Second-Hand Smoke

Good reasons to tighten restrictions on smoking to protect nonsmokers have been marshaled in the annual smoking report of Surgeon General C. Everett Koop.

For the first time since smoking was made an issue by a surgeon general in 1964, the new report focuses on the effect of passive smoke on non-smokers. The findings, which are supported by extensive scientific research, are appalling. The National Academy of Sciences estimates that 2,400 new cases of lung cancer each year among nonsmokers can be attributed to environmental smoke--a greater number than all the new cancer cases that can be attributed to other dangerous pollutants in the general environment, Koop reported.

The report also confirmed an earlier finding of the National Academy of Sciences that there is an elevated risk of respiratory infections among children living in a home where tobacco smoke is present.

“It is now clear that disease risk due to inhalation of tobacco smoke is not solely limited to the individual who is smoking, but can also extend to those individuals who inhale tobacco smoke in room air,” Koop said. “Involuntary smoking can cause lung cancer in nonsmokers.”

Worse, the research has found that many carcinogens and toxins are present in greater quantities in so-called “sidestream” smoke from a burning cigarette than in the “mainstream” smoke that is actually inhaled by the smoker.

The report confirms the wisdom of regulations already in effect to protect nonsmokers, but also demonstrates the inadequacy of many existing protections.

“I’d like bans wherever bans are possible,” Koop said, and he is right.

There are three obvious areas for priority attention. All smoking should be prohibited from:

--Enclosed public places, including malls, lobbies, corridors, shops, terminals, bars and restaurants, unless the separation of smokers assures a completely smoke-free area for nonsmokers.

--Work places where it is not possible in any other way to assure a smoke-free environment for nonsmokers.

--Commercial airplanes and buses, because it has already been demonstrated that mere segregation of smoking passengers does not adequately protect nonsmokers.

Notwithstanding the fact that 11 of 13 recent studies of the dangers of tobacco smoke showed the risk also to be shared by nonsmokers, the Tobacco Institute dismissed the surgeon general’s findings as lacking a scientific basis. That sort of posturing is persuading fewer and fewer Americans, who appear more impressed by the statistics: 300,000 smoking-related deaths each year, 15% of the total deaths in the nation.