We would like to thank the Baraga County Commissioners for putting the health of their community first and supporting the Western U.P. Clean Indoor Air Regulation. During their regular monthly meeting April 10th, the commissioners voted to adopt the regulation, which will prohibit smoking in all worksites and public places in Baraga County, with the exception of restaurants, bars and tribal properties.
Over 10 years ago the Environmental Protection Agency classified secondhand smoke a Class A carcinogen. Cigarette smoke contains 4000 chemicals, more than 50 are carcinogens. Breathing secondhand smoke is a health hazard for anyone but particularly for people with respiratory diseases like asthma, young children and the elderly. Spending 30 minutes in a smoky environment raises your heart attack risk for 48 hours afterwards.
Cigarettes are a legal product if you are over 18 and smokers do have a right to smoke; however, they do not have the right to make that decision for others. The fact is that secondhand smoke causes disease and death in people who choose not to smoke. The Clean Indoor Air Regulation protects the right to breathe clean air.
On April 10th, the Baraga County Commission passed a regulation that will improve the health of their community and we appreciate that.
Sincerely,
The Copper Country Tobacco Coalition
HANCOCK — Mark Ozanich of
Tamarack City has never been a tobacco smoker, but he’s had a lot of
experience working with people who were, which is why he was attending a
lecture Wednesday on the hazards of second-hand tobacco smoke by Dr.
Richard Sargent at Portage Health.
Ozanich said when he was in the U.S. Navy in the
1990s he worked in a smoking-cessation program run by the service.
However, at that time the program he worked with didn’t focus on
second-hand smoke.
“We never had real good data,” Ozanich said. “We were
more concerned about the individual (smokers).”
Despite not having the data on the effects of
second-hand smoke, Ozanich said the Navy did prohibit smoking in it’s
office spaces at the time.
Using a Power Point presentation, Sargent explained
how he came to be involved with a research project in 2003 conducted
through St. Peter’s Community Hospital in Helena, Mont. which examined
the effects of second-hand smoke in public places, such as restaurants
and bars.
Sargent said in the spring of 2002, Helena voters
approved an ordinance prohibiting smoking in all public places in the
city.
“Sixty-two percent turned out for it, which was
phenomenal for an election,” he said.
The ordinance went into effect in June 2002 and was
repealed in December 2002 by a judge after it was challenged in court.
Sargent said the study which he and colleague, Dr.
Robert Shepard, worked on was initiated after the repeal of the
no-smoking ordinance.
After examining data from hospitals in the Helena
area, Sargent said they discovered that there was a 40 percent decline
in the number of admissions for heart attacks during the six-month
period of the smoking ban.
“I was ready to go to the press like that,” he said
snapping his fingers.
However, Sargent said Shepard convinced him they
needed more data to make a stronger case for reinstating the smoking
ban. The two researchers looked at data for hospital admissions for
heart attacks six months prior to the smoking ban (40), during the ban
(24) and six months after the ban (38).
Researching the rate of heart attacks is used for
corroborating the need for no-smoking ordinances because many chemicals
added to tobacco cause constricting of blood vessels and can cause
settled plaque to come loose and block vessels of the heart. The carbon
monoxide caused by the burning of tobacco cuts off the oxygen supply to
the heart, also.
Sargent said his study and many other studies on the
effects of second-hand smoke done since the early 1980s are very strong
evidence that second-hand smoke is a danger to those who breath it.
“You stop smoking (in public places) and heart
attacks go down,” he said. “You resume smoking smoking and they go back
up. You can’t refute that evidence.”
However, the tobacco companies have done their best
to do just that, Sargent said. Almost immediately after his study was
released, it came under attack by tobacco companies which said among
other things that country doctors didn’t know how to do proper research,
it was conducted too fast, the effect claimed was too large and there
was no proper control group.
“The tobacco companies came out right away with some
fairly prominent scientists to tell us we were wrong,” he said.
Sargent said that reaction was expected, but he knew
that tobacco company studies showing that second-hand smoke was not a
hazard were rife with inaccuracies and distortions. However, he feels
confident in his study because it’s been used by other researchers and
it was published in the British Medical Journal in 2004.
