LETTER: Smoke-free air is our right

The right to breathe clean air is a major right of smokers and non-smokers alike.

No one ever has the right to endanger the health of others by their habits.

Smokers must realize the secondhand smoke they emit causes others to have health problems. That can mean children, friends and anyone they defile the air around.

Smoking is the one vice that negatively affects everyone else so that smokers can get thier fix.

We have to control drinking and driving so that the impaired cannot kill anyone on the road. A smoker’s weapon may not be immediate, but those around him will suffer, and cannot breath clean air as long as they exhale.

Smoking in multi-family dwellings needs to be banned, as well, and also, smoking in a car with the windows down in rush hour traffic.

We eliminated asbestos and lead pipe, still legal for sale, but not for breathing by Canadian citizens.  Just because something is legal does not mean it is harmless.

The statistics clearly show that careless smoking causes house and apartment  fires, forest fires, and is dangerous to the public, not to mention loss of work time (smoke breaks), the litter, loss of revenue from sale of property, and the burden on the health-care system.

Thank you, Capital Regional District, for working to help Victorians with their right to breathe clean air a major right of smokers and non-smokers alike.

Molly Walker, Victoria