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Second-hand smoke kills: Prop. 200 saves the lives and lungs of many

The real arguments for or against Prop. 200, which would ban smoking only in the entrances to, exits from, and enclosed areas of businesses like restaurants and bars, boils down to the interests of several groups.

First, let's consider the patrons of restaurants, bars, bowling alleys and billiard halls. Although smokers are the minority in our society, we continue to cater to them at the expense of nonsmokers. Enough is enough.

According to the Macmillan Reference USA 2002 "Encyclopedia of Public Health," second-hand smoke, or environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), contains thousands of chemicals, of which forty-two cause cancer. For this reason, the Environmental Protection Agency has classified ETS as a carcinogen and estimates that it causes about 3,000 lung cancer deaths per year in U.S. nonsmokers. The U.S. Surgeon General's office has said that ETS may account for as many as 62,000 deaths per year from heart disease. The California EPA has linked second-hand smoke to sinus cancer. Others have established a connection between ETS, breast cancer and stroke.

What about economic interests?

Let's consider the interests of the tobacco industry. (After all, smoking is not in the smoker's interest.)

When it comes to ETS policies, tobacco companies likes to concentrate on the issue of "accommodation." Ostensibly, their only wish is to help the poor of minority smokers have access to the same services nonsmokers use but without having to put out their cigs, for God's sake!

In fact, "accommodation" is about the industry helping itself by keeping existing smokers, and potential new smokers, exposed to the maximum amount of smoke.

In the early days of smoking bans, the tobacco industry lobbied to accommodate smokers by means of designated, indoor smoking areas. However, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that these areas don't work. In such places you can literally see smoke flowing between smoking and nonsmoking sections.

Now tobacco interests say the answer to smokers' rights is ventilation systems. But research shows that such systems do not create safe indoor environments because smoke travels through them easily.

As for restaurant and bar owners, they claim smoking bans would pose economic hardship. However, continuing studies show that communities that have enacted bans have not seen a decrease in restaurant revenues.

Tucson license supervisor Margaret Campbell told me Wednesday that the city has seen no decrease in its restaurant sales revenue, which includes bars, since its smoking ban went into effect.

Mesa's office of tax and licensing data shows that restaurant and bar sales tax revenue increased between 1997 and 2000. (The city's smoking ban went into effect July 1996.) Also, the number of licenses in that period went from 682 to over 730. Code compliance officer Lucy Marquez told me that she's actually heard more people say that the ban is good for business. "People come from Peoria to eat in Mesa," she said.

Even if they don't increase their sales, businesses that institute smoke-free policies can save costs associated with fire risks, damage to property, cleaning, worker's compensation, and so on.

Still, some say that restaurant and bar owners have the right to run their businesses the ways they see fit. I have two words for them: flight attendants.

According to the "Encyclopedia of Public Health," the law that now protects us from smoking on commercial airplanes resulted from the settlement of a lawsuit brought by 60,000 flight attendants who suffered from long-term exposure to tobacco smoke while on duty.

We tend to look at bars and restaurants in terms of owners and patrons. Let's not forget that thousands of people all across the country labor in these places, fetching our orders, cleaning up our messes and inhaling our personally polluted air.

Wouldn't Superman be sad to look behind a Hooters girl's rack and see her pink lungs turning brown?

So let's review. First: in the United States today, environmental tobacco smoke is the third leading cause of preventable death. Indoor designated smoking areas and ventilation systems cannot prevent these deaths because ETS circulates freely. Second: local economies do not suffer from smoking bans. Finally: the flight attendants.

I'm in favor of letting smokers smoke where they have little or no opportunity to endanger my health or the health of my server, whose job may be thankless, but should not be any more dangerous than it has to be.

Dawn Leonard Tripp is a journalism junior. Reach her at bardawn.tripp@asu.edu.

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Vote 'No' on Prop. 200: If you can't stand the smoke, get out of the

Government control and cigarette smoke. I hate them both equally. The former is cumbersome, expensive and ineffective. The latter is deadly and obnoxious. Unfortunately, both have their place in our society.

On May 21, Tempeans will decide which they prefer to have in their city, smoking or further government control. A proposition on the ballot in May, Prop. 200, aims to amend the existing Tempe smoking ordinance in several important ways, effectively banning smoking in Tempe.

The proposition goes too far. It transforms Tempe's existing smoking ordinance into a authoritarian nightmare of a statute. As it stands now, the system protects both smokers and nonsmokers by regulating smoking in restaurants and a few other public areas like child care centers and doctor's offices.

But Prop. 200 expands the scope of regulation to include places where smoking has always been permitted and even expected. Smokers will now be bared from bars, bowling alleys and billiard halls. In fact, the only place that smoking is expressly allowed is outdoors, but even then business owners are responsible for preventing "drifting environmental tobacco smoke" from encroaching on no-smoking areas.

Smokers will not even be allowed to light up in private places like hotel rooms or clubs, unless separate ventilation systems are installed to handle the smoky air. Even smoke shops that sell nothing but smoking products will be forced to limit smoking to areas that are completely separated from the rest of the store.

Nothing about Prop. 200 makes sense. It effectively forbids smoking in the only places that it is still allowed and tramples the rights of smokers and business owners in the process. It also disregards the democratic process and ignores primary tenants of our capitalist economy.

The only reason smoking is tolerated in bars and bowling alleys is because the majority of the people there want to smoke. Apparently there are some who want to drown themselves in liquor without having to sit in a cloud of smoke. They feel it is their right to abuse their livers without having to worry about inhaling second-hand smoke.

I agree. No one should be subjected to carcinogens against their will. So leave the bar if the smoke bothers you. We nonsmokers have already claimed every other business and restaurant as a smoke-free haven. We have deliberately relegated smokers to bars and billiard halls, but now some among us want to take over these establishments as well.

The problem is smokers are not going to give up their habit just so they can spend their weekend nights trolling Mill Avenue. They are going to go somewhere else, to Scottsdale or Chandler or Mesa or Phoenix, because smart businesses and local governments in these cities have smoking policies that protect the rights of everyone, smokers included.

Smoking ordinances in these cities allow for "hardship exemptions," so businesses won't go under if smoking ordinances hurt them financially. More than 100 businesses in otherwise smoke-free Mesa have received exemptions under their hardship clause. These businesses would have shutdown had they not had some means to appeal Mesa's smoking ban. Prop. 200 eliminates Tempe's hardship exemption; and it goes one step further by prohibiting any appeals to the city council.

The end result of a smoking ban in Tempe will be lost jobs and shuttered windows. If the people who patronize bars and bowling alleys really wanted a smoke-free environment they would have it already. Smart business owners know they need to cater to the needs of their customers. That is why over 70 Tempe businesses oppose the proposition.

If Prop. 200 passes, it will not be because business owners and patrons in Tempe support it. It will pass because it sounds like a good idea to people who never drink in Tempe bars or eat in Tempe restaurants. The people who will be effected by Prop. 200 will speak with their wallets, not their votes.

You do not need legislation to accomplish the aims of Prop. 200. If you want your favorite bar or pool hall to kick out its smokers, stop going there. Or better yet, go to a smoke-free bar next door instead. Send a message to the bar's owners that you will not patronize a smoke-filled bar. The moment your dollars start flowing elsewhere, business owners will change their practices. We need to leave them that option, though. If Prop. 200 passes they will not have a choice, nor will you. Don't limit your right to choose, vote no on Prop. 200.

James Manley is a journalism sophomore. Reach him at james.manley@asu.edu.


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