CA Goes After Second-Hand Smoke
California Classifies Second-Hand Smoke a Toxic Risk
CA's Air Resources Board "voted Thursday to classify second-hand tobacco smoke as a 'toxic air contaminant,' a first-in-the-nation move that could ultimately toughen state regulations against smoking."
California's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment estimates that as many as 5,500 non-smoking Californians die annually of heart disease related to second- hand smoke and as many as 1,100 die from lung cancer caused by second-hand smoke.
Will Massachusetts be next?
posted by Sidra @ 8:56 AM
1 Comments:
Rights-wise, it's unclear to me. We as a society certainly value our "liberty" to do what we will with our land or our bodies, yet, at the same time, we accept regulation of limits on that autonomy by the State -- for example, you can drink, but don't drink and drive, or, more historically, you can't undermine your neighbor's supporting wall or something, which places a restriction on your use of your land.
Is smoking in public like drinking and driving? Endangering other breathers, instead of drivers (assuming the endangering for the moment)? (I'm not trying to make smokers who read this feel bad, honest!)
Apropros of Googling around and trying to remember what I just typed above about supporting walls, there's a little discussion of environmental protection easements, specifically some stuff Iowa is doing, about midway through this page, which is the Land Use Controls website for the International City/County Management Association (ICMA), run in conjunction with EPA. Interesting!
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