Safer to inhale soon

> Hopefully, when new enactments against smoking in eateries come into force, this will help clear the smoke from our eyes and lungs

IONCE had a superior and a deputy who were (and still are!) chain smokers. And we had a KSU (secretary-general) of a ministry we belonged to who made a mockery of the no-smoking rule in government departments.

Together, they all felt extremely comfortable in each other’s company besides smelling like walking tobacco leaves!

Even in enclosed air-conditioned premises, they’d just open the window for ventilation and smoked away, oblivious to the rules and suffering of non-smokers.

I’m sure many of you had suffered from inhaling second-hand smoke from such human polluting chimney stacks.

In recent years, it has been discovered that second-hand smoke, also known as environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), is a mixture of two forms of smoke from burning tobacco.

One is mainstream smoke or the smoke exhaled by a smoker, and the other is sidestream smoke from the lighted end of a cigarette.

Sidestream smoke has higher concentrations of cancer-causing agents (carcinogens) and is more toxic than mainstream smoke because it has smaller particles that can easily make their way into our bodies.

Second-hand smoke is known to cause cancer because it has more than 7,000 chemicals, including at least 70 that can cause cancer. Especially lung cancer, and even among people who have never smoked!

The American Cancer Society says that second-hand smoke can also trigger asthma attacks, make asthma symptoms worse, and even cause new cases of asthma in the young.

Although some of these problems might seem small, it says that they can add up quickly.

When things go wrong, think of the medical expenses, visits to the hospital, lost school time, and often, lost work time for the parent. Not forgetting the discomforts to the sick child.

Recently, one of my enlightened buddies, Khalid Mohd, told me that he was jumping for joy because the government will soon make it unlawful to smoke in any restaurant, whether air-conditioned or open-air.

And if die-hard smokers persist, they’ll be slapped with a RM10,000 fine or be jailed for two years.

Even the stall owner will be asked to hand over RM2,000 from his trusty and rusty tin can of currency notes if he didn’t warn the culprits in the first place.

Thirty local medical associations have hailed the move as their members say that research showed that nonsmokers are at risk of developing serious health problems from smoke inhalation.

A RM10,000 fine should make the more than four million habitual smokers in Malaysia think some 600 times over whether it’s worth the while to light up in warungs. This is because they can buy almost 600 packs of 20 premium cigarettes with that kind of money.

Enforcement is key here. Or else we’d have the most encompassing and stringent rules but “smoke still gets into your eyes”, like in that Platters song.

I was at an upmarket eatery in a rather uppity precinct known as Damansara Heights recently. The men there were trying hard to look like either George Clooney, Ryan Gosling or Idris Elba while many of the women looked as if they had left big portions of their dress material back home or at their tailor.

Perhaps it was a dress-down Friday?

One woman sitting by the window was smoking away stylishly. Stylish from the way she held her cigarette with her long fingers and tossing her hair when she exhaled!

I was asked how can smoking be allowed there. I just shrugged my shoulders as we were on debatable territory there since one side of the restaurant had large airy windows and the entrance was also wide open (good feng shui?).

So, it wasn’t really an enclosed airconditioned restaurant and the owner might get away with the law. For now.

But when the clock strikes 12 on either Dec 1 or Jan 1 (I’m still unclear about the date), hopefully, by then, the smokescreen has cleared and we can all inhale again.

Jeff Yong, after making his mark in the twisty maze of mainstream journalism, has finally decided to enjoy what he does best - observing the unusual and recounting the gleeful. He can be contacted at lifestyle.borak@gmail. com.