Pennsylvania Smoking Ban

"No Butts About It"

For a class at Wilkes University, myself and five other students are proposing a much needed state-wide smoking ban. Almost 75\% of Pennsylvanians do not smoke yet secondhand smoke is filling up the places we all love and enjoy.. and it must be stopped.

We are asking you to join us in the fight against smoke filled environments.

We are asking you, the people who pledged to represent and serve us, to not only review our plan, but to set it in motion.

Doing so would benefit every citizen of our beautiful state.


Our plan would ban smoking in the following places:
- Workplaces
- Galleries
- Sports Facilities
- Restaurants
- Bars that generate less than 70\% of their income from alcohol or tobacco

Our plan would permit smoking in the following places:
- Outdoor Cafes
- Private Clubs
- Bars that generate 70\% or more of their income from alcohol or tobacco



We encourage you to read over the information that is presented here.
You decide if it's fair that we are subjected to the harmful habits of others..

LungUSA.org describes just how fatal secondhand smoke can be..

Secondhand smoke, also know as environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), is a mixture of the smoke given off by the burning end of a cigarette, pipe or cigar and the smoke exhaled from the lungs of smokers.

It is involuntarily inhaled by nonsmokers, lingers in the air hours after cigarettes have been extinguished and can cause a wide range of adverse health effects, including cancer, respiratory infections, and asthma.

Secondhand smoke causes approximately 3,400 lung cancer deaths and 22,700-69,600 heart disease deaths in adult nonsmokers in the United States each year.

Secondhand smoke exposure causes disease and premature death in children and adults who do not smoke. Secondhand smoke contains hundreds of chemicals known to be toxic or carcinogenic, including formaldehyde, benzene, vinyl chloride, arsenic ammonia and hydrogen cyanide.

Secondhand smoke is especially harmful to young children. Secondhand smoke is responsible for between 150,000 and 300,000 lower respiratory tract infections in infants and children under 18 months of age, resulting in between 7,500 and 15,000 hospitalizations each year, and causes 1,900 to 2,700 sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) deaths in the United States annually.

As of 2005, nine smoke-free states prohibit smoking in almost all workplaces, including restaurants and bars (CA, CT, DE, ME, MA, NY, RI, VT and WA)...

We would like to be next on the list.



We thank you for your time and hope you will utilize the powers given to you by our votes.

We ask that you protect us, your people of the state of Pennsylvania, from the dangers of second hand smoke.