Support for the Smoke-free East Baton Rouge Campaign grew this week after the leaders of area hospitals and medical centers collectively affirmed their support for the movement.
In a joint statement, the CEOs of Lane Regional Medical Center in Zachary, Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center, Baton Rouge General Medical Center, Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center, Woman’s Hospital and Ochsner Health System say: “It is time for EBR to go smoke-free.”
The statement comes more than a week after AARP-Louisiana, local musicians and Miss Louisiana 2015 endorsed the campaign, and Lydia Kuykendal, a leader of Smoke-free EBR and lobbyist for the American Cancer Society Action Network, addressed business and professional leaders at the Rotary Club of Baton Rouge.
The movement aims to ban smoking in bars and gaming facilities, which were left out of 2007 state legislation banning smoking in restaurants and public buildings. An ordinance to make EBR totally smoke free would cover vaping as well, Dr. Jay Brooks, an oncologist, said at a north Baton Rouge Town Hall meeting held late Thursday.
The medical executives say it’s not fair for nonsmoking workers to share smoke-filled air with smokers given the health implications of secondhand smoking.
“Secondhand smoke is a serious health hazard. Exposure to secondhand smoke causes an estimated 41,000 deaths from lung cancer and heart disease among adults each year in the United States,” reads the joint statement. “Nonsmokers who are exposed to secondhand smoke face many of the same dangers as those who smoke.”
Separating nonsmokers and smokers within the same air space—as well as opening windows, ventilating buildings and cleaning the air—does not eliminate secondhand smoke exposure, they say.
“The U.S. Surgeon General aptly notes that there is no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke; in fact, even brief exposure can cause immediate harm,” reads the statement. “The only way to protect people from the dangers of tobacco smoke is to eliminate it.”
Tiawan Thompson, who also attended Thursday’s meeting, said she worked in a casino for five years and was in close proximity with smokers.
“It did affect my breathing. I had never had any problems before I started working there,” Thompson said, adding one of the reasons she continued working in the environment is because of the pay. It wasn’t easy to find another job that paid as well, she said.
“Working there allowed us to have a better quality of life, a better paying job,” Thompson said.
The movement to be totally smoke-free is not new, and some point to other cities that have been smoke-free for some time now as evidence Baton Rouge is behind the curve.
“This is not new,” Kuykendal told residents at Thursday’s meeting. “Not only is it not new, it’s old. We’re behind on this one. We need to catch up. Twenty-one states have smoke-free laws that regulate everything.”
Kuykendal said more than 4,000 municipalities across the United States have some sort of protection and limits on smoking, and more than 1,200 municipalities are 100% smoke-free. In Louisiana, Alexandria was the first city to go smoke-free she said. It was followed by Monroe, West Monroe, Ouachita Parish and others.
Brooks said it is critical that bar and casino workers are protected much like those who work in plants.
“It’s really important that we take care of each other and we protect ourselves,” he said.
—Alexandria Burris
