
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, July 15, 1990                   TAG: 9007160186
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: C-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

BACK REASONABLE CONTROLS ON SMOKING

SANDRA Tucker-Maxwell's letter ("Tobacco's dollars still green," June 6) accurately identifies one issue associated with smoking: whether revenues generated by the tobacco industry somehow justify more than 390,000 deaths and more than $13 billion in mortality and health-care costs attributable to smoking each year. We don't think so.

We can't expect that the sale and use of tobacco will be outlawed soon. But by publicizing smoking's risks to health and life and by reducing children's access to tobacco products, we hope to reduce the number of smokers each year. Also, through reasonable restrictions on smoking in public places, we hope to protect the health of non-smokers.

The American Cancer Society, American Heart Association and American Lung Association worked hard for passage of the 1990 Virginia Clean Indoor Air Act that set statewide controls on smoking in public. Now the three agencies are encouraging area jurisdictions to adopt local smoking-control ordinances.

The statewide law and local ordinances will not ban smoking, but will place reasonable controls on smoking in public. We urge all citizens, smokers and non-smokers alike, to support these reasonable controls to promote public health. CAROLE LOUGHEED American Cancer Society DONALD L. WETHERINGTON American Heart Association BRUCE STEWART, M.D. American Lung Association

by CNB