Heather Crowe, a waitress in Ottawa Canada, was diagnosed with having a smoker’s tumor type of cancer. There’s only one problem with this; she’s never smoked a cigarette in her life. You may ask yourself the question, “How can she be diagnosed with a smoker’s tumor if she has never smoked before?” Simple, she was exposed to secondhand smoke for years and years working in restaurants and bars. She went on to win workers compensation with the fact that her work environment was the reason for her cancer (Waitress 1). The point of this case isn’t to make you aware of how you might be able to win a court case such as this one, but rather to warn people how secondhand smoke is a real problem in today’s society, and we should try to prevent the exposure of it wherever possible.

Ever heard a person say “I’m not harming anyone by smoking”? That person might not believe it, but in reality they are harming others by the smoke that’s being released into the air. Environmental Tobacco Smoke originates from the burning tip of a cigarette in between puffing (National 14). The smoke that’s released into the air, known as sidestream smoke, is a mixture of over four thousand toxins and about fifty of them are cancer-causing. There were studies done throughout Europe, Asia and North America involving nonsmokers that had smoking spouses and nonsmoking spouses. The study showed that the nonsmokers that had smoking spouses had a 30 percent higher chance of getting lung cancer (National 10). After a study done on 3 groups of mice, according to Dr. Stanton A. Glantz of the University of California at San Francisco and his colleagues, secondhand smoke causes tumors to grow faster, and makes new blood vessels in tumors (Huggins 1). In a little town in Montana, called Helena, heart attacks dropped more than fifty percent last year after the town approved a law that banned smoking while indoors (Haney 1).

Tobacco industries try to get us to think that ventilation systems’ is the solution to the harmful exposure of secondhand smoke. However, they don’t give all the facts of the situation. Basically, ventilation systems are made to remove the smell from the air, and that’s it. Many of the harmful chemicals in smoke, such as carcinogenic gases, can’t be filtered and they are odorless, tasteless and can’t be seen. Even if this system would work and take away all the harmful agents from the room, the smoke would reach restaurant waitresses before it got to the ventilation system. All the tobacco industry wants is to protect its own interest, even if it is harming many lives. This is why they fight smoking bans and promote ventilation as a solution to the problem (SafeWork 1).

Massachusetts isn’t the only state that has been found where there was a positive effect of becoming a smoke-free establishment. They can be found throughout the United States. According to two Connecticut restaurant owners, they both agree that the banned has helped their business. One of the owners stated that about a third of his customers were smokers. He said that he found a 10 percent increase in business since the ban had been set. The other owner said that for every complaint he gets from a smoker, he gets in return 10-12 letters telling him that it was a

Some topics in this essay:
Heart Associations, Barbara Evans, Disabilities Act, Ottawa Canada, Public Health, RJ Reynolds, San Francisco, Parris Glendening, Tobacco Company, Public America, secondhand smoke, banning smoking, smoking banned, smoking bans, truth 1, smoking banned public, people smoke, san francisco, restaurant owners, banned smoking, banned public, exposure secondhand smoke, owners satisfy customers, businesses lose money, nonsmokers smoking spouses,