[Kazan]

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/06/27/health/main1754572.shtml

(CBS/AP) Breathing any amount of someone else's tobacco smoke harms nonsmokers, the surgeon general declared Tuesday — a strong condemnation of secondhand smoke that is sure to fuel nationwide efforts to ban smoking in public.

"The debate is over. The science is clear: Secondhand smoke is not a mere annoyance, but a serious health hazard," said U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona.

More than 126 million nonsmoking Americans are regularly exposed to smokers' fumes — what Carmona termed "involuntary smoking" — and tens of thousands die each year as a result, concludes the 670-page study. It cites "overwhelming scientific evidence" that secondhand smoke causes heart disease, lung cancer and a list of other illnesses.

The report calls for completely smoke-free buildings and public places, saying that separate smoking sections and ventilation systems don't fully protect nonsmokers. Seventeen states and more than 400 towns, cities and counties have passed strong no-smoking laws.

But public smoking bans don't reach inside private homes, where just over one in five children breathes their parents' smoke — and youngsters' still developing bodies are especially vulnerable. Secondhand smoke puts children at risk of sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS, as well as bronchitis, pneumonia, worsening asthma attacks, poor lung growth and ear infections, the report found.

Carmona implored parents who can't kick the habit to smoke outdoors, never in a house or car with a child. Opening a window to let the smoke out won't protect them.

"Stay away from smokers," he urged everyone else.

Even a few minutes around drifting smoke is enough to spark an asthma attack, make blood more prone to clot, damage heart arteries and begin the kind of cell damage that over time can lead to cancer, he said.

Repeatedly questioned about how the Bush administration would implement his findings, Carmona would only pledge to publicize the report in hopes of encouraging anti-smoking advocacy. Passing anti-smoking laws is up to Congress and state and local governments, he said.

"My job is to make sure we keep a light on this thing," he said.

Still, public health advocates said the report should accelerate an already growing movement toward more smoke-free workplaces.

"This could be the most influential surgeon general's report in 15 years," said Matthew Myers of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. "The message to governments is: The only way to protect your citizens is comprehensive smoke-free laws."

[Kazan]

i forgot page two

The report won't surprise doctors. It isn't a new study but a compilation of the best research on secondhand smoke done since the last surgeon general's report on the topic in 1986, which declared secondhand smoke a cause of lung cancer that kills 3,000 nonsmokers a year.

Since then, scientists have proved that even more illnesses are triggered or worsened by secondhand smoke. Topping that list: More than 35,000 nonsmokers a year die from heart disease caused by secondhand smoke.

Regular exposure to someone else's smoke increases the risk of a nonsmoker getting heart disease or lung cancer by up to 30 percent, Carmona found.

Some tobacco companies acknowledge the risks. But R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., which has fought some of the smoking bans, challenges the new report's call for complete smoke-free zones and insists the danger is overblown.

"Bottom line, we believe adults should be able to patronize establishments that permit smoking if they choose to do so," said RJR spokesman David Howard.

And a key argument of some business owners' legal challenges to smoking bans is that smoking customers will go elsewhere, cutting their profits.

But the surgeon general's report concludes that's not true. It cites a list of studies that found no negative economic impact from city and state smoking bans — including evidence that New York City restaurants and bars increased business by almost 9 percent after going smoke-free.

To help make the point, Carmona's office videotaped mayors of smoke-free cities and executives of smoke-free companies, including the founder of the Applebee's restaurant chain, saying business got better when the haze cleared.

In addition to the scientific report, Carmona issued advice for consumers and employers Tuesday:

Choose smoke-free restaurants and other businesses, and thank them for going smoke-free.

Don't let anyone smoke near your child. Don't take your child to restaurants or other indoor places that allow smoking.

Smokers should never smoke around a sick relative.

Employers should make all indoor workspace smoke-free and not allow smoking near entrances, to protect the health of both customers and workers, and offer programs to help employees kick the habit.

Among other findings:

# Separating smokers from nonsmokers, cleaning the air and ventilation systems do not eliminate exposure to secondhand smoke.

# There is good evidence that comprehensive smoking bans, like those in New York City and Boston, do not economically hurt the hospitality industry.

# Workplace smoking restrictions not only reduce secondhand smoke but discourage active smoking by employees.

# Secondhand smoke can act on the arteries so quickly that even a brief pass through someone else's smoke can endanger people at high risk of heart disease. Do not ever smoke around a sick relative, Carmona advised

# Living with a smoker increases a nonsmoker's risk of lung cancer and heart disease by up to 30 percent.

# There is not proof that secondhand smoke causes breast cancer, although the evidence is suggestive. California earlier this year cited that link in becoming the first state to declare secondhand smoke a toxic air pollutant.

