Tobacco-Free Marion County

GRASSROOTS NEWSLETTER

May- June 2005Volume 3  Number 6

 

 

Greetings Fellow Travelers!

It’s been a busy few weeks since the last newsletter.  As the legislative session came to a close, the 85th General Assembly debated an unprecedented number of smoke free bills. Attorney General Beebe’s bill circumventing tobacco industry litigation threatening Arkansas’ MSA funds passed by an 86 to 9 margin. All hospital campuses in Arkansas are now smoke free.  For the first time in history a smoke free restaurant bill made it out of committee, failing in the full House by only 8 votes.  Legislation for smoke free County and State properties made good showings but not good enough. The fire safe cigarette bill smoldered and died as well.  We can be glad that funding for the Tobacco Education and Prevention Programs passed over efforts to take these tobacco monies away for community health centers for treatment rather than prevention.

The unhealthy influence of the tobacco lobby was made most evident after the Legislature recessed when the Arkansas Tobacco Control Board voted to forgive tobacco retailers for the first two illegal sales to minors during a 24 month period, if retailers agree to employee training.  This effectively removes the onus of illegal sales from the retailer, despite how obviously ineffectual the training program, and demonstrates a bias towards the profit of license holders over the health of our children and community.  “What we’re trying to do is protect the good retailer who’s working hard trying to educate his employees, and they still sell occasionally," said lobbyist Ann Hines, Executive Vice President of the Arkansas Oil Marketers Association.  Tobacco money thinks a few illegal tobacco sales are ok.  Whose children do you think they have in mind?

Clearly, our legislature needs much education as to the dangers of secondhand smoke, the rights of all of us to breathe, and the depths to which the pro-tobacco lobby will stoop.  Keep in mind the Federal Trade Commission estimates that big tobacco outspends the monitoring of illegal tobacco sales to minors 200 to 1.  9 out of 10 nicotine addicts still begin before the age of 18.

Not all of the tobacco prevention news is gloomy.  Pine Bluff became the third city in the state to legislate smoke free workplaces when the City Council’s 4-4 tie was broken by Mayor Carl Redus’ courageous vote for smoke free air. “We’re thrilled by Monday night’s action,” Katherine Donald, Executive Director of the Coalition for a Tobacco Free Arkansas said.  Similar legislation is under consideration in Baxter County, Jonesboro, Blytheville, El Dorado and Little Rock. “We’re hoping that these communities and others will look at Pine Bluff and say, “If they can do it, we can too; it’s good for public health, and it’s good for business,” she added. We all should appreciate decision makers for challenging tobacco and recognizing smoke free air as a public health issue.

It seems important to critique some of the compromises made by smoke free proponents in both Fayetteville and Pine Bluff.  We need to keep in mind that smoke free air is in great part a worker’s rights issue.  In Fayetteville individuals working in free standing bars are not protected.  In Pine Bluff smoking is allowed in bars whose food sales are less than 30%.  These workers are not protected. How many of us work in supposedly smoke free worksites where smoking is only allowed in a break room?  What leap of the imagination justifies requiring nonsmokers to go outside for a safe break!?   
             

Thankfully the courts are increasingly considering businesses liable to employees and the public alike under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 regarding clean indoor air.  For persons suffering breathing impairments brought on by asthma or severe angina, secondhand tobacco smoke poses as great a barrier to access as stairs to a person using a wheelchair.  Most of the over 400,000 Americans tobacco kills annually die from heart disease or stroke due to our bodies’ reactions to even a small amount of tobacco smoke.  When nicotine is introduced into the blood stream it inhibits the widening (vasodilatation) of coronary arteries in response to nitric oxide produced by the endothelial cells lining the arterial wall. Additional contributions to heart disease and stroke are the adverse effects of secondhand smoke on blood lipids, inhibiting the bodies’ ability to manage cholesterol, as well as platelet activation ‘thickening’ the blood, all of which are associated with endothelial damage and plaque formation leading to atherosclerosis that, in turn, predisposes one to coronary heart disease and stroke. A recent landmark experiment in healthy young nonsmokers revealed that a mere 30 minute exposure to secondhand smoke causes changes in coronary blood flow that are indistinguishable from those of habitual smokers. 

Secondhand smoke is a public health crisis that educated persons cannot overlook.  No business or person has the right to threaten another’s right to breathe. Nor should that right be abridged as a condition of employment or patronage.

TFMC is continuing smoke free advocacy in the community by partnering with Marion County’s Healthy Arkansas Worksite Wellness group. Inspired by the Governor’s dramatic weight loss, Healthy Arkansas recognizes that poor diet, deficiencies in physical activity, and exposure to tobacco smoke are aspects of a growing pattern of risky lifestyle choices. The causes of obesity are varied and diverse while the causal relationship between tobacco smoke and disease is sound, peer reviewed science. Tobacco use continues to be the number one cause of preventable death. Secondhand smoke is the third leading cause of death and not always our choice.   

If you are interested in making your workplace smoke free, demand your rights. We can help.  If you know someone who wants to quit smoking please contact us.  We continue to have cessation classes available locally and the ADH 1-866-NOW QUIT free quit line has counselors from the Mayo Clinic ready to take your call 24/7.

 

Tobacco-Free Marion County

PO Box 188

Pyatt, AR 72672