[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 24 (Tuesday, March 8, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: March 8, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                       DOD WORKPLACES SMOKE FREE

                                 ______


                         HON. RICHARD J. DURBIN

                              of illinois

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, March 8, 1994

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. Speaker, today the Department of Defense is 
announcing that it is issuing an instruction that will improve the 
health of all DOD personnel by making all DOD workplaces smoke free. I 
applaud the Department of Defense for taking this important step to 
protect civilian and military personnel from exposure to secondhand 
smoke.
  DOD's action is a proper response to the Environmental Protection 
Agency's findings that secondhand smoke kills 3,000 Americans each year 
from lung cancer alone and is worthy of the EPA designation that is a 
group A carcinogen. This classification is reserved for substances 
which are known to cause cancer in humans, including asbestos, benzene, 
and arsenic.
  When today's DOD announcement takes effect on April 8, the Department 
of Defense will join a number of other Federal agencies that have taken 
similar action to eliminate unnecessary exposure to deadly secondhand 
smoke. Among the other agencies that have established smoke free 
workplace policies are the Department of Health and Human Services, the 
Environmental Protection Agency, the Office of Personnel Management, 
the General Services Administration, and the U.S. Postal Service.
  The simplest and most economical way to protect nonsmokers from 
exposure to secondhand smoke in the workplace is to ban smoking in 
indoor work spaces. DOD has taken this approach. Its policy permits 
smoking only in designated outdoor smoking areas. The only other 
approach that can effectively protect nonsmokers from exposure to 
secondhand smoke is to establish separately ventilated indoor smoking 
areas, but that approach would have required DOD to incur costs for 
modifications to ventilation systems.
  DOD wisely chose to focus its scarce resources on a more valuable 
program of assistance to those of its employees who smoke. 
Specifically, DOD's instruction requires DOD agencies to provide 
effective smoking cessation programs to smokers, and to expand such 
programs as needed, as part of its move to implement the workplace 
smoking ban. With the recent revelation of evidence that tobacco 
companies manipulate nicotine levels in cigarettes to keep their 
customers addicted to tobacco, we must recognize that it isn't always 
easy to quit the tobacco habit without assistance. Offering smoking 
cessation programs is an important way to recognize smokers' human 
struggle with the addictive nature of tobacco while implementing a 
smoke free workplace policy to protect the health of nonsmokers.
  Mr. Speaker, secondhand smoke contains more than 4,000 substances, 
including 43 substances known to cause cancer in humans or animals. The 
Department of Defense is to be commended for taking this action to give 
its nonsmokers a defense against exposure to secondhand smoke and for 
offering assistance to smokers to help them quit smoking. Every 
employer in the Nation--in both the governmental sector and the private 
sector--should take a lesson from the Department of Defense and 
consider action to improve their employees' health.

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