Guest Opinion Smoking ordinance is a call for protection, not prohibition

Last month, the California Air Resources Board (ARB) designated secondhand smoke as a toxic air contaminant that can cause or contribute to illness or death. Secondhand smoke is now listed in the same category as the most toxic automotive and industrial air pollutants. It has determined that there is no safe level of exposure.

The city of Calabasas recently passed an ordinance to prohibit smoking in outdoor public places, including sidewalks, when other people are present. In passing the ordinance, the city seeks to protect children from exposure to smoking and tobacco, to reduce the potential for children to associate smoking and tobacco with a healthy lifestyle, to protect the public from smoking and tobacco-related litter and pollution, and to affirm and promote the family-friendly atmosphere of the city's public places.

Earlier, the California Environmental Protection Agency reviewed hundreds of research reports and confirmed there is irrefutable scientific evidence that secondhand smoke poses a significant risk to human health and causes tens of thousands of deaths each year in the United States. This scientific review confirmed previously known effects of secondhand smoke, such as cancer, heart disease, SIDS and asthma and also found new risks including altered vascular properties and pre-term delivery for pregnant women.

Children are especially vulnerable to the toxic pollutants in secondhand smoke. The new ARB designation strengthens previous findings that secondhand smoke is causally associated with adverse health effects in children including low birth-weight, SIDS, acute lower respiratory tract infections, asthma induction and exacerbation and middle ear infections.

Each year, as many as 300,000 infant respiratory infections and 26,000 new cases of childhood asthma are linked to secondhand smoke.

The ARB designation provides a serious warning to everyone, especially parents and young women, to avoid any exposure to secondhand smoke and reinforces the need for additional public health policy to protect citizens from secondhand smoke.

The Calabasas ordinance is the most comprehensive in the nation. Other cities considering similar legislation should keep in mind that the goal of city ordinances is to protect the health and well-being of our children and to protect nonsmokers from secondhand smoke, not to completely outlaw tobacco use. Prohibition does not work.