by Melanie Wood

Created on: October 27, 2008

I find it interesting that nobody yet has taken the opposing view of not enforcing the indoor smoking Ban. Perhaps someone will speak up later. I'm experienced on both sides of the fence and certainly believe in all indoor smoking bans.

I have been a non-smoker for the last 25 years. Before that I smoked for perhaps a total of 14 years, along with almost 4/5ths of our state's population. It may be hard to believe, but in the California of the 60s and 70s four out of 5 persons were habitual smokers. I did not smoke continually throughout the 14 years, quitting whenever I wanted to become and while pregnant; starting again for a quick and easy slim-down.

During my on and off smoking years, I was a departmental manager in a West Coast bank. We smokers were allowed to freely smoke in our department. We did, and the air above our communal desks was blue with hanging fumes. As a manager, I found the paperwork submitted for review from my subordinates often had big cigarette burns sometimes withcompanion coffee stains on them.

I realized these important documents which ultimately would no doubt be shown to upper management were being soiled by my department. I mentioned this at a branch meeting, and emphasized that we had a minority of non-smokers who could barely breathe in our department. I recommended a ban on smoking to the filth as well as our gasping non-smokers. Upper management took the recommendation under consideration.

They decided to have the entire branch of 1300 persons vote: should we ban it from the building or not? We all were stunned when the response was that well over 70% of employees wanted smoking banned. Smokers wanting to curtail their habit was unheard of. Over the years since, people give up smoking one way or the other. My own brother died from COPD before he turned 53. For the previous 10 years he had travelled to an from work with an oxygen tank. Cigarettes. A bad choice for all. California has done an about face with regard to smoking: the ratio of smokers in our population is now about 1 in five. Unfortunately, most of them are new smokers, still in their teens or even younger.

California now has laws against smoking in business establishments and even some restrictions as to how far away from a door a smoker must stand. Sport facilities ban smoking, and there are movements for parks to be made smoke free. There is not much debate regarding banning it from the indoors; there is quite a lot of resistance from smokers who want to smoke outside.

I happened to survive a horrendous fire that was started by a cigarette; I now have little respect for anyone who would dare smoke outdoors in a desert state such as ours. At the club where I play tennis we have just one smoker, one smoker who defies tclub rules and insists on smoking on court. When he does that, and Suzannah is anywhere in the club playing tennis, she has an allergic reaction and has to leave the club immediately. He is convinced believes Suzannah is just being silly about being allergic to his smoke. She moved to another club, but Mike remained playing until, until a stroke took him out. Heart attack, stroke and death are obvious risks one takes when deciding on becoming addicted.

I was in the UK a few weeks ago. Their cigarette packages are the same size as ours, but their warnings are not reduced barely legible band on the side of the package! Oh, no, as much as half the full package front and back blares advice in half-inch letters: "Smoking cigarettes will kill you" "If you smoke while you are pregnant, your baby may die". I took some photos of them, marvelling at how bold they were. I assume there are no lobbyists for promotion of smoking in the UK. This seems a good idea to me.

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