Statewide Smoking Restrictions?
By admin on Nov 27, 2008 in Smoking News
A committee will consider a draft bill next week to outlaw smoking in public places.
By Michelle Dynes
mdynes@wyomingnews.com
CHEYENNE — Wyoming and Alaska are the only western states without some kind of smoking ban in public places.
But a ban in the Cowboy State could get a second chance during the 2009 legislative session. The Joint Labor, Health and Social Services Interim Committee will review a draft bill to remove tobacco smoke from public places during its meeting Monday and Tuesday in Cheyenne.
Advocates say it’s about time. The coalition Smokefree Wyoming asked residents to discuss how their lives are impacted by tobacco during a news conference Tuesday.
Katherine Hooper had a sore throat that antibiotics couldn’t eliminate, but she didn’t think she had any reason to worry. The Powell resident is a lifelong nonsmoker. Even her doctor assured her it would be OK.
Then she was diagnosed with cancer of the voice box.
“I had ’smoker’s cancer,’” she said. “It had to be from secondhand smoke (at my workplace). That’s the only way I could have gotten it.”
Cheyenne dentist Joseph Devine said his daughter-in-law died from exposure to workplace secondhand smoke. She became too weak to cross the room or eat a meal, and the mother of six was later removed from life support.
People who choose to smoke should not be allowed to expose others to the harmful risks, Devine and others argued. Devine said there is no safe level of secondhand smoke, and it is not unreasonable to ask smokers to take their cancer-causing carcinogens outside.
Cheyenne resident and former smoker Linda Lucas said she chose to end her habit of three-and-a-half packs a day before the city enacted its ban. But the removal would have helped her when she put down the cigarettes almost four years ago.
She soon noticed that sitting in the nonsmoking section of restaurants didn’t keep her away from the scent of tobacco. Lucas also found it difficult to resist temptation when it was around her every day.
“It’s hard enough to quit smoking without being confronted with it at work,” she said.
The effects of secondhand smoke are just as harmful as if a nonsmoker decided to light up, said Jan Drury of the American Heart Association in Cheyenne. And since science continues to prove the health risks, opponents claim that bans infringe on their rights as smokers.
Devine said there is no reason for anyone to profit from someone else’s illness.
Lucas agrees.
“Your right to smoke ends where my right to breathe begins,” she said.
But more and more Wyoming residents are taking advantage of the resources available to quit. Last year more than 4,300 smokers collected patches, medications and lozenges through the Wyoming Quit Tobacco program, said Kathi Wilson, tobacco cessation coordinator for the state Department of Health.
She added that Wyoming is the only state to cover all forms of cessation therapy. Counseling also is included, allowing smokers to double their chance of success versus medication alone.
Another benefit of Wyoming’s program is three months of coverage. Wilson said some states may only cover prescription therapies for two weeks to a month, but smokers often need three consecutive months of assistance to give up the habit for good.
Popularity: 30% [?]
Join the forum discussion on this post - (1) Posts 
