From: Jim Rosenfield <[j n r] at [igc.apc.org]>
Newsgroups: talk.politics.drugs
Date: 20 Feb 94 08:57 PST
Subject: Secondhand Smoke

				Secondhand Smoke

APn  2/7/94 10:37 PM

   By LARRY MARGASAK Associated Press Writer
   WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Clinton administration is standing
behind a bill that would virtually ban smoking in almost any
non-residential building in the country.
   Rep. Henry A. Waxman's bill to ban, or, alternatively, severely
restrict smoking in publicly used buildings won key endorsements
at a House hearing Monday.
   The Clinton administration, represented by its top
environmental and health officials, signed on to the bill, which
is designed to protect nonsmokers' health and encourage smokers to
quit.
   Five former surgeons general appeared at the hearing to
enthusiastically back the legislation, and an organization of
building owners informed Waxman, D-Calif., of its support.
   The opposition came from the Tobacco Institute, representing
the tobacco industry, and from Rep.  Thomas J. Bliley of Virginia
-- ranking Republican on Waxman's House Energy and Commerce
subcommittee on health and the environment.
   "EPA firmly believes that the scientific evidence is sufficient
to warrant actions to protect nonsmokers from involuntary exposure
to secondhand smoke," Environmental Protection Agency
Administrator Carol Browner testified.
   Browner estimated the lives of 5,000 to 9,000 nonsmokers could
be saved each year if they could be spared inhaling secondhand
smoke. But she said an additional 33,000 to 99,000 lives could be
saved annually under Waxman's bill, because the smoke-free
environment would encourage many smokers to quit and persuade
nonsmokers not to start.
   The bill would require owners of non-residential buildings,
regularly entered by 10 or more persons, to either ban smoking
inside the building or restrict it to separately ventilated rooms.
   The act would be enforced through citizen lawsuits to avoid
   creation of a new federal bureaucracy.  Bliley charged the EPA
   "politically manipulated" its data and ignored a recent study
   that downgraded
the risk of passive smoke.
   Nor did the figures impress Charles O. Whitley, a former House
member who appeared on behalf of the Tobacco Institute, an
industry group.
   He called the EPA study "scientifically flawed," contending the
agency based its conclusions on studies of nonsmoker exposure in
the home, not in public buildings. He said it was ironic that
residences "are the only places exempted" under the bill.
   "In reality, this attempt to ban smoking is an example of
social engineering on a vast scale," he said.  "Such massive
federal intervention in the private lives and choices of
one-quarter of our adult population recalls the extremism of
Prohibition."
   Waxman, who clashed repeatedly with Whitley during a
question-and- answer period, responded that government does
regulate "how people who drink affect other people."
   "We don't tell them they can't drink, but when people who smoke
and drink affect others, it's not social engineering, it's good
public policy," Waxman contended.
   Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders and other witnesses expressed
concern over the effect of secondhand smoke on children.
   "When we smoke around our children, then our children are
smoking" she said, warning that children are vulnerable to asthma,
bronchial problems and the future risk of lung cancer.
   "I say now, as I said nearly a decade ago, it is my judgment
that the time for delay is passed," testified C. Everett Koop,
perhaps the best known former surgeon general. "Measures to
protect the public health are required now."
   Besides Koop, former surgeons general who testified for the
bill were S. Paul Ehrlich Jr., Antonia C.  Novello, Julius B.
Richmond and Jesse L. Steinfeld.
   An EPA report in January 1993 classified cigarette smoke as a
cancer agent more dangerous than arsenic or radon. It said
secondhand smoke causes 3,000 lung cancer deaths annually in
adults and as many as 300,000 cases of bronchitis and pneumonia in
children.