Secondhand Smoke

The griping about the smoking ban in our public parks falls on deaf ears for me. One complaint I heard was about a smoker being forced to stop if his neighbor could "smell the smoke. " It's not smelling smoke that's bad, it's breathing smoke that's lethal. We deserve the right to breath clean air anywhere, anytime. Carole Fisher Ellicott City

If the smoking ban on Harford County government properties applies to parks and recreation ball fields, there's no reason why it can't apply to the County Courthouse, official excuses notwithstanding. Beginning Jan. 1, smoking on county property was banned, a move that came as welcome news for anyone - government employees and members of the general public alike - who has been subjected to secondhand smoke while trying to run the siege line of smokers standing outside various county government buildings.

A draft report sponsored by the Environmental Protection Agency and other federal agencies concludes that secondhand cigarette smoke kills 53,000 non-smokers a year, including 37,000 from heart disease. We'd like to hear from both smokers and non-smokers about the effects of secondhand smoke and the rights of smokers.To register your opinion, call SUNDIAL at 783-1800 (or 268-7736 in Anne Arundel County). After you hear the greeting, you'll be asked to punch in a four-digit code on your touch-tone phone.

Few things are quite as unsightly as the piles of cigarette butts that accumulate in low spots on parking lots and the gutters on the sides of roads. It seems even as most kinds of littering have become less frequent, flicking a butt out a car window remains just another unsavory aspect of the practice of smoking. Mercifully for those of us who don't smoke, this irritating practice will be that much less part of the scene as Harford County government is poised to ban smoking — indeed all tobacco use — on county-owned and leased properties, inside and out. Here in Maryland, one of the last strongholds of smoking rights owing to the state's centuries of tobacco growing tradition, smoking indoors has been illegal for years, and it's not hard to strike up a conversation about how odd it seems to walk into a lobby in states where lobby smoking is still permitted.

WASHINGTON -- The tobacco industry began what is expected to be a vigorous counterattack against the government assault on smoking yesterday as R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. launched a public relations campaign to "bring some balance to the debate surrounding secondhand smoke and other issues surrounding cigarettes."In full-page advertisements in major U.S. newspapers, the company claimed that non-smokers are routinely exposed to "very little" secondhand smoke.The ads claimed that, in a month, a non-smoker living with a smoker would be exposed to environmental smoke that was, on average, the equivalent of smoking 1 1/2 cigarettes.

MIAMI -- Lawyers for the tobacco industry and 60,000 U.S. flight attendants are girding for the start this week of a trial that will test the industry's liability for illnesses supposedly caused by secondhand smoke.The case, known as Broin vs. Philip Morris, is the first to seek damages for bystanders supposedly harmed by smoke from other people's cigarettes. It will also be the first tobacco case of any kind tried on behalf of a whole class of plaintiffs, where an industry defeat could bring damages in the billions of dollars.

Talbot County's tough smoking law was passed to protect people from fumes streaming off other people's cigarettes. But what is the hazard? Is it death, illness or mere annoyance?Ask the Environmental Protection Agency or the American Heart Association and you will hear that secondhand smoke not only makes people ill, but causes thousands of fatal lung cancers and heart attacks that wouldn't have occurred in a smoke-free environment.Ask the tobacco industry, and you will hear that the EPA has engaged in pseudo-science, skewing its research to reach the politically correct conclusion that cigarette smoke is lethal even for nonsmokers.

The first direct medical evidence that secondhand smoke can damage the lungs of non-smokers has been produced by an international team led by researchers at Harvard University.The team performed autopsies on the 30 non-smoking women and found that the lungs from the wives of smokers contained a "significantly higher" number of precancerous abnormalities -- such as cellular proliferation and damage -- than did lungs from the wives of non-smokers.Previous studies showing a higher incidence of lung cancer among wives and children of smokers have been based on statistical evidence and suggest that at least 4,000 people die from lung cancer each year as the result of inhaling secondhand smoke.

WASHINGTON -- Three staples of modern life -- secondhand cigarette smoke, alcohol and diesel exhaust -- will likely soon be added to the official federal government list of cancer-causing agents, an action with potentially large regulatory and legal effects.An influential independent panel of scientists probably will recommend that course after what are expected to be contentious hearings on the three substances today and tomorrow at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in North Carolina's Research Triangle Park.

