Balancing smokers, nonsmokers and health concerns: Delaware and California have banned all public smoking. Other states are looking at requiring separate, well-vented rooms. The problem is no one knows how much ventilation is enough.

You can pull the slot machine handle until your arm gets tired or you run Out of money in a Delaware casino, but, as of November, you can't light up. Nor can you smoke in almost any indoor public place, including bowling alleys, restaurants, arenas, bars or break-rooms in offices.

Delaware joined California last spring when legislators passed a "no public smoking law" that went into effect the day after Thanksgiving.

Sponsors of the bill cited the need for laws that protect state residents and children from the potentially harmful effects of secondhand smoke. "This law is the right thing to do for the First State," said Senate sponsor David McBride. "It will be the most protective law in the nation against the harmful effects of secondhand smoke."

Pointing out that Delaware had one of the highest cancer death rates in the nation, Representative Robert Valihura Jr., a House sponsor of the legislation, said, "This legislation will go a long way toward lessening this health problem. Second-hand smoke is now being treated like any other environmental pollutant."

The Delaware Economic and Financial Advisory council estimated slot machine revenues would dip by about $11.9 million in 2003, and the state's sports and gaming companies estimated Delaware could lose up to $57 million in annual revenue if smokers abandoned the state's three casinos.

TO VENT OR NOT TO VENT

As far as secondhand smoke is concerned, other states are weighing how to balance smokers' habits with a nonsmoking population approaching 75 percent. The battle is divided between public health officials, who contend there is no safe second-hand smoke exposure level, and the hospitality industry, which wants business owners to retain the right to accommodate smokers or voluntarily restrict smoking.

To restrict nonsmokers' exposure to second-hand smoke, states can take the path of Delaware and California, or they can require that businesses set up separate smoking sections with ventilation systems.

The exact amount of ventilation needed for safety in a smoking section, however, is not known. Larry Schoen of the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air conditioning Engineers Inc. says, "If you put too much hot sauce in soup, you need to add more stock to dilute it. But unless you know what your target is, what the acceptable level of hot sauce is," he says, "you don't know how much stock to add to dilute the soup. With second-hand smoke, until someone says you have to get the carcinogen level down to X, we don't know how much air to add to make it safe."

Schoen points out that no one has shown where the "level of second-hand smoke is OK."

A number of groups, including the National Restaurant Association, the Hospitality coalition on Indoor Air Quality and tobacco companies say that vented smoking sections can solve some of the indoor air quality problems, such as odors and smoke drift.

But smoking opponents such as Tim Filler, associate director of Americans for Nonsmokers Rights Foundation, call separate smoking areas a tobacco industry "tactic to stifle clean indoor air campaigns by creating the appearance that the problems relating to second-hand smoke are addressed without actually creating smoke-free places."

STATE LAWS RESTRICTING SMOKING

                          Restricted *  Prohibited  Ventilation **

Arts/cultural facilities      27            6             -
Child care centers            13           23             3
Elevators                      8           27             -
Government buildings          38            5             1
Gyms/arenas                   29            2             -
Health facilities             39            1             2
Jury/courtrooms                8            4             -
Public meetings               15            7             -
Public transit                15           21             -
Restaurants                   27            4             -
Restrooms                      7            5             -
Retail/grocery stores         24            5             -
Schools                       22           24             -
Private workplaces            20            1             2

* Smoking only in designated areas

** Enclosed, ventilated area required or smoking is banned entirely

Source: State Legislated Actions on Tobacco Issues, 2001, American Lung
Association

Leslie Teach Robbins specializes in chronic disease prevention for NCSL.