The Right to Smoke In a Restaurant, or The Right To Live?.
Imagine this: A pregnant mother and her 3-year old daughter decide to go out to eat for dinner. Since it's 3-year old Abby's birthday she gets to choose the restaurant and not to her mother's surprise she chooses her favorite. They approach the hostess desk at TGI Friday's, a usual favorite among young children due to the fun decorations and children's menus, and ask to be seated in the non-smoking section. The family enjoys their meal together and the mother is comforted knowing her child is happy. Unfortunately, what the mother doesn't realize is the dangerous situation she has put herself, her daughter, and her unborn baby in by simply eating in a restaurant that has a so called "non-smoking" section. The truth is that there really is no such thing, and all three of them are now exposed to the very harmful affects of second-hand smoke. According to different studies second-hand smoke has nearly 4,000 different chemicals, causing 53,000 deaths a year making it the 3rd!.
largest cause of death that is preventable in the United States, and the dangerous cancer causing agents are distributed evenly in an indoor environment making even a person sitting in a non-smoking section susceptible to its harmful affects. The solution to preventing unnecessary second hand-smoke exposure, which is making all restaurants prohibit smoking in all areas, is based on exactly what second-hand smoke is, the affects it has on non-smokers, and how non-smoking sections just don't cut it.
The Ministry of Health reports that, "Second-hand smoke or environmental tobacco smoke, as it is sometimes called, is a combination of the smoke coming off a burning cigarette, pipe or cigar and the smoke exhaled by a smoker." According to a few different sources this mixture contains over 4,000 substances and more than 40 of the chemicals are found to be toxic and cause cancer in humans.
