Flapper's Folly

Okay. I confess. I smoke. It is a nasty, unhealthy, horrible habit, but if you smoke and if you have tried to quit, you know it is not easy to kick the habit. 'Nuff said. My concern, and the guilt laid upon me by my husband, is that even if I care not for myself, consider the effects on him.

I read today of a new study by the UCLA School of Public Health published in the May 17 issue of the British Medical Journal that shows there are no measurable rates of heart disease or lung cancer among nonsmokers who ever lived with smokers. "We found no measurable effect from being exposed to secondhand smoke and an increased risk of heart disease or lung cancer in nonsmokers -- not at any time or at any level," lead researcher James Enstrom, PhD, MPH, of the UCLA School of Public Health, says. "The only thing we did find, which was not reported in the study, is that nonsmokers who live with smokers have a increased risk of widowhood because their smoking spouses do die prematurely."

Of course, the American Cancer Society blasted the study , as did the Surgeon General, which one can only expect. Dallas recently used danger of secondhand smoke to ban smoking in almost all public places, allowing it only in bars, tobacco shops and pool halls, which must also provide designated smoking and nonsmoking areas. I know I always seek out the nonsmoking section of a pool hall, don't you?

What ever happened to common sense? Miners keep canaries, right? If the canary keels over, they know to hightail it because poisonous gases are present. I've smoked a long time and lived with many totally indoor pets who lived to extremely ripe old age. I've worked in veterinary clinics where cats were brought in that reeked from sitting in mama's lap for 15 years as she puffed away on unfiltered Marlboros. But not once, even when the doctor was avidly against smoking, was a pet found to have suffered deleterious effects from the owner's smoking. If it's not hurting a ten pound cat, how is it harmful to a two hundred pound man?

I'll end by saying we should _all_ be considerate of one another and exercise a little common sense....