[C-U Smokefree] Re: CU-Smokefree Digest, Vol 3, Issue 3

[Theotskl at aol.com]

Hi there--

jsut picked up the newest SmoFree Digest.  Thanks to all for placing all 
these nice news to list serve and thanks so much to Ms. Claudia Lennhoff for 
sending the nice piece from El Paso with the great news about the absence of 
negative economic impacts on local bars and restaurants.  If anyonoe is interest in 
more information and the intersitng politics of tobacco control in Texas 
please read my former colleague Meredith Nixon's report on it from the University 
of California-San Francisco Center for Tobacco Control Research and 
Education--you may find the report at <http://repositories.cdlib.org/ctcre/>.

As Ms. Lennhoff's item suggests there are no negative impacts from the 
smofree ordinance and this is not only good news to all of concerned with this issue 
from a health promotion and disease prevention point of view, but it is also, 
deep down, it is an issue of justice and an issue of peace promotion. It is 
an issue of justice becasue here we have a very powerful tobacco industry which 
has gone to extremes to secure its market for its deadly products, and has 
done so not only through secretive means (see or read the revelations made in 
the 35 million pages of formerly secret tobacco documents), but it has done so 
through an outright manipulation of the political process (campaign 
contributions etc).  So our job as tobacco control advocates is to be mindful of the role 
we can play in holding local and state decision makers acountable for their 
decisions by getting to know something about the dough flow (campaign 
contributions). Additionally this is a health justice issue because as you know second 
hand smoke impacts children in a much worse manner than adults and also it 
does the same to the elderly, anf to those with chronic illnesses such as asthma, 
and cancer (and it affects women in a much more pronnounced way than it 
affects men.  So the distribtuion of negative health impacts from exposure to 
second hand smoke are not only uneven but we should have to worry about it as much 
anymore if we succeed in enacting a smofree ordinance in our communities.  
Less exposure to this stuff mean more people would enjoy a healthier life and 
free themselves fomr the fear of illness and disease from that exposure.  (There 
is much more to be said about how this is a justice issue, and an 
environmental justice issue at that, and perhaps we can start exloring this more in the 
future)

But, to say a thing about the role of peace, this issue we are fighting is 
also a peace issue, becuase in part without the elimination of fear from 
exposure to second hand smoke we cannot live peacefully  in our communities.  So, in 
my view, ther can be no peace without the elimination of fear (and in our case 
this is fear that can be and it has been shown to be eliminated in 
communities across the country be it El Paso or Duluth, or Rochester, or California 
communities, etc.  Again there is much more we  can to make peace relevant to out 
struggle to free ourselves fomr the health impacts and fear of damage from 
exposure to second hand smoke.   

I am very pleased to be reading the good news and I am grateful that you are 
sharing all this with the rest of the world.

More later.

Got to run.

Cheers,

--t.