When I was a kid, every room had an ashtray.  Everyone smoked, on TV, in the movies, in the kitchen.  We made little ashtrays out of clay to bring home to our parents as gifts for the holidays.  They oohed and aahed over our craftiness, and we were proud of the fact that they didn’t realize that all we did was stick our thumb down into the wad of clay.  Parents were so clueless back then.

But what we didn’t have then was anywhere near the volume of children suffering from a variety of vague but very real and debilitating syndromes that now plague us, from ADHD to autism.  Yet this little detail evades detection in the current facile analyses of smoking problems.

It is clear that many people hate cigarettes.  It’s a filthy and offensive habit.  Cigarette smokers have few supporters, and rightfully so.  It is beyond question that it presents terrible health problems.  And so empowered, anti-smoking forces will push until they have eradicated smoking altogether.

But in doing so, the mechanisms employed have been the same that are used regularly, and with unfortunate success, in delimiting personal freedom and constitutional rights in general; the slippery slope, the tyranny of the majority and junk science.  Each of these old, familiar friends reminds of us of how subterfuge and illogic can be used to achieve an end.

The latest salvo is ” third-hand smoke,” apparently because second-hand wasn’t good enough.  From Turley :

After courts and commentators have wrestled with the dangers of second-hand smoke, it appears that there is now third-hand smoke: the smell that lingers on smokers when they come back into a house or office. Experts are warning that third-hard smoke can be harmful — a finding that might move businesses to get rid of smoking areas outside of buildings.

We are not yet at the point to have chemical showers and hazmat tents for smokers coming back into buildings. However, the recent campaign on third-hand smoke might push some companies to reexamine their policies and even bar smokers entirely from employment.

Experts are warning that smokers bring back heavy metals, carcinogens and even radioactive materials after smoking and create a particular danger to young children.

But even a skeptic like Turley can be taken in by the “experts”.  The single study, to be published in the Journal of Pediatrics, offers this admonition:

The toxicity of low levels of tobacco smoke constituents has been proved. … Thirdhand smoke may remain inside even when smoking took place earlier. Similar to low levels of lead exposure, low levels of tobacco smoke markers have been associated with cognitive deficits among children. The highest tobacco exposure levels were associated with the lowest reading scores; however, the lowest levels of exposure were associated with the steepest slope in the decrement in reading levels. These facts underscore the possibility that compounds in tobacco smoke are neurotoxic at extremely low levels…

Sounds pretty damning, doesn’t it?  Certainly not the sort of risk one ought to take, given the “experts” obvious concerns.

But it turns out that even staunch anti-smoking advocates are choking, not on third-hand smoke but on this study.  Physician Michael Siegel, whose blog, The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary, is dedicated to the war against smoking, has hit the wall on the junk science underlying the third-hand smoke barrage.

This all-or-nothing philosophy may undermine the harm reduction approach, and may actually result in smokers deciding not to bother to smoke outside the home. If their children are going to be exposed to toxins anyway, then why bother going through all that trouble?

But most importantly, I question the accuracy and the scientific support behind such a health claim. It’s not clear to me that if a smoker is careful never to smoke inside the home, that merely hanging up their coat on a hook inside the home will cause harm to his children from toxins that offgas from the coat. I just am not aware of any evidence that this represents a significant health risk.

Those who know my position understand that I believe the effects of secondhand smoke are enough. I do not believe that we need to invoke ever-so-shaky scientific evidence to try to now scare people about the effects of thirdhand smoke. Not only is this approach scientifically unsupported, but it may also backfire by undermining people’s appreciation of the documented hazards of secondhand smoke.

This is not to advocate smoking.  Dr. Siegel is certainly against it, and I wouldn’t presume to suggest that anyone run out and buy a pack.  It is, however, to argue that we not be taken in by the wealth of vapid and agenda-driven “expertise” that is deceptively used to manipulate our values.

If anti-smoking advocates want to make smoking illegal, then that should be their open and clear position.  To covertly abuse science in support of their goal is no different than the little black boxes that magically put people in jail, even prison, for drunk driving. 

Similarly, while I am deeply concerned for children with ADHD, Autism and the variety of underlying causes that have resulted in a generation of ever-increasing learning disabled kids, it offends me that these very serious problems are being used to manipulate us into believing that we can stem the tide by eliminating whatever personal evils advocates chose to associate. 

This new study, filled with horrible sounding jargon connected by wiggly words demonstrating that it proves nothing, is precisely the sort of nonsense that people cling to when they need a way to justify eliminating the rights of others who do things they don’t care for.  Turley wonders how long it will be before anti-fragrance laws will be on the books.  I think that body odor in the third degree can’t be that far off, and I happen to know a few violators. 

But more importantly, our willingness to defer to the value judgments of “experts” as to how much personal freedom we should retain is at risk.  For those whose values agree with the experts, usually because their rights aren’t the ones at stake, they happily jump on the bandwagon,  But what will they do when the experts turn on them, piece together some junk science study filled with insipid jargon that puts their freedoms in the cross hairs?

Again, this is not to suggest that smoking, especially anywhere near children, is a good idea.  It’s an incredibly stupid idea, if for no other reason than it’s completely unnecessary to put children in that position regardless of how potentially harmful cigarette smoke is.  There’s just no reason to do it.

But the use of junk science to backup the value judgments of the majority needs to be recognized.  Today it’s smoking.  Tomorrow, it’s whatever a couple of Boston docs decide they don’t like next.

Update: Via our hinterlands correspondent, Kathleen, comes this story about “smokeasies”, the modern day variant on speakeasies.  So what is the liberatian take?

As Cleveland police Detective Tom Shoulders put it, “You put too many restrictions on people, they’re going to find someplace else to go for their entertainment.”

Wisdom from the mouths of enforcers.

Prohibitions don’t work because no penalty is harsh enough to make unwilling people obey. Nicotine Nazis follow in the footsteps of drug warriors who walk the same path picked by Prohibitionists. All have tried to bend people to their will, and all have failed.

They do damage, though. Bans and restrictions inflict fines and prison time on people (and sometimes death). Nanny-staters often escalate their efforts rather than surrender to reality. By raising the stakes, enforcers empower criminals, who are best suited to profit from governments’ authoritarian missteps and to undermine law-enforcement efforts.

The comments, including one from our dear WindyPundit, are particularly interesting.  No matter how hard the health police try, there will always be bastions of freedom.