Do you struggle with the problem of drifting second-hand smoke in your home? What you can do, looks like - 2011

Instilling a Fervent Wish for Smoke-free Housing – Part IV

     The last round of Tobacco Reduction Strategy initiating the ideation of smoke-free housing changed the landscapes and mindscapes for those creating drifting second-hand smoke, and for those experiencing it.  As one tiny speck in the universe tracking what is going on, I know of three stratas locally taking the transformative step to smoke-free housing. Math forecasts show 1 + 1 = 2; 2 + 2 = 4; 4 + 4 = 8; 8 + 8 = 16; 16 + 16 = 32, and on it goes.
     Recall, in an earlier article I mentioned how nicotine and its metobalized byproduct cotinine is measured in saliva, urine, blood, and newborn babies poo, and that this might be helpful in determining the best interests of the child in custody cases. In December 2010, the premier of measuring the drift of second-hand smoke, James L. Repace, provided expert testimony in a divorce case for a two-year old girl, exposing the high level of cotinine in her body causing the asthma[1]. 
     As more and more voices look to authoritative sources, health sciences and legal opinions will influence decision-making.  2011 looks to be a pivotal point, and certainly 2011-2020 will be a pivotal decade.  Dual demands of the market and need for legislation will spark discussions, dialogues, and diatribes.
     In the meantime, many people are at the grueling initial stage of speaking up, and writing their first letter either to a tenant, landlord, non-profit Board, strata or co-op Council.  That 'going on record' action initiates "instilling a fervent wish for smoke-free housing."
     For those who write and don't receive any response, recognize the evidence gathering for what it is.  Date stamp and initial the letter as 2nd request, even 3rd request. Begin to copy to your MLA's and  Healthy Living/Healthy Community Specialists at BC health authorities like Fraser Health, or Vancouver Coastal Health.
     No need for pleadings for a response.  No response and repeated requests constitutes powerful evidence.  Responses citing there is nothing that can be done, that legislation as it exists is being followed, signals someone in authority is uninformed, misinformed, misrepresenting, and perhaps stonewalling.  All paper trail.  All evidence.
     Here are my example samples of letters reflecting that we are no longer at zero, but have matured by three years from exposure to media and internet searches.

Dear Tenant:  Copy to Management.
 
As you are a smoker, I receive your second-hand smoke (and your "guests") into my suite.

In exploring how I might approach you and the landlord on this drifting second-hand smoke matter, I discovered a booklet, “When Neighbors Smoke.”  In it, I am advised not to presume that you know the impact of your smoking on others in the common areas of the building and property, in suites, and specifically the impact on me your neighbor.  I am to communicate to you my concerns, both verbally and in writing. The problem is I am unable to talk with you in person because of your third-hand smoke.  Also, I'm afraid that my experience of smokers thus far has left me with a fear that you won't take me seriously, and will be rude. So I am left to this written letter.

So in this letter I want to inform you of the impact that your second-hand smoke has on my health, and that it disrupts the quiet enjoyment of my suite, my life.

The drifting second-hand smoke has worsened existing health matters, and now I have developed asthma.  An asthma attack feels like someone is choking you, and when it happens at night, I can fall out of bed. My doctor asks that I request you to take your smoking outside and away from others.

I am aware of BC's latest Tobacco Reduction Strategy wherein they introduced the Smoke-Free Housing Initiative.  There is quite a lot written in the papers and the internet about how non-smokers in multi-unit dwellings struggle with drifting second-hand smoke, and why there is a smoke-free housing initiative. On the smoke-free housing websites, there is legal information on how drifting second-hand smoke falls under a breach of quiet enjoyment in the Residential Tenancy Act, and Nuisance laws. I am going to request Management to begin the process for smoke-free housing.

Please inform yourself, take into consideration all these factors, and take your smoking outside, away from common areas, and from seeping into my suite. Your co-operation would be greatly appreciated.

Dear Landlord:

As tenant [         ]in Suite [   ] is a smoker, I receive their second-hand smoke (and "guests") into my suite.  In addition, I have mapped that there are several smokers who live on my floor, and below me. The drifting second-hand smoke has worsened existing health matters, and now I have developed asthma.  Of course, I have a medical file documenting this, and my doctor has asked that I write you and my neighbor.

