Of course there is.

The credible, scientific evidence shown by basically all the individual studies on ETS (except a few minor ones) overwhelmingly fails to indicate any statistically significant danger from ETS exposure. It is only after the "spinned filtration" of entities having solid financial and political interests in the elimination of public smoking (i.e.: EPA, NCI, ALA,ACS, CCS, etc,) that this virtually total lack of evidence is "re-interpreted" as a real physical danger, and spent as such. Ministries and departments of health - and the BC WCB - should be above political agendas and actually concerning themselves with real dangers to public health. Direct investigation of studies and databases before enforcing public policy should be their moral and professional duty. Obviously, this is not the case at present. The posture of "no safe limit" is a blanket political posture to implement prohibition without having to investigate and prove the reasons of prohibition through quantification.

In fact, according to this posture, the exposure to even ONE molecule of ETS (there is no such molecule, by the way) constitutes a health hazard! If this ridiculous statement is to be considered seriously, then exposure to automotive emissions, particles from cooked food, and aeroplane emissions should be considered extreme public dangers because of the massive exposure of the population to enormous amounts of the same constituents of ETS. Thus, still according to this insane position, people should be prohibited from using cars, trains and aeroplanes, and the workers would be forced to wear gas mask on the job.

The amount of tobacco combustion by-products is infinitesimally small even in rooms where heavy ETS is present (1, 2). Those 4,000 constituents are also the by-products of ALL burning organic materials, including paper, wood, and vehicular emissions.

Vehicular emissions contribute several tons per day of those by-products in the BC Lower Mainland alone, yet BC WCB does not see fit to forbid exposure to anybody, including workers in the automotive business or in the airports.

For more information about smoking as a source of pollution compared to other sources, click here.