Idaho’s Failing Grade
by Senator Brent Hill
We’re not used to failure in Idaho. We are a state endowed with rich resources and talented, industrious citizens. But when it comes to preventing health risks from second-hand tobacco smoke, Idaho scores a solid “F,” according to the American Lung Association. Why would the people of a state so concerned about a healthy lifestyle, continue to inhale the third leading cause of preventable death in the country—secondhand smoke?
Our 27-year-old son, Ritchie, has lung cancer. This young father of three has never smoked, nor am I claiming that secondhand smoke is the cause of his terrible disease, but this family tragedy has spurred me to do a lot of research regarding the fatal and non-fatal health effects of secondhand smoke.
Exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke does not only affect lung cancer patients. It irritates and endangers thousands of Idahoans who suffer from a myriad of respiratory and heart problems. Chemicals in secondhand smoke include irritants and systemic toxicants, mutagens and carcinogens, and reproductive and developmental toxicants. Over 4,000 chemical compounds have been identified in tobacco smoke including formaldehyde, cyanide, carbon monoxide, ammonia, benzene, and nicotine. Secondhand smoke kills an estimated 3,000 Americans and causes up to 300,000 children to suffer from lower respiratory tract infections each year. For every eight smokers the tobacco industry kills, it takes one nonsmoker with them.
Yet, year after year, Idaho lawmakers refuse to ban smoking in restaurants,
private work places, and childcare facilities. You can imagine from how many
restaurants Ritchie and 
his wife are excluded
because of the deadly effects of secondhand smoke on a cancer patient undergoing
chemo therapy. The Americans with Disabilities Act requires businesses to
spend millions of dollars to make their establishments accessible to handicapped
persons. These requirements may be expensive and overly burdensome, but Congress
has determined that handicapped people are entitled to access to public places.
Yet we deny access to many more people with respiratory ailments by not requiring
the investment in a “No Smoking” sign.
Idaho statutes permit smoking in “designated smoking areas” in all public places, including restaurants, grocery stores, and other retail establishments. Cafes and restaurants with fewer than 30 seats have no smoking restrictions at all. The U.S. Surgeon General confirms that the simple separation of smokers and nonsmokers within the same air space does not eliminate this major public health problem. In addition, separate sections provide no protection for restaurant employees who are forced to work in the smoking section.
I have always been a defender of individual rights. What
a smoker does to himself is his business, but what he does to the nonsmoker
is quite a different matter. Some have suggested that businesses should decide
for themselves whether or not to prohibit smoking, but how many business establishments
would have voluntarily provided full access to disabled citizens had we not
enforced the Americans with Disabilities Act? It is time to defend Americans
with asthma, chronic bronchitis, heart disease, inner ear infection, respiratory
infections, and allergies.
I will sponsor legislation in the upcoming session to prohibit smoking in all indoor places of employment, restaurants, retail stores, childcare facilities, schools, and other public places, as well as within 20 feet of entrances to public areas where smoking is prohibited. But I am only a representative of the people. It is up to you to take action if you want to be protected from the serious health hazards of involuntary smoking.
The Director General of the World Health Organization puts it in perspective: “If we do not act decisively today, a hundred years from now our grandchildren and their children will look back and seriously question how people claiming to be committed to public health and social justice will allow the tobacco epidemic to unfold unchecked.”