EVERY morning of my childhood, over the cereal and orange juice, I had a
running battle with my father. Through the blue plumes of his pipe smoke, I can
remember his obstinate face as he steadfastly refused to stop smoking—even
over breakfast.
My cries were vocal and persistent. “You’re choking up my lungs!” “You’re
killing yourself!” “You’ll die slowly and horribly!” Nothing deterred him. And,
as a scientist, he claimed there was no evidence for passive smoking affecting
other people anyway.
Well, now it seems there is.
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Not content with damaging one body, all that inhaled used smoke really seems
to be capable of damaging a second. Research has already suggested that passive
smoking appears to increase your chances of getting lung cancer and having a
stroke. Now in the journal Fertility and Sterility, Chris Ford and his
colleagues at the University of Bristol show that passive smoking can reduce a
woman’s chance of having a baby
(91av, 7 October, p 25). And
this is probably just the beginning. If passive smoking makes you less fertile
and more likely to get cancer, surely, like smoking itself, it could do much
more damage?
I think it’s time to suck the last vestiges of smoke from public
places—after all, it’s not as though the smoke obediently hovers the right
side of no-smoking signs. When you see the amount of smoke billowing from
basement nightclubs, it’s hard to imagine how anyone could really be breathing
it in and living to tell the tale.
I can already hear the pub and club owners and managers whining: “We’ll lose
our customers.” I say to them, don’t worry, you’ll get new ones. Plenty of
people avoid smoky dance floors and bars. And what about your staff? Don’t they
have a right to protection from employers who put their health at risk in the
workplace?
I’m not the only one who thinks smoking should be banned in public places.
Explore-@t-Bristol, a new hands-on science centre at Bristol’s harbourside,
surveyed more than 250 people in Bristol’s city centre, and on the Web, about
their views. An impressive 70 per cent of them cried: “Ban it!” This figure
leapt to 81 per cent when they were asked if they knew their fertility might be
reduced by passive smoking.
The team from the University of Bristol who had carried out the fertility
research came to Explore-@t-Bristol to talk about their work and hear what the
public was thinking. They weren’t surprised that a majority of people were in
favour of a ban on smoking in public places, but I think they were taken aback
by just how many felt so strongly.
There should be limits to any ban. I accept (grudgingly) that it’s a bit much
to stop people from smoking on the beach or in a park. If they want to kill
themselves outdoors, that’s fine. At least their smoke stands a pretty good
chance of being blown away before others breathe it in.
And finally, a note to the man who spawned this rabid smoke-hater. Hey Dad,
if you’re so keen for me to have kids, give me a break and quit smoking when
we’re together. Better still, give yourself a break. I’d really love you to live
a little longer yourself.
