The early yearsBefore discussing how to pursue clean indoor air legislation, we should consider why the health establishment waited so long to take up the nonsmokers' rights cause. First, the major voluntary health agencies have long been concerned with the effect of smoking on the smoker, and there is no doubt that primary smoking is more dangerous than involuntary smoking. Many people viewed the nonsmokers' rights movement as a sideshow compared with the more important business of attacking smoking directly. Second, the health community viewed the problem of smoking in a medical rather than a social and environmental context, in which the focus should be on the smoker (the patient) rather than on the environment, which moves into politics. Moreover, people considered forays into the political arena intrinsically controversial and worried that taking a position on smoking as a social act could