In exploring how I might approach this drifting second-hand smoke matter, I discovered a booklet, “When Neighbors Smoke.”  In it, I am advised not to presume that my neighbor knows the impact of their smoking on others in the common areas of the building and property, in suites, and specifically the impact on me, their neighbor.  I have now communicated with them, as per the attached copy.

In exploring the issue of second-hand smoke, I am aware of BC's latest Tobacco Reduction Strategy wherein they introduced the Smoke-Free Housing Initiative, calling on landlords to initiate smoke-free housing. 

There is quite a lot written in the papers and on the internet about how non-smokers struggle with drifting second-hand smoke, and why there is a smoke-free housing initiative. On the smoke-free housing websites,  there is legal and procedural information on how landlords might transform to smoke-free housing.   There are the health considerations of non-smokers, the legal considerations and consequences, and the financial benefits.

Please inform yourself, and take into consideration all these factors.  I request that you begin the process for smoke-free housing.  I would appreciate being able to work on a committee doing the planning and implementation of smoke-free housing. Your co-operation would be greatly appreciated. Please keep me advised of your progress.









[1]  Testimony of James Repace in the Matter of
Brandon W. Melton v. Brandy Jean Melton
Sevier County Circuit Court Case No. DR 2010-35-2
A report prepared for
The Tripcony Law Firm
415 N. McKinley, Suite 180
Little Rock, AR 72205
501-296-0606; fax 501-623-7686
www.tripconylawfirem.com

Do you struggle with the problem of drifting second-hand smoke in your home? What struggle looks like.

Instilling a Fervent Wish for Smoke-free Housing – Part III

     When provincial governments funded the latest round of the Tobacco Control/Tobacco Reduction Strategy initiating smoke-free housing, they had already made themselves aware of the legalities implementing a smoke-free policy, and they knew of the hostile public environment, that the topic would inflame smokers and non-smokers alike, around notions of 'right-to-smoke' and 'in your castle.'    They knew the likelihood of non-smokers being harassed, including with smoker demonstrations of more and longer smoking.  

     In 2008, I had MLA's mention that this harassment would likely happen and that I should not let that stop me. 
     The impediments to smoke-free housing would not be debates on the health hazards of drifting second-hand smoke.  Neither would the issue be whether smoke-free housing was legal, and whether it is legally enforceable. That procedure was established and standardized, as are the processes for enforcement:  Human Rights, Nuisance Civil Law, and Acts governing the rental market, stratas and co-ops.   

     The next step in the process was to introduce the documents to the public through smoke-free housing websites in order to market desirability, acceptability, and accessibility to tenants, landlords, and owners.  

     The reasoning behind this approach was that with eighty to eighty-five percent of the population non-smokers, they would provide the  push for the next leg of the tobacco reduction strategy without further legislation or tax increases.   Which was the lessor evil politically:  seeding the ideation of smoke-free housing in such a way to make it look like outside anti-smoking lobbying?  increasing tobacco taxes?  announcing legislative bylaws?  You decide.

     At ground zero where the Tobacco Reduction Strategy of smoke-free housing is playing out, fear is the common denominator among stakeholders.  Fear in all of its manifestations:  distress-anxiety-terror, fight-flight-frozen, and contempt-hate.   Fear links irrevocably to shame-humiliation, the grand stuff of Shakespearean tragedy.  I am surprised that after nearly a decade of smoke-free housing ideation ping-ponging around the continent, that the movie industry hasn't produced a documentary or drama. 

     For smokers, beyond the fear of physical withdrawal symptoms, there is fear of rejection by smoking friends and their social network, and perhaps having to remove themselves from their  social milieu in order to become non-smoking. This is the fear of isolation from a significant group relationship.
     Some non-smokers related how thinking about, starting or having a conversation with your friends or family members who smoke, and having to ask them not to smoke, not even on the balcony, and sometimes not even on the property was uncomfortable.  Uncomfortable is a keyword marker for fear, shame-humiliation. 

     Landlords fear having to enforce with evictions as a result of smoke-free housing policy, and seem to fear law suits from smokers over non-smokers.  In BC alone, there are ten times more law suits from non-smokers than smokers.  Smokers and non-smokers fear eviction as well. 
     Non-smokers fear eviction for handing in a letter requesting smoke-free housing, of being targeted by management, and smokers fear eviction for smoking. Eviction is possible, though highly improbable.

