Tobacco Documents Online

Pests with power: EPA should lighten up os- condemn demon tobacoo, wfW EPA akipped a few sdenti6c such as ahrough peer steps, review of the evfdence. Studles with which EPAdisagrCsuch as one by the Natfonai ancer Instltute, no Birt Tobacco lackey -werc fgnored. EPA o(fioals simply ram rodded the E'PS report through intennal review p According to EPA documents released ata scantily covered congtasional bearing, EPA reviewers stron~y questfoned tnanp of the funda~mental conclusions of the report on second-band smoke. One reviewer wasesp catcerned abou t We Sawsual way w in whic6:the teport~ Wnks EST and cancer and the7act of evidence to back tbe claim:'7f you can • teclmioally show casual Dy lhoma. Herver Hol1 During the late 1980s, ant5- smoking setivists mounted a campatgn against cagarettes that cuhrunated m bans on their manufacture, sales and possession in 14 states. Many em bye~rs of the time even refusedpto hire cigarette smokers. But a Senate committee, presented with a proposal fora national ban, re[used the acL Only the states could enact bans, the committee said. The modern Washington pest class knows no such Wnits. qhe Environment Protection Agency with great fanfare has issued a pampblet urging peuple "ot to smoke m their town homes, est someone in the household be subjected to the alleged of secondhand smoke. The EPA's : just a peslq suggestion - for ~ pow. iey role: Action on SmoTdng and Smokers soon may find state social'~~iealth (ASH1. Founded in 191i7 and :ervices agents on their doorsteps, atfll run by George Washington iemanding to know If they smoke in 'University law professor John ne presence of children. Custody Banzhai, ASH, along with Ralph attles could be decided on the basis Nader. has nerfected the art of f who smotes or doesn't Smoke. And s the Marxist Workers Vanguard has uggested, "Soon job applications will ead, 'Are you now, or nave you ever •een, a smoker."' Outlandish, you say? Already, iscrimination against smokers is not .ist allowed, but officially sanctioned. mokers are relegated to huddling on urbsides like teen-agers hiding ehind the gym. Smoking is banned on iost airline flights, buses and trains. .os Angeles has banned smoking in estauranls. And that's just cigarette moking. Cigar and pipe smokers have cen browbeaten into private dimier- nd-smoke clubs. Smoking :icreasingly is raised in custody isputes. Tobacco adverlising is -mished from the airwaves, and it is nder fire elsewhere. Almost all of these restrictions :we come about during the past 25 vars or so, and'ui almost every case a c1gle advocacy group has played a assodatlon, do; where you can't, -- ia7led enviroitmental tobseco mtote, dan't inEer IL" And W reference to the or.ETS) a Class A carcinogen has agency's break from its own scientBic given ASH new ammunition. Using the guidelines to label ETS a Class A •Americans with Disabilities Act as a Carcinogen, the same reviewer wrote: wedge, ASH has published a model "Uke It or not, EPA should live wlthin complaint letter designed to scare the Its own eategorisation framework or political litig-ation, It was Bani:haPs bejabbers out of restaurant chains, clearly explain why we chose not to do peution to the Federal Commission for airport commissions, mall operators so." Other reviewers expressed examQle - invoking the Fariness . - almost any Place wherepeople, similar concerns:" Doctnne to demand equal time for including smokers, may gather. Non-smokers and smokers alike anti-smoking ads - that led to the ban The ADA requires "reasonable should be concerned about the EPA's on broadcast tobacco adverlising. accommodations" be provided to the cavalier pronouncements on ETS. lf Given its record of success, ASH handicapped to include anyone who is ETS is sufficient justification for the provides a glimpse of what may come. bothered by smoke. Complete with government to mount eitisens' The group has 61ed a legal petition legal citations and references to the doorsteps, what other minor, with the Occupational Health and EPA report, the ASH model complaint politically incorrect social offenses Safety Administration asking for a ban letter could not be more clear: ban might be the object of the next Pest on all workplace smokinR. Banzha( smoking, or we'll sue. Class' ire? Fried foods? Alcohol, envisions• according to a Washington As Banzhaf explained to the a ain? Belching? Banzhaf and his magazine profile, new smoking-related Washingtonian: Fast-food restaurants [ejlow actlvisl litigatots seem to have definitions of child abuse, grounds for "go to great lengths to lure kids into an overwhelming passion for taking divorce lalso a feature of lhe 19th their storetst. We now know froni the the fun out of life. Unfortunately, a century's anli-tobac•co camPaignl, EPA report how dangerous ETS is' government that concerns Itself with bans in every public place, arge court You see all these little kids in the what people lawfully do in the privacy awards and judicial orders forbidding smokinp section: Now what would of their own hones seems determined smoking in private homes: ASH's happen if one of these kids had an to hel them. newsletter notes approvingly a British asthmatic attack? The answer is p ~~ 0 agency's proposal to ban adoptions by pretty clear. A lawsuit could be smokers brought on behalf of that child." Author 7riomas Harvey Hoit (a The EPA's recent report labeling But do we really "know" the non-smo/er) is a visiting fe/low at second-hand smoke (bureaucratically hazards of ETS? In its haste to -a tal1l se~r• CAR{Lr ZoisooEZOZ FLOREHCE MORNING NEYS DAILYrI $1NDAY sC 30,Sd$ 9UNDAY AUG 15 1993 43 ..cec. :.-