Sorry, wasn’t my intention at all. You didn’t even quote me in your post, I just think it’s an interesting topic and can always learn more by thinking through the points.
To me it gets muddy when I dwell on enforceability vs accountability, and the role of culture or society making certain actions unacceptable vs relying on laws for the same.
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Part of the issue is also who is doing the enforcement. The idea that this will immediately result in cops looking to cite smokers outside buildings is another unlikely extreme view. That’s a lot of work for very little reward. The article is about a city ban, however, most bans on this that we see are low-level offenses. Even with a city ban, enforcement doesn’t automatically go to the police first (if at all).
In most apartments, if someone has a problem with another resident that can’t be resolved face-to-face, it tends to go to building management first. This is right in the FAQ from the city council in this article. Even if someone jumps directly to calling 911, they’re probably not gonna show up unless they hear from multiple residents or the building manager. If there’s that much smoke involved, the fire department would probably get there first.
The only comparison with traffic laws I can see is if there’s a 911 call for something else and this ban is being broken, that could be added to the charges. We see cops pulling over a speeding car and adding a penalty if the driver isn’t wearing a seatbelt. In my area, we rarely see someone getting pulled over for not wearing a seatbelt, because it’s hard to tell, and not the main thing cops are concerned about when monitoring traffic.
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Thanks for the reminder :). I was going down a thought-exercise rabbit hole and getting off track.
Last time I lived in an apartment building I “got in trouble” from the property manager because a downstairs neighbor had complained that I was walking around in high heels and the noise was irritating. It was during a time when I wasn’t even at home, and I don’t wear heels, but none of that was relevant.
I hope if they do enforce this ban, they make sure they’re citing the actual offenders and not innocent bystanders.
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Good for them, wish the UK would adopt something similar. One of the easiest ways of identifying places you don’t want to rent/buy is whether there are cigarette butts in corridors - I’m not sure if the correlation between smoking and crime is proven yet, but I can attest to the correlation with more police visits for drunk and disorderly behaviour.
That’s a good point. Sometimes others pay the penalty for the actions of a few. I’m still adjusting to my move from a house into a condo. We have an outdoors-only regulation for smokers (balconies are outdoors). I’m pretty sure my neighbor smokes, because I hear their balcony door open and close at all hours of the day and night. I’m not gonna complain about it, though, because it’s better than the alternative.
My building had a fire earlier this year because someone threw something still burning (cigarette or cigar) into a central trash unit. I don’t know that they ever found the specific offender. Management said they were investigating along with the fire department. We all got warnings about the residents who stayed in the building despite the alarms, since that makes more work for the firefighters (an argument that apparently carries more weight than potential loss of life 
).
So, a major fire could cost lives, homes, and possessions. However, a minor fire could cost everyone money, because all residents have to pay the fees for insurance as well as visits from police and fire departments (three showed up in response to the alarms). Maybe I’ll know for sure if they found the specific people involved by checking the annual budget report. Enforcement isn’t easy - especially when dealing with folks who think the rules shouldn’t apply to them.
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I asked the question because I am always extremely wary when it comes to laws that could infringe upon an individual’s right to privacy and to do as they please in their home (without affecting others negatively, of course). I specifically asked about vaping in my post due to its inherent ability to be concealed. It’s hard to imagine an enforcement action against vaping occurring in an apartment without some privacy violation having taken place in order to establish probable cause.
ETA: clarity
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Certainly, I think all of us share your concern about telling people what they can do in their homes. I chose the burglary analogy for that reason, though. Burglary is enforced without police randomly kicking in doors to see if anything is missing. They respond to complaints and reports.
Heck, for lots of crimes, even reporting it doesn’t result in enforcement. Thousands of rapes are reported to and ignored by police every year for various reasons, but nobody would argue we shouldn’t outlaw rape just because the law isn’t well enforced. Incidentally, rape is also something many people do in the privacy of their home that the government says you can’t, lest anyone think private homes aren’t already regulated spaces.
I don’t mean to equate smoking with these much more serious crimes- only to reinforce the idea that writing and enforcing laws is much more complex and nuanced than most people give credit for. The law says you can’t building a swimming pool in your living room or run a licensed machine shop in your attic. Those are also the government telling you what you can’t do in your home, because there are a lot of side effects on your neighbors from such activities. This smoking ban is not totally outlandish, in the right context (not saying I support it, just that it ain’t nuts)
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I think we agree now that we hashed it out. I do agree with the spirit of the law. We should as a society be moving toward better indoor air quality standards. I could definitely have been clearer in my original post, however. I am more concerned with the law opening a new door for abuses (pun not intended). I am definitely not wringing my hands over how the cops are going to bust the new violators. That I couldn’t care less about, but I can see how my comment would have come off that way.
