In a single stroke this week, Mayor Francis Slay undid the work of generations of tobacco industry lobbyists and executives. He announced that Lambert-St. Louis International Airport will go smoke-free.
Beginning on Jan. 2, five glass-enclosed smoking lounges at the airport, built in response to behind-the-scenes pressure from the tobacco industry, will be closed.
That same day, smoking no longer will be allowed in most public places in St. Louis and St. Louis County. The vast majority of citizens who do not smoke finally will gain the right to breathe clean indoor air.
Just by coincidence, Mr. Slay’s announcement came the same day U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Regina M. Benjamin released a new tobacco report, the 30th such surgeon general’s report since 1964.
“There is no safe level of exposure to tobacco smoke,” it reads in part. “Any exposure to tobacco smoke — even an occasional cigarette or exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke — is harmful.”
The report details the pathology of tobacco-related disease, noting that chemicals in tobacco smoke damage DNA and cause nearly one-third of all cancer deaths in this country.
It quotes from the abundant scientific literature on how even low-level exposure causes “a rapid and sharp increase” in inflammation of the lining of blood vessels, which is linked to heart attack and stroke.
“Cigarettes were designed for addiction,” the report says. No change in their design over the past 50 years — not filters, “low-tar” formulations or the marketing of so-called light cigarettes — has reduced the damage they do.
Expect to hear howls of protest about the new clean indoor air rules from smokers and tobacco industry apologists. They’re operating from a playbook first crafted decades ago.
As far back as the early 1950s, the industry developed a public relations strategy to cast doubt on scientific research by creating “uncertainty” about the findings.
After state governments successfully sued big tobacco companies in 1998, thousands of industry documents subpoenaed as part of the suit were publicly released.
Among them is a 1992 memo entitled “Airport Strategy Plan” that spells out a national campaign to “encourage the accommodation of smokers.” Among the targets: Lambert-St. Louis International Airport, then a national hub for TWA.
The records show tobacco industry groups sent lobbyists to the St. Louis County Council in 1993 to weaken proposals that would have banned smoking in the airport. Lobbyists even “prepared some language” for a compromise measure, according to one memo.
Tobacco industry groups also unleashed supposedly independent “scientific experts” who extolled the virtues of ventilation systems to purge tobacco smoke from terminal lounges. That system eventually was adopted at the airport.
Next month, it finally will be dismantled. The region’s smoke-free air laws are a long-overdue acknowledgement of the dangers of tobacco.
Exposure to secondhand smoke causes an estimated 3,400 lung cancer deaths and 46,000 heart disease deaths among nonsmokers in this country every year.
But Mr. Slay also told David Hunn of the Post-Dispatch that he’s concerned about the city’s reputation. “The image we want to project is a city that is progressive and health conscious,” he said.
More than three-quarters of the nation’s large hub airports no longer permit smoking inside terminal buildings. Early next month, Lambert-St. Louis will join them.
The vast majority of airline travelers who are nonsmokers will breathe easier because of it.
