Working in clean air

Do you remember when the surgeon general’s warning about the dangers of smoking first appeared on a pack of cigarettes? It’s been awhile.
The first surgeon general’s report on smoking’s ability to kill a person was delivered in 1964. The warnings showed up on cigarette packaging about a year later.
It’s been nearly a half-century since those events, and the anti-smoking movement is still inching along. The latest step was taken last week by officials at Marian Medical Center in Santa Maria, when they made all of the group’s campuses tobacco-free.
Bravo!
We understand that some smokers may, instead, be booing Marian’s decision. Smoking is legal, after all, and many people feel their rights are being denied when they find themselves in areas where they could smoke, but are prohibited from doing so by government or executive fiat.
What many smokers don’t fully realize is how pervasive their smoke can be. It is truly amazing how a person lighting up a dozen or more feet away, outdoors, can transform a clean-air space into a gagging purple haze.
We’re fairly sure future historians will characterize smoking for what it really is — one of the cruelest hoaxes ever pulled off by a specific industry.