Should Smoking be Outlawed on Pedestrian Walkways?

Posted on | April 20, 2009 | Comments Off on Should Smoking be Outlawed on Pedestrian Walkways?

"Smoke doesn’t know to stop at the doorway. It fills the full capacity of every indoor location in which the cigarette is smoked," according to Harvard Medical School professor Jonathan Winickoff.¹ His remarks were in response to the release of a recent study of approximately 1,800 non-smokers in New York City. The shocking findings: 57% of these non-smokers had elevated levels of nicotine byproducts in their blood streams compared to 45% nationwide. And the news was worse among Asian-Americans: 69% had evidence that their blood was contaminated by chemicals from cigarettes.²

Secondhand smoke is believed to result in almost 40,000 deaths in the US each year, including 35,000 from heart disease and 3,000 from lung cancer.^1,3 The findings in the New York study surprised some investigators, considering that about 23% of New York City residents are smokers compared to 30% nationwide.⁴ The findings suggest that city residents may be breathing in lower concentrations of secondhand smoke, but doing it more often as a result of close contact with a dense population. The New York City Commissioner of Health, Thomas Frieden, who played a role in the passage of the Smoke Free Air Act of 2002 which banned smoking in almost all city work spaces, believes most people are being exposed through sidewalk contact, passing through building doorways lined with smokers getting their nicotine fix, or waiting at crossing lights and bus stops.^1,5

My own experience of ten years using subways and the Grand Central Station, with a short walk to 42^nd Street and 2^nd Avenue, is that most of the secondhand smoke I inhaled came from pedestrians who were walking in front of me. In the cement and steel canyons that are New York’s major byways, air mostly travels horizontally. I often noticed that even if a smoker exhaled 10 feet in front of me, it felt exactly like I had just taken a drag of his cigarette.⁷

New Yorkers are rightly proud of their resilience and their "If you can make it there, you’ll make it anywhere" attitude.⁸When faced with something we didn’t like in this environment – whether it was air quality, excessive odor or sound, or the crushing crowds- the common motto was "suck it up."⁹ What we didn’t know was that when it came to secondhand smoke, that was exactly what we were doing. Looks like the ball is back in Dr. Friedan’s court.

For Health Commentary, I’m Mike Magee

References:

1. Rabin RC. High Rates of Exposure To Smoke. New York Times. A24. 8 April 2009.

2. Ellis J, et al. Secondhand smoke exposure among nonsmokers nationally and in New York City. Nicotine and Tobacco Research. Oxford Journals. 7 April 2009.

3. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The health consequences of involuntary exposure to tobacco smoke: A report of the surgeon general (2006) Atlanta, GA: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Coordinating Center for Health Promotion, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Office on Smoking and Health.

4.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (2008). Accessed 28 Feb. 2009.

5. New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. EpiQuery: NYC Public Health Data (2008). 3 April 2009.

6. Matsukura S, et al. Effects of environmental tobacco smoke on urinary cotinine excretion in nonsmokers. Evidence for passive smoking. New England Journal of Medicine,1984. 311: 828–832.

7. Magee M. Personal Observation. 1997 to 2007.

8. Sinatra F. Lyrics, New York, New York.

9. Urban Dictionary. "Suck it Up."