Controlling Air Quality Is The Route To Reforming Smoking Bans

Oct. 17, 2012 - PRLog -- Every day we are asked to believe that tobacco smoke – smoke from ordinary plant materials – cannot be dealt with using modern air cleaning technology. The literature shows  no medical cases where causation of medical conditions has been categorically proven to be due to low levels of exposure to tobacco smoke – a fact that has made many people question the need for any smoking ban, never mind one as comprehensive as the one found in Scotland.

Recently I proposed, on behalf of Freedom to Choose (Scotland),[1] Scottish Parliament petition 01451 (Review of smoking ban)[2] in order to challenge these assumptions of the health lobby (whose underlying motivation is to discourage smoking)  that no air cleaning technology can now or will ever be able to deal with tobacco smoke safely, that there is no safe level of tobacco smoke, and, most definitely, that ventilation doesn't work.

This shows a mindset that does not want to enable smokers to be catered for either in the workplace or in recreational venues. A blanket prohibition on smoking makes it harder for people to get together socially, and this affects people more in districts where concentrations of smokers are higher, aggravating inequalities in many ways.

It is generally true that in workplaces there is a principle that exposure to toxins is best avoided if at all possible, however it has also always been recognised that different workplaces involve different sorts of exposures to different levels of risks from different sources that are difficult to avoid without fundamentally challenging the nature of that workplace. We tolerate workers being exposed to levels of carbon monoxide and diesel exhaust products in indoor garages that would never be acceptable in a day-care centre. Freedom to Choose (Scotland) urges that the same sort of thought be applied to allowing pubs freedom of choice in deciding their own smoking policies based upon the wishes of their owners, workers, and clientele.

The ambient air, into which tobacco smoke is released, is not clean in the first place, making it well nigh impossible to isolate secondary smoke as the cause of sickness because pollutants contained in smoke are not limited to smoke. So not only is secondary smoke not avoidable, but removing it still leaves air containing viruses, bacteria, spores, pollen, and plain old smells.

There should be specific, measurable standards of permissible occupational exposure to airborne contaminants that are found in ambient air. If these permissible levels are not exceeded in a given air space there cannot be said to be a danger. When pollutants reach impermissible levels, air-cleaning equipment can be used, regardless of whether a facility allows smoking.

The hospitality industry should carry out an audit of recommended equipment for all sizes of venue and price ranges but with specific air quality requirements in mind. Establishments that wish to allow smoking can then obtain the equipment, and once in place, patrons can be invited to smoke. The result should be that ambient air, even with the addition of smoking, treated with air cleaning equipment, gives a cleaner result than ambient air in a non-smoking establishment where no treatment of air has taken place.

Freedom to Choose (Scotland) believes that smoking bans damage people, increasing their isolation; and damage businesses, when they are helpless to alleviate a problem because of overzealous regulation. Both isolation and business failure are measurably detrimental to health. With the rapidly increasing air pollution rates and increasing numbers of lung cancers found in non-smokers[3] (Glasgow is one of the most polluted cities in the UK),[4] sending people outside on to the street to smoke is worse than fiddling while Rome burns.

The power of the health lobby is a significant obstacle. We should be able to allow the hospitality industry (together with the appropriate government agency) to set standards for air quality, to give the air-cleaning industry the specifications it needs for improving ambient air, and in doing so create spaces with improved air quality where smoking can take place with the minimum of inconvenience to anyone else.

1 Freedom to Choose (Scotland) includes both smokers and non-smokers and receives no support from any industry.
2 Petition 01451: http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/GettingInvolved/Petitions/reviewofsmokingban
3 http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/249843.php
4 http://road.cc/content/news/67317-glasgow-has-highest-level-toxic-pollution-uk