Short "red rant" and guest commentary I recieved via email.

Red Rant: Some interesting points. I still remember the "smoking patch" TC commercial where the person using the "patch" goes over and talks to people smoking there. If you want to quit smoking it's best to avoid smoke completely. I quit before Minnesota's original Clean Air Act and had to avoid smoking situation and alcohol for six months. I quit and haven't restarted in more than 30 years. After the six months second hand smoke didn't give giving smoking urges. Enjoy the comments below, Greg Lang

Greg - Thank you for your updates and great work on the web site. I saw this on the MN Dept of Health Web site under the frequently asked questions section:What can I do if I lose my job in the hospitality industry as a result of FTB? "The Minnesota Jobs Skills Partnership Board will provide services under the dislocated worker program to certain employees who become unemployed between October 1, 2007 and October 1, 2009, because of the provisions of the act."

Now, if the State set up a program to help dislocated workers due to the ban, why couldn't an owner of a bar that goes under sue the state, seeing they already knew this was going to have an effect on small business employees? Regardless of what anyone says about the ban affecting businesses, the State already made provisions for those that will lose their livelihood. They knew what was going to happen, but put the law in anyway. These are the same people who said that a ban will be better for these businesses because all the non-smokers will start showing up. Ya right.

This is also a post I put up on a web site called http://fishingminnesota.com

______- You asked about OSHA, as I have 3 different times. I had also posted a link to this earlier that showed the results, but the bottom line is this:The only way smoking bans have been able to be passed is based on the dangers of second hand smoke. One study will say 53,000 have been killed, another will say 3,000. Bottom line is NO ONE KNOWS!!!!!! The City of St. Louis Park was considering a ban and commissioned an independent study. The results threw them for a loop."The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) specifies that .5 mg of nicotine per cubic meter is an acceptable level. Testing conducted in 2004 of 18 restaurants in St. Louis Park, Minnesota disclosed that none of the restaurants had second hand smoke levels close to the allowable minimum specified by OSHA. In fact, most were far, far below the minimum."Another study:"The measurements taken by the St. Louis Park Environmental Health Department in 19 restaurants that had smoking sections had a full range of between <1 (too low to detect) to a maximum 32.5 (and that one establishment was the only one above 7.5 micrograms, the other 18 were all below that). The absolute worst establishment, the one that was nearly 5 times worse than all the others, was still 85% below the safe exposure limits."The whole smoking ban issue hinges on one thing. That second hand smoke is dangerous to the employees and/or patrons. Not unpleasant, but dangerous. As in life threatening.

The City decided, rather than a ban, they would enforce air quality controls and have each establishment that allowed smoking post them. Now that's something that makes sense.But this movement isn't about what's really right. And like our whole political landscape, there is no such thing as compromise. Believe me, in my 20 plus years of trying to fight environmentalists from taking away 25 horse motors in the exterior of the BWCA, your eyes get opened very quickly about how things work. This is no different.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has 5.3 billion dollars in holdings. The board of directors is made up of CEOs & former CEOs of some of the largest pharmaceutical companies in America. Here is just a partial list of grants this organization has handed out to lobbyist groups over the past 10 - 15 years to push this type of legislation all across the country. All of this is completely verifiableRecipient: American Medical Assoc. $88,000,000.00 Recipient: American Lung Association, American Cancer Society, American Heart Association $99,000,000.00

Smoking cessation products are a multi billion dollar industry."Since the 1998 election cycle, employees of the pharmaceutical and health product industry, their family members and industry political action committees have given $133 million in campaign contributions to candidates running for federal and state offices......

"Now ask yourself, which non profit organizations are screaming the loudest about the dangers of second hand smoke? And Why? And why is the local tavern the one to take it on the chin? Over 150 bars and restaurants in the Twin Cities area have closed since than ban. That doesn't include out state. All because of smoking? I doubt it, but it IS an interesting number for those that feel it's had no effect. (I have a list of the places just in the Twin Cities that closed.)