OMA calls for complete smoking ban in work and public places

Toronto, February 11, 2003 - In an eye-opening report on the dangers of second-hand smoke released by the Ontario Medical Association today, the doctors of the province called for immediate action from the provincial government to protect all Ontarians with a complete province-wide work and public place smoking ban.

"The situation is urgent," says OMA President Dr. Elliot Halparin. "Up to 2,600 people in this province die every year as a direct result of second hand smoke. These deaths are 100 per cent preventable."

The report entitled, The Duty to Protect: Eliminating Second-Hand Smoke from Public Places and Workplaces in Ontario, outlines several important recent medical studies proving second-hand smoke's direct links to many illnesses. The paper also proposes three immediate actions the provincial government can take to eliminate exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke in all provincial work and public places:

1. Pursue measures that will require - by law - the 100% elimination of second-hand tobacco smoke in all work and public places
   
   
2. Launch a comprehensive, intensive and sustained mass media campaign about the dangers of second-hand smoke within six months, with particular focus on the need for Ontario residents not to smoke in their homes; and
   
   
3. Once legislation is adopted, a special implementation and enforcement fund should be established by the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care to provide resources to hire enforcement personnel, to launch local advertising promoting the new legislation, and to provide information to local residents about the new legislation.

"I want to be the last person to die from second-hand smoke at work," said Heather Crowe who, in the spring of 2002, was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer as a direct result of second-hand smoke exposure. "There are too many different municipal by-laws in Ontario providing different levels of protection - We need one provincial law to protect everyone equally."

Medical evidence demonstrates that spending just half an hour in a smoke filled environment drastically damages the function of the lining of the coronary arteries, the very place where arteriosclerosis begins, a leading cause of heart disease. Other disease risks from exposure include lung cancer, nasal sinus cancer, bronchitis and other respiratory infections, and SIDS.

The OMA believes that the Ontario government must address the serious health effects of second-hand smoke exposure, and encourages members of the public to fill out the letter on our website at www.oma.org and send it to their MPP in order to make public places in Ontario 100 per cent smoke-free.