St. Charles: Clear the air
Tobacco smoke in public places is a threat to public health. That is the simple truth behind the effort of the St. Charles Wellness Commission to ban smoking in bars and restaurants.
As the Post-Dispatch’s Mark Schlinkmann reported, seven members of the St. Charles City Council oppose the move. Even worse, the council majority won’t support a referendum that would let the citizens they represent vote for their own lungs. Only council members Erv Ermeling and Laurie Feldman favored the referendum.
That is sickening. Literally.
Two years ago, Richard H. Carmona, then the surgeon general of the United States, declared that there is “no risk-free level of exposure to secondhand smoke.” It boosts the chances of heart disease among non-smokers by 25 percent to 30 percent and lung cancer by 20 percent to 30 percent, his report said.
Nearly two out of three nonsmokers show medical signs of exposure to tobacco smoke; the danger is highest among people who live with smokers or work amid the toxins in restaurants, bars and casinos. Nonsmoking sections and ventilation systems don’t eliminate the danger, the surgeon general said, but a ban on indoor smoking does the trick.
The medical evidence against secondhand smoke is overwhelming. Tobacco smoke is a witches’ brew of dozens of poisons, including formaldehyde, cyanide, carbon monoxide and ammonia. Secondhand smoke contributes to an estimated 46,000 cases of heart disease nationwide and leads to at least 24,300 babies born prematurely or with low birth weight. That’s in addition to exacerbating respiratory problems among nonsmokers, including coughing, phlegm and reduced lung function.
In St. Charles, city council members were unmoved by appeals from two physicians, as well as the nurse who heads the city Wellness Commission, all of whom warned of the health dangers. “Secondhand smoke is involuntary smoking,” said Dr. Filippo Ferrigni, medical director at St. Joseph Health Center. “You’re forcing people to smoke.”
In St. Charles, the proposal has run into the same arguments that torpedoed similar plans in St. Louis County in 2005. Owners of bars, restaurants and casinos are afraid that smokers will go elsewhere if they can’t light up indoors. Such fears typically are stoked by tobacco industry lobbying money.
Yet countries across the globe — including pub-loving Ireland — have banned public smoking to protect the health of their people. More and more U.S. states are doing so, along with scores of cities, counties and municipalities. Public smoking in Illinois became illegal in January. In April, voters in Kansas City approved a smoking ban for bars and restaurants.
Opponents of smoking bans often decry them as infringements on personal freedom by a nanny state. Actually, smoking bans balance rights. Smokers have every right to smoke, but only so long as they keep their smoke out of other people’s lungs. No job — not even working in a bar, restaurant or casino — should require workers to accept higher risks of serious illness and even death.
St. Charles officials have banned dancing on tables, cursing and other rowdy behavior at its nightspots, but they say smoking’s OK. Table dancing’s safer.
The St. Charles council should let its people vote on the question. They have a right to try to clear their own air.
A solution for the smoking ban issue comes in the form of electric cigarettes, cigars and pipes (one brand name is Crown7 at http://www.crown7.com):
* Crown 7 products emit only a harmless vapor that simulates smoke yet satisfies the nicotine urges and cravings;
* They’re not offensive and can be enjoyed anywhere smoking is prohibited;
* They can transform traditionally smoke-filled environments (i.e., casinos, bowling alleys, pool halls, bars and restaurants) into smoke-free environments that can be enjoyed by smokers and non-smokers alike; and, perhaps best of all,
* They leave none of the residue and odors that accompany traditional cigarettes on clothing and other surfaces.
Worth consideration, don’t you think?
Despite what former Surgeon General Carmona has said, controversy remains
concerning secondhand smoke. According to the most recent Gallup Poll,
nearly half of Americans are not convinced that secondhand smoke is a
severe health risk. The controversy has been further fueled by a recent
UCLA study, the longest-running and highest-quality secondhand smoke study
ever done, published in the prestigious British Medical Journal, but completed “too late” (2003) to be included in Surgeon General Carmona’s report, that found no link between secondhand smoke and lung cancer or heart disease.
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/326/7398/1057
Your article states correctly that formaldehyde is a component of cigarette smoke. It was also emitted by insulation and wood glue in the trailers provided by FEMA after Katrina. Similar materials were used by the entire trailer industry, and other citizens use them every day with no complaints. There are now over 17,000 lawsuits filed, relating to formaldehyde in FEMA trailers, and many more to come.
Smokers and their lawyers have collected vast amounts of money over the past 30 years in class action suits over alleged INDUSTRIAL asbestos exposure, even though it was clear that any lung problems resulted primarily or totally from cigarette smoke and asbestos in the cigarette filters. Your Internet spam probably contains many solicitations about this from “ambulance chasing” attorneys (mine does). Will smokers who voluntarily used the FEMA trailers and failed to open them enough to clear out the obvious smell of formaldehyde be allowed to collect full “damaqes”?
FEMA now proposes to re-use their allegedly dangerous trailers for future emergencies, but to limit the term of exposure to six months. That’s just begging for even more litigation.
