Smoking bans: Healthy for non-smokers too.

An expert panel convened earlier this year by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Institute of Medicine in the US examined the effect of second hand smoke on health, as well as the reduction in risk associated with smoking bans. Their recently published findings underline the necessity of smoking bans not only to save smokers from their own bad habits, but to save the rest of us as well. In fact, 43% of non-smoking children and 37% of non-smoking adults in the US are exposed to someone else's tobacco smoke.

The recent review of evidence found a 25-30% increased risk of coronary heart disease among non-smokers regularly exposed to second hand smoke. They also found that the exposure increases the risk of heart attacks by anywhere from 24% in non-smokers exposed  1-7 hours of exposure a week, to 62% for those exposed 22 hours a week or more.  The International Agency for Research on Cancer classifies second hand smoke as carcinogenic in humans, and other evidence suggests a 24% increased risk of lung cancer among chronically exposed non-smokers. That's not surprising considering that the noxious brew contains over 4,000 chemicals including 40 known to cause cancer. While the 11 studies that met the CDC/IOM panel's inclusion criteria were not of highest quality, they were in general agreement:  Anywhere from 6 to 47% reduced risk of heart disease among non-smokers associated with smoking bans.

Second hand smoke risks are especially troubling among children, who suffer increased rates of everything from asthma to ear infections, to say nothing of dramatically increased risks for starting the habit themselves. In Britain it's estimated that 17,000 children under age 5 are admitted to hospital every year with illnesses attributable to their parent's smoking. Public smoking bans have been enacted in several countries--including England, Sweden, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Thailand, Vietnam, Bhutan, and several Canadian provinces and US states--but we need more. For example, at what point does a parent's willingness to unnecessarily expose their child to known toxins become abuse? In the state of New Hampshire a commendable law was recently drafted that sought to outlaw smoking in private cars when children were also riding in them. Unfortunately in that case, the freedom of parents to make poor health decisions trumped the rights of children to good health, and the law never passed. Perhaps that state should consider changing its current motto of "Live Free or Die" to "Live Free and Die," or even more fittingly "Living Free While My Children Die."