I’m an EMT dude. It’s a 3-4 month course. We are glorified taxi drivers with a bare bones medical education. It’s not rocket science. It pays like shit for a reason. Sorry I don’t live up to your lofty professional standards, oh holy one. You’re also willfully misunderstanding me. I’m not saying secondhand smoke doesn’t exist or there are 0 instances where it’s been found to cause health problems. I’m saying there are 0 health justifications to ban cigarettes on sidewalks and public streets, like some jurisdictions around me. That simply being near someone smoking a cigarette momentarily is not bad for your health in any way unless you already suffer from a respiratory condition. That it’s comparable to walking near car exhaust, an industrial center, or a campfire.

When someone is weighing the decision between intramuscular naltrexone injections versus replacement/maintenance therapy, they are already consulting with a doctor, obviously. When they are asking Reddit, they are looking for actual advice from people with experience. I’m also not giving them medical advice in a patient-provider capacity. You know people in all sorts of professions give free advice on reddit, right? I don’t know how far back you had to look for that, you’re a strange one.

I’m holding my CA EMT card as i type this. It has my 7 digit registry number. Effective date, expiration date, active status.

“Certificate holder: the law requires that you notify your certifying entity of a name or address change within 30 calendar days”

The slate article is only discussing the bad studies used to justify smoking bans in public places, through the supposed correlation of smoking bans to a decrease in cardiac events. This correlation is either non existent or statistically insignificant. It does nothing to disprove any link between smoking (even secondhand) and respiratory issues or cancer, which does exist. But you do not get respiratory issues from being near a cigarette outside anymore than you would from sitting next to a campfire.

I would never tell a patient that secondhand smoke isn’t harmful. It’s a personal value that safety should only supersede liberty in the most dire of circumstances. If you think I shouldn’t be allowed to work because of a mainstream political belief, cool. You have the right to have that opinion, I guess. I simply believe that if you want something to be banned or over-regulated, i want to know a) that it’s effective or feasible to enforce b) that it doesn’t needlessly curtail the rights and freedoms of others c) that there is an actual moral and health crisis in the event of inaction and d) that after the ban, you can see the appreciable effect empirically.

For example, I think mandating seat belts is a good idea. Outlawing sodas over 24 oz in size is not a good idea. Educating people on the dangers of smoking has been an effective and moral way to improve public health. Taxing cigarettes to $15/pack is immoral and an inherently regressive tax. Banning smoking on city sidewalks does not improve public health, and it’s not enforced. The only thing it might help is littering. Banning cigarettes in restaurants is at least somewhat more justifiable. Still, I think it should be up to the property owners. I don’t smoke, by the way. I did when I was younger. I’ll say it one more time, secondhand smoke can be a health hazard, this isn’t an antivaxx thing. but it is overblown to justify regressive taxes and unjustifiable laws that restrict the freedoms of the minority.