GenInv – Health and Wellness

The largest preventable cause of death world-wide is smoking. And even if you’re not a smoker, exposure to secondhand smoke is known to cause thousands of deaths from heart disease and lung cancer. For that reason, 32 US states have passed legislation banning smoking in some or all public places.

This has often been a hard-won battle because restaurant and bar owners have feared a decline in business if their patrons can’t light up. But is that what has actually happened?

I’ll fi

ll you in on that debate in just a minute. First let’s take a look at the effects of secondhand smoke.

Fact Sheet

The American Lung Association publishes a fact sheet about secondhand smoke, the smoke given off the burning end of tobacco and the smoke exhaled from the lungs of smokers. This smoke is involuntarily inhaled by non-smokers because it lingers in the air for hours. Here are some facts:

›› The current Surgeon General’s Report concludes that scientific evidence sho

ws no risk-free level of exposure to secondhand smoke. Even short exposure can raise the risk of heart attack.

›› The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has classified secondhand smoke as a Group A carcinogen, a known cause of cancer in humans.

›› Secondhand smoke is blamed for more than 50,000 deaths in non-smokers each year.

›› Secondhand smoke is especially dangerous for young children, causing 150,000-300,000 lower respiratory tract infections in

infants and children under 18 months of age.(1)

Secondhand smoke is no mere nuisance – is has turned out to be far more harmful than expected.

Recent Studies

Most people associate smoking and secondhand smoke with lung cancer, but cancer takes years to develop. Dr Neal Benowitz, of the University of California, says, “If you have heart disease, you really need to stay away from secondhand smoke. It’s an immediate threat to your life.”(2)

Within minutes of being exposed to smoke, blood vessels constrict and blood becomes stickier and prone to clotting. Many people don’t know they have heart disease until they suffer a heart attack, so there is no safe level of secondhand smoke.

As if that’s not bad enough, it appears that smoke interferes with how blood is transported to the brain. A study published 2/13/09 in the British Medical Journal found a much higher incidence of dementia in people over 50 who had been around high levels of secondhand smoke.(3) This is the first large scale study to associate the exposure to secondhand smoke with dementia and other neurological problems in older adults.

On the heels of that information, scientists at the University of California, Riverside, found that secondhand smoke exposure can end in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) – a major cause of liver injury in people who drink little or no alcohol. Results of this study are published in the September 2009 issue of the Journal of Hepatology.(4)

Benefits of the Ban

        That brings us back to the issue of public smoking bans – some have been in place long enough to measure the results of decreased public smoking. What has happened?

›› Helena, Montana had 16% fewer heart attack hospitalizations in the first six months after the ban went into effect. Nearby areas without a smoking ban saw heart attacks rise.(5)

›› Pueblo, Colorado recorded a 41% drop in heart attack hospitalization in the three years after workplace smoking was banned.(6)

›› Overall, cities in America, Canada and Europe that have begun smoking bans experienced a 17% reduction in heart attacks the first year. Each year after that, the decline in heart attacks has averaged 26% compared to areas that still allow public smoking. (7)

Are these dramatic health benefits bad for business?

Fans of the Ban

For the most part, the answer is “no”. And no one is more surprised than Gail Anastas, director of communications for the Massachusetts Restaurant Association. “It caused kind of a minor blip in business at first,” she says, “but then they did things to attract people back.” Harvard researchers reported in the Boston Globe on 4/4/05 that sales and employment at Massachusetts restaurants and bars grew slightly during the first six months of the ban. Tax collections on meals rose 9% while those on alcohol sales remained steady.

George Harrington, owner of a restaurant/bar in downtown Salem was very apprehen