Limiting smokers' rights could affect nonsmokers' rights later

Editor,

President David Schmidly's proposed smoking ban for the UNM campus is another poor decision in the continued vilification of smokers nationwide.

Ever since the report released by the EPA in 1992, anti-smoking activists have been trying to ban smoking and limit smokers' rights under the guise of public health. Little known to the public is the fact that this report, which concluded 3,000 people die a year from secondhand smoke, was overturned by federal judge William Osteen because the report was fraudulent. The EPA released the "results" from its study before any research had begun. In addition, the EPA did not conduct its own research. Instead, it took findings from reports by organizations that supported its negative stance on smoking, ignoring research that found that there was no significant increase in lung cancer or heart disease among those exposed to secondhand smoke.

However, the false statistics from this report are still quoted by multiple smoke-free campaigns and anti-smoking activists. The reports they don't quote are the Congressional Research Service's and the World Health Organization's studies on secondhand smoke. In 1995, the Congressional Research Service rejected the EPA's and three other studies as not statistically significant and tainted by poor research and analysis. After twenty months of well-funded research, the CRS stated: "It is very possible that no deaths have ever been caused by environmental tobacco smoke." The World Health Organization conducted the largest study ever taken on SHS, covering 20 years in 38 centers in 21 countries. Its results showed no significant increase in lung cancer in nonsmokers who had lived and worked with smokers for 40 to 50 years, and children who came from homes where both parents smoked had a 22 percent better chance of not contracting lung cancer than children who came from homes where neither parent smoked.

I understand that some people do not like cigarette smoke, but smokers aren't smoking inside closed buildings. They are smoking out in open spaces where people are free to move away if they don't like the smell of cigarette smoke or are worried about the possible effects on their health. I encourage everyone to read "Nazi Tactics" by Walter E. Williams. It is a concise article portraying the similarities in techniques used to vilify smokers to the tactics used by Nazi Germany in vilifying the Jewish. If smoking is limited on campus, what is to stop the formation of another committee to ban other things some people may find unpleasant? This is not just an issue for smokers, but nonsmokers should consider the effects this could have on their rights in the future.

Justin Cumley

UNM student