Tobacco Free Chattanooga commends the decision by Friends of the Festival to designate smoking zones for the 2013 Riverbend Festival. The Festival’s recent policy change on the website states, "Riverbend has designated smoking areas. Please refrain from smoking unless you are in one of seven areas designated for smokers."
Officials said, "The new policy limits smoking at the festival site and will help ensure festival attendees are less likely to be exposed to dangerous secondhand smoke from cigarettes. Secondhand smoke is the combination of smoke emitted from the burning ends of tobacco product and the smoke exhaled from the lungs of tobacco users."
“We think this is a great step forward and will help attendees of the Festival breathe easier,” said Kevin Lusk, chairman of Tobacco Free Chattanooga and Communications Manager for the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Medical Society. “We hope this progress will continue into the future to help make the event entirely smoke free. Friends of the Festival is keeping the health of Riverbend goers as a top priority.”
Secondhand smoke causes more than 42,000 deaths, including more than 3,000 lung cancer deaths among nonsmoking adults each year, according to statistics from the American Cancer Society. The total annual costs of secondhand smoke exposure are estimated to be at least $5 billion in direct medical costs and $6 billion in indirect costs.
Only about 20 percent of adults in Hamilton County smoke cigarettes, according to the 2010 Behavior Risk Factor Survey by the Hamilton County Health Department. Tobacco is the leading preventable cause of death, disease, and disability in the United States, according to the Center for Disease Control.
"Daily we see the devastating health impacts of tobacco use in our profession,” said Mark Anderson, MD, president of the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Medical Society. “By taking steps to become a smokefree community, we improve overall health of Chattanooga and Hamilton County. We have a high rate of asthma issues in this community among children which can be irritated by the effects of secondhand smoke. The Medical Society strongly supports tobacco free public events and commends Friends of the Festival for taking positive steps toward potentially making this goal a reality."