On October 1st, 2007, the Minnesota Clean Air Act with FTB Amendments (hereafter, referred to as \"The Act\"), became effective. As a direct result of the Act, many small business owners felt the impact with a significant drop in business, and charities have seen a substantial drop in charitable gambling, as evidenced by the Charitable Gambling Impact Study conduct by the Minnesota Gambling Control Board in March of 2008. The Act is an outrageous violation of freedom that is based on questionable public health claims that are being perpetuated by special interest groups with the explicit goal of demonizing smokers. By signing this petition, you are hereby sending a message to Governor Pawlenty and the Minnesota State Legislature that: We, the undersigned, do hereby state that the The Act is a gross abuse of legislative power and a violation of our freedom as residents of Minnesota. The Act is based upon questionable scientific studies and we demand irrefutable scientific evidence - not embellishments or assumptions - that environmental tobacco smoke, or ETS, is a significant enough threat to public health to warrant such a blatant violation of our basic rights as citizens, charities, and business owners of Minnesota. Furthermore, we demand concise clarification on the scientific evidence being used as evidence to support the claims of the Minnesota Department of Health, Clearway Minnesota, et al, as justification for the Act. We need to know why OSHA has refused to set danger limits for permissible exposure to ETS per 29 CFR 1910.100 Standard Interpretation dated 24 February 2003 if ETS is harmful as claimed. We need to know how the bar and tavern worker air quality studies performed by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Journal of Exposure Analysis and Environmental Epidemiology found exposure to be far less than previous assumptions, yet the Act is being touted as \"protecting employees from ETS\". Finally, we need to know about the financial ties between interested parties (such as ties between the American Lung Association of Minnesota, the American Cancer Society, and pharmaceutical companies pushing smoking cessation products) so that a fair on honest analysis can be made regarding the Act\'s objectivity. Considering the documented serious state-wide repercussions from this Act, justification is required, not vague interpretations of \"casual association\" health threats, and until these criteria are satisfied, the residents, charities, and business owners of Minnesota cannot accept such a violation of our freedom and liberties.

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