While Congress dawdles over a plan to protect teen-agers from tobacco, at least the tots in San Francisco will be safe. And the squirrels. And the birds. And any other creature that happens onto playgrounds there.
The San Francisco parks commission is set this week to ban smoking in the city's 29 playgrounds and recreational centers, joining the growing trend toward bans on outdoor smoking despite any clear public health risk.
- Davis, Calif., tells smokers to butt out of building entrances, children's play areas and public gardens.
- Sharon, Mass., stubbed out cigarettes on its beaches, as did Carmel, N.Y.
- Houston's City Council is looking to ban smoking in half of the city's outdoor dining areas, among other places.
- Mesa, Ariz., however, takes the prize. It prohibits smoking in almost any outdoor area open to the public.
All this activity stems from the 1986 Surgeon General's report, and a follow-up Environmental Protection Agency report in 1989, which concluded that second-hand smoke is a health threat. Those findings fundamentally changed the way people think about smoking. No longer just a personal choice that irked nonsmokers, your smoke could be deadly to innocent bystanders.
That risk rightly prompted governments to ban smoking in confined places - airplanes, public workplaces and so on - where nonsmokers are forced to sit and breathe. Many businesses followed suit, fearing suits from employees who felt second-hand smoke had made them ill. Smokers themselves benefit from the workplace bans, with many kicking the habit once they could no longer light up at their desks.
But a reasonable push becomes an unjustified shove when no one's health other than the smoker's is affected.
Working 40-hours a week in a smoke-choked office is one thing; walking past a wisp of smoke in a public park is quite another matter. While available science shows that long-term exposure to second-hand smoke can slightly boost the chance of lung cancer and other lethal ailments, none has found that infrequent exposure to tiny amounts of cigarette smoke harms anyone. As they say in toxicology, the dose makes the poison.
In the past, Big Tobacco rightly has been attacked for abusing science to serve its corporate interests. With the rash of outdoor smoking bans, government is the party guilty of science abuse.
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