Over 5,000 cards in favour of smoking ban returned to health units

Ken Johnston
editorial@RainyRiverRecord.com

His dukes are up and he is ready to use them when it comes to reducing the health hazards associated with second hand smoke.
Dr. Pete Sarsfield, the Chief Medical Officer for the Northwestern Health Unit (NWHU), said that response to the mail in campaign initiated earlier this month has been good. Out of the 30,000 post cards sent out to all area residents, about 18% of them have been returned thusfar with about 1% of those being what Sarsfied is calling “spoiled ballots.”
The cards simply state, “Dear Mayor and Council: Pleaw make our community smoke-free by pasing a bylaw that will protect all workers and the public.”
The spoiled ballots were defaces and Sarsfield said some of them included personal attacks on him and his heritage. However 99% of the 5,000 plus cards returned have been requests to make their communities smoke free.
“I don’t understand the controversy of this issue,” said Sarsfield noting that there are several extremely harmful carcinogens in second hand smoke. “If they were in your water supply we would close the supply off to the public,” said Sarsfield in an effort to make a comparison justifying the NWHU’s efforts on this issue.
Sarsfield said that the reason this issue has taken so long to come to the public forefront is that it has over time become an “acceptable” part of society to smoke in public places. He also said that it wasn’t until the late 1990s that there was real mounting evidence of the risks involved with second-hand smoke.
While Sarsfield has the power to outright declare second-hand smoke a health hazard he admits that the NWHU does not have the resources to enforce a region-wide imposed ban on smoking in public places. For that reason he is hopeful that muncipalities will pass their own by-laws and enforce them. At present there is not a single one of the 19 municipalities under Sarsfield’s watch with a non-smoking by-law in place.
He feels that while many municipal leaders are affraid of the backlash against them at election time, sooner or later someone will sue for damages after getting sick from second-hand smoke in a public place. He hopes that the municipalities will see the risks as serious and take action.
Once the post-cards stop arriving at the NWHU in Dryden, they will be sorted and presented to the municipalities they are from in a hope that it will show local councils there is strong support for the smoking bans.
Sarsfield said that in all fairness if a community only has 2 out of 100 cards showing support for the by-law, he will report to them the lack of support for the issue. However the NWHU will also take the time to outline the dangers of second-hand smoke and still encourage them to pass laws against smoking.