     As a result of this last round of community discussion forums, I received some incredible gifts by which to manage my fear of going 'public.'
     Thank you Brad, who called into the CKNW Bill Good talk radio show. The boy Brad developed asthma as a result of having two uncompromising smoking parents, who would not heed the medical advice from the family doctor.  At 17, the youth Brad moved out to get away from being sick.  At 37, the man Brad has children and he would not expose his children to smoking grandparents in a home filled with second or third-hand smoke. 

     Thank you John Lyle for starting your blog,
http://cleanairforkids.blogspot.com/2011/01/blowing-smoke.html 

and writing, "I am moved to write this blog because of reading about Rose Marie Borutski's struggles to rid her own home of the second hand smoke coming from her neighbours' apartments.  She lives in the same complex where my mother spent the last years of her life.  It was a problem then and it's a problem now.  We've come a long way in protecting the general public from tobacco smoke.  But those who are most in need of protection are twisting in a filthy wind."   WOW.

     Thank you Anna, for describing what some of the angst looks like....
"It is it is a long, hard, depressing road to smoke-free status.  It has been very hard on us, we have spent a lot of money on lawyers and rent and we are really no further ahead.  Looking back, we should have just re-sold our condo unit, at a loss, and moved on then.  Now, we are out of pocket for our lawyer's fees and rent elsewhere and we'll probably be moving on anyway.  What a sad story, and one that is being repeated all over. We have been threatened by council, and our car was vandalized.  But the rest of the people here are, surprisingly, supportive and keep saying to "keep at it, we want you to win your battle".  However, these very kind people are just saying that to us, they could be doing more, but they keep quietly in the background, fearing reprisals. The strata council has been most creative about blocking our non-smoking attempts, and that is mainly what our legal case is focusing on, the dereliction of duty of our strata council. After retaining a lawyer, who wrote two legal opinions (at a big cost), strata council basically told us to buzz off.  We filed with BCHRT.  Our complaint was accepted and was sent out. The council had not met the BCHRT deadlines so everything had been put back for months.  Finally, the council were ordered to hire a lawyer and the case worker has informed them that she will only talk to their lawyer.  They are to consider an early settlement meeting; otherwise they have to file either an application to dismiss or response to complaint. We have our AGM in a few weeks' time and all council has resigned so we'll have new people in and perhaps can move forward.  That's really what the case worker wants:  a whole new council with a rational perspective on things."
     I read that and think, eureka, what evidence you have, what evidence I have.  Thank you.
     So for those who are in need of protection and twisting in a filthy wind, seek out 3 or 5 others, and read, read, read: inform yourselves.  This is not a single person problem.  It is life consuming. Find out what others are doing, what are best practices.   Let knowledge be your authority, and use
authoritative words.  Ask your doctor, or a specialist for help and a letter. Write a letter together.

     Document the problem:  create the paper trail.  Record, journal, diary every incident of drifting second-hand smoke, and be the reasonable person trying to resolve the problem.  Map out the building, and where the smoke comes from.
     Remember, when you are trying to resolve a drifting second-hand smoke problem with a smoking neighbour, once you report that problem to a board of directors or strata council, the problem becomes not an interpersonal one, but a governance and leadership issue. 
     If you decide to write letters to management, or owners, know that these are private and  confidential.  No one needs to know your secret, silent efforts to move toward smoke-free housing.  You do not need to 'go public.'   Letters to MLA's, Ministers of Health and Housing, and health officials can also be kept confidential.

     Like speed limits and fines, seat-belts laws, and breathalyzer tests, domestic violence,  workplace violence, bullying, mobbying, and obesity: all health/social problems receiving legislative attention and/or restrictions - smoke-free housing's time has come.

Measuring second-hand smoke drift in non-smokers: Prove it!

Instilling a Fervent Wish for Smoke-free Housing – Part II

NEXT Community Discussion Forum is scheduled for
Tuesday, January 18, 2011 at 6:30 PM,
St. Paul's Hospital, Vancouver,
Providence Building Level 1, Conference Room 6,
entering off of Thurlow Street.

