that smoking increases the level of risk in your life.
So does walking across the road.
Or driving a car.
Or consuming alcoholic beverages.
Or being overweight.
Or any one of a number of genetic factors, including the presence of a PFO.
Or skydiving.
Or being a gay male.
Or, god forbid, diving!
The point, Michael, which you continue to side-step and instead trot out the "increased risk" mantra, is that GUE is
ignoring the other factors that contribute to the risk in
your life, and singles out this particular one, even though the causation you claim exists simply does not.
Further, if you REALLY wanted to screen out smokers, you could mandate a CBC-style carboxy-hemogloben test, which some employers are indeed using these days to screen out smokers during employment procedures. The problem with that test is that it measures ACTUAL CO binding, and thus it can show you as a "possible smoker" if you sit in a smoke-filled restaurant before the test! For that matter, such a test would filter out other
real (as opposed to imiginary GUE-style) risk factors, such as borderline anemia.
In terms of total risk involved in deco procedures, its likely arguable that the BMI is a better indicator than smoking. Yet I don't see a "BMI cutoff figure" in your requirements. Why not?
Or, for that matter, where's the mandate for a PFO test in your tech training?
You seem to be focused on the idea of pecuniary benefit in a particular policy. I've levelled no such charge, nor would I - its obvious to me (and I think everyone else) that these policies are going to exclude perfectly-fit divers and thus reduce your marketplace.
My argument is
entirely with the trotting out of junk science and false claims to support your position.
It is both unnecessary
and, far more importantly, draws into immediate question the accuracy of the
rest of the claimed science and physiology that is part and parcel of dive training!
Second, as regards cigars .vs. marlboros, yes, Mike, it does matter. Greatly. Perhaps you can explain to me how the risk of mouth cancer impacts upon diving and the risks therein? It doesn't. That much is clear. There is more CO uptake associated with rebreathing the second-hand cigar smoke than there is with the original draw (assuming you're not outside on a golf course!) And oh, by the way, smokeless tobacco (e.g. snuff, chew, etc) has the same kind of risk profile as do cigars - but that's not "smoking", so its ok with GUE, right?
Our message is larger then whether you smoke Marlboro lights or cigars.. It's that scuba is a sport that requires physical activity and as such be approached from that perspective..
Yes, it is. On that point we agree.
So why not draw the line based on aerobic fitness, make it an
objective line, and handle the situation that way?
Look Mike, I understand that there are some people within GUE that have nearly-rabid, nazi-style views when it comes to consumption of burning tobacco products. Its a well-known fact. Nor are those people alone - it has all the markers of a craze in the country today. I did consulting work for a firm in Chicago a few years ago that has an
absolute zero-tolerance policy towards tobacco - to the point that mere possession of tobacco on their property is cause for immediate dismissal, they will not hire smokers, and you must
prove by invasive physical exam that you are a non-smoker to get hired (they look for both nicotine metabolites AND carboxy-hemogloben - you'll get nailed if you use snuff as well as cigarettes.)
I support their right, as a private employer, to make such a choice, just as I support GUE's right to say "no smokers admitted."
It
IS GUE's right to do that.
As I've repeatedly pointed out, I do not run afoul of that bar, since I don't smoke. That doesn't change the fact that I support people's right to make lifestyle choices that impact upon their health and longevity, and to judge the cost:benefit ratio
for themselves. After all, without that right I wouldn't be able to dive, would I?
My
sole objection is to presenting this as something that it is not, trotting out junk science, and making a
false scientific claim to support a subjective ban of a particular practice while ignoring other lifestyle choices that have an equal or even greater impact upon aerobic - and diving - fitness than smoking does.
The unfortunate reality is that if you were to give me those particular "studies" in your class (but you won't provide me a cite here, in a public forum - why not Mike, if they're true, peer-reviewed scientitic studies?) I, having read several
real peer-reviewed scientific studies, and knowing that
factually, a person with 10% of their hemogloben impaired from O2 transport by CO-binding would be suffering from severe flu-like symptoms, that your cited "study" is either wrong or an intentional fake.
Now, an hour later, as we discuss deco procedures, you trot out a second "study" showing how your accelerated oxygen-window deco procedures work.
How am I supposed to view Study #2, upon which exiting from the water bend-free depends, when I know that the first one was a work of fiction?
THAT has been my point all along, and I am distressed that instead of addressing the point that I've been raising here, you choose instead to side-step the issue and look at the tangental areas of the debate.
PS: I did try to call you and take this offline. Got "financial services" - I guess that's your work number you posted above
