In advance of the Smoking ban due to come into effect in the UK on 1^st July 07, the propaganda is beginning to ramp up.

I use the word propaganda because the advertising is not persuasive detail giving all the facts, but is blatant in its approach in trying to scare people into leaving cigarettes alone.  How dare they be so condescending and treat me and everyone else in Britain like idiots. 

More nanny state, mushroom farm propaganda.  Keep us in the dark and feed us bullshit.

There is a long list of chemicals being extolled as being bad for us, with chemical hazard warnings, and questions as to what would happen if a spillage of these chemicals occurred, but neither the advertisement or the website of Cancer Research  who sponsor the advertising, give any substantive details or figures on the amounts of the chemicals found either in cigarettes or in secondary smoke. 

As with any substance, if you take in too much its going to be bad for you, but the crude method being employed in these adverts is like saying, if a chemical tanker crashes at the end of the street, this will be the effect, if you smoke a cigarette, the effect will be exactly the same.

So why do they not publish the figures in their adverts.  How many parts per million of each of the chemicals are present in a cigarette, or more importantly in secondary smoke (which is the basis of the ban). 

Because they cant. The figures don’t add up, so logically neither would the political argument to introduce the ban and take away my freedom of informed choice.

The most lethal of the chemicals in question is Benzene, (not to be confused with Benzine), without doubt a human carcinogen. Long-term high level exposure can result in serious blood disorders such as anaemia and leukaemia. 

Because it is not working to a political agenda, I have gleaned my figures from a report based on results from the W.H.O. (World Health Organisation), and tend to believe that their figures are probably more unbiased and accurate than those produced by the UK Government.

As different sources report results using a mix of micrograms ppb (parts per billion) and milligrams ppm (parts per million), the conversion calculator is 1 micrograms = 0.001 milligrams 

Background levels of benzene in air range from 2.8 to 20 parts of benzene per billion parts air.

People living in cities or industrial areas are generally exposed to higher levels of benzene in air than those living in rural areas. Benzene levels in the home are usually higher than outdoor levels. People living around hazardous waste sites, petroleum refining operations, petrochemical manufacturing sites, or petrol stations may be exposed to higher levels of benzene in air. Workers who may be exposed to high levels of benzene because of their occupations include steel workers, printers, rubber workers, shoe makers, laboratory technicians, and petrol station employees.

Brief exposure (5-10 minutes) to very high levels of benzene in air (10,000-20,000 ppm) can result in death. Lower levels (700-3,000 ppm) can cause drowsiness, dizziness, rapid heart rate, headaches, tremors, confusion, and unconsciousness. In most cases, people will stop feeling these effects when they stop being exposed and begin to breathe fresh air. ref

These are the levels of exposure being suggested in the propaganda advertisements. 

An important fact when calculating the dangers of Benzene is that about half of the benzene you breathe in leaves your body when you breathe out. Only half passes through the lining of your lungs and enters your bloodstream.

There are several sources of exposure to benzene for the general public. Many people are voluntarily exposed to benzene when they smoke cigarettes. Smoking 30 cigarettes per day produces about 1800 microgrammes of benzene or 1.8 ppm, so the retained inhalation rate would be 0.9 ppm, whilst passive smoking contributes about 50 microgrammes a day, or 0.05 milligrams (ppm), retained value 0.025 ppm. 

Note that these figures are measured at the point of source, i.e. the cigarette, and are PER DAY.

The evaporation rate of benzene is also very high, so by the time that secondary smoke has risen by approximately 10 inches above a cigarette, the level of benzene is so low that it becomes almost immeasurable. 

Important. The HSE has set a permissible exposure limit of 1 part of benzene per million parts of air (1 ppm) in the workplace during an 8-hour workday.  Work with Benzene is subject to the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (COSHH) Regulations 2002. This is the benchmark that the government are using for those working with Benzene.

Logically, this could equate to 3 ppm in a 24 hour period. But for the purposes of this exercise, lets stick to the 1 ppm level. 

Using the World Health Organisation’s figures, passive smoking sits well within published government safety limits, and unless you are sitting right over the cigarette, a smoke filled room carries so little benzene…..

For the direct smoker, I admit that the figures are closer to the safety limit.   30 cigarettes a day produces about 1800 microgrammes of benzene, 1.8 ppm, or 20 cigarettes a day will produce approx 1200 microgrammes, 1.2 ppm (just above the HSE safety limit), but bearing in mind that approx half of the benzene you breathe in leaves your body when you breathe out, well within the HSE limits. 

So to summarise, exposure to (700-3,000 ppm) of benzene in 15 minutes can cause drowsiness, dizziness, rapid heart rate, headaches, tremors, confusion, and unconsciousness, but according to the government cigarettes at 0.9 ppm per DAY will kill you.

Essentially, using the governments own benchmark figures, smoking in the workplace is not unsafe, only the legislation banning it. 

Other sources of benzene include indoor and outdoor air (where benzene is created by city traffic, open fires and stoves), car refuelling and travelling in a vehicle. Benzene is also found naturally in foods such as fish or grilled meat.

If smoking were really as bad as the advertisements make out, which the figures do not back up, AND there had been such a national demand for no-smoking pubs, where were the entrepreneurs, the mass of thriving  no-smoking pubs ahead of the ban.  Many breweries had tried setting up no-smoking pubs in the past, but found it so uneconomical because no-one wanted it, they gave up. 

HSE wont lower the limits down to the figures for secondary smoke, because they know half the factories in the UK would close down, but they happy to control our freedoms and individual decision making.

I haven’t had time to check all the other substances listed in the propaganda, but am fairly sure the same kind of results will emerge. 

Now, I have to declare my own bias here.  I am a smoker, and I am a very hacked off smoker.

I am also an informed smoker and I am hacked off because again we have been lied to, tricked, hoodwinked with false figures and had our freedoms curtailed by the whim of the few. 

We want facts, not fait acomplis, facts so that we can make our own minds up, or at the very least a referrendum.

The State nannies who have taken over policy decision making have taken away yet another of my freedoms of choice. 

God made man with free choice, the government takes it away……with propaganda on the TV.