A reply to a smoking advocate

AS SOMEONE who since 1979 has advocated for the adoption of smoke-free laws at the local level in Massachusetts (before the statewide smoke-free workplaces law took effect in 2004), I was delighted to read Stephen Helfer's admission that it "is the duty of public health officials to educate and protect the public" ("Not the duty of health officials to police our lives," Letters, Sept. 12). For many years, Helfer opposed the adoption of local board of health regulations to protect nonsmokers by requiring restaurants and other public places to be smoke-free. At various public hearings in Greater Boston, he expressed his disdain for medical studies, including reports by the surgeon general, showing that exposure to secondhand smoke harms the health of nonsmokers.

Now Helfer is accusing Boston Public Health Commissioner Barbara Ferrer of providing "medically inaccurate" information when she refers to tobacco as having no "redeeming value." In his letter, he relies on the purported benefits of nicotine, which can be obtained through nontobacco sources such as patches and gum, to try to justify the continued use of the dirtiest, deadliest nicotine-delivery device, the cigarette. Any supposed redeeming value of smoking cigarettes pales in comparison to the enormity of the devastation it inflicts on our society.

EDWARD L. SWEDA JR.
Boston
The writer is senior attorney for the Public Health Advocacy Institute, which is based at Northeastern University School of Law.