Ever Clearer Picture on Smoking : Tighter restrictions in the workplace would make americans a healthier people
The growing practice of restricting or banning smoking in the workplace has produced measurable health benefits, according to a study presented to a recent meeting of the American Heart Assn. by University of California researchers. Dr. Stanton Glantz said that the study, which he directed, found that rules against smoking on the job had encouraged 26% of smokers to quit. Those who continued to smoke tended to smoke less, with their average annual consumption falling from 341 packs of cigarettes to 296. Reduced consumption, notes Michael Eriksen, director of the federal Office on Smoking and Health, is a key first step on the road to quitting entirely. The implications of the new research are clear: If tight restrictions on workplace smoking were to become the national norm, Americans would be a healthier people. And not only those who light up. Each year, according to the Heart Assn., more than 50,000 nonsmokers die from smoking-related diseases, including heart disease and lung and other cancers. Evidence for this link between passive smoking and fatal diseases has steadily grown, and has been endorsed by the U.S. surgeon general’s office.
Now Glantz has presented the conclusions of a new study that, for the first time, examined how passive smoking directly affects hardening of the arteries to help produce heart disease. Laboratory rabbits exposed to secondhand cigarette smoke underwent a near-doubling of the fat accumulated in their arteries. Exposure to tobacco smoke--even on a minimal level--also made blood-clotting cells stickier. This raises the likelihood that clots will form in the coronary arteries, causing heart attacks. Who is at risk from exposure to secondhand smoke? An estimated 50 million nonsmokers, Glantz says, are regularly exposed. The health of about one American in five, then, is threatened simply by proximity to smokers, whether in the workplace or at home. Smoking produces an inherently unhealthy environment.
The cumulative evidence has become irrefutable. Smoking contributes directly to hundreds of thousands of premature deaths each year and indirectly to tens of thousands more. A U.S. Environmental Protection Agency staff report recommends listing secondhand smoke as a Class A carcinogen, along with asbestos, benzene and deliberately inhaled smoke.
What’s the best response to what the Heart Assn. calls this “environmental toxin?” Smoking in public places is now banned in 46 states, including California, while 17 restrict it in the workplace. Workplace controls should be made universal; state legislatures, including California’s, have the power to institute such restrictions. Tobacco smoke is an indiscriminate killer. The legal response to it should be commensurate with the deadly threat it presents.
