Six years ago, I lost my wife, business partner and the stepmother of my twin sons to a smoker’s cancer. She was 49 years old.
Pam Klein never smoked in her life. But in her 25 years as a journalist, she spent countless hours in smoke-filled rooms. She was just doing her job, and it killed her.
The Great American Smokeout offers life- and health-saving benefits to smokers who quit. But all the smokers would have to snuff it out to safeguard workers exposed to second-hand smoke.
That’s not likely to happen, so cities, counties, states and nations throughout the world have protected employees by enacting laws that make workplaces smoke free. While our neighbors in Ohio, Michigan, Illinois and Wisconsin have passed strong smoke-free workplace laws, Indiana has not. While Fort Wayne, Muncie, Bloomington and other Indiana communities have gone smoke-free, Indianapolis and Greenwood continue to have watered-down laws that leave many workers exposed.
Smoke-free workplace legislation inevitably sparks debate between health advocates and (most often) bar owners. The former say government has a right to intervene to safeguard workers. The latter say business owners should decide who’s exposed to what. But the risks are increasingly beyond debate.
In 2006, the Surgeon General of the United States issued a 700-page report on the dangers of second hand smoke. It found “massive and conclusive scientific evidence” of the “alarming” public health threat posed by secondhand smoke. It said smoking bans are the only way to protect non-smokers.
While many people rightfully associate lung cancer with smoking and secondhand smoke, that’s not the only problem. The Surgeon General’s report said, “Children exposed to secondhand smoke are at an increased risk for sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), acute respiratory infections, ear problems and more severe asthma.”
In adults, “exposure to secondhand smoke has immediate adverse effects on the cardiovascular system and causes coronary heart disease and lung cancer.” Bottom line, said the Surgeon General, “There is no risk-free level of exposure to secondhand smoke.”
Some argue that separate smoking sections or special ventilation systems can clear the air of this deadly hazard. But the Surgeon General’s report says otherwise. “Separating smokers from nonsmokers, cleaning the air and ventilating buildings cannot eliminate exposures of nonsmokers to secondhand smoke,” said the report.
Instead, the only way to clear the air is to prohibit smoking where people work.
All over the nation and world, the communities we compete with for jobs, conventions and tourism are going smoke free. The longer we put that off, the more we’ll be at a disadvantage for quality and quantity of life, severity of health problems, cost of health care, cost of health insurance and more.
It’s too late for Pam. But there’s still time to protect the physical and fiscal health for all the other workers. Anyone who tells you otherwise is just blowing smoke.
