Source: cigarettesreporter.com
Hey smokers, I’ve got a bone to pick with you.
Smoking no longer becomes a personal preference when you do it in public.
I’m alright if you feel like upping your risk of getting cancers, being impotent in bed, killing your heart and asking for a stroke. I will never understand why anyone would want them, but I respect your right and “freedom” to pollute your body and treat it as your personal wonderland.
Respect as it goes, is a two way street. You’ll have mine as long as you do not blow smoke in my face.
Why? Well, unless you wrap your face in a bubble wrap, or smoke in the center of an open, empty football field, every cigarette you light and every smoke you puff concerns the people around you.
The combination of smoke from the end of your cigarettes, and the smoke you breathe out is called secondhand smoke. Unfortunate public who inhale them, voluntarily of involuntarily are known as secondhand smokers.
Believe it or not, secondhand smokers are susceptible to all the health bonus one would get from smoking cigarettes.
Yes, just like the health bonuses you might be getting soon.
While you may know what you are getting yourselves into, non-smokers especially the young, the old, the pregnant and those already suffering from heart and lung conditions don’t, and are therefore extremely vulnerable to secondhand smoking.
They are literally at your mercy. No thanks to you, it could translate into multiple trips to the hospital, or even hastening their departure into the grave.
Though opinions about the distance one should put between you and non-smokers vary, places like Arizona in US for instance enforces a rule of at least 20 feet, or about 6 meters between smokers and public places.
In other words, you will have to smoke at least 6 meters away from entrances and windows in public places or face a fine. In Malaysia, where some restaurants are built right next to busy streets, 6 meters would put you right in the middle of the busy road, where some of you truly belong.
Angry? Careful now, you don’t want to risk a stroke. Oh wait, you actually do.
So don’t be surprised if people are offended when you smoke in front of them. It is a display of ignorance at the very least, and at most an extremely disrespectful, insensitive behaviour towards non-smokers. I have to admit that there were those who were apologetic when told to not smoke in public, but these gentlemen are old, rare and I am quite sure by now a dying breed.
Be that as it may, I can understand why nicotine addicts are selfish. But what I cannot understand is why many non-smokers choose to stay silent around people who smoke.
I have seen enough pregnant women, parents putting up with smokers. Afraid that “feelings” might get hurt, they allow secondhand smoke to permeate and pollute their lungs without even a small protest.
I don’t expect people to empty water buckets on smokers. No, but at the very least move away from them.
I once approached a lady and advised her to move away from a group of smokers in a park, only to be told, “Don’t worry, it is worse at home. I’m used to this environment. This is nothing. Hahaha.”
I wasn’t sure why she laughed at the end. Perhaps she wanted her husband to get a heart attack, cancer, maybe both.
But a more sane answer on why the public tend to keep quiet is perhaps, they don’t know that secondhand smoking exposes them to at least 70 types of carcinogens (cancer causing agents) which among others include formaldehyde (embalming fluid), arsenic, benzene, radioactive and very toxic Polonium 210.
Because if they do, or care to google any of them up, they would realise that they are inhaling the very same chemicals they would not want in their neighbourhood, in their house, what more on the clothes they wear and the air they breathe.
Does it increase your risk of getting cancers? Yes. Heart attacks? Yes. Strokes? Yes. So why do we tolerate secondhand smoking?
Adults aside, it also poses a hazard to infants, toddlers and children. To mothers and mothers to be, secondhand smoking not only kill babies (SIDS), it also causes low birth weight and increases their chances of getting lung and ear infections.
According to a research published by the Royal College of Physicians in 2010, secondhand smoking causes over;
20,000 cases of lower respiratory tract infections;
120,000 cases of middle ear infections;
200 cases of bacterial meningitis;
40 sudden infant death syndromes;
annually among infants and children in the UK.
That is in the UK where they ban smoking in public places. Imagine the numbers in Malaysia if you dare.
And the cherry on top of the cigarette butts would definitely be in knowing that children who grow up with parents or siblings who smoke, are 90% more likely to become smokers themselves.
Malaysians need to be more vocal in expressing our right for a clean and smoke free environment. If not for ourselves, at least do it for the young ones.
Let us avoid restaurants, cafés that allow smoking in the premises. Worse than a place that allows indoor smoking is one that doesn’t, but doesn’t enforce that rule. Let us vote with our feet, and when the time comes, vote for leaders who care for the health and well being of our family members and friends.
Our health and well being should be given due priority. Everything else is a disposable second.
For a society that is so vocal about social liberty and justice, we need to stand up more and be heard vis a vis secondhand smoking before it is too late.
Let your voices be heard. Be counted. Be the force that separates us from an ignorant society.
Second hand smoking isn’t cool. It isn’t safe. Don’t spare “feelings” by passively and quietly tolerating them.
Start saying “NO” today.
Dr. Kamal Amzan is currently practicing Public Health in Sabah, and at the same time a Columnist for The Malay Mail Online. You can reach him at drkamalamzan@gmail.com and on his twitter @drkamalamzan
[This article belongs to The Malaysian Medical Gazette. Any republication (online or offline) without written permission from The Malaysian Medical Gazette is prohibited.]
Dr Kamal!! Saya sgt minat tulisan docter!! Senang difahami macam tgh ckp di depan saya!