Editor,
You’ve recently printed readers’ letters espousing opinions on both sides of an anti-smoking ordinance in Foster City. I’m a non-smoker, in case that’s pertinent, and have always been confused by a major aspect of anti-smoking laws and their underlying rationale.
I’m no expert on the topic but, to my knowledge, the basis for these laws is that the activity at hand (e.g. smoking, “vaping,” etc.) produces harmful and/or carcinogenic substances expelled into the air for subsequent ingestion by other people, thereby causing them harm. One common and clever motto used by those who advocate such laws is “your right to smoke ends at my nose.”
I’ve always been confused by this rationale, however. The main cause of my confusion is that the exhaust produced by other products, such as motor vehicles, that use fossil fuels is similarly harmful and/or carcinogenic and is also expelled into the air like (and in far greater volumes than) tobacco smoke, “vapor,” and other substances addressed by these laws. For example, I am aware that motor vehicle exhaust contains carbon monoxide and that carbon monoxide is harmful to and perhaps deadly for humans. I suspect that such exhaust contains other harmful if not deadly substances as well.
I’ve heard of no attempts to outlaw the use of motor vehicles and other products that put such harmful substances into the air that people breathe to the detriment of their health. Perhaps that’s an indication of my ignorance but I suspect that few, if any, such attempts have been made. Why is tobacco smoke, for example, apparently treated differently in this regard than is fossil-fuel-based motor vehicle exhaust?
Should your right to drive “end at my nose?”
Dean Donovan
San Carlos
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