The opportunity to have a profound impact on the lives of children is upon us in Bangor. On Monday, Jan. 8, the Bangor City Council will hear before it an argument to help rid children of one of the most acute public health issues we have faced in more than a generation, their exposure to tobacco smoke. The City Council will have the opportunity to do so through a proposed city ordinance that would make it a finable offense to smoke in a vehicle with a child under the age of 18 present.

The intent of the city ordinance is to be an educational tool to enhance existing efforts to reduce or eliminate childhood exposure to secondhand smoke, and it is not intended to punish smokers. Great success has been achieved through the state’s seat-belt law, which was also modeled primarily to educate drivers and not as a source of punishment.

The need for such regulation stems from a report by the U.S. Surgeon General in July 2006 on the health effects of secondhand smoke on both children and adults. Most striking in the Surgeon General’s report are the trends of exposure to secondhand smoke for both children and adults. Over the past 20 years, the population that has witnessed the least reduction in exposure to secondhand smoke has been children ages 4-11. And the population of nonsmokers with the highest levels of nicotine in their blood were children ages 4-11, higher than both adolescents and adults.

Aside from an overall decline in tobacco use, these disparities in levels of exposure can mostly be attributed to successful laws to reduce workplace, restaurant and bar smoking. These laws have been so successful in reducing adult exposure to secondhand smoke that they have now made young children those most likely to be exposed to secondhand smoke in this country. Our success at reducing adult exposure to secondhand smoke also highlights the failure of our society to protect children, the population we should have focused on first in terms of exposure reduction. We now have the chance to turn this failure into a great opportunity for children in Bangor.

The Surgeon General’s report also reaffirmed that it is well established that exposure to secondhand smoke increases a child’s risk of developing lower respiratory infections, middle ear infections, asthma and decreased lung function. There is also evidence that secondhand smoke exposure increases the risk for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.

Children of smokers have poorer performance in school and may have delayed speech and possible behavior issues, and miss more school days because of illness. Of greatest concern is that children of smokers are more likely to become smokers themselves as they enter into adulthood.

In an effort to reduce this disparity in exposure and consequent health effects, a group of local public health leaders proposed that the City of Bangor create an ordinance to ban smoking in vehicles with children in an effort to reduce exposure among young children. This ordinance is intended to expand upon the city’s current right to regulate vehicle behavior and extend existing laws that regulate safety within and outside a vehicle. Such current laws include those that require a child to be in a child safety seat, adults to wear seat belts, and laws that prohibit open containers of alcohol in a vehicle.

Further enhancing the need for regulations for smoking while a child is in a vehicle came from a study published this past November by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health on the levels of tobacco smoke in a vehicle. The study analyzed vehicles being driven with a cigarette being smoked in the driver’s seat and they measured tobacco levels with the windows open and closed. The study showed that even with a window rolled all the way down, high levels of tobacco smoke remain in the vehicle. And with windows closed the tobacco levels were so toxic they would be of grave harm even to healthy occupants of a vehicle. These high levels of environmental contaminants would be categorized by the Environmental Protection Agency as “hazardous” to the general population, and far more serious a health risk to young children.

The level of evidence is overwhelming and the time is long overdue to protect children from the dangers of second hand smoke. The Bangor City Council should do what no community has done in Maine, protect our children from the dangers of secondhand smoke. Such leadership will surely result in more communities adopting similar ordinances to protect children in Maine and will uphold Bangor as the safest place in Maine to raise a child.

Dr. Jonathan Shenkin is a pediatric dentist in Bangor. He wrote this commentary on behalf of himself, Dr. Paul Shapero, a pediatric allergist; Dr. Scott Clough, a pediatrician at Norumbega Pediatrics; and Dr. Michael Ross, a pediatrician at Penobscot Pediatrics, all in Bangor.