Shoofly said:
The body of evidence is made up of studies conducted by people with an agenda, and I, therefore, do not accept their conclusions. That being said, I would like to see smoking banned in casinos because it is disgusting and it stinks. I just cannot buy the health issue for non-smokers as a reason.
Actually, many of these are independent double blind etc., well controlled studies.
On a side note, there have been many studies linking firefighters with an increased risk of all kinds of cancers and they even use protection against inhaling all the smoke. Are you gonna tell me those studies too are done by people with an agenda? There are casinos where you can see the fog from the smokers and you are gonna tell me that inhaling that air for hours on end is not harmful to at least cells lining your lungs? Apparently, you do know that smoke is a carcinogen and can cause cells to mutate which can lead to cancer. Now, inhaling that smoke indirectly is still inhaling the smoke, just not as much of it so it will cause those same cells to mutate. Now, of course, second hand smoke is less dangerous than first hand, but still dangerous nonetheless.
Another study has been done that shows that lung cancer rates, since 1968, in south central los angeles county, have been consistently high, of course controlling for other possible confounding variables. This is because of the well known smog in LA. Is this not the same mechanism as second hand smoke?
I saw an article that listed the 10 cities with the worst air and not coincidentally, they had among the highest rates of cancer, heart disease, birth defects.
Now, go ahead and check out the air quality of casinos. I suggest you do a little research on wizardofodds.com. He gives his own personally documented air quality readings for casinos in las vegas. Let me help you out here:
http://wizardofodds.com/news/Casino-Air-Quality-Survey.html