Diane Glass: Secondhand smoke vs. other hazards of life

Should smoking be prohibited in public places? Absolutely, writes right-leaning Shaunti Feldhahn; there are larger issues more worthy of our attention, counters left-leaning Diane Glass.

Why all the hoopla?

Let's assume for the next 350 words that smoking causes cancer. This will save me at least 40 words I can dedicate to this sentence alone, and it may shed some light on all of the other things we do in the course of our lives that are just as dangerous as smoking a Marlboro Light.

It's easy to target addicts huddled around an ashtray. It's much harder to look at the bigger issues and the habits we don't want to kick. There are no public bans on automobiles or the meat we eat, for example, even though both cars and meat are just as suspect as cancer-causing agents.

Health risks are far greater for people living near fossil-fuel power plants, which result in premature death, asthma attacks and respiratory problems, according to a Harvard study on the impact of pollution. Air pollution is associated with respiratory ailments in children, according to published results of a 2004 American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine study. And enough exposure to everyday radiation from dental X-rays to computer use could cause leukemia.

The human-health consequence of hormone-injected cattle is being scrutinized for possible long-term detrimental effects, and in the meantime, the European Union has banned the import of U.S. meat. Just last week, a government-appointed U.K. chemist ignored a gag order when he went public with his misgivings about hormone-laden beef because of its possible link to breast cancer and other diseases.

Eating and breathing are human health hazards that bring us closer to our death every single day. And we don't have the option of sitting in the nonbreathing section. The air we breathe is everywhere. So if you ban smoking in public places, then you have to ban all of the other disease-inducing pollutants lining our lungs or sitting undigested in our stomachs.

Secondhand smoke may be bad for you, but ignorance is far worse. This is why I don't support witch hunts meant to divert us away from larger issues more worthy of our attention. That would be like declaring war in Iraq to divert us from seeing how our privacy rights are being chipped away by the Bush administration.

Harvard-educated Diane Glass (dglass@ajc.com) is a writer and freethinker with a B.A. and M.A. in comparative religion.