« Back Soon | Main | Shout-Outs »
January 27, 2006
California Love
When it comes to policy, California often leads where the federal government is slow to act. It is California emissions standards that the automakers follow now, not the federal standards... a generation ago, California's Proposition 13 was the harbinger of the 80s mantra of tax cuts. Now comes a story that I sincerely hope is a harbinger of things to come around the nation and even the world: California has declared second-hand smoke to be a toxic air pollutant, equal to diesel fumes or arsenic.
The move comes on the heels of a report by the state's environmental health hazards board that draws direct connections between second-hand smoke exposure and cancer deaths. The report by scientists at California's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment draws on more than 1,000 other studies of the effects of passive smoke. It blamed secondhand smoke for 4,000 deaths each year in California from lung cancer or heart disease alone. The most significant new finding is that young women exposed to secondhand smoke increase their risk of developing breast cancer between 68 percent and 120 percent. The disease kills about 40,000 women in the United States each year.
My feelings about cigarettes are well known; I've never been shy about them on this site. And I don't want to hear any of the apologist mantra about how it's an individual choice and that if people want to do it to themselves, it's their right. More stats from California: The panel's 2005 study found that about 16 percent of all Californians smoked, but 56 percent of adults and 64 percent of adolescents were exposed to second-hand smoke.
That's 16 percent of Californians choosing to deliberately expose more than half the population -- and nearly two-thirds of the state's children -- to known carcinogens. You know, if a large corporation knowingly exposed two-thirds of a state's children to known carcinogens, there'd be literally millions of lawsuits, billions of dollars in fines, and public outcry about the abuse of power from corporate America. And yet when a dwindling minority of smokers chooses to do the same, suddenly they want to talk about how it's their individual right? What? It's your individual right to poison me -- and hundreds of thousands of kids, and millions of people? How about we let it be my individual right to discharge a fire extinguisher in your face any time I see one of those things in your mouth?
I say bravo, Calfornia. Hopefully the state's move is only the first among many states -- or, once there's a new administration less hostile to the environment and air quality, even including the federal government. Take a deep breath, Californians. You've earned it.
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.thechroniccurmudgeon.com/cgi-bin/mt/mtb.cgi/85
Comments
I completely agree; however, many consider the consistitution to provide the indelible rights and freedoms to do as they please regardless of the impact on others (except for illegal acts). Maybe California can set a good example for all to follow with like-kind issues (e.g., gun control, religious rights, medical research, etc.). When do the rights and freedoms of the collective group supercede the rights and freedoms of the individual? Imagine if these issues were resolved instead of being used as political volleyballs. In the future, our candidates will have to pass an additional acid test (i.e., abortion, gun control, pro-war or diplomacy; religious or not, and now are they a smoker or non-smoker.
Posted by: Alan Hawthorne at January 28, 2006 11:14 AM
