No Butts About It

I am an ex-smoker, and as my friend Cathy says, I’m the worst kind. While I once huffed and puffed wherever I wanted, I now look askance at those who still do. While I once scoffed at anyone who didn’t appreciate my right to smoke, I now wish I could make everyone stop smoking. And while I once was right at home in smoke-filled bars and restaurants, I now find it hard to frequent establishments that still allow patrons to light up.

So you’d think I’d be a slam-dunk supporter of “Smoke-Free Arizona” – the plan to put a statewide smoking ban before voters in 2006. But I have to admit, I had my doubts the day I first read about it in the paper.

Why couldn’t everyone do what I’d already done as a non-smoker: just avoid businesses that allow smoking?

There are several restaurants in Phoenix that I’ve taken off my list because their “smoking area” is really the entire establishment. And I’ve saved myself a ton of money by avoiding casinos, which I don’t associate with “jackpot” but “smokepot.”

But should every bar and restaurant ban smoking so that I can go in if I feel like it? A recent letter to the editor in The Arizona Republic made the point.

Kevin Quihuis of Phoenix wrote: “This is supposed to be America, the land of opportunity, land of the free, land of free enterprise, and home of the brave. Why do we need to make it illegal to have an establishment that allows smoking? If one doesn’t like smoking establishments, one ought not patronize them…. Don’t pass into law my right to choose whether or not I want to own a bar in which smoking would be allowed.”

It made sense. So I discussed it with friends, none of whom smoke. Some said they’d be happy if cigarettes disappeared altogether, but one said he was cautious about anything that infringed on individual rights. One said if bars want to allow smoking, fine – you know that’s the policy and you deal with it as you want. Another said she thought the smoking/nonsmoking sections seemed to be working, so everyone was being accommodated.

And then I talked to my friend Cathy, who’s never smoked, but endured my secondhand smoke for years.

She looked at me like I was nuts to not get it. “What about Joey?” she asked, referring to her bartender brother who I happen to adore. “He hasn’t smoked a day in his life, but to keep his job, he has to endure all that smoke every single day. Think of all those workers who don’t have a choice if they’re exposed to smoke or not. If nothing else, support it for Joey.”

And that’s when I realized that we all know a Joey. And it’s time for everyone to realize what these folks are going through in order to collect their paychecks.

Three groups, each of which deserves our respect and attention, are pushing the statewide smoking ban: the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association and the American Lung Association of Arizona.

But they are not on their usual drumbeat to make smokers stop. No, this time, they are going straight to the nonsmokers. “Warning: Secondhand Smoke Kills!” blares the headline on a new brochure they have been distributing. They make three basic points in the brochure:

1. Smoke-free is good for health.

2. Smoke-free is good for business.

3. Smoke-free is good for Arizona.

“Secondhand smoke is associated with several serious health effects, including retarded fetal growth, asthma, lower respiratory infections, lung and nasal cancer, and heart disease,” the brochure warns.

Then it hits you with a startling statistic: 17 percent of lung cancers among adult nonsmokers can be attributed to high levels of secondhand smoke during childhood and adolescence.

To put it another way: Parents smoking around their kids are exposing them to the real possibility of getting lung cancer. Or: When grandma and grandpa are smoking around the grandchildren, they’re putting them at risk.

In reading that horrible reality, I was reminded of a Phoenix family that once asked me to help resolve their smoking issue. This was around the time I quit smoking, which I did in a most public way – I was doing commentary then on Channel 3, and announced I was quitting on the air, and gave weekly updates on what I was going through. To my astonishment, several people said they’d quit along with me, and suffered with me, but kept on keeping on because I would not give up.

It was in that context that a young mother e-mailed me with her painful situation. Her son was asthmatic and couldn’t tolerate secondhand smoke. But both of her parents smoked and refused to curtail their habit during the holidays. Even the suggestion of taking it outside was met with resistance. It was their home, they said, and if they wanted to smoke, they would. What made this situation all the more ridiculous is that the little boy had twice ended up in the hospital after visits to grandma’s house – and the grandparents had even visited him at the hospital. But they still refused to see the link between their cigarettes and their sick grandson.

