From Rich at CigarCyclopedia comes this news:

Another draconian smoking ban goes into effect today in the Canadian province of Ontario, including the formerly cosmopolitan city of Toronto.

“There is a cigar culture in Toronto,” noted Stephen Hajtun, speaking to The Globe and Mail, Canada’s most respected newspaper in an interview last week. Not any more, Stephen.

The ban covers smoking in all enclosed spaces, including retail tobacco stores!

“The impact will be disastrous” was the comment from well-known tobacconist Thomas Hinds, whose store in the Yorkville section of Toronto has been a destination for smokers for 35 years.

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If you have not been living in a cave for the last thirty years of so, you have been exposed to a lot of talk about the dangers of “second-hand” smoke.

Everyone knows that second-hand smoke is dangerous. We hear it constantly — especially in this time when smoking bans are commonplace and that proverbial cave looks like the last place that smokers will be allowed to hide in to light up.

Until, of course, someone complains that the bats and other cave wildlife will be harmed by tobacco.

One important statistic on the dangers of second-hand smoke comes from a definitive, careful study showing a clear-cut link between second-hand smoke and cancer in humans. The findings of the study, undertaken by the World Health Organization, were published in 1998. Their multi-year investigation found an unquestionable 22% relationship between cancer in adults and whether or not they had been exposed to “second-hand” smoke as a child.

A 22% relationship between second-hand smoke and cancer is much too clear to dispute. It is not a statistical anomaly. It is a proven fact.

The only problem is that the WHO study found a 22% decrease in the chances of adults getting cancer who had been exposed to smoke as a child.

More below the fold…

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Under the heading of “stop the insanity,” here’s the latest craziness on the myth of second-hand smoke.

The assault on smoking is moving into its next phase. Not satisfied with outlawing smoking in public buildings, and even near public buildings in many places, the True Believers continue to mount pressure to prevent smoking in private homes.

The press release which follows on the dangers of second-hand smoke does not come from the American Heart Association. It does not come from the American Cancer Society. It does not come from the Lung Association.

No, my friends, this warning of how second-hand smoke is a silent killer of the innocent comes from…

(drumroll, please)…

PETA.

That’s right. The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. The group that brings you naked models, naked actresses, and naked celebrities promoting how evil it is to wear furs by their “I’d rather go naked” ads.

That, PETA.

Hang on to your hats. This one is…

…well, I’d call this a shaggy dog story, but it is really more of a fluffy kitty.

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From Rich Perelman at Cigarcyclopedia:

Tim Luckhurst’s editorial on the debate in Britain’s House of Commons that appeared in the London Times last Tuesday is important and worth repeating, so here goes:

“As MPs choose today between partial or total bans on smoking in public places they must ask themselves whether lying to promote a cause is ever legitimate.

“The question is urgent because the claim that secondary smoking kills is alchemy, not science, and honest anti-smoking lobbyists know it. The theory that cigarette smoke kills non-smokers was dreamt up 30 years ago by anti-smoking activists; only after inventing it did they attempt to prove it.

“Dozens of peer-reviewed scientific studies have followed. All point to a compelling consensus that there is no casual link between passive smoking and fatal illness. One of the most comprehensive studies was published in the British Medical Journal in 2003. It concluded: ‘The results do not support a causal relationship between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco-related mortality.’

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