Other studies conducted over the last 25 years have
shown convincingly that second-hand tobacco smoke, which is also called
sidestream smoke in many studies, gas a detrimental affect on
non-smokers who inhale it, Sargent said. A study done in England in the
1980s using non-smoking bartenders and waitresses who worked in
establishments where smoking was allowed showed that those non-smokers
had the same nicotine levels in their bodies as smokers.
“Working eight hours where smoking is allowed is
exactly like smoking,” Sargent said.
A study done in Greece of non-smokers who work where
smoking is allowed had the same incidence of heart attack as smokers, he
said. Another U.S. study of waitresses who worked in establishments
where smoking was allowed showed over an eight-hour day, they inhaled
the equivalent of the smoke from 320 cigarettes.
All the studies on the effects of second-hand smoke
have led to the establishment of bans on smoking in public indoor spaces
in 17 states, including Montana, as well as England, Ireland and several
European countries, but Sargent said he continues to give his talks on
the subject because there are still 33 states to go, including Michigan,
where the Legislature is considering the issue.
After his presentation, Sargent said establishing
no-smoking ordinances and laws has an affect on cigarette consumption as
shown by a study conducted by the Philip Morris tobacco company which
showed that in communities where those bans are in effect, cigarette use
drops by three to five cigarettes per day per smoker.
Ozanich said he was glad he attended Sargent’s
presentation and that he learned a lot.
“This is exciting,” he said. “You can tell how
effective (these studies are). It’s having a dramatic effect in the
country.”
Health officials tout quitting’s benefits
--Dan Schneider/Daily Mining Gazette
Kiva Auten, 16 of Houghton, volunteered to appear on the billboard above, which was displayed in Chassell and Lake Linden.
Keweenaw Community Foundation funding enables coalition to coordinate a media campaign which included billboard, newspaper and radio spots--designed to educate the public about the dangers of secondhand smoke.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Barbara Auten
Date: Wednesday, June 28, 2006
(906) 482-7382
Local Health Advocates Support New Surgeon General’s Report on
Effects of Secondhand Smoke
A new Surgeon General’s Report, The Health Consequences of Involuntary Exposure to Tobacco Smoke, raises new concerns about the dangers of exposure to tobacco smoke. Gail Ploe, Western U.P. District Health Department Prevention Specialist and Chairperson of the Copper Country Tobacco-Free Coalition said, “This report leaves absolutely no doubt that secondhand smoke is a serious health hazard and reminds us why it’s so important to educate and protect people from the dangers associated with it.”
The Surgeon General’s report, released Tuesday in Washington D.C., shows that there is no longer any scientific debate that secondhand smoke causes serious diseases, including lung cancer, heart disease and respiratory illnesses such as bronchitis and asthma; and, the only way to protect public health is to completely eliminate exposure. This is the most comprehensive scientific report ever produced on the health risks associated with secondhand smoke and makes it clear that other approaches, such as smoking and non-smoking sections, and ventilation systems do not prevent exposure.
“We’ve known for years that breathing secondhand smoke is a health hazard for infants, children and anyone with respiratory problems but the new report stresses that secondhand smoke harms even healthy non-smokers by significantly increasing their risk of heart disease and lung cancer,” said Barbara Auten, Director of Public Health at the Western U.P. District Health Department.
Each year in Michigan, 2500 residents die because of exposure to secondhand smoke. Here in the Western U.P. The Copper Country Tobacco Free Coalition, a group of private citizens and professionals concerned about the impact of tobacco use provides prevention programs, and promotes cessation. One of the goals of the coalition is to increase the number of smoke-free environments in our community.
Janet Schwandt, of Houghton said “I’ve got asthma and have experienced first hand how exposure to secondhand smoke makes me sick. I’ve tried to cover my nose and mouth and walk quickly through the smoky bar to get to the dining section of a restaurant but that never prevents me from wheezing or worse, a full-blown asthma attack. I know secondhand smoke makes me sick, now I know that I’m at greater risk of heart disease too.”
“Cigarette smoke contains 4000 chemicals, 50 of those are known to cause cancer in humans. If you can smell smoke, you’re inhaling the same toxins the smoker is so it’s easy to see the connection between secondhand smoke and disease and death,” Ploe said. According to the Surgeon General’s report, eliminating smoking indoors is the only effective way to reduce exposure.
