Fact: Breathing secondhand smoke is harmful.

Fact: You do not have the right to indiscriminately harm others.

Many clever arguments can and have been made to get around these two facts. Reasonable people can come to only one logical conclusion from these facts: Smoking indoors is not a right.

As a chemist I have worked with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), a component of tobacco smoke and known carcinogen. When I worked with PAHs I would wear gloves and goggles, and open containers only with my hands extended into a ventilated hood in order to protect myself. Annual blood tests were taken to verify that I was not being exposed to these compounds.

These steps were taken because it was my employer's responsibility to protect me, and as a chemist I was keenly aware of the risks and precautions that needed to be taken when working with these substances. Very few chemists acquire lung cancer from exposure at work.

Sadly, the general public is less aware and less well-protected. More than 50,000 nonsmokers die each year because of secondhand smoke, according to studies published over the past decade in Circulation, the Journal of American Medicine and other publications. Bar and wait staff are a particularly high-risk group.

Clean indoor air should not be an issue about choice or rights. It is an issue of responsibility. Bar and restaurant owners have the same responsibility to protect employees as employers at a chemistry lab.

Some have argued that a smoking ban would ruin Cincinnati's economy. This is a last and desperate scare tactic designed to forestall sensible health precautions. Who would ask their child to forgo a life-saving medical procedure because it was too expensive?

Many parts of the country have gone smoke-free and have seen positive economic growth, including Massachusetts, New York City and California. This should and does make sense when one stops to consider the fact that most people don't smoke. Most people don't enjoy breathing secondhand smoke. Most people would enjoy going out more if they didn't have to breathe in all the smoke. Businesses stand to gain from catering to the majority, as do elected officials.

America is governed by majority rule and minority rights. People smoking indoors have no right to do so, and they are in the minority.

Frank Dill of Blue Ash is a chemist who manages Raymond Walters College's Science Learning Lab.

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