In the end, the grandparents wouldn’t budge, and so the mother was forced to make the choice – she and her husband and son stopped going to the grandparents’ home for the holidays. I have often wondered what happened to that family, but I remember being very saddened that anyone could be as selfish as those grandparents were.

Ironically, “selfishness” is what the pro-smoking side usually throws at us whenever it tries to protect the right to smoke. (To be fair, the pro-smoking side is only fighting for the right to smoke in bars and restaurants – the validity of not smoking in public buildings, schools, churches and theaters has become one of the obvious points of our culture.)

Here’s how the argument goes: Banning smoking is bad for business, especially for those businesses being forced out of business. The only problem with that argument is that it’s not true.

“Independent, objective and peer-reviewed studies of smoke-free laws from around the country have clearly demonstrated that there is no negative impact on business,” Smoke-Free Arizona asserts. “As of August 2004, 10 states and 312 municipalities in the United States have passed laws that prohibit smoking in almost all enclosed public places and workplaces, including restaurants and bars.”

The states that now ban smoking in workplaces, bars or restaurants are California, New York, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, Florida, Vermont, Utah and Idaho.

In Arizona, several cities and counties have already passed “clean indoor air ordinances,” including Tempe, Goodyear, Guadalupe, Surprise, Pima County, Oro Valley, Tucson, Flagstaff, Gilbert, Youngtown, Mesa, Nogales, Santa Cruz County, Chandler, Coconino County, Prescott and Peoria. (You’ll notice that Phoenix, Scottsdale and Glendale aren’t on the list.)

Smoke-free Arizona reports that a recent study of Tempe’s ordinance by the city’s Convention & Visitors Bureau found that “more than 84 percent of the respondents said the ban on indoor smoking was a positive attribute.”

In California, which was the first state to pass a comprehensive smoke-free law back in 1995, they’ve found there has not been a negative effect on business, but instead, both revenues and employment at bars and restaurants have increased.

“Protecting the public from deadly exposure to secondhand smoke is critical to any attempt to fight chronic disease such as heart disease, respiratory illness and cancer,” according to Smoke-Free Arizona. The organization says its proposed initiative would “protect all children, patrons and employees from secondhand smoke by prohibiting smoking in all enclosed public places and workplaces.” In other words, it all comes back to Joey.

Whatever your “Joey” is called, here’s the reality of his or her work experience if a statewide smoking ban isn’t implemented:

• Secondhand smoke has been classified by the Environmental Protection Agency as a Group A carcinogen – a classification reserved for chemicals that have been shown to cause cancer in humans, including radon and asbestos.

• There are no safe levels of Group A toxins (just as there are no safe cigarettes).

• More than 50 chemicals in secondhand smoke have been identified as hazardous by federal agencies.

• Secondhand smoke levels in restaurants are two times higher than in offices.

• Secondhand smoke levels in bars are between four and six times higher than in offices.

• Waiters and waitresses have almost twice the risk of lung cancer, due to involuntary exposure to secondhand smoke.

• Smoke-filled rooms can have up to six times the air pollution of a busy highway.

• Each year, secondhand smoke kills about 53,000 Americans – the same number of Americans killed in the Vietnam War.

• Secondhand smoke is the third-leading cause of preventable death in the United States.

I am ashamed to think of all the times I lit up a cigarette and exposed people I love to secondhand smoke. There was a time I didn’t think I could write a story without having a cigarette. I distinctly remember making Christmas cookies with the neighborhood children and having a cigarette at the ready.

Now that I think of it, the first time I was ever chastised about secondhand smoke was from one of the children on my street, who said she’d learned it was bad in school.

I now know how bad it is, and so does the rest of the country. All that’s left to be seen is what we do about it. As for me, I’m planning on spreading the word – for Joey.

For more information, visit www.smokefreearizona.org.