EVIDENCE MOUNTS ON SMOKING AS A COMMUNITY KILLER

SMOKING could be banned in all pubs and restaurants if the recommendations
of a major health report are implemented by the Government.

In addition, smoking should be banned from all public transport, and all
forms of tobacco advertising in the media should be banned.

These are among a number of radical, tough measures urged by the Eastern
Health Board's public health report.

In a wide-ranging report, which covers the entire health gamut of the 1.3
million people living in the counties of Dublin, Kildare and Wicklow,
smoking is identified as "the greatest single risk factor which threatens
the community," in Ireland today.

"Tobacco use is the single most important preventable risk to human health
and an important cause of premature death," according to the EHB's Director
of Public Health, Dr Brian O'Herlihy. "Thus, smoking as a risk factor is
referred to frequently in this report and features prominently in the
section dealing with health promotion."

The report says that smoking is estimated to cause 87% of deaths from lung
cancer, 82% from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, 21% from coronary
heart disease, and 18% from strokes.

It points out that it is not just smokers themselves who are dying from
smoking but also non-smokers who are exposed to their smoke, and it urges
tough prohibitive laws to stamp the practice out in public. "The
progressive exclusion of smoking on health board property, all forms of
public transport and indoor places of public gathering, the removal of all
forms of tobacco advertising through the media, and the rigorous
enforcement of legislation precluding the sale of tobacco to young
children, offer ways of significantly reducing the health impact of
smoking," the report says.

There can no longer be any credible claim that smoking does not seriously
damage health, it says.

"Over recent decades, powerful and consistent evidence has accumulated that
identifies smoking as the single greatest risk factor, which threatens the
health of the community," the report says "By 1990 smoking represented the
most extensively documented cause of disease ever investigated in the
history of biomedical research."

As an example of how dangerous smoking can be, figures show that some 90%
of lung cancers are directly caused by active smoking. It says that, in
recent years, the evidence of damage to the health of non-smokers, who are
subjected to passive inhalation of smoke, has become enormous.

"The weight of evidence makes it clear that exposure to tobacco smoke is
one of the leading preventable causes of morbidity and premature death,"
the report says. "Effective action to reduce smoking prevalence, and to
eliminate exposure to environmental tobacco smoke is clearly a public
health priority."

Dr O'Herlihy declined to comment on the report's findings. An EHB spokesman
accepted that, if the recommendations were carried out, they would have a
dramatic effect on traditional forms of public recreation and association,
but said that it was essentially an issue for the Government to deal with.

"We accept that these are radical suggestions but they are options," he said.

The Health Board doesn't have the power to enforce this, but it can
recommend that the politicians take measures to improve the health of the
population, and there is no doubt that smoking is very damaging to people's
health."

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski