Cigarette Beach Ban Bill

I am a proponent of clean beaches. Who isn't? I don't know anyone who actually prefers to find syringes, coke cans, cigarette butts and tons of plastic on the beach after a typical rain storm washes the stuff from the rivers into the ocean, then back again onto a beach. With that in mind, I had to ponder a recent email from Surfrider foundation, asking me and anyone one their autosend email list to support SB 4: Keep our beaches cigarette butt-free! Provided a ready-made letter to email to my congressional representatives, the letter supports efforts introduced as No Smoking at State Parks and Beaches Act (SB 4) by Senator Oropeza.

While I live in a beach destination that has already outlawed smoking at the beach, is adding photo cameras to major streets for red-light runners and enacting more and more legislation removing my rights as an individual, I am becoming weary of yet another law to chip away at any freedoms that remain. I do not smoke, and it angers me to see people through trash of any kind on the ground. But being the logical sort of person I am, I don't hold any false illusions about trash. I was actually paid by the American Plastics Association once or twice to cover a few beach events such as beach clean-ups, in which their representatives participated. How many of us do not buy orange juice or milk in a plastic container, own plastic trash bags in our home or use plastic of any sort? That's impossible, of course. And yet, plastic consumption by animals and fish outnumbers cigarette butts by quite a large sum, as I recall. But who among us can ask for a ban on plastic? My beach, alone, requires all soft drinks and other consumable beverages not be brought onto the beach in glass containers. So, there's not much choice to avoid taking the number one polluter onto the beach for most citizens.

That brings us to cigarette butts. Should people smoke at all? No, of course they shouldn't, but they do. Legislators are working hard to increase taxes on cigarettes so that the average person will spend a larger chunk of his or her income buying this legalized drug proven to be highly addictive. Am I for outlawing cigarettes? No.

As for beaches, if the solutions my city and others create to monitor citizen behavior have any impact, maybe they can create a smoking section for smokers, along with video cameras that take pictures of cigarette butts hitting the ground. The offender can go online and look at the photo, then send his $500 to the courts for this offense. Creating regulations don't always work if there aren't people to regulate and police activities. The best solution might come from education, but the tobacco companies can easily outspend the school systems in educating youth to smoke or not.

From my perspective, we should not focus on one item such as cigarettes, but look at a big picture in which plastics, the number one invader should be factored into this equation. So am I for this bill or not?

Here what the Surfrider Foundation tells me is At Stake:

"Cigarette butts are frequently cast onto the sidewalk and streets, and then pushed into storm drains that flow to streams, rivers, bays, lagoons and ultimately the ocean. Unfortunately, this means ecosystems have a higher chance of being impacted by cigarette butts. Many smokers incorrectly believe that cigarette filters are made of biodegradable cotton. In fact, cigarette filters contain a type of plastic (cellulose acetate), which slowly breaks down, but unfortunately never fully decomposes.

Cigarette filters are designed to trap toxic chemicals. When submerged in water, the toxic chemicals trapped in the filter leak out into aquatic ecosystems, threatening the quality of the water and aquatic life. Biologists have also found butts in the stomachs of young birds, sea turtles and other marine creatures. Studies indicate the chemicals in cigarettes are leaching into our water ways and are deadly to water fleas (a small but important microorganism that lives in most lakes and streams and the ocean).

Cigarette butts may seem small, but with an estimated 4.5 trillion butts (worldwide) littered every year, the toxic chemicals can add up quickly! Cigarette butts can cause other environmental problems, such as fires.

In a recent press release, Senator Oropeza cited several reasons to support her bill:

* The US Environmental Protection Agency has determined cigarette butts to be the most frequently found marine debris item in the United States .
* Smoking-related debris poses a persistent and serious threat to marine life and beachgoers over California ’s 1,100 miles of coastline.
* Ingestion of cigarette waste by marine animals interferes with their ability to eat and digest food.
* According to the Ocean Conservancy, in 2003 smoking-related items (in the form of cigarette filters, cigar tips, tobacco packaging, and cigarette lighters) accounted for 38 percent of all debris items found on beaches in the United States .
* Cigarette butts are not biodegradable and can harm the ecosystem as they contain more than 165 toxic chemicals.
* According to the California Department of Forestry (over a five-year average), smoking has been found to annually cause more than 100 California forest fires and more than 3,400 acres of damage.
* Smoking has caused four of the 25 worst wildfires in California, from 1929-1999, including the 1999 Jones wildfire, which destroyed 964 structures and the 1999 Oakland Hills fire, the largest dollar fire loss in United States history. The $1.5 billion blaze destroyed 3,354 homes, 456 apartment buildings and 2,000 vehicles.

Numerous local governments have already imposed bans on smoking, including bans in local parks, beaches and piers in Huntington Beach , Laguna Beach , Long Beach , Los Angeles , Malibu , Newport Beach , Redondo Beach , San Clemente , Santa Monica , Seal Beach San Diego, and Solana Beach."