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EDITORIAL: Panel Should Pass Smoking-Ban Bill

Posted on: Monday, 5 June 2006, 09:01 CDT

By Reading Eagle, Pa.

Jun. 5--Passing a statewide ban on smoking in the workplace shouldn't be a difficult decision, even for Pennsylvania's Legislature. After all, there is no longer any doubt that smoking is harmful. That's been an accepted scientific fact for years. Even the tobacco industry recognizes the links between smoking and lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema and an assortment of other ailments. As a matter of fact, tobacco is the only legal product that when used as directed will kill the user.

Studies also have shown that exposure to secondhand smoke has proved to be dangerous for people who never have used tobacco.

Under current law, restaurants, bars and other establishments in Pennsylvania can set aside areas for smoking and nonsmoking clientele, but the people who work in those establishments often do not have the luxury of working only in nonsmoking areas.

Those workers have a right to a healthy working environment. But does the Legislature care? It doesn't seem so.

A pair of bills that would ban smoking in the workplace statewide have been bottled up in committees in both the House and the Senate. They are the latest in a series of similar bills introduced over the years that have gone nowhere.

Last month, the House bill showed some signs of life when it was given a hearing before the House Health and Human Services Committee. However, the comments from committee members were mixed.

Rep. Linda Bebko-Jones, an Erie Democrat, wondered whether the state would be overstepping its bounds in passing the bill.

"Why is the General Assembly even dealing with this issue when all I hear (from constituents) is local control, local control?" she asked.

Local control on any number of issues is a legitimate concern, but smoking is not a local issue. It can kill just as easily in Erie as it can in West Chester.

However, inaction on a state level has left local jurisdictions and organizations to deal with the matter. Locally, officials at Reading Area Community College said the campus at Second and Penn streets will become smoke free beginning with the fall semester.

Other House committee members, while acknowledging the harmful effects of smoking, were hoping for a compromise.

Rep. Todd Eachus, a Luzerne County Democrat, said, "I have to believe there's a middle ground, but I can't support a 100 percent ban on smoking in all places."

Why not? Why should smokers, who make up only about a quarter of the population of Pennsylvania, be allowed to inflict their unhealthy habit on anyone anywhere?

Smokers complain that their rights to smoke already are heavily restricted. But smoking is not a rights issue; it's a health issue.

The House bill, which the committee is scheduled to vote on Tuesday, does provide a few exemptions. It would allow smoking in private residents, except for those being used as daycare facilities, tobacco shops and areas designated in collective-bargaining agreements.

But even if the bill is voted out of committee, the chance of it being voted on by the entire House is unlikely. House Majority Leader Sam Smith said: "Our priorities are going to be property-tax reform, lobbyist spending disclosure and the budget. Those are the things we have to get done."

Translation: It's going be a long time before Pennsylvania joins the other 15 states that were concerned enough about the health of their citizens to ban smoking in the workplace.

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Copyright (c) 2006, Reading Eagle, Pa.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: Reading Eagle

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