# On the plus side, blood measurements of a nicotine byproduct show that exposure to secondhand smoke has decreased. Levels dropped by 75 percent in adults and 68 percent in children between the early 1990s and 2002. However, not only has children's exposure declined less rapidly, but levels of that byproduct among children are more than twice as high as in nonsmoking adults.

[aldo_14]

Wait, don't we already know this thanks to the effects of the Irish ban?

[Mefustae]

I'll still nevere understand why the hell governments don't do much about smoking other than banning "certain area" which a lot of people tend to ignore anyway [at least, in Australia they do]. Honestly, you've got a product literally killing thousands upon thousands of people each year, and it's still on the f***ing shelves! Any other product kills 100 people, it's pulled so fast it'd make your head spin, but is the money really that important that Governments simply turn a bline eye?!

[Kazan]

not only is it killing people, but it's killing people who never willingly used it

[Bobboau]

the government doesn't do anything about it because a huge number of people like to smoke, inspite of the fact that it's killing them.

[Mars]

Translation: Cause it makes money

[Mefustae]

Does the new revalation about second-hand smoke mean that smokers are in fact guilty of manslaughter? I mean, replace the ciggarette with a gun and you get the same results, but a very different social reaction. Why is that?

[Bobboau]

our driveing cars are probly causeing global warming, wich has a decent chance of wipeing out civilisation, yet no one has a problem when you drive to work in the morning. why is that?

[Mars]

Because everyone knows that they, themselves won't have to live with it.

[Bobboau]

hmmm... I guess that does answer both...

[Shadow0000]

our driveing cars are probly causeing global warming, wich has a decent chance of wipeing out civilisation, yet no one has a problem when you drive to work in the morning. why is that?

Because cars don't contain radioisotopes ?

[NGTM-1R]

Translation: Cause it makes money

Actually, there's a different reason. You might recall a period called Prohibition in the US; would you care to see it happen again? It was ugly, crime skyrocketed, and it didn't work. The same would apply to any instant ban on cigarettes.

[karajorma]

Yep. Smoking is far too widespread to get away with banning it without having to create a new "War on Drugs" to get rid of it.

Considering that the government can't win the current War on Drugs it seems pretty stupid to start another one.

[Mefustae]

Considering that the government can't win the current War on Drugs it seems pretty stupid to start another one.

Since when has stupidity prevented the US Gov from doing anything?

[Grug]

Governments do make a ****load of cash out of tabacco though. They tax it like anything else and it brings in millions and billions each year.

[Flipside]

Also, I find myself wondering as to the motivations behind the surgeon general office.

[Ferret]

Come on America, the entiretly of the UK has/is next year bringing in a public smoknig ban. Hurry and catch up!

[aldo_14]

I'll still nevere understand why the hell governments don't do much about smoking other than banning "certain area" which a lot of people tend to ignore anyway [at least, in Australia they do]. Honestly, you've got a product literally killing thousands upon thousands of people each year, and it's still on the f***ing shelves! Any other product kills 100 people, it's pulled so fast it'd make your head spin, but is the money really that important that Governments simply turn a bline eye?!

Because it's very easy to heavily tax 'vices'.

our driveing cars are probly causeing global warming, wich has a decent chance of wipeing out civilisation, yet no one has a problem when you drive to work in the morning. why is that?

Because people need mobility in modern society.  Pollution and risks of traffic accidents are a secondary purpose of cars; it's not like smoking, whose sole purpose is to deposit lumps of carcinogens and an addictive chemical into your lungs.  Society can live without smoking; but it can't survive as-is without cars.

I'd love to be able to catch the train or bus in the morning, to be honest, even though I only live 10 mins or so away from the office.  I'd be able to play the Nintendo on the way, for one thing, and stare at any attractive women in adjacent seats.

(what?)

[IceFire]

Smoking is here to stay for a while yet.  The big difference for me, as a non-smoker, has been the outright ban of smoking in indoor public places.  I can walk into a bar and not kill my lungs.  Its been fortunate as at the local level this has been in place for almost as long as I've been going to bars.  Smokey bars made me want to leave so quickly...I couldn't breath, my eyes were watering, it was brutal.  Thankfully now I can go into them and the ban has been extended province wide.

Lots of bar owners kicked up a big fuss about lost clientell but found out that they gained new clientel instead.  The smokers go outside and come back in anyways.

As for the car analogy...I don't think it works entirely.  Cars are meant to be people movers.  Cigarettes are meant to be a drug that you smoke into your lungs as purely a "recreational" activity.  They don't move you around the world or surve any other purpose.  Cars don't have to be contributing to global warming either.  I'm please to read that efforts are firmly afoot to test all varieties of options ranging from diesels running on bio fuel to ethanol/gasoline hybrids.  Its good to finally see some progress.  Hydrogen I think will be the end game but we'll see...there's a range of alternatives and its finally recognized we need to use them.