Because of the overwhelming evidence that smoke-free laws protect public health without harming business, there is growing momentum across the United States and around the world to enact such laws. Fourteens states, Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico have passed statewide smoke-free workplace laws that include restaurants and bars. Those states are as follows: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii (effective Nov.16) Maine, Massachusetts, Montana, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont and Washington. The Montana and Utah laws extend to bars in 2009, while the Washington D.C. law does on January 1, 2007. Two other states-Florida and Idaho-have smoke-free laws that exempt only stand alone bars. Hundreds of cities across the U.S. and entire countries, including Ireland, England (effective 2007), Scotland, Uruguay, Norway, New Zealand, Sweden, Italy, Bhutan and Bermuda have also taken action.
For more information, call Gail Ploe at 482-7382 or visit smokefreeup.org. For help quitting, call the Michigan Quit Line at 1-800-537-5666. Also, a detailed summary of the Surgeon General’s report, The Health Consequences of Involuntary Exposure to Tobacco Smoke, and other related information can be found on CDC’s Web site (http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco).
Smoke-Free Apartments Growing in U.P.
May 30, 2006
Gail Ploe 482-7382
In recognition of World No Tobacco Day, sponsored annually on May 31st by The World Health Organization (WHO) to call attention to the serious health impact of tobacco and secondhand smoke, The Western U.P. District Health Department, in conjunction with the Smoke-Free Environments Law Project, is continuing the effort to increase the number of smoke-free apartments in the Upper Peninsula and the local community.
On May 31st, we will again begin airing two humorous and informative radio ads in the Upper Peninsula encouraging tenants to ask for smoke-free apartments and encouraging landlords to adopt smoke-free policies in their buildings, “said Jim Bergman, Director of the Smoke-Free Environments Law Project (SFELP) of The Center for Social Gerontology, Inc., (TCSG), in Ann Arbor.
“Most landlords are now aware that it is legal to designate their buildings as smoke-free and making this change is a win-win situation. They find they not only have happier tenants, lower maintenance costs and less risk of fires caused by cigarettes but they also have a larger market because 75% of the population doesn't smoke," Bergman said.
Gail Ploe, Prevention Specialist at the Western U.P. Health Department said, "We've known for years that secondhand tobacco smoke causes cancer and heart disease. It is a serious health threat for all people, but especially for children, older persons and those with asthma, emphysema and other respiratory diseases. Because people spend a lot of time in their homes, we have always promoted smoke-free homes as a healthy lifestyle choice.
“We decided that the best approach was to work with landlords to identify existing apartment buildings that had smoke-free policies, help them publicize the availability of these units, and encourage other apartment owners to voluntarily adopt smokefree policies," said Bergman.
"While we have been thrilled by the number of landlords who have adopted and now advertise smoke-free policies in their buildings, we would like to see the number increase so that tenants will be protected from the dangers of secondhand smoke and fires caused by cigarettes.”
To learn more about smoke-free apartments or to obtain a listing of local smoke-free apartments, call Gail Ploe at 482-7382 or visit www.smokefreeup.org. For additional information on smoke-free apartments visit http://www.mismokefreeapartment.org/. For more information on World No Tobacco Day, visit http://www.who.int/tobacco/communications/events/wntd/2006/en/.
Letter to the Editor from Gail Ploe, Health Educator
Western District Health Department, Hancock
Read the Daily Mining Gazette article here!
Published: Thursday, May 09, 2006
Group clears the smoke on policy
Lighting up in local bars and restaurants studied
Read the Daily Mining Gazette article here!
Published: Thursday, May 04, 2006
CAPTION:
Laura Kirby/Daily Mining
Gazette
The Northern Lights Restaurant and Franklin Square Tap is one of a few
local establishments that has chosen to go smoke-free by its own accord.
Banquet manager Justin Novak said regular customers haven’t been put off
by the move and the bar is still bustling.
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Caleb Wendel of Houghton prepares the Franklin Square Tap in the Best Western of Houghton for the afternoon crowd. The bar has changed its policy towards cigarettes, pipes and cigars and is now smoke free.