Editorial: Smoke-free Farmers' Markets by Karina

If  people want to smoke, harm themselves and live in denial about the dangers of cigarette smoke, then they should smoke in the their own home and not in public out door areas like farmers markets. In 2007, Stanford University Researchers, published an in depth study of outdoor second hand smoke levels, “the primary finding is that second hand smoke exposures can be near to an active smoker”. That’s crazy that even if I don’t smoke, the people around me that do will expose me to the same levels of smoke. The US Surgeon General has concluded that there is no risk-free level of second hand smoke exposure. Second hand smoke causes nearly 3,000 deaths from lung cancer and 46,000 deaths from heart disease ever year in the US. Not only is smoke causing you to die from cancer but it also affects your heart and not many people know that.  Farmers Markets are making a difference in the communities, by providing healthy and fresh foods, which is setting a good example to children but allowing people to smoke at Farmers Markets is sending kids the opposite message. Smoke free farmers’ markets help people quit, because if you take away the right from them to smoke in certain areas people tend not to do it. In addition, according to a 2008 poll of California Voters, the most popular area to make smoke free is farmers’ markets with 69% of those surveyed supporting these types of policies. I wouldn’t smoke at a farmers markets and  neither should you.