b>
<a title="starbliss@gmail.com" href="mailto:starbliss@gmail.com">Ted
Moffett</a> </div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 10pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; -x-system-font: none;"><b>To:</b>
<a title="vision2020@moscow.com" href="mailto:vision2020@moscow.com">Moscow
Vision 2020</a> </div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 10pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; -x-system-font: none;"><b>Sent:</b>
Wednesday, July 22, 2009 1:55 AM</div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 10pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; -x-system-font: none;"><b>Subject:</b>
[Vision2020] Tobacco: Targeting the Nation’s Leading Killer: Centers for
Disease Control</div>
<div><br> </div>
<div>Tobacco (nicotine) is a physically addictive drug. Once
addicted, "choice" becomes a problematic concept. And many people
become addicted while underage, encouraged to continue their addiction in
bars, where cigarettes are often shared between customers.
</div>
<div> </div>
<div>The fact tobacco is physically addictive is absent from the comments
of many opposing the smoking ordinance, as are the facts regarding the
magnitude of the damage. Comparisons to other harmful
behaviors are drawn (fatty food, etc.), suggesting that a slippery slope
of regulation will lead to government control over too many aspects of
life, but many of these behaviors do not involve a drug
addiction. Of course alcohol has dramatic negative impacts.
But workers in bars are not forced to drink the drinks the customers
order, as they breathe the smoke of the customers. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>I find it incredible that the health of workers exposed to an
addictive drug when they breathe in the workplace is approached so
callously. They can work elsewhere, it's announced with smug
authority, as if in this economy workers have the luxury of choosing
whatever job suits their fancy, rather than an urgency to take whatever
work they can find. If it was cocaine or heroin or methamphetamine
that workers were exposed to, the attitude might be different.
</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Profits from exposing workers to addictive drugs in the workplace
should be protected based on free market, free choice, adult
responsibility? If this is the logic, where are the protests
against laws imposed on those selling cocaine, heroin or
methamphetamine, et. al., to consenting adults, which can result in
long prison sentences? Let the free market decide! Why stand
in the way of profits and the free choice of adults? </div>
<div> </div>
<div>If those opposing the smoking ordinance were consistent in their
outrage against limits on the free market, their ideology might have more
intellectual credibility. Instead, the libertarianism proposed is
inconsistent and conformist. Or perhaps those opposed to the smoking
ordinance will now protest that bars do not allow legal cocaine, heroin or
methamphetamine use? Think of the profits to be made! And
remember, tobacco prematurely kills more people than those three drugs
combined...</div>
<div> </div>
<div>If attempts were made to criminalize tobacco like cannabis is,
resulting in prison sentences, home invasions, for sale or use, I would
oppose this vehemently. But an ordinance regulating smoking in bars
does not stop any adult from legally using tobacco products in settings
where they do not expose workers.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>If worker freedom of choice was a valid argument to justify the
exposure of workers to tobacco smoke in bars, than OSHA could be mostly
eliminated. After all, if workers exposed to hazards monitored or
banned by OSHA don't want to work with those risks, they can work
elsewhere, as long as signs posted in the workplace inform them of the
risks. A "Big Brother" government bureaucracy gone.
</div>
<div>--------------------------</div>
<div><a href="http://www.cdc.gov/NCCDPHP/publications/aag/osh.htm"><a href="http://www.cdc.gov/NCCDPHP/publications/aag/osh.htm">http://www.cdc.gov/NCCDPHP/publications/aag/osh.htm</a></a></div>
<div>
<h2>The Burden of Tobacco Use</h2>Tobacco use is the single most
preventable cause of disease, disability, and death in the United States.
Each year, an estimated 443,000 people die prematurely from smoking or
exposure to secondhand smoke, and another 8.6 million have a serious
illness caused by smoking. For every person who dies from smoking, 20 more
people suffer from at least one serious tobacco-related illness. Despite
these risks, approximately 43.4 million U.S. adults smoke cigarettes.
