While there are many people who engage in overtly dangerous activities like skydiving, rock climbing and car racing, there are many more around the world participating in other seemingly normal activities that are more dangerous than any extreme sport. They eat fatty foods, drink alcohol in excess and smoke every day of their lives. No matter how many warnings medical professionals offer, it is scarce to find a person who does not occasionally indulge in these activities.
Each person should be responsible for his or her own decisions regarding his or her health. All of the above vices are solely self-destructive — except for smoking. Smoking damages the smoker’s body while affecting those in the surrounding area.
According to the American Cancer Society, secondhand smoke is a mixture of two forms of smoke that develop from burning tobacco. These two forms are side-stream smoke, which comes from a lighted cigarette, pipe or cigar, and mainstream smoke, exhaled by a smoker. Nonsmokers who are exposed to secondhand smoke absorb nicotine and other mixtures just as smokers do. There are two phases in smoking: the particulate phase includes tar, nicotine, benzene and benzo(a)pyrene, and the gas phase includes carbon monoxide, ammonia, dimethylnitrosamine, formaldehyde, hydrogen cyanide and acrolein. According to Dr. B.D. Schmitt, author of “Passive Smoking,” a child in a room with three smokers for one hour can inhale more harmful chemicals than if he was to smoke 10 cigarettes by himself because the smoke did not pass through the filter.
Since there are no safe secondhand-smoke levels, it is important that smoking-ban policies are as committed as possible. The mission of the Tobacco-Free Dane County Coalition is “to improve the health of Dane County residents by significantly reducing their use of tobacco products and exposure to environmental tobacco smoke.” According to Lung USA, an estimated 440,000 Americans die each year from diseases caused by smoking. It is tragic when people die of lung cancer and had never smoked a cigarette.
Madison’s new smoking ban was not designed to make life hell. It was designed to prevent dying of a lung disease, one of most tragic ways to go. The person spends his remaining time with his newfound best friend, an oxygen machine, struggling to speak or move until he eventually suffocates. It is difficult to imagine a person would aspire to this fate, yet many do for the pure enjoyment of a couple of minutes of nicotine high.
For many, going into bars in Madison is a much more enjoyable experience due to the lack of cigarette smoke. It is it easier to quit when those trying to kick the habit are not surrounded by a haze of smoke and are forced to retreat outdoors to enjoy a light. The convenience of stepping outside will decrease as Madison weather changes, as it always does, to bitter cold. Smokers will be forced to make a decision: go outside and battle the cold or suck it up and smoke less, thereby improving their health.
Cigar and hookah bars are exceptions. The people entering these facilities are aware of the dangerous effects of secondhand smoke and attend such places with intentions to smoke. Obviously, their businesses would suffer from the smoking ban, and they should be granted special status.
It is impossible to rid the world of all carcinogens, but starting small, one city at a time, can invoke change. Change can be positive or negative, but this change will improve all lives by reducing exposure to secondhand smoke. Why would anyone not support Madison going smoke-free?
Joelle Parks ([email protected]) is a sophomore intending to major in journalism.
