Responses to Tobacco Industry Arguments 

1. Argument: Secondhand smoke is not a serious health hazard---there is still scientific controversy over the health effects of secondhand smoke.
Response: There is no longer any genuine scientific debate about the harmful effects of secondhand smoke. Only the tobacco industry, which still hasn’t admitted that smoking causes cancer in smokers, disputes the findings of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Surgeon General of the United States, the National Institute for Occupational Safety & Health, and every leading health organization that secondhand smoke caused disease in healthy nonsmokers.  Tobacco smoke contains more than 4,000 chemical, at least 50 of which are known carcinogens. Only the tobacco industry would argue that being exposed to substances such as arsenic, carbon monoxide, cyanide, formaldehyde and tar (all contained in secondhand smoke) isn’t harmful. In almost every single case, scientists who have challenged the finding that secondhand smoke is a significant health hazard have turned out to be allied with the tobacco industry and most receive direct funding from the industry. This is really about “corrupt science” by persons who have been paid to write articles attacking the EPA by an industry trying desperately to protect its deadly profits.

2. Argument: We don’t need government interference---accommodation and simple common courtesy will solve the problem.
Response: Is it government interference when the health department requires restaurant employees to wash their hands and wear hair nets before preparing food? Small businesses are regulated by many other types of local laws that protect the health and safety of the public. Clean indoor air ordinances are public health ordinances, and local governments not only have the right, they have the responsibility to pass them. Common courtesy and accommodation are fine notions, but we need laws in addition to that. We can all try to drive as courteously as possible, but we’d still have many more accidents if we didn’t have traffic laws.

3. Argument: Ordinances discriminate against smokers and violate civil rights.
Response: Clean indoor air ordinances don’t regulate people, they regulate behavior, therefore are not discriminatory. Smokers can eat in smoke-free restaurants, they just can’t light up. We are not telling people they can’t smoke, we’re asking them not to smoke in a way that harms others.  Our democratic society has always condoned the creation of laws to prohibit or restrict public acts that are injurious to others.

4. Argument: Clean indoor air ordinances are expensive and difficult to enforce.
Response: Studies have found high levels of compliance with local clean indoor air ordinances. Most ordinances are enforced on a complaint only basis, and citations rarely need to be issued. Most businesses and smokers are law-abiding and will follow the ordinance’s requirements as long as they are aware of them. Communities that have passed clean indoor air ordinances have found that posting “no-smoking” signs and removing ashtrays is the majority of their enforcement activities.

5. Argument: Businesses will suffer economically if required to go smoke-free.
Response: The only unbiased, accurate means to measure economic impact is to compare sales tax receipts, provided by a state board of equalization, for several years before an ordinance as well as all quarters after an ordinance is enacted.  Study after study conducted in this fashion finds that smoke-free ordinances have no negative impact on local businesses. The tobacco industry funds and promotes flawed studies that are based upon anecdotal information and perceptions, and ask leading questions.