Indy Star editorial urging smokefree workplace law

[Bill Godshall]

Indianapolis Star published another editorial advocating a smokefree workplace law
The facts show danger's in the air | IndyStar.com | The Indianapolis Star

To send letter to the editor, go to:
Submit a letter to the editor | IndyStar.com | The Indianapolis Star

I submitted the following letter.

Your editorial "The facts show danger's in the air" properly urges the enactment of smokefree workplace legislation.

As former Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes stated "Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins", people's right to not be harmed by others supercedes the freedom to burn dried leaves in public indoor locations.

Unfortunately, last year's proposed smokefree ordinance for Indianapolis/Marion County included an unwarranted clause that also would have banned the use of electronic cigarettes, which emit no smoke and pose no known health risks to users or nonusers.

If the groups and sponsors advocating that measure had only desired to protect nonsmokers from hazardous smoke, as they repeatedly claimed, their proposal wouldn't have also banned the use of electronic cigarettes, which have helped hundreds of thousands of smokers quit smoking.

Hopefully, next year's smokefree workplace legislation won't include a ban on usage of noncombustible tobacco/nicotine products. Otherwise, it too should be rejected.

Bill Godshall
Executive Director
Smokefree Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh, PA

 

[Petrodus]

I'm on it!

Time for all of us to take a couple minutes to write the editor.
We all don't have Bill's writing skills...It's important just to
take a couple of minutes to send a note to the editor.

 

[banjo]

Thanks, Bill, for posting. Enjoyed reading your letter to the editor. Good Work!

 

[AlmightyGod]

The Indianapolis Star is run by a gang of conservative douchebags.

I don't even know why I live in this city.

 

[rothenbj]

Deleted due to burp on the net

 

[rothenbj]

It's time for these legislative bodies to get serious about protecting the innocent bystanders. They need to get E Cigs out of this type legislation and attack known problems. An indoor ban on colognes and perfume should be added to all of this legislation. I don't dislike all of it, but there are some that are just atrocious and all can have health impacts on many individuals.

More important than this class of product is bio fuels. These should certainly be banned in cooking and used for atmosphere-

"Although many people associate tobacco smoke with certain health risks, research indicates that second hand wood smoke has potentially even greater ability to damage health. A comparison between tobacco smoke and wood smoke using electron spin resonance revealed quite startling results (Rozenberg 2001, Wood Smoke is More Damaging than Tobacco Smoke). Tobacco smoke causes damage in the body for approximately 30 seconds after it is inhaled. Wood smoke, however, continues to be chemically active and cause damage to cells in the body for up to 20 minutes, or 40 times longer.

Some of the components in wood smoke are free radicals, which steal electrons from the body, leaving cells unstable or injured. Some of these cells may die, while others may be altered and take on different functions. These changes lead to inflammation, which causes stress on the body. EPA researchers suggest that the lifetime cancer risk from wood stove emissions may be 12 times greater than the lifetime cancer risk from exposure to an equal amount of cigarette smoke. (Rozenberg 2001, What's in Wood Smoke and Other Emissions).

Excerpt from New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services web site
http://www.des.state.nh.us/ard/smoke.htm"

If you're going to ban smoking outside, wood smoke of any type should be included in these ordinances. I don't know how many times I've seen children as young as three and four sitting around campfires roasting marshmallows with the deadly byproducts of burning wood attacking their lungs. This might negatively effect the camping industry, but it's only to protect our youth.