The surgeon general has handed Pennsylvania's nonsmokers a document with which they should whack lawmakers until they ban smoking in the state's workplaces.

The report, issued Tuesday, makes it clear that secondhand smoke is killing nonsmokers while they await relief from lawmakers.

It says the evidence is indisputable that the fumes are a major health threat and kill about 50,000 people each year who are involuntarily exposed.

It also says separating smokers and nonsmokers in sections, like restaurants do, is not effective in preventing the ill-effects, which range from coughing to lung cancer in nonsmokers. Cleaning the smoke-poisoned air with filters doesn't protect nonsmokers either. Even brief exposures can place nonsmokers at risk.

Lawmakers in Pennsylvania have too long listened to the bellyaching of restaurant and bar owners who contended they'd lose business if legislation prohibited them from exposing waitresses and child customers to toxic secondhand smoke.

The legislators need to stop kissing the feet of these businessmen and tobacco lobbyists and focus on two points made by the surgeon general.

One is that there is no evidence that smoke-free workplace laws -- which a dozen states enforce -- significantly reduce sales at bars and restaurants.

The other is that the Centers for Disease Control's National Health Interview Survey in 2000 showed that more than 80 percent of adults believe secondhand smoke is harmful and nonsmokers should be protected from it in their workplaces.

These numbers should be enough to free the proposed smoke-free workplace legislation barricaded in the state House Health and Human Services Committee, lawmakers

Earlier this month, the committee stalled action on the bill with a tie vote on whether to send it to the full House for consideration. There was talk the committee might vote again this week, but it did nothing. Maybe a few voters armed with rolled up surgeon general reports could change some of those minds.

They could wield their reports at the next Allegheny County Council meeting as well. The anti-smoking advocacy group Smokefree Pennsylvania has petitioned council to vote on a smoke-free ordinance for Allegheny County workplaces. Quick action would enable Allegheny County to catch up to Philadelphia, where city council adopted a smoke-free workplace ordinance earlier this month.

The surgeon general's report packs a wallop whether rolled into a cudgel or read for its smoke-damning facts and figures. Nonsmokers need to get a copy at www.surgeongeneral.gov/library/secondhandsmoke/ and unite to stop suffering from lung cancer, coronary heart disease, asthma, sudden infant death syndrome, ear infections and breast cancer at the tobacco-stained hands of inconsiderate smokers.