[C-U Smokefree] This is a MUST READ

[Kathy Drea]

Hazy logic: No business should have a license to kill 

 

By Bruce Hetrick for The Indianapolis Business Journal

 

   Saturday, Feb. 26, was the second-to last day my boys, Austin and
Zach, saw their stepmom alive. They didn't see much of Pam that day. She
and they slept late-Pam because she was ill with cancer, Austin and Zach
because they're teen-agers. 

 

   Once everyone awoke, Zach had a six-hour photo assignment at the IU
Natatorium. Late that afternoon, I took Austin to a movie, while my
sister-in-law stayed with Pam. When we all returned home, we watched a
video, discussed its shortcomings and said our good nights. 

 

   Seven days later, Pam would be dead, and my boys and I would be
huddled over Zach's laptop, selecting photographs from happier times to
display at her memorial service. 

 

   As a lifelong nonsmoker afflicted with a smoker's cancer, Pam was
incensed at an article in the Feb. 26 Indianapolis Star. What irked her
was a quote from John Livengood, president of the Restaurant &
Hospitality Association of Indiana. 

 

   "There's no question in my mind that smoking's bad for you and
secondhand smoke probably is bad for you," Livengood said. But when it
comes to exposing workers and others to such hazards, he said, it should
be "a business decision the government shouldn't be involved in." 

 

   As I coaxed Pam to swallow her appetite stimulants, cough medicine
and nutrition supplements (she'd dropped to 115 pounds on a
5-foot-7-inch frame), we talked through Livengood's hazy "logic." 

 

   Just as Livengood admits smoking and secondhand smoke are bad for
you, so most folks admit toxic sludge is bad for you. But we don't let
individual businesses decide whether to dump such poison into our
drinking water. 

 

   Just as Livengood admits smoking and secondhand smoke are bad for
you, so most folks believe hazardous chemicals are bad for you. But we
don't let individual businesses decide whether to truck such poison
cross-country in rusted-out tankers on bad tires. 

 

   Just as Livengood admits smoking and secondhand smoke are bad for
you, so most folks believe dioxin emissions are bad for you. But we
don't let individual businesses decide whether to spew such poison into
our air. 

 

   Five days later, City-County Councilor Greg Bowes called me. Bowes
has authored an ordinance that, if passed, would ban smoking in
restaurants, bars and other public places. As written, it would make
Indianapolis residents and visitors among the safest in the nation from
secondhand smoke. 

 

   Bowes said he'd been moved by Pam's story-the nonsmoker who, as a
journalist, spent many hours in smoke-filled rooms covering government
and business. He wondered if she'd speak out. He understood her health
might prevent her from testifying in person, but would she videotape
something? 

 

   When I relayed the request to Pam that evening, she said she wasn't
sure about the video. She didn't like how she looked, and one round of
surgery had affected her speech. But she said she'd write the mayor a
letter over the weekend asking him to not only sign, but also advocate,
the anti-smoking legislation. 

 

   Pam's death, in the wee hours of Saturday, March 5, caused her to
miss her self-imposed deadline for that letter-something her
journalistic spirit likely regrets. 

 

   Because Bowes had told me, two days earlier, that a council colleague
had said, "Show me one death certificate where the cause of death is
secondhand smoke," I was tempted to request that wording from the
emergency room physician who pronounced Pam dead at 2:58 a.m. 

 

   Instead, I stayed with my upset son, who'd had to call 911, then
usher the medics into our home while I tried in vain to save my
collapsed wife with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and CPR. 

 

   On Thursday, March 10, more than 500 people gathered at the Indiana
History Center to honor Pam and to comfort Zach, Austin, me and the rest
of our family. 

 

   Councilors Bowes and Angela Mansfield-two sponsors of the
anti-smoking ordinance -were there. After the service ended, they made a
beeline to the City-County Building, where they listened late into the
evening to restaurant and bar owners, one of whom said he'd be "killed"
by the proposed anti-smoking legislation. When I read that line in the
next morning's newspaper, I wanted to explain to the man what the
meaning of the word "killed" is, and precisely who is killing whom. 

 

   Sunday night, after all my relatives had gone home, I sat in my
empty, silent-as-stone house, sorting through Pam's things. Fighting
back another round of tears, I turned on the TV, hoping for distraction.


 

   Instead, the set blinked on to a government-channel rerun of
Livengood, bar owners and restaurateurs proclaiming the end of the
food-and-drink universe should we dare do for human health in
Indianapolis what's been done in cities, states and nations around the
world: Ban smoking in public places because it sickens and kills people.


 

   I turned the damned thing off and went to bed, wishing my love had
written that letter. Maybe then they would've called it "Pam's Law."

* 

 

   Hetrick is president and CEO of Hetrick Communications Inc., an
Indianapolis-based public relations and marketing communications firm.
His column appears weekly.

 

 

 

 

Kathy Drea, Director, Public Policy

American Lung Association of Illinois-Iowa

3000 Kelly Lane

Springfield, IL  62711

1-800-788-5864

Fax: 217-787-5916

kdrea at lungil.org

www.lungilia.org

 

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