The death of this girl was tragic, but what's almost worse is the way it is simply being abused by the antismoking lobby for their own ends. She had asthma, and asthma has many different sorts of "triggers" for different people. It's unlikely that smoke was a trigger for her since she was regularly working in a bar that would get much smokier in the course of an evening than it was at that early point (remember, the DJ was still "setting up") and she said nothing about smoke.

The smoke connection is purely a concoction by antismoking extremists seeking to take advantage of her unfortunate and sad death. It's just a small variation on the abusive game they play with children, using them as weapons against their parents. The idea is to present a puppy dog in the hope that someone will kick it and make themselves look bad.

She had an asthma attack and it happened by pure chance that it occurred while she was at work in a bar. It could just as easily have happened out on a bar patio in the winter (at which point a "lack of patio heaters" could have been blamed), as she was parking her car in a parking garage (at which point the anti-car folks could claim she was killed by automobile fumes), or after she'd jogged (asthma attacks ARE often brought on by exercise you know).

Her death is simply being exploited, much to the harm and detriment of the people she worked with who were probably her friends, and much to the potential advantage of lawyers who will seek to cash in either on her death or on similar ones that occur in ANY situation where smoking is allowed... regardless of exposure or whether the victim was a quiet smoker him/herself. Antismokiing lobbyists have been pushing the concept of fear at employers for a long time: "Your employees will SUE you when they get sick from ETS!" and this is just another chip in the game to them. They care nothing for the people involved.

Michael J. McFadden
Author of "Dissecting Antismokers' Brains"
Mid-Atlantic Director, Citizens Freedom Alliance, Inc.
Director, Pennsylvania Smokers' Action Network (PASAN)