Tobacco and the hazards of smoking has preoccupied government health care professionals since 1957, and over five subsequent decades, the US Surgeon General has published 31 reports. That is how long the diseases from smoking have been a health epidemic, and how long public taxes have been paying for corporate tobacco's “environmental” damage.
“No cognizant authorities have identified an acceptable level of environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) exposure, nor is there any expectation that further research will identify such a level.” ASHRAE 2005 American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers.
The debate is long over.  The evidence is clear.  Smoke and second-hand smoke kills.There is no safe level. Everyone knows. After half a century, this is considered to be common knowledge, and we have a World View.
Big tobacco knows, and they are counting on being able to continue manufacturing enough doubt and ignorance to sell cigarettes.
Yet, speak the phrase, “drifting second-hand smoke” and raise the notion “smoke-free housing” and invariably the automatic response from smokers and some non-smokers is “prove it.”
Prove that drifting second-hand hand smoke is the hazard purported to be for non-smokers.
“Prove it” is a communication tactic to shut down a conversation. It's a slam. “Prove it” is not about interest or excitement, nor is it said with interest or excitement. It is not an invitation to “convince me,” “influence me,” “persuade me.” 
Instead, it is said in contempt, and it is the contempt message and not the content message that is to instill nervousness (distress, fear) and make the 'irritant' shut up and go away.
The proof is in your body:  everybody's body.  Nicotine, and its metabolized by-product, cotinine is measurable through your hair, saliva, urine, blood, and in newborn babies poo. 
Yes, that's right; a newborn baby with a non-smoking mother exposed to drifting second-hand smoke will have cotinine markers in the new poo.  “Biomarkers of prenatal tobacco smoke exposure: the correlation between serum and meconium and their association with infant birth weight” Environmental Health 2010, 9:53. 
In a recent Google alert, a large national study published in Pediatrics (Winickoff 2010) reported how children living in multi-unit dwellings metabolized drifting second-hand smoke and had 45% more cotinine than children in detached dwellings. Even with non-smoking parents, children might have cotinine levels measuring at one cigarette per day.
Sometimes, such testing is used in custody arrangements.
The major nicotine metabolite measurable in the body is cotinine, detectable for two weeks after tobacco cessation.  A non-smoker exposed to drifting second-hand smoke can have average readings of <20 ng/mL.   Average nicotine measurement of a smoker dependent on number of cigarettes smoker per day, and how much drifting second-hand smoke inhaled:  1,000 to 5,000 ng/mL, and cotinine 1,000 to 8,000 ng/mL.  In a non-smoker, cotinine levels indicate  exposure equivalents of one cigarette to twenty cigarettes per day.
Non-smokers, and non-smokers with children may want to test their drifting second-hand smoke levels.  
It's simple.  Go in to your doctor and ask for a Nicotine/Cotinine testing.
Take the test prescription to your local Life Lab. You might want to do this for a month or two to establish a pattern of levels.
An at home “DipStick” method “TobacAlert” is also available.
The “Prove it” and “Right to Smoke” deflective posturing is based in ignorance and contempt, not wanting to change your mind.  Corporate tobacco count$ on it.
May they R.I.P.

[nicotine....minus ni = cotine, + ni reversed = in; put in after t = cotinine]

Instilling a Fervent Wish for Smoke-free Housing – Part I

NEXT Community Discussion Forum is scheduled for 

Tuesday, January 18, 2011 at 6:30 PM, 

St. Paul's Hospital, Vancouver, 

Providence Building Level 1, Conference Room 6, 

entering off of Thurlow Street.

