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To the editor:
Each year the U.S. Surgeon General releases a special report on the health consequences of smoking. FoT the tobacco industry, the release of the report is an embarrassing event, one that the industry wishes would just go away. While the reports, without exception, continue to condemn cigarette smoking as the number one preventable cause of death and disease in America, the industry has to keep on defending and promoting its products. This happens even when the Surgeon General issues reports linking smoking with special diseases, such as heart disease, chronic lung diseases and cancer.
This year, however, the tobacco industry is faced with a different challenge. This year the report not only condemns smoking as a health hazard for smokers, but for nonsmokers as well.
The latest report from Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, MD, makes one thing quite clear: a person does not have to be a smoker to jeopardize his or her health; inhaling secondhand smoke can also pose a serious health hazard.
The scientific evidence on the health hazards of secondhand smoke, presented in the 1986 report by Dr. Koop, is quite convincing and comprehensive. The report makes a strong case for non-smokers to protect their health by avoiding places where there are no limitations on smoking.
No one should be obligated to inhale harmful chemicals such as hydrogen cyanide, carbon monoxide, ammonia, tars and other toxic substances found in cigarette smoke.
We hope that this year’s report from Dr. Koop will lead many communities to restrict cigarette smoking in public places such as schools, shopping malls, private and government offices and restaurants. In many parts of the country, such restrictions are already in place.
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