Jallen289

Now I smoke cigarettes, so I admittedly come to the argument with a slight bias, however irrelevant it may be, but it seems absurd to allow people to smoke marijuana, which no matter how you look at it, does alter the mind, and ban cigarette smoke entirely.

CBS San Francisco's Barbara Taylor reports that "Supervisor Eric Mar said introduced the proposal because of the health impacts of secondhand smoke when people are light up in public." Note that the multiple errors in this statement are original from CBS San Francisco. This is what news looks like when the reporters are just as high as the people they're reporting on.

Mar goes on to report that it's "widely known" that there are about 73,000 deaths per year among non-smokers caused by SHS (second-hand smoke). After minimal research, I've found that multiple sources all provide vastly different numbers, and no site literally states 73,000.

I started out just looking for the information debunking the claim of 73,000 deaths per year, and it turns out I've uncovered another story. Nobody knows!
According to Cancer.org, "An estimated 46,000 deaths from heart disease in people who are current non-smokers. About 3,400 nonsmoking adults die of lung cancer as a result of breathing SHS." Now without insulting anyone's intelligence, that's 49,400 deaths per year in non-smokers.
no-smoke.org reports that "53,800 people die every year from secondhand smoke exposure." While this number more closely resembles cancer.org, they are nowhere near the 73,000 claimed by Supervisor Mar.
Finally, lung.org claims that "[s]econdhand smoke causes approximately 3,400 deaths from lung cancer and 22,700 to 69,600 deaths from heart disease each year."
You'll notice that lung.org provides numbers that, if you only use the maximum possible, come to exactly 73,000. Obviously, assuming that the maximum is always correct would be foolish.

Ready for the bombshell?
Now the information from no-smoke.org was obtained by the "California EPA Report on Secondhand Smoke. 1997"
The information for cancer.org, however, was obtained by the "California Environmental Protection Agency. Health Effects of Exposure to Environmental Tobacco Smoke. June 2005," and says 46,000 deaths per year.
The information from lung.org was obtained by the " California Environmental Protection Agency. Identification of Environmental Tobacco Smoke as a Toxic Air Contaminant. Executive Summary. June 2005"
The latter two sites give two drastically different numbers, but got information from the same report, by the same organization, in the same year and month.
Wouldn't this debunk the credibility of not only the California EPA, but also Supervisor Mar, who I'm sure had to research those numbers, choose the highest number, and ignore the rest?
If this were a bill headed up by a Conservative, you can bet your bottom dollar that the media would not report on the bill, but rather the illegitimate sources used in the bill.