There is no need to burden St. Charles voters with the smoking ban issue. The St. Charles Council should simply require all venues that allow smoking to employ the same air filtration technology that other industries have installed to protect their workers from far more dangerous smoke and fumes. Affordable air filtration machines are readily available that will purify bar and restaurant air not only of tobacco smoke but also viruses, bacteria, chemicals, pollen, dust, mold, fungi and, most importantly, radon decay products, which the EPA claims causes 21,000 lung cancer deaths per year, seven times more than secondhand smoke is reputed to cause. Rather than restrict the personal freedoms of citizens and property rights of business owners with a smoking ban, the St. Charles Council should turn to air purification technology to provide truly clean air to St. Charles.
An air filtration solution to the smoking ban issue would spare St. Charles the on average 13 percent increase in drunk driving fatalities communities with smoking bans now suffer.
http://www.econ.iastate.edu/calendar/papers/CottiPaperDrunkDriving.pdf
The Vital Voice published my thumbnail case against a St. Louis smoking ban back in February:
http://thevitalvoice.com/node/170
Let me make one important correction to the Vital Voice column. The column as appeared in the Vital Voice said:
“The strongest finding of the 1998 World Health Organization’s secondhand smoke study was that children exposed had 22 percent greater chance of developing lung cancer later in life.”
The WHO study actually found that children exposed to secondhand smoke have a 22 percent lesser chance of developing lung cancer later in life:
http://www.obscurious.co.uk/componants/smoking1440.pdf
Common sense says second-hand smoke isn’t safe. I can tell you that as a non-smoker, I avoid bars and restaurants that are overly smokey. Perhaps the patrons these etablishments would gain would offset the loss they might suffer if smoking is banned. Enough cities have banned smoking, are there no studies that have looked at the economics of the result of the ban?
I was recently in Chicago — and the bars were jammed packed — and not one person was smoking inside. It was nice not getting home and smelling like smoke and ash. It also didn’t appear to have had a negative impact on the bar business.
More disturbing, though, is that the people of St. Charles are’t allowed to vote on it. Seems the city council is playing a little too much big brother for my taste. I can’t believe I actually agree with the PD. One in a million shot!
First, the science behind second hand smoke is dubious. The Congressional Research Department, World Health Organization and the ACS funded UCLA study found no link between second hand smoke and illness. Common sense would dictate that if it is as bad as they say it is, then we would have no issue with Social Security. Throughout history smoking was common at work, home and play. If you didn’t smoke, you would have been around smoke nearly all the time. Yet people are living longer and longer. The population average age is climbing.
Second - You talk about voting. People vote everyday and they do it with their dollars. You do not like second hand smoke, then simply avoid places that allow smoke. There is a market for non-smoking venues and everyday more disallow smoking.
If you want it on the ballot, then get a petition drive and put it on the ballot. Bans are pushed by the American Cancer Society and they have deep pockets - they have the resources. They do petition drives all the time. They have even hired two full time people solely to push a ban in St Louis. My guess is that they don’t think could get the signatures to get it on the ballot.
As for the economic impact - Restaurants and especially bars do take a hit. You speak of Ireland were since a ban went into effect nearly half of the pubs have gone out of business. Columbia, MO has lost a significant percentage of its restaurants and bars since their ban. Anytime you restrict a market, there will be an impact. Simply put, there is a market for non-smoking and smoking venues. The market is doing an excellent job of sorting it out.
When speaking of rights, let’s remember no non-smoker in St. Charles is forced to go anywhere smoking is allowed. Insofar, as the workers in these hospitality establishments…do the majority support a ban? I doubt it. It’s not the Post-dispatch’s business, the voters business, or the council’s business…to push a ban down hospitality workers throats when they themselves don’t support one.
The secondhand smoke studies themselves, are somewhat of a joke, they are selective science at it’s worst, and mostly supported by antismoking funding… those which find no risk, tend to be larger , more enduring, and carried out over a longer time frame, so that better data are obtained.
The economic impact studies which claim no harm follow the same pattern; those which find no harm are ALL funded by antismoking money, and conducted by antismoking activists ,not economists, and appear in antismoking journals, not economic journals. The studies which find econ harm are conducted by economists, and appear in economic journals.
Frankly, the whole antismoking movement is inept and corrupt, and funded by the nicotine replacement industry in the hopes bans cause more smokers to buy nicotine gum and patches….and where is the Surgeon General who wrote that report which noone ever reads, but only quote the press release? The report itself provided no evidence ventilation does not work, or that there is no safe level of smoke, and axctually declared that many of the diseases commonly claimed to be caused by shs are not proved.
The last line of the editorial says it all. According to the PD editorial board the “public” now owns the air inside private businesses. The air in your own home is next. It’s all for the “common good” you know. The people can already vote on the question; with their feet. I don’t smoke, but I don’t feel empowered to dictate policy to people who have worked hard to open and run their own businesses. If their environment doesn’t suit my needs, I take my business elsewhere. That concept of free will seems to be lost on the government worshipers like the editorial board.