The Alliance of Boulder County
on Tobacco and Health

Should People have Access to Medical Facilities?

A person who has a severe sensitivity to tobacco smoke (a breath can mean a few minutes of consciousness) tries to go into a medical facility and ends up getting enough smoke from smokers clustered around the entrance door to leave him sick for several days.

A letter was written to the management asking that the smokers be moved away from the entrance door so it can be smoke-free.

And the victim gets told by the management that "you can go in another door" with no concern about him having been made sick. And no concern is expressed about the other door being just as smoky. And no assurance is given that anything will be done to promote patient well-being or health, such as declaring any entrance door a smokefree area. And makes a very strong point that smoking shall be supported no matter who is impacted or denied access to their building.

This ongoing defensiveness of smoking in situations where other people are harmed also sends a very unfortunate message to smokers who too often see the restrictions on smoking as more of a personal attack on them that a social concern for anyone else. And too often those hard feelings get expressed by harrassing people who have to avoid the smoke.

Tobacco is one of the major health problems in our society. A building management - medical facility no less - that goes out of its way to continue supporting smokers no matter who else they impact or injure is a very large part of this problem.

And a hundred billion drug cartel must be snickering all the way to the bank.


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URL of this page: http://bcn.boulder.co.us/community/abct/abctmacs.htm