     Comes a New Year, and come resolutions, with quitting smoking the vast majority of fervent wishes. 
     That is why National Non-smoking Week (January 16-22, 2011),  established in 1977 by Tobacco Control, is always in January. Smokers resolve to quit smoking and need help to get over the initial three week to month long detoxing.
     When the BC government funded the latest Tobacco Reduction Strategy (2005-2009) and envisioned the idea of smoke-free housing in multi-unit dwellings, they essentially appealed earnestly,
    "Imagine it. Think it. Smoke-free housing is an idea whose time has come. We have all that we need to do this. Grasp it. Grab on to it. Do it."  People did.
     January 24, 2007, Jonathan Woodward wrote in the Globe and Mail about the first Human Rights Complaint filed by two women.  April 25, 2007, Cheryl Rossi followed up on the story in the Vancouver Courier.        
     Since 2008 and my own situation, I have followed more than thirty tenants and strata owners who have grabbed onto the fervent wish for smoke-free housing, and been forced into advancing their efforts through Human Rights Complaints or Nuisance Claims.  The Nuisance Claims route is by far the most effective, efficient, and accurate venue to address drifting second-hand smoke.  I focus for 2011 on Nuisance Claims for further writings.
     I too have a  fervent wish for 2011.  With the vast majority (85%) of the population being non-smokers, I ask that you take a moment of silence with me and repeat,
     “I fervently wish for drifting second-hand smoke to be history, and that smoke-free housing become the norm of the present, so that our future - children will not have to experience illnesses of allergies, chronic rhinosinusitis, asthma, chronic bronchitis and  emphysema (COPD), lung cancer, stroke, heart attacks.  Our children will age healthily, free from chronic debilitating illnesses.  I will do what it takes to push forward the last five years of work and make manifest smoke-free housing in 2011.”
     What does making a fervent wish mean?
     Instilling:  gradually, but firmly establishing an idea in a person's mind.
     Fervent: enthusiasm, intensity, spirited, ardent, earnest
     Wish: hope, desire, plea to make what is seemingly impossible, possible; what is seemingly improbable, probable.
     To make a fervent wish reality, people need to do something that pushes the idea forward into normalcy. This is what the Tobacco Control Strategy calls denormalizing and normalizing to smoke-free.      
     Talk about it, talk about what you know.  Someone you know may need help with drifting second-hand smoke.  Someone who you know may know someone who needs help with drifting second-hand smoke.
     A topic of talk needs to be the fear tenants, and strata owners experience around this topic. 
     A young impoverished woman with a child who has asthma has the fervent wish, but is afraid of losing her apartment, and then labeled as a troublemaker by the landlord not able to find another.  So she rationalizes her child's asthma as not so bad, and often as a cold that hangs on because he is around other children.
    Another woman with the fervent wish for smoke-free housing wants to support the talk among some of her neighbors.  Instead, she watches from the sidelines, witnessing how these non-smoking tenants are verbally harassed with threats of damage to vehicles, and threats about how, “she better watch her back. Hers is coming.”  She hopes the smoke-free housing movement accomplishes something soon.
     A young couple with their first baby wrote a letter to their strata council outlining how the drifting second-hand smoke impacts their baby and themselves.  They outlined the known illnesses of drifting second-hand smoke on babies.  She went to the next strata council meeting only to witness a barrage of yelling, insults, and threats against them from smokers.  She was relieved no one knew her and silently slipped out of the meeting.  She went the route of creating a petition, and it further inflamed the matter. She eventually filed a Human Rights Complaint after the strata council did nothing to help them.  But a year later and the Human Rights Tribunal has not proceeded with her complaint; they are backlogged.  The condo is up for sale, and the young couple just want to move.  They now know that a Nuisance Tort is the way to go, but are burnt out, and just want out. They already moved twice from apartment buildings, and thought in their own home they would be free from the drifting second-hand smoke problem.  “I get more protection from drifting-second hand smoke and harassment at work than I can get in my own home.”
     Several tenants and owners are waiting for the right moment to approach their landlord or strata council.
     The Smoke-free Housing BC Project provided a toolkit of legal opinions, sample legal documents to owners, landlords, tenants, strata councils to voluntarily implement  smoke-free housing.  Before this knowledge and procedure might be used effectively, fear, and  uncompromising siege mentality coming from smokers, landlords/managers and strata councils needs to be confronted.
     I was asked, “Why do strata councils and boards and landlords operate the way I say they do?” My answer is currently a work in progress for a next article. For now, I will just say, fear and contempt works.  
     Nuisance case law records the extremely fractious meetings, replete with yelling, fists raised, hands slapping tables, threats uttered, insults, name calling, intimidation, and an uncompromising, ugly siege mentality displacing time, place, and space where individuals inform themselves and then engage with the issue.  In the age of world wide web, researching is incredibly easy; reaching out to people who have made the transformation to smoke-free housing is incredibly easy.
     Hope lives because of realizing that Nuisance Law is the common law upon which the Strata Act and Residential Tenancy Act was drafted.  Nuisance Law provides the case law upon which smokers can be sued directly, and so can governing authority such as landlords, boards of directors, and strata councils. Nuisance Law doesn't provide "grandfathering" protection. It is the way to smoke-free housing, the way of 2011. For one of the Human Rights Complainants in Langley, Nuisance Law provided a yippee ki yay moment and a grand start to 2011.

     So, after talking to yourself about drifting second-hand smoke, and to friendly others, the next step is talking to your smoking neighbor – the topic of my next article.

End of Part I - Instilling a Fervent Wish for Smoke-free Housing

Upcoming Part II - Instilling a Fervent Wish for Smoke-free Housing:  Talking to your Smoking Neighbor