Dear Source:
On March 24th, the Health Committee of the Virgin Islands Legislature will hear testimony on a bill that has the potential to improve the health and wellbeing of every Virgin Islands worker.
The Bill, sponsored by Senators Shawn-Michael Malone, and co-sponsored by Senator Patrick Simeon Sprauve, proposes to limit smoking in public places as well as places of employment, and will ultimately create a smoke free environment for all Virgin Islands workers.
This legislation is particularly significant because it will protect Virgin Islands workers from more than 4,000 chemical substances contained in tobacco smoke. By making the VI smoke free, it will also protect Virgin Islanders from the additional 43 Class A carcinogens identified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for which there is no known safe level of exposure.
Individuals are often exposed to the health hazards created by breathing someone else’s smoke, known as ‘second hand smoke’. Others who are exposed to the hair or clothes of second hand smoke victims become victims of third hand smoke. This is important when the victim of second hand smoke may be a young mother who cradles her infant in her arms after a long day at a workplace where smoking is permitted. In this case, the infant receives exposure to the same toxic tobacco chemicals as if they had been in the mother’s place of employment.
In 2006, the U.S. Surgeon General’s Report entitled “The Health Consequences of Involuntary Exposure to Tobacco Smoke,” indicated that there is no risk-free level of exposure to secondhand smoke. Furthermore, it says that because ventilation and other air cleaning technologies cannot completely control the exposure, the only effective way to ensure that exposure to second hand smoke does not occur in the workplace is to require that the environment be completely smoke free.
AARP Virgin Islands feels strongly that all individuals living and working in the territory deserve equal protection under the law. That’s why AARP is urging all Virgin Islanders to join in the effort to make the Virgin Islands Smoke Free. We ask that residents let their Legislative representatives know that creating a Smoke Free work environment throughout the territory is a positive step toward safeguarding the health of Virgin Islanders; that it is also good for the health of our visitors; and that a Smoke Free environment is good for Virgin Islands businesses as well.
Please take the time to call, write or e-mail your Senator and ask them to vote YES on Bill Number 28-0191, the Virgin Islands SmokeFree Act, and please also ask them to make sure that all facets of the gaming industry are included in the law.
Denyce E. Singleton
The police can’t enforce the laws we have now-—preventing guns from being fired at all hours of the day and night killing people. They are not stopping people from smoking marijuana, an illegal substance, outdoors when everyone but law enforcement smells it – just walk up Garden Street to smell what I am talking about. Police also seem helpless in enforcing the ban against hand-held cell phones in motor vehicles—I can’t tell you how many times we have almost been wiped out by a driver in la-la land not paying attention to driving because of use of a hand-held cell phone.
Passing no-smoking legislation for the health and welfare of our residents is a laudable goal, but we should confine it to indoors of public places and places where people have to place their orders in outside concession areas to protect non-smokers and employees who have to be there to get their food or drinks. These are areas where the owners of the establishments can enforce the rules by asking people to get rid of the cigarette and only if they don’t, involving law enforcement. If we have the money for more police, let them address the issues of immediate danger to our lives which are not being enforced now.
I would caution us against going so far as to alienate many of our European tourists, smoking American tourists, as well as local smokers, in areas where it is not needed—outdoors away from concession areas, and making rules which are difficult to enforce or are unnecessary for the health of all concerned.
Keep it simple, understandable, enforceable, and no more restrictive than necessary to protect employees and customers.
Dena Langdon,
St. Thomas