WASHINGTON -- The Environmental Protection Agency announced guidelines yesterday on smoking in public buildings to help curb illness from secondhand tobacco smoke.The EPA asked all companies and agencies operating public buildings to either ban smoking or use ventilation to ensure that people are protected from secondhand smoke.The guidelines are voluntary, reinforcing the the EPA's stand, announced in January, in which it declared that secondhand smoke causes cancer and respiratory disease and should be regulated.

Baltimore County plans to prohibit employees from smoking in government vehicles, including police cars and maintenance trucks, a county health official confirmed. Dr. Gregory Wm. Branch, the county health officer, recommended the move to county Administrative Officer Fred Homan last week, citing the health risks of secondhand smoke. "Secondhand smoke can remain in [homes and cars] through contaminated dust and surfaces, even if smoking took place days, weeks and even months earlier," Branch wrote in the letter obtained by The Baltimore Sun. "The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health has concluded that secondhand smoke is an occupational carcinogen.

In the continued effort to reduce infant mortality in Baltimore, health officials and the Family League of Baltimore City have launched an effort to reduce secondhand smoke near babies and pregnant women. The campaign, called "Just Hold Off," is the second phase of the B'more for Healthy Babies program. The first phase, launched in August 2010, focused on safe sleep: Babies should sleep alone, on their backs in a crib. Officials are urging smokers to back away from pregnant women and babies in the home, vehicles, bus shelters and elsewhere.

The griping about the smoking ban in our public parks falls on deaf ears for me. One complaint I heard was about a smoker being forced to stop if his neighbor could "smell the smoke. " It's not smelling smoke that's bad, it's breathing smoke that's lethal. We deserve the right to breath clean air anywhere, anytime. Carole Fisher Ellicott City

Howard County, which led the way in prohibiting smoking indoors, plans to extend the ban outdoors to all county parks, a move that would be the first of its kind in the state. "It's something we've been looking at for some time," County Executive Ken Ulman said in an interview, adding that it's another goal toward making "Howard County the healthiest county it can be. " Smoking, he said, "is not in keeping with that. It's a dirty, filthy habit. " Ulman plans on issuing an executive order that applies to all 57 park properties, but does not include open space and parks owned by the Columbia Association.

Monday night, the Ocean City Town Council voted to ban smoking in certain municipal playgrounds as well as the town's skate park and tennis center. It was considered a bold move, at least for Ocean City, which remains light years behind neighboring Atlantic Ocean resorts when it comes to family-friendly public health policies. In nearby Bethany Beach, Del., on the other hand, town officials have gotten a bit bolder. Three days earlier, the Bethany Beach Town Council voted 4-3 to extend the resort's seasonal ban on smoking at the boardwalk to a year-round prohibition.

On summer weekends, the Ocean City beach can entertain a veritable sea of humanity as waves of tourists spread out across the sand on blankets and towels. The throngs of beachgoers are squeezed in so tightly, it's easy enough to discern a neighbor's brand of sunscreen by smell alone. Aside from rock concerts and frat parties, rarely are so many so densely packed. But in the midst of such a swelling crowd, smokers are, at best, an irritation on the order of sand flies and thunderstorms — but represent a far more serious health hazard.

Secondhand smoke does not appear to increase the risk for lung cancer and heart disease, says a study in the British Medical Journal that was partly funded by the tobacco industry. The study was quickly criticized by the American Cancer Society and other health groups as misleading and unreliable. "We are appalled that the tobacco industry has succeeded in giving visibility to a study with so many problems it literally failed to get a government grant," said Dr. Michael J. Thun, the society's national vice president of epidemiology.

By now the dangers of smoking and exposure to secondhand smoke are so well established that hardly anyone disputes the risks they pose to public health and well-being. Every year some 390,000 Americans die from smoking-related illnesses, and tobacco contributes to 1 out of every 6 deaths annually in this country. That's why we applaud Towson University's decision last week to ban smoking everywhere on its campus. We only wonder why it took the university this long to take a step that so obviously benefits its students and the entire school community.