| > The CDC page has a literal pile of primary source research and data. https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/seco... There's certainly some interesting stuff there, but it's very clearly written with a heavy bias and very clearly not a primary source (indeed they state explicitly that their second-hand smoke estimates are based on unpublished data, which seems like a huge red flag). > Do you really want to know the answer to the question you asked? You can find the answers without talking to me. I am genuinely interested, just common-sense sceptical. Even heavy smoking is not that deadly (especially compared to something like cars - just looking at the impact on people I've known personally). The idea that there would be this huge mortality impact from the much smaller level of smoke exposure that second-hand smokers get just doesn't pass the sniff test. If I take the report you linked at face value, I'm supposed to believe that second-hand smoke kills fully 1/10th as many people as actual smoking - but most of the risks of smoke exposure are linear, and there's just no way that people are breathing in 1/10th as much tobacco as second-hand smoke as actual smokers do. So something stinks. > Cars have high value in addition to their risks. Cigarettes have no value. This is your fundamental assumption that's been going unspoken until now, and it's the part I'm taking issue with. Cars don't have a lot of value, IMO. And you're simply ignoring the fact that many people enjoy smoking, or you've decided it somehow doesn't count. It has a lot of value to them, that's why they do it. Of course if you start by assuming that the value of smoking is zero then you'll reach the conclusion that the cost/benefit isn't worth it. But you could justify banning anything that way (I'm sure there's not a single thing in existence that has absolutely zero health risks associated with it). And I'm pretty sure the decisions about what things are zero value are being made mainly by classism (probably not intentionally, but just because the people who contribute to this kind of public health report come almost exclusively from a particular class). |