Tobacco-Free Marion County

GRASSROOTS NEWSLETTER

March-April 2006Volume 4 Number 5

Hola, Smoke Free Amigos and Amigas!

March began with the disturbing news of the lung cancer death of Dana Reeve at age 44, renewing attention to the plight of nonsmoker’s exposure to secondhand smoke in public. Ms Reeve, a night club singer who spent much time entertaining in smoking venues, did not smoke. "10 to 15 % of people who develop lung cancer are thought to be non-smokers,” said Dr James Mulshine from Rush University Medical Centre in Chicago. “In the US more women die of lung cancer than breast cancer.” 85% of non-smokers diagnosed with lung cancer are women. One out of five women with lung cancer never smoked, compared with one out of 10 men with lung cancer.

In general, fewer women than men smoke, but that doesn't fully explain why lung cancer patients who never smoked are overwhelmingly female. Consultant to Tobacco-Free Marion County, UAMS professor Dr. James Wise notes, “Studies of mice suggest that estrogen receptors play a role in lung cancer risks as well as genetic predispositions. This further emphasizes that along with greater research, greater protections from risk factors like secondhand smoke are in order.”

Joan Schiller, a lung cancer doctor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, frustrated with the lack of attention to women with lung cancer, founded Women Against Lung Cancer four years ago. Schiller notes that women represent about 40% of lung cancer patients, "and nobody talks about it or wants to talk about it."

Lung cancer is the world's top cancer killer and the most common cancer worldwide, with more than 1 million new cases every year and just as many deaths from it. The Arkansas Cancer Coalition reports that in Marion County 28 women died from lung cancer between 1998 and 2002.

March is Women’s History Month and unfortunately that history in this country is intertwined with tobacco.

The first European settlements in America owed their economic survival to learning how to grow tobacco from the not always friendly Natives. In 1614 the tobacco grower John Rolfe married a young Native woman named Pocahontas securing 8 years of peace for Virginia agriculture. 1614 also marks the year the first shipment of Virginia tobacco was sold in London. By 1619 Jamestown had exported 10 tons of tobacco to Europe. Settlers made significant marketing decisions that year procuring 20 Blacks from Africa and 90 women from England. The Africans were paid for in food; each woman cost 120 pounds of tobacco.

For the next two centuries women’s use of tobacco was typically unacceptable socially. The advent of ready made cigarettes and the industrial revolution began to change that. But it was the 1928 “Reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet” campaign of Edward Bernays for the American Tobacco Company that put women in the role of consumer. Bernays’ public relation efforts extended to calling for a ‘Torches of Freedom’ walk on Easter Sunday 1929 where women were encouraged to demonstrate their emancipation by smoking in public. The marketing potential of women for tobacco was realized.

Though women’s smoking increased over the next decades not all campaigns were effective. Phillip Morris’s Marlboro cigarette was initially introduced as a sophisticated women’s product that was “Mild as May”. It was not until 1947 that Marlboro was successfully marketed as a man’s cigarette.

Decades of advertisement led to 1965 data showing nearly 34% of women smoked. In 1968 Virginia Slims were marketed with the slogan, “You’ve come a long way, Baby.” By 1986 women had come so far as to have lung cancer overcome breast cancer as the leading killer of women.

Flight stewardess Patty Young began fighting for the right to work in a tobacco-free environment in 1966. Those first successes have led to protection from secondhand smoke for 39% of all workers in the U.S. according Americans for Nonsmoker’s Rights. Unfortunately the tobacco industry has been successful in delaying protection for hospitality workers in many bars, restaurants, and casinos.

In 2002 smoke free activist Heather Crowe, a career waitress, was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer. She has never smoked. Over the last few years, her advocacy has extended to community groups, politicians, and bar and restaurant owners for smoke free air. Ms. Crowe has admonished as her cancer spread, “I want to be the last worker to die from secondhand smoke.”

April promises to be exciting for clean indoor air advocates as well. We always look forward to Kick Butts Day, the national event sponsored by the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids. This year County Judge Charles Trammel has officially proclaimed April 5^th Kick Butts Day for Marion County, recognizing the efforts our community’s youth who stand up and speak out against tobacco.

April 5^th is coincidentally the second anniversary of the publication in the British Journal of Medicine of the landmark Helena, Montana study documenting a 42% drop in heart attacks during the 6 months while a smoke free workplace ordinance was in effect. Criticized for being too small a survey sample, the results were supported in 2005 by a similar study in Pueblo, Colorado where after 18 months of workplace and public space protection from secondhand smoke, heart attacks had been reduced by 27%.

And by now we all know that Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee has proposed smoke free legislation for the special session of the General Assembly. "There's no health benefit whatsoever to second-hand tobacco smoke, and there is irrefutable evidence that second-hand smoke is in fact a toxic harmful substance," says Huckabee. The Governor had previously explained his lack of support for past clean air legislation in various ways. Most recently he stated he wanted legislation that protects all workers from SHS. Ironically, this bill though strong, does not. Exemptions to the bill include private residences, employers of fewer than 3 employees, and restaurants and bars that prohibit those under the age of 21. Members of the health community involved in the draft, though not ecstatic, say it will protect workers in 98% of workplaces in Arkansas.

Clean indoor air still has an uphill battle in a General Assembly faced with court ordered education issues.

Please remember that TFMC cannot lobby. You as individual citizens, however, are encouraged to pursue whatever issues you feel strongly about.