Minority rights or public health? The smoky logic of Hadaway and Beyerstein.

A reply to Kaplan and Parlow: Minority rights and public health are not mutually exclusive.

“…We absolutely do not advocate such a straw man; obviously, innocent third parties have the right to be protected. Kaplan and Parlow's (1988) assertion that our position is that "smoking is not a legitimate threat" is totally incorrect (p. 236). In pointing to the controversy in the scientific literature about the degree of risk associated with ETS, we were not arguing that the risk is non-existent, nor that smokers are entitled to do as they please if others are adversely affected (or even if abstainers simply find ETS esthetically objectionable).…”

“…It is unfortunate that Kaplan and Parlow (1988) misinterpreted our plea for justice and compassion in balancing the rights of smokers and non-smokers (Hadaway & Beyerstein, 1987) as a blanket endorsement of smokers' rights to expose abstainers to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS). We absolutely do not advocate such a straw man; obviously, innocent third parties have the right to be protected.…”