Worcester Telegram & Gazette

July 14, 2003   Worcester, MA---  As a physician with an interest in public health, I have followed the debate on a proposed workplace smoking ban with great interest.  I believe that a rational discussion of this issue should answer three basic questions:

1) Does secondhand smoke pose a serious health risk to nonsmokers?
2) Does a municipality have a duty to protect the health of a community?
3) Does a smoker have an unabridged right to smoke in all environments?

There appears to be a consensus among the scientific community and the general public that secondhand smoke poses a serious health risk. In its Ninth Report on Carcinogens, the Public Health Service's National Toxicology Program identified secondhand smoke as a known human carcinogen (U.S. DHHS, 2000). The 1986 Surgeon General Report concluded that secondhand smoke causes lung cancer (U.S. DHHS, 1986), and even R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. found that secondhand smoke harms lung function (JAMA 281: 1083, 1979).

Statewide surveys have consistently shown that people believe secondhand smoke is harmful. In a recent survey of more than 1,000 registered voters in Worcester, 87 percent of survey respondents said they believe secondhand smoke causes health problems and 75 percent of survey respondents said that smoking should be banned in all workplaces in the City of Worcester. (Spectrum Health Systems Survey: 2003)

Historically, municipalities have played an important role in protecting the community from serious health hazards. Would opponents of a workplace smoking ban support the elimination of a sanitary code requiring adequate cooking and refrigeration of meats to ensure the destruction pathogens? I think not. Why then should the public and workers not be protected from the carcinogenic substances in secondhand smoke?

In our society, adults have a clearly defined legal right to smoke. However, where a smoker exhales is already restricted. I doubt most people would be in favor of turning back the clock to another era when smoking was allowed in schools, hospitals and airplanes.

The current smoking ordinance in Worcester bans smoking in restaurants without bars, but not in restaurants with bars; in retail stores, but not in many other work sites. Adoption of a new smoking ordinance would offer equal protection to all workplaces in the city of Worcester.

The genie of secondhand smoke cannot be put back into the bottle. It is time for a breath of fresh air. It is time for the City Council to enact a new ordinance that makes all workplaces in the City of Worcester smokefree.

George Abraham, M.D.
President of the Worcester District Medical Society and director of Ambulatory Care and Preventive Medicine, St. Vincent Hospital at Worcester Medical Center