3,000. That's a lot! Per year! Until you start to realize that there are almost 300,000,000 people in the U.S. and that most of them do not live in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Of the 3,000 who die each year from ETS exposure, how many live in Minneapolis? Maybe a handful.
The EPA goes on to estimate that tobacco smoking is responsible for 434,000 deaths a year. Of course, no one is seriously considering making tobacco smoking illegal. Most of us consider it a choice that we have to allow rational adults to make on their own. No one seriously suggests that we should ban any and all tobacco sale and use. We figure people ought to know it is not healthy (the negative health impacts of tobacco smoking have been known since the U.S. was a set of colonies, after all) and that it is smokers' own task to quit.
So we allow that people can smoke in their own homes or the homes of those who will allow it or hunched around the doorways of office buildings or at bus stops. We have no recourse for children whose health is impacted by parental smoking. I cannot sue my mother because her smoking during my infancy may have caused me to require many ear operations as a child and ongoing complications as an adult (see the EPA report where it says, "ETS exposure increases the prevalence of fluid in the middle ear, a sign of chronic middle ear disease.")-- not that I would sue my mother even if I could, but as far as I know, no child or adult child can bring such an action against a parent. We don't even have a mechanism for those concerned about child safety to bring a restraining order against smoking parents to force them to stop smoking or to smoke out of doors.
Of the 437,000 deaths that tobacco is deemed responsible for each year, 434,000 are the deaths of smokers themselves. 99.3% of all tobacco-related deaths are essentially people's own decision to take years off their lives.
The jury is certainly out on the question of whether casual, occasional exposure to second-hand, such as the exposure gained by going to bars, clubs, restaurants, and cafes where smoking is allowed, is really all that dangerous. The link between lifestyle choices and exposure to ETS confounds a lot of the causality that one would normally like to demonstrate before using such studies to actually enforce a public policy.
Let's be clear. What a smoking ban does is tell consenting adults what they may or may not do on private property. Though restaurants, cafes, and bars may be open to the public, they do not belong to the public and the public is not being forced to enter these establishments. Workers who choose to work in such environments are making a conscious decision as well. They don't have a right to certain jobs and every job has dangers. We expect that business owners will attempt to mitigate safety risks, but every job is going to have risks. My own job is incredibly sedentary and that is clearly not healthy for me. Do I have a right to sue my employer for damages? Do we have a societal expectation that my employer will provide me with an in office treadmill or some sort of employee health club? Of course not. Similarly, people who work in places with smoking ought to know that's what they're getting into. I'm guessing such jobs are appealing to smokers themselves, since they will probably be more likely to be able to smoke at work.
Smoking bans are an attempt to regulate consensual behavior on the part of adults. Saying that a smoking ban would protect children is disingenuous in the absence of more serious sanctions for parents who smoke at home around children. If we're going to be mitigating the danger to children, let's focus on where it may actually make a difference. Personally I think a smoking ban is as un-American an idea as could possibly be proposed. I am proud to be a citizen of Minneapolis on most days, but a smoking ban would just convince me that government, at the city, state, and federal levels, is out of control (or more out of control than it already is).
I would agree that businesses which receive public funding or TIF benefits (such as Block E or the Target Center) should be smoke-free. If my tax dollars are used to fund such a place into existence, then I damn well better be able to visit without having to inhale huge clouds of noxious fumes. But rather than worry about making those places smoke-free, I'd rather just stop the government from taking my money and giving it to developers and business owners in the first place.
Personally I think this smoking ban discussion is distracting. Let's focus on a far more serious health threat: Motor vehicles. 43,000 people a year are killed by motor vehicles. Of these a significant number (around 5,000) are pedestrians and a smaller number (around 700) are cyclists. These pedestrian and cyclist deaths are directly attributable to motor vehicles. There is no need to carry out research or prove a link. It is pretty clear when someone is run over by a motorist that it is the motor vehicle that killed them. Also, a significant number of those killed in motor vehicle crashes are children. In fact, this is a leading cause of death for persons 5-19-- 20% for young children and 38% for adolescents, (http://www.mchb.hrsa.gov/chusa02/main_pages/page_06.htm).
Forget the smoking ban, I have a better idea: A motor vehicle ban. Motor vehicles are fine when operated on private land, at private clubs, or other places like that. But they have no place on public roadways. Just look at the number of deaths each year directly attributable to motor vehicles. Deaths that affect people who made absolutely no decision to be motorists themselves. And you want to worry about a smoking ban? Give me a break!
Don't even get me started on how motor vehicles lead to more sedentary lifestyles, spew their own toxic fumes into the air, and cause a host of secondary health problems in addition to their more immediate deadly effect in traffic "accidents" (90% of which the National Safety Council concludes are the direct result of operator behavior, http://www.nsc.org/news/nr021204.htm). I'll just stick to the obvious, direct facts of the matter. Motor vehicles are deadly and they are all over public land.
Heck, for starters, let's just ban on-street parking. It's your car, you figure out where to stow it when you're not terrorizing the population with it. Why should public money be used to provide motorists with free parking?
Now, step back and listen to what you're thinking as you read my serious suggestions about banning motor vehicles.
You probably think I sound like a lunatic, right? You're thinking "well that's never going to happen" or "how can he say that, we need cars" or "what a nut". Am I close? Sure I am. Unless maybe you're Gary Hoover, that is. ;)
My real point is, you're not even considering the things that truly present a danger to each and every one of us as we go out to exercise our Constitutional right to move about on roadways and public spaces built and maintained with taxpayer money. But when it comes to telling a bunch of people in privately owned and operated establishments what they may do, you have no qualms suggesting that the government ought to be able to step in and tell everyone how to live.
-Michael Libby, Cleveland neighborhood
p.s. for anyone who thinks I am *for* smoking in bars, restaurants, cafes, etc, please note that I was a driving force behind getting the one restaurant I ever had any control of, the New Riverside Cafe, to go smoke-free, not long after I started working there. If I ever have a choice between a smoke-filled establishment and a non-smoking environment, I will choose smoke-free every time.
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