Smokeless tobacco, cigars, and pipes also have deadly consequences,
including lung, larynx, esophageal, and oral cancers.<br>The harmful
effects of smoking do not end with the smoker. More than 126 million
nonsmoking Americans, including children and adults, are regularly exposed
to secondhand smoke. Even brief exposure can be dangerous because
nonsmokers inhale many of the same carcinogens and toxins in cigarette
smoke as smokers. Secondhand smoke exposure causes serious disease and
death, including heart disease and lung cancer in nonsmoking adults and
sudden infant death syndrome, acute respiratory infections, ear problems,
and more frequent and severe asthma attacks in children. Each year,
primarily because of exposure to secondhand smoke, an estimated 3,000
nonsmoking Americans die of lung cancer, more than 46,000 (range:
22,700–69,600) die of heart disease, and about 150,000–300,000 children
younger than 18 months have lower respiratory tract infections.<br>Coupled
with this enormous health toll is the significant economic burden of
tobacco use—more than $96 billion per year in medical expenditures and
another $97 billion per year resulting from lost productivity.<br>
<p align="center"><a name="122aa783745cbaea_122a2ac98d684f08_1"><img alt="Chart showing about 443,000 U.S. deaths attributable each year to cigarette smoking. Text description below." src="http://www.cdc.gov/NCCDPHP/publications/aag/images/2009/tobacco2.gif" width="425" border="0" height="457"></a></p>
<p align="center">[A <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/NCCDPHP/publications/aag/osh_text.htm#1"><font color="#003366">text description of this graph</font></a> is also
available.]</p>
<h2>The Tobacco Use Epidemic Can Be Stopped</h2>A 2007 Institute of
Medicine (IOM) report presented a blueprint for action to “reduce smoking
so substantially that it is no longer a public health problem for our
nation.” The two-pronged strategy for achieving this goal includes not
only strengthening and fully implementing currently proven tobacco control
measures, but also changing the regulatory landscape to permit policy
innovations. Foremost among the IOM recommendations is that each state
should fund a comprehensive tobacco control program at the level
recommended by CDC in <i>Best Practices for Comprehensive Tobacco Control
Programs–2007</i>.<br>Evidence-based, statewide tobacco control programs
that are comprehensive, sustained, and accountable have been shown to
reduce smoking rates, tobacco-related deaths, and diseases caused by
smoking. A comprehensive program is a coordinated effort to establish
smoke-free policies and social norms, to promote and assist tobacco users
to quit, and to prevent initiation of tobacco use. This approach combines
educational, clinical, regulatory, economic, and social
strategies.<br>Research has documented the effectiveness of laws and
policies to protect the public from secondhand smoke exposure, promote
cessation, and prevent initiation when they are applied in a comprehensive
way. For example, states can increase the unit price of tobacco products;
implement smoking bans through policies, regulations, and laws; provide
insurance coverage of tobacco use treatment; and limit minors’ access to
tobacco products.<br>If the nation is to achieve the objectives outlined
in <i>Healthy People 2010</i>, comprehensive, evidence-based approaches
for preventing smoking initiation and increasing cessation need to be
fully implemented.<br>
<h1>CDC's Response</h1>CDC is the lead federal agency for tobacco control.
CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health (OSH) provides national leadership for
a comprehensive, broad-based approach to reducing tobacco use. A variety
of government agencies, professional and voluntary organizations, and
academic institutions have joined together to advance this approach, which
involves the following activities:<br>
<ul>
<li>Preventing young people from starting to smoke.<br>
</li><li>Eliminating exposure to secondhand smoke.<br>
</li><li>Promoting quitting among young people and adults.<br>
</li><li>Identifying and eliminating tobacco-related health disparities.
</li></ul>Essential elements of this approach include state-based,
community-based, and health system-based interventions; cessation
services; counter marketing; policy development and implementation;
surveillance; and evaluation. These activities target groups who are at
highest risk for tobacco-related health
problems.<br>-------------------------------------------<br>Vision2020
Post: Ted
Moffett<br></div></span></div><br></blockquote></div></blockquote></div></span><br>
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