Letter: Question 5 a good start to clearing the air

Sunday, Dec. 17, 2006 | 8:35 a.m.

As an asthmatic who is allergic to cigarette smoke, I was overjoyed when the majority of voters in Nevada voted to enact a smoking ban in restaurants and deeply disappointed when Judge Douglas Herndon disregarded this by granting a preliminary injunction that prevented Question 5 from taking effect.

Tragically, there are many prevailing attitudes that "if people don't want to be exposed to breathing cigarette smoke, they should not patronize establishments that allow smoking," which is patently false (Curtiss Davis' Dec. 13 letter to the editor) .

I can't take a walk in this fine city without breathing the foul exhaled air of someone who smokes - outside or inside.

We live in very strange and uncertain times where bizarre toxins such as nanoparticles, carcinogenic agents and other pollutants defile our air and for which the health effects from these toxins have not yet been completely determined. We in Las Vegas also live in a desert where these toxins are not easily removed, filtered or washed away.

It's time for the general public to be informed of just the kinds of poisons (radioactive, carcinogenic, free radical, and others) that are unleashed from cigarettes so that we can all truly understand the harm that smokers inflict not only on themselves, but also on innocent bystanders (such as myself almost daily) via secondhand smoke. It's also time for us to seriously clean up the air that we all breathe by regulating pollution. Question 5 is a good start.

Michael Pravica, Henderson