Jacque Petterson: Sadly, smoking adults and tobacco companies continue to encourage the myth that secondhand smoke is not harmful.  When I was a child in the '50s smoking was considered safe enough, and secondhand smoke was not even a consideration.  As an adult I began to hear that secondhand smoke was bad and could make one sick, but the laws did not protect me in the workplace, nor was the education strong enough to convince me to stop smokers from smoking around me.

In 1995, I developed a severe reaction to second-hand smoke causing me to cough and choke, limiting my air intake, sometimes for hours, depending on how much smoke I inhale. Many nights I have been up coughing and choking until the early morning hours. It's both painful and scary.  I eventually discovered this was an asthmatic reaction.

I believe this reaction is due to years of exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke as a result of my unsuspecting parents smoking in our home and car when I was a child, having lived for six years with my first husband, who chain smoked and died of cancer at the age of 39, and having worked closely with smokers over the years in restaurants, hotels, apartment management, retail stores, and most recently in a small office with a chain smoker from 1989 to 1991.

In 2000 my new husband and I sold our single family home to purchase a condo in Canyon Country, CA. Unaware that tobacco smoke travels through buildings from one unit to the others, we purchased our condo based on the fact that there was no smoke apparent at the time of purchase. Shortly after renovating and moving in, smoke began to enter our home.

As there is currently no law to protect non-smokers from this situation, our Homeowners' Association refused to ask our neighbors to stop smoking, my City Council chose only to set my request for help aside for future reference, and my legislators said they are sorry about my problem, but will do nothing to change the laws, therefore protecting the smoker's "right" to pollute my home against my will.

I hope you are working to change the laws in your community. With over 400,000 smoker, and over 50,000 non-smoker deaths each year, we must let our government officials know that this atrocity must stop.

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How to avoid breathing secondhand tobacco smoke in a hotel or motel when there are no smoke-free hotels.