MINNEAPOLIS, April 4, 2008—An amendment to a supplemental budget bill was passed by the Minnesota House allowing "smoking shacks" to provide shelter for people smoking.

The amendment allows smoking "in a structure located outside an establishment that provides shelter for persons smoking outdoors. Employees of an establishment with a smoking shelter may not serve food or beverages to persons in the smoking shelter." 

The amendment was offered late Thursday night by Rep. Bud Hiedgerken, R-Freeport, and passed with 73 votes.

The Minnesota Medical Association objects to the amendment on the grounds that it weakens the strong public health protections provided by the Freedom to Breathe Act.  The Hiedgerken amendment represents a "slippery slope" and will encourage similar attacks on Freedom to Breathe.

As an organization charged with improving the health of Minnesotans, the MMA feels that this change may be the first of many efforts to compromise the effectiveness of Freedom to Breathe, which was thoroughly debated last year and has been shown in polls to be popular with Minnesotans—76 percent of Minnesotans favored it in one poll.

Freedom to Breathe has proved to be a health boon to people who must work in areas that used to contain secondhand smoke.

Smoke-free policies work. They reduce pollutants known to increase cancer, heart attack, stroke and respiratory disease. In bars and taverns that allowed smoking, a study found that up to 95 percent of particles that cause heart disease, cancer and stroke were put there by smoking, and not other factors. 

 

When laws compelled these bars and taverns to go smoke-free, levels of cancer-causing substances dropped by 90 percent or more.

If the Hiedgerken amendment is allowed to become law, the health of workers and patrons will be put at risk once again.

Finally, the MMA feels it was underhanded to amend a necessary bill at midnight, without public input or discussion, and that the language of the "smoking shack" amendment is vague and problematic, likely to confuse businesses and people charged with enforcing the public health law.