Greetingâs City Council, I just had to add one more thing in favor of the smoking ban in workplaces. As you know during my testimony in front of the council Monday, June 7th, I explained to you that I myself am a smoker, 39 years old and already on nitro. In in light of all my health problems related to smoking, I plan to seek help to stop. In addition to my health, my father has End-Stage Congestional Heart Failure; and on Monday June 7th, he underwent surgery to get a heart pacer implanted in his heart. My father is a non-smoker, but he was been forced to breath air of us smokers, which has worsened the quality of life for him, no not just my smoke, but the smoke of others. The pacer is just prolonging his life bit longer to spend with all his children. Currently he stays in a nursing home, St. Olaf, by his choice, Robert Moore Sr. is his name. Having said all that, to say that even though businesses may make certain adjustments to have smokers in one room, and non-smokers in another room, or even have designated areas where people smoke. It just seems like it is not working. Let me tell you what I saw today, A sign posted below clean air return vents at the back of a building, it said â all trucks when parked here, please turn of your motors, clean air return vents.â But, people stood there smoking, I sit and watched the smoke dangle and float right up to the vent. I sat and watched, and remember what those business owners said in the hearing on Monday. That people should leave and go to another place. But, I thought, how could those people in that building go to another place, if they donât know. Then I wanted to know what this building was any way, so I walked around the block, and to my horror it was a nursing home. A place where seniors are living Next I thought, this could my dadâs nursing home, or some body elseâs parent living there. As Co-Chair of PHAC, representing the 3rd Ward, I say to you, we really have to take the ball and run with it. Now is the time for Minneapolis to be Leaders. In Canada, the smoke ban has had a tremendous effect on those wishing to stop smoking. Even in Montana, smoke bans lowered the amount of heart attacks in hospital admissions, as you will see below in the articles posted. We have to wake up and we have to show the city of Minneapolis that we care about their health, and we care about them. Itâs mighty funny, that we adults act like children sometimes. I hear businesses owners say, â this is my right, or let them go some where else. I even hear service men say theyâve fought for this county and our rights, how funny, we didnât know then what we know now about the dangers of smoking. Also, how funny it is when times are changing and we as a society want to hide under the itâs my rights clause. I guess when businesses start getting sued then it will there the same rights why they canât pay. We need to be that caring society that we all say we are and we need to be bold get with the clean air act. âAbout 48 per cent of Canadians support a total ban on smoking in restaurants and bars, according to polling conducted for Health Canada. Smoking kills about 45,000 Canadians annually, and costs the economy an estimated $24-billion.â Nearly two years before the emerald isle became the first country to outlaw smoking in public places, the city of Helena in Montana passed similar legislation and saw a sharp drop in heart attacks. Opponents subsequently had the U.S. law overturned but in the six months it was enforced, hospital admissions for heart attack fell by 40 percent in the city. âThe observations ... suggests that smoke-free laws not only protect people from the long-term dangers of second-hand smoke but also that they may be associated with a rapid decrease in heart attacks,â said Professor Stanton Glantz of the University of California, San Francisco. The dramatic decrease in heart attacks in the Montana study makes sense because exposure to passive smoking can increase the risk of heart attack,â a spokesman for the anti-smoking group ASH (Action on Smoking and Health) said. âIt all basically points to the need for a ban on smoking in public places and how crucial it is to public health,â he added. In Ireland, which introduced the nationwide ban last week, around a quarter of deaths from heart disease are caused by smoking. Smokers have twice the risk of heart attack of non-smokers. In further research into the dangers of passive smoking also published online, pubic health experts in New Zealand discovered that people who have never smoked but who live with a smoker have a 15 percent higher risk of death than someone who resides in a smoke-free environment Source: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20040602/HSMOK02/TPHealth/ http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4652232/ In conclusion, the medical cost are staggering, just for my health alone is into the thousands of dollars, which includes hospitals stays. My daughter has inherited asthma from my smoking indoor, because I want to be comfortable; and when we go out to eat, not only does she have to smell and inhale my smoke, but the smoke of others. I have now made the effort of smoking outside, and sitting in non-smoking areas in restaurants, however, just because it says non-smoking area, does not mean the smoke does not travel, it does. I challenge any one of you who donât smoke go into a bar and a restaurant and see how the smoke is blowed into the air, and when the server or waitresses come to the table, just see the cloud of smoke they have to stand there in until they take the order. I have seen what my smoking does, as by watching others. It is not a pretty sight nor is it fair to those working. Something to think about: There are about 1.15 billion smokers worldwide, one-third of the planet's adult population. Globally, more than 10,000 people a day die from smoking, more than those who die from AIDS, tuberculosis, motor-vehicle collisions, murder and suicide combined.
"If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow." - Chinese Epigram Peace-Peace, Vanessa L. Freeman Hawthorne Neighborhood REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
