I really don't see how Laura's proposed new drug delivery methods for
nicotine are relevant to the HVAC system that Michael Atherton proposes,
although she is right about the latter being expensive. I also don't see "scrubbing"
mentioned anywhere in Atherton's post, but his proposal for smoking rooms with
lower air pressure is pretty much how any good HVAC system in a restaurant or
bar works now, except that they seldom go as far as actually maintaining a
lower pressure and settle for a uniform inflow of air from nonsmoking areas into
smoking areas and out, either to the atmosphere or a higher quality filtering
system than would be found normally. The latter would save some energy, but
still be kind of stinky (hence my "mythical" smoke-free areas as described in
an earlier post). To go the extra mile and maintain these rooms at a negative
pressure to those surrounding them as Atherton proposes would require venting
directly to the atmosphere or an expensive system to recirculate air while
maintaining pressure as well as "air locks" to provide free movement from one area
to anotherâit would be far from fail-safe unless they had the kind of
redundancy as in hospitals.
A ban would certainly be less problematic than forcing proprieters to
install and maintain systems like those above as Mark Snyder pointed out in so
many words. I still hope that decision makers in St. Paul and Minneapolis will
provide for some way for businesses to opt out of a ban by hanging a "Beware of
Smokers" sign or spending a fortune on HVAC in their buildings so that they
can watch their bottom line continue to shrink due to increased energy costs
and needless capital costs; I call it a "separate but unequal" doctrine. As I
argued before, government regulation should only go so far.
As far as nicotine delivery systems go, I understand that the stuff used
to be a fairly common insecticide. Perhaps the tobacco companies can provide
another tincture for that purpose that addicts can carry in a flask with no FDA
questions asked. I think the gum and patches are FDA approved, aren't they?
And there's always the old fallbacks of snuff and chewing tobaccy.
Bill Kahn
Prospect Park
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