The Dec. 30 Sun Journal letter to the editor by Joe Wyman, “Smoke free,” had many errors that your readers need to be educated about.
It was stated that beer and tobacco taxes went up after the ban. The economy’s upswing and inflation could answer the question of why.
The job increases are not based on hard data but general estimates that have trouble seeing trends in individual industries, such as bars, taverns and nightclubs.
Mr. Wyman claimed that working eight hours in a smoke-filled bar is like smoking a pack of cigarettes. A study published in Environmental International in 1993 states that a nonsmoking man who works in a bar and is exposed in every aspect of his life passively smokes the equivalent of 3.8 cigarettes a year. There is a major difference between three and 7,300 cigarettes passively smoked a year. It all depends on whom you listen to.
Finally the Helena, Mont., heart attack rate claim is no finer a exercise in junk science that you will ever find. This so-called study had only 60 subjects that it examined. Small studies like that cannot rule out random chance.
Overstating facts and dangers are an anti-smoking tradition. The truth scares nobody and demands no action from government.
Don’t the citizens of Maine deserve to have laws made based on facts? I sure think so.
Dave Pickrell, president
and founder, Smokers Fighting
Discrimination Inc., Katy, Texas
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