Cancer survivor fumes over smoking bill

Publication Date: 2005-03-01

• Author:KAREN LEE ZINER
• Publication:Providence (RI) Journal-Bulletin

Believed to have acquired cancer through secondhand smoke, Ronald Lizotte plans to testify against legislation to expand exemptions to the state's new smoking ban.

...Lizotte had never smoked, which made him wonder how he had acquired squamous cell carcinoma of the tongue, otherwise known as "smoker's tumor."

He plans to testify in opposition to legislation that would create new exemptions to the smoking ban that takes effect tonight at midnight. A hearing on the bill has been postponed until later this month.

"It makes me angry to know that people are not worried about lives," Lizotte says of House Bill 5020...