By Dan Conti/Gary Pitts
Frankfort, KY – Kentucky loses about eight-thousand people each year to smoking-related illnesses and about a thousand more die from second-hand smoke. That's according to figures from the American Lung Association of Kentucky. Association spokesperson Betsy Janes discussed the numbers on K-E-T's Kentucky Tonight.
"For every eight smokers that die, they take one non-smoker to the grave with them. We have a smoking rate of 25 percent. That's higher than the national average. We're the leading state in lung cancer rates."
Janes says those are some of the reasons the lung association supports a state-wide smoke-free law for Kentucky. Such a law is opposed by the Bluegrass Institute for Public Policy. Spokesman Jim Waters says it would be unnecessary
"About 70 percent of restaraunts have already chosen to be smoke-free because its good for their business, and they've determined that."
He says he doesn't think the state should force the other thirty percent to go smoke-free. State Representative Susan Westrom is set to propose legislation in the General Assembly next year that would prohibit smoking in enclosed areas. She says the legislation would not ban smoking it would just require smokers to go outside.