For the second time in as many days, we’d like to give a tip of the hat to ACSH advisor and Boston University School of Public Health Professor Dr. Michael Siegel for his essays on two different smoking-related policies. As we noted in yesterday’s Dispatch, Dr. Siegel’s perspective piece in the New England Journal of Medicine considered the problematic issue of mentholated cigarettes. Today, he speaks out in The New York Times, cautioning that the impending New York City ban on smoking in outdoor public places does very little to improve public health and may actually lead to backlash. Dr. Siegel worries that, “In trying to convince people that even transient exposure to secondhand smoke is a potentially deadly hazard, smoking opponents risk losing scientific credibility” — the kind of credibility that’s still very much needed in fighting the actual dangers of secondhand smoke in the 21 states that continue to allow it in the workplace.
ACSH's Dr. Gilbert Ross agrees with Dr. Siegel’s assessment. “There is a danger in stretching the truth, especially when it comes to anti-smoking campaigns. Given the fact that outdoor smoking poses zero health risk, this is clearly an attempt to impose yet another NYC-Department of Health mandate for no reason other than they can, and it’s an attempt to harass smokers — blaming the victim.”