GUEST COLUMN: Health department myths of secondhand smoke
A recent Utah Statesman article by Jascee Bennett, tobacco coordinator for the Bear River Health Department, titled “Dispelling the myths about secondhand smoke (SHS),” not only failed to present the entire “truth” about secondhand smoke, but was occasionally downright false and misleading. I would never argue that SHS is not harmful but it is important to establish how harmful it truly is with respect to other every day gases and chemicals. Because it is impossible for a society to make clear decisions without true and factual information I would like to provide some counterpoints to Jascee Bennet’s opinions.
Bennett claims that SHS “gases and particles contain more than 40 known cancer causing agents.” While it is true that studies have shown that many of the chemicals and gases in SHS may contribute to cancer, the only actual known cause of cancer is radiation. Additionally, it should be noted that many of the gases and particles found in SHS are also found in a wide range of other daily products. Most byproducts in SHS are often so miniscule they are considered by scientists to be only trace amounts that barely exist on the brink of our ability to detect them. So we need to ask, as with almost any product, at what point do the levels become truly dangerous and therefore unacceptable? Mercury, for example, is also considered very dangerous to humans, yet we find it regularly in seafood. Rather than pulling all seafood from the store shelves, we are instead advised to eat seafood in moderation. SHS on the other hand has been so successfully demonized by anti-smoking groups, regularly use false or misleading information that people have come to believe that even the smallest amounts will kill.
As an example of the double standard, even the vapors from the gasoline you put in your car have been known to cause Toxic Psychosis, which is an effect similar to those caused by mescaline, LSD and psilocybin, all powerful psychoactive drugs. Of course, this fact would hardly compel a single person to put away their car and start riding a bike. The question is, have we become a society so scared of our own shadows that we will eventually end up banning anything that has even the slightest possibility of doing us harm?
I find it strange that with the current controversy over SHS at USU nobody has considered the dangers presented by Radon, which is currently the number one cause of lung cancer in the U.S.
Bennett also makes the often quoted statement that SHS “also has twice as much nicotine and tar compared to the smoke that a smoker inhales.” This statement is purposely designed to imply that non-smokers are actually at a greater risk of illness than smokers, an idea that is plainly ridiculous. If you believe this, then you must also believe that smokers have some strange forcefield that protects them from the very SHS that they themselves are creating. It should be noted that the study claiming this was done by allowing cigarettes to burn down while capturing the smoke in a small concentrated area to keep it from replicating how smoke would naturally disperse. All the studies done on SHS levels in common public areas have never come close to those lab-produced levels.
Bennett ends her first myth by stating that SHS kills 53,000 non-smokers each year. Unfortunately, this does not mention that the two studies used to give those figures were done in 1991 and 1992, long before clean air acts and current public non-smoking measures where enacted. Not only is this another attempt to exaggerate statistics for maximum emotional effect but it also fails to mention that this statistic was discredited when it was thrown out of a case by a district court judge for using “inadequate science, failing to demonstrate a statistically significant relationship between secondhand smoke and diseases.”
The second and third myths deal with whether or not SHS outdoors is dangerous. The article states that multiple studies can be found at repace.com to confirm the fact that secondhand smoke is more dangerous than common air pollution. James L. Repace is a biophysicist that makes a living as a “Secondhand Smoke Consultant.” Rather than being an unbiased researcher, Repace compiles statistics for organizations with an anti-smoking agenda.
The American Lung Association (ALA) statistics disputes these claims. If we assume that the writer believed the discredited estimate that claims 53,000 non-smokers annually die from secondhand smoke, we should also assume she would trust the ALA report that claims 70,000 lives a year are lost because of common air pollution. One would assume that considering her position, Bennett should have known that authorities on the subject believe that more people die from air pollution than SHS.
Considering that the air quality in Cache Valley can become far worse than the national average during inversions, it seems apparent that the writer would have trouble proving that walking by someone who is smoking a cigarette outside the Hub is worse for an individual than inhaling high levels of ground-level ozone, particle pollution, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide (just to name a few) for prolonged periods.
Finally, Bennett speaks to the myth that people have a constitutional right to smoke, stating, “The privacy interest protected by the U.S. Constitution includes only marriage, contraception, family relationships and the rearing and educating of children.” This is plainly incorrect; rather than giving an example of Supreme Court opinions, she has given a listing of the types of cases that have led us to our current understanding of Constitutional privacy. Any first year political science student will tell you that our legal system is based on case law, meaning one ruling can be applied to similar cases. The Supreme Court only hears cases they feel will have the broadest effect, while leaving specific decisions to lower courts.
What we as a society do with these truths will ultimately determine how free we are as a society and will dictate whether or not we will still be allowed to drive our cars, have a Twinkie, drink a beer or use tobacco on occasion. If nothing else, we all need to be vigilant against false information, especially when it is handed out by government employees and officials. Because we are all somewhat guilty of harming others, we should always be considerate when deciding which liberties and freedoms should be banned and how far we should intrude into personal privacy.
While I can’t speak for Bennett or the Bear River Health Department, I personally would choose being in a room full of 100 smokers for an hour before going into a closed garage with a single running car for 10 minutes. How about you? Hopefully, some day common logic will trump emotion and social bias.
Richard Okelberry is from River Heights, Utah. For more information about secondhand smoking myths, visit www.lincolnsblog.com.