| For Immediate Release September 13, 2006 |
Contact: Jennifer Friedman 202.296.5469 |
D.C. Voters Deliver Win for Right to Breathe Clean Air by Electing Adrian Fenty
Statement of Matthew L. Myers, President, Tobacco-Free Kids Action Fund
Washington, DC - By electing Adrian Fenty as the Democratic candidate for District of Columbia Mayor, D.C. voters have delivered a win for the right of Washingtonians to breathe clean air. Councilmember Fenty has been a champion from the very beginning in the long and successful fight to pass the District's new smoke-free workplace law. We are confident that as Mayor Adrian Fenty will continue to stand up for health by ensuring effective implementation of the smoke-free law so it works as intended to protect the rights of all District workers and families to breathe clean air. We look forward to working with him to do so.
Councilmember Fenty was an original co-sponsor of the D.C. smoke-free workplace legislation and for three years he worked tirelessly to pass a strong smoke-free law. Because of their efforts nearly all DC workplaces will be smoke-free on January 1, 2007, a measure that 74 percent of District residents support.
It will be critical that the Mayor-elect and new D.C. Council guard against loopholes that will undermine the smoke-free law. Supporters of the smoke-free law compromised by agreeing to an exemption for businesses that can show the law caused "undue financial hardship." Unfortunately, opponents of the law are trying to expand this narrow exemption into a giant loophole that would allow continued smoking and exposure to harmful secondhand smoke in many workplaces. We are confident that Adrian Fenty will stand up for the health of District workers and families by preventing efforts to weaken the new law.
The need for protection from secondhand smoke in ALL workplaces and public places has never been clearer. In issuing his recent, groundbreaking report on secondhand smoke, U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona stated, "The debate is over. The science is clear: Secondhand smoke is not a mere annoyance, but a serious health hazard that causes premature death and disease in children and nonsmoking adults." The Surgeon General found that secondhand smoke is a proven cause of lung cancer, heart disease, serious respiratory illnesses such as bronchitis and asthma, low birth weight and sudden infant death syndrome, and that secondhand smoke is responsible for tens of thousands of deaths in the United States each year.
It is also clear that businesses have nothing to fear from the smoke-free law because of the growing evidence from smoke-free states and cities around the country that smoke-free laws protect health without harming business. As the U.S. Surgeon General put it in his recent report, "Evidence from peer-reviewed studies shows that smoke-free policies and regulations do not have an adverse impact on the hospitality industry."
The District of Columbia joins 14 states and Puerto Rico in having a strong smoke-free law that includes restaurants and bars. The states are: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii (effective Nov. 16), Maine, Massachusetts, Montana, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont and Washington (the Montana and Utah laws extend to bars in 2009).