Expanding smoking ban is important step
The Cabell-Huntington Health Department is heading down a path that is sure to be lined with controversy, but nevertheless it is a direction that should be taken.
The department is working on a proposal that would expand the county’s current ban on smoking in public places to include bars and video lottery parlors. It likely will conduct a public hearing on the plan within the next month, and the department’s board may act on it in late January, according to Dr. Harry Tweel, the health department’s executive director.
As demonstrated in other counties, most recently in Kanawha, many smokers and people who operate bars and clubs are likely to oppose the proposed ban. They argue that such bans violate personal liberties and, in the case of bar and club operators, hurt their businesses.
But, as Tweel told The Herald-Dispatch reporter Bryan Chambers, “from a health standpoint,” implementing a ban is “the right thing to do.” Considering the evidence regarding the health dangers from smoking and secondhand smoke, his point is difficult to dismiss.
Under Cabell County’s existing regulation, smoking is banned in all restaurants and workplaces. So people who frequent or work in those places are safe from the hazards of secondhand smoke.
But bingo halls, personal care homes and establishments where alcohol represents more than 80 percent of sales are exempt from the regulation. What about patrons and employees of those establishments? According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Office of the Surgeon General, they face exposure to serious health risks from secondhand smoke.
Nonsmokers who are exposed to secondhand smoke at home or at work have a 25-30 percent higher risk of developing heart disease and a 20-30 percent higher risk of developing lung cancer.
Concentrations of many cancer-causing and toxic chemicals are higher in secondhand smoke than in the smoke inhaled by smokers.
Breathing secondhand smoke for even a short time can have immediate adverse effects on the cardiovascular system and interferes with the normal functioning of the heart, blood, and vascular systems in ways that increase the risk of a heart attack.
Eliminating smoking in indoor spaces is the only way to fully protect nonsmokers from secondhand smoke exposure. Separating smokers from nonsmokers, cleaning the air and ventilating buildings cannot eliminate all the dangerous particles and gases from secondhand smoke exposure.
Those who argue against a ban on the basis of “smokers’ rights” really have no argument, because nowhere is it written in U.S. or state constitutions that people have a right to smoke. And when it comes to such so-called rights, those end when they harms others. There is no justifiable reason for laws that protect workers and patrons of some public places and not others. This double standard should be eliminated, and the Cabell-Huntington Health Department should act to do just that.
December 04, 2009
The Herald-Dispatch
