Jump to full article: New Zealand Herald, 2002-09-26
Intro: A non-smoker with lung cancer has called for a ban on smoking in all confined spaces, within his lifetime, to save him from dying in vain.
Aucklander David Simm told a parliamentary committee that his life-threatening condition "could have been averted if smoking had been banned in work places many years ago".
He urged MPs considering a proposal to toughen the smoke-free legislation with restrictions, such as separate smoking areas in bars, to go further and urgently pass laws banning smoking in all confined places.
"Every day this is delayed somebody else has died without knowing it is going to be fixed, and that to me is the pits.
"If you are a non-smoker and you get lung cancer and you know nothing is being done about it ... you are going to say they didn't do anything, and that is something I don't want to die thinking," Mr Simm told MPs.
He was convinced people underestimated the threat of passive smoking and that those even smelling smoke were at risk. . .
He told MPs he was certain his disease was caused by passive smoking.
"My working environment for 30 years was the smoko room, which is known as the cafeteria these days, for most of that time with uncontrolled smoking and that was just the norm. We didn't know any better, I guess."
When the Smokefree Amendment Act came into force in 1990, workplaces were still slow to change and smokers ignored the law. . .
Mr Simm was one of a number of people who made submissions at the committee hearing yesterday.
Parliament is considering the Smokefree Environment (Enhanced Protection) Amendment Bill and a further series of changes proposed by the last Government in a supplementary order paper. If passed into law bars, restaurants and casinos would have to provide enclosed smoking rooms with separate ventilation systems or become entirely smoke-free.
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