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Millions of people have been vaping for over a decade. Vaping is the most successful method of smoking cessation and has helped millions of people quit. So we know that vaping saves lives, while there is not only no evidence of anyone being harmed from vaping, but no proposed mechanisms for harm. Mind you, I’m talking about regulated e-cigarettes and not the illicit THC vapes that caused lung injuries last year.
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I think this is one of the arguments against making me world dictator. I do not want to share any smoked or aerosolized substance of anyone’s choosing. I would be imposing sealed smoking or vaping enclosures. If you want to vape - I will weld you inside a steel cylinder.
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Umm you might want to look that up.
Even though I’ve been researching this subject for the last couple of years, I might have missed something. If you have a link, I’d sincerely appreciate it.
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The two things that came to mind were what you alluded to is saying the THC deaths but from what I remember it was last attributed to the vaping compounds used and there were some non thc deaths.
The others were some preliminary studies that may well have not been scaled up or finished. I will have to look those up. The brain is not what is was a year ago.
Yours and my brain both!
There were no vaping deaths/injuries where the victim wasn’t vaping illicit THC, where vitamin E acetate, the cause of the injuries, had been added. E-cigs don’t use this additive as they’re water-based.
This is an opinion piece regarding public policy, but it bases those opinions around a fairly straightforward summary of the science (to date) around nicotine vaping.
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3 out of 4 doctors vape.
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There is quite a bit of debate around absolute safety on vaping. We don’t know the long term harms yet and while they are likely less than cigarettes, there are alternate smoking cessation options that have less risk.
Also Clive Bates should be taken with a grain of salt. Here is one response to one of his letters.
https://tobacco.ucsf.edu/comments-clive-bates-latest-letter-who I don’t know much of him but I would look into his motivations and potential biases before putting too much weight on his opinion (the same applies to everyone).
I have yet to meet a respirologist who recommends vaping…
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This is a very good point. So called “charge stacking” is a common tool for racism that prosecutors and police use. It seems likely that a ban like this would get used that way as well. Police get called for a domestic disturbance, see a vape pen on the table, check skin color, and add that to the list. Maybe this triggers some rule that upgrades the other offense to a felony, and since they’re in California, maybe Three Strikes gets invoked and presto- person of color goes to prison for 20 years for a vape pen. This sort of thing happens a lot, sadly.
The question of whether we should avoid writing a law like this because it might get used in racist ways is a tough one. Every law gets used in racist ways, so it may not be the right thing to stop writing new ones, and trying to solve second hand smoke does seem like a good idea. But there will be undesirable consequences for sure. Not an easy problem to solve.
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As it’s the holidays I may not hear from people before this thread closes. I’ll PM you if I find a good review.
In the meantime this paper on second hand smoke related mortality may partially answer your specific question. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2762812
In regards to how we think about second smoke, I mentioned pack years but did not clearly spell out how that can relate to second hand smoke. Essentially every cigarette or partial cigarette causes damage. We know the molecular mechanisms well, so any exposure to smoke will cause some damage to DNA (via mechanisms such as something we call bulky aduct formation). So each partial cigarette is rolling the dice that you will cause damage that can lead to a disease such as cancer. So exposure to small amounts of second hand smoke increases your risk a little whereas someone who directly smoked many cigarettes increases their risk substantially. The important fact is that even though the risk is less than the heavy smoker it is not 0. So if we think of relative risk vs someone who was theoretically never exposed to any smoke we would see an increase (and since it it a ratio it may be large). Thus any exposure to smoke is a risk. You will find similar research around other smoking related diseases such as cardiovascular disease, asthma, and COPD but trying to bring multiple disease mechanisms into one forum comment is a bit excessive.
So when you are deciding what information is sufficient for you to change personal behavior it is worth considering absolute vs relative risk (a complex topic, but something we do every day, albeit often incorrectly as many youtube videos demonstrate 
).
Anyway hope that’s a little more clear.
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Thanks for that explanation. The paper did surprise me with how few smokers are responsible for the death of one nonsmoker through SHS.
“In North America in 1990, the SHSI was already high and showed further improvement over time, increasing from 72.5 individuals who smoked in 1990 to 85.7 [in 2016]”
But again there was no distinction or quantification around outdoor/nextdoor vs same-room.
Please to DM me if you find more info. Happy New Year!
