Restaurant Secondhand Smoke Monitoring Program Criticized
Reader Response
by Steve McElravy
Dear Join Together Online,
The opening story on secondhand smoke monitoring is at best amusing. When I was a child, my father worked around atomic energy materials. He had a "roentgen counter" that monitored his exposure to radioactivity -- when it reached a certain level, he was to stay away from the materials for some time.
The St. Louis Park experiment is dangerous for several reasons:
it does not address employee exposure, yet restaurant employee health has been the driving force behind many smoking bans
it mentions nothing about educating the public on the effects of their exposure
no standard has been set for a safe, or low-risk level of exposure to ETS, so knowing the ETS level doesn't equal an informed choice to enter.
Instead, it gives the appearance of an informed choice program, while actually maintaining the ETS status quo.
Curiously, the program could also deter business in ways that going smoke-free does not, and give restaurant employees another tool in their fight for a smoke-free workplace. In the long run it might actually help St Louis Park progress toward a real health solution.
Steve McElravy, MSW, is from Hagerstown, MD.
Back to Drug and Alcohol Rehab News Articles
