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Action on Smoking and Health
A National Legal-Action Antismoking Organization Entirely Supported by Tax-Deductible Contributions
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Several UK Cities Consider Smoking Bans [08/22-1]
Excerpts from: Fag End?
By Nick Foley Scotsman.com
[08/21/03]
Lighting up in a restaurant, bar or shopping centre could soon become a thing
of the past in Britain.
Several cities are considering introducing New York-style smoking bans in public places to protect people from the effects of breathing in second hand smoke.
And restaurant chain Pizza Hut’s landmark decision to ban smoking in all 500 of its outlets is expected to trigger a string of copycat moves from rival businesses.
Non-smokers it seems are no longer prepared to suffer in silence while friends, colleagues or customers exhale great white plumes of toxic smoke into their immediate vicinity.
Firms, meanwhile, are becoming all too aware of the compensation claims they could face if employees can prove their smoky working environment has damaged their health.
He says: “It causes lung cancer, heart disease, respiratory illnesses and strokes amongst adults and about 1,000 people in the UK die every year from the effects of passive smoking.
“Only the tobacco industry doubts there is a link. The evidence really is overwhelming.”
While adults at least have a choice to move away from a smoker in a bar or can plead with their partner to smoke outside, young children don’t get any say in the matter – even though they are at the greatest risk from passive smoking.
Professor Jarvis says smoking around children or babies increases the risks of cot deaths and bronchitis, reduces lung function growth and exacerbates asthma. Youngsters are more vulnerable because their lungs are smaller and their immune system less developed, he explains.
But the experts disagree that passive smoking would cease to be much of a problem if pubs opened windows or installed air conditioning.
Professor Jarvis calls it “nonsense” while Dr Jones says it would take a “tornado like” redistribution of air for tobacco fumes to totally dissipate.
Dr Jones also insists there’s no safe-threshold level for exposure and says the only way to safeguard your health from passive smoking related illnesses is to try and avoid smokers altogether.
She says: “That’s part of the problem. We can’t tell you how
great the risk is and what a safe level of passive smoking is because it effects
different people in different ways.”
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