You’ll want to pigeonhole me as one of those interferring liberals as soon as I tell you that I think state Sen. Rosemary McAuliffe’s proposal to ban smoking in all indoor public structures is a good idea.
I’m sorry to tell you that you will be way off base in assuming what my political leanings might be. The fact is, this issue goes much deeper for me than any allegiance to a particular political party platform. It is an issue that is very close to my heart (as well as my lungs).
I’ve spent most of my life struggling with chronic asthma and allergies. It’s a constant reminder of having grown up during an era when smoking was considered bad for smokers, but the health effects of second hand smoke were only beginning to be explored. While my parents knew that smoking was bad for them, it wasn’t until later that they realized all those years they were smoking, little Andrea was smoking too.
We sure had good years when we were allowed to smoke wherever we pleased. We smoked at restaurants, at the bowling alley, at the skating rink, at the grocery store, at the movie theater, on airplanes.
It never occured to us that the smoking was the reason I visited the emergency room and the pediatrician so often. Eventually, medical studies made the connection between parental smoking and childhood lung diseases. My parents to this day carry a great deal of guilt for having contributed to my chronic respiratory ailments.
As I’ve grown to adulthood I’ve been able to make my own decisions about exposing myself to second hand smoke. What that means, however, is that I don’t generally go anywhere where smoking is allowed. When I do, as I did over the weekend to see a favorite musician perform, it means that I will spend the next day or so coughing and wheezing from that previous evening’s exposure.
It’s easy enough for smokers to say, “if you don’t like the smoke, then stay clear of the fire.” After all, not all people who smoke or who are exposed to smoking get sick from it. But nearly one half million Americans a year still die from tobacco related illness and one in nine smoking related deaths is due to second hand smoke. That is cause for alarm. Millions of dollars, both public and private, are spent to treat preventable diseases related to smoking. Whether you like it or not, it is a public health issue.
We already have regulations that require bars and restaurants to maintain certain standards of cleanliness and sanitation; there are also regulations in place that restrict waiters and bartenders from serving alcohol to pregnant women and the clearly intoxicated. These statutes were put in place to protect the health of the public. Restricting smoking in public places is just the next logical step to safeguarding public health and preventing injury.
Since only one in five people actually smokes anymore, it’s unlikely there will be any serious economic hardship for bars and restaurants if Sen. McAuliffe’s bill passes. In California, where a similar statute was implemented several years ago, the prediction that these establishments would experience a significant loss of business never panned out. The truth is, people will keep coming as long as bars and restaurants serve good food and liquor.
I will breathe a sigh of relief when this bill, or one like it, is signed into law. I look at it this way: it’s just a matter of time, after all, before the opposition dies out.
Andrea Miller is features editor for The Enterprise.
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