Benefits of Going Smoke-Free

The Following information was retrieved from www.lungusa.org

November 2004

Workplaces nationwide are going smoke-free to provide clean indoor air and protect employees from the harmful, life-threatening effects of secondhand smoke. According to a Gallup poll, 95 percent of Americans, smokers and nonsmokers, now believe companies should either ban smoking totally in the workplace or restrict it to separately ventilated areas.1

bullet Employers have a legal right to restrict smoking in the workplace or to implement a totally smoke-free workplace policy. Exceptions may arise in the case of collective bargaining agreements with unions.2
bulletAnnual health care costs in Iowa directly caused by smoking equals upwards of $1 billion.3
bullet Some employers have been forcing smoking employees to pay higher premiums for medical coverage.  However, no organization appears to keep statistics on those criteria.4
bullet Employers that hire smokers bear indirect costs, including more employee absenteeism, decreased productivity on the job and increased early retirement due to ill health.5
bullet Workers have been awarded unemployment, disability and worker's compensation benefits for illness and loss of work due to exposure to secondhand smoke.6
bullet Tobacco smoke is a major source of pollution in most indoor air environments, particularly office work sites, and has been classified as a Group A carcinogen by the U.S. EPA. Tobacco smoke contains over 4,000 chemicals, both gas and particulate matter.7
bullet The toxins in tobacco smoke kill over 440,000 people per year in the United States.  Secondhand smoke causes over 3,000 lung cancer deaths annually, as well as exacerbation of lung disease in nonsmoking adults and respiratory problems in children. Secondhand smoke also causes 35,000 heart disease deaths in nonsmokers each year.8
bullet A recent study found that people who were exposed to smoke in the workplace were 17 percent more likely to develop lung cancer than those who were not exposed.9
bullet Involuntary smoking has many non-fatal but serious effects; breathing secondhand smoke makes the eyes and nose burn, and can cause headaches and nausea in nonsmokers.  These irritants can have a major impact on employees' morale, productivity and sense of well being.10
bullet Forty-nine states and the District of Columbia have some restriction on smoking in public places. Of these states, 45 restrict smoking in government workplaces, and 25 have extended those limitations to private sector workplaces.11
bullet In August 1997, President Clinton signed an executive order requiring federal buildings to become smoke-free.
bullet Nearly 70 percent of the United States workforce worked under a smoke-free policy in 1999.12
bullet Prohibiting smoking in the workplace can have an immediate and dramatic impact on the health of workers and patrons.  A study conducted in Helena, MT, found that the number of heart attacks fell by 40 percent during a six-month period in 2002 when the city's comprehensive smokefree air law was in effect.13
bullet Bans on indoor smoking have not had a negative effect on the economy.  In Florida, the statewide smoke-free law, which took effect July 1, 2003, has not hurt sales or employment in the hotel, restaurant and tourism industries.14
bullet In Delaware, there has been an increase in the number of restaurants and taproom licenses since the smoking ban took effect.15
bullet In New York City, a study found that business receipts for restaurants and bars has increased 8.7 percent, employment has risen (2,800 seasonally adjusted jobs), and cotinine levels (a marker for smoke exposure) in non-smoking workers decreased by 85 percent since the smoking ban was put in place.16
bullet For more information on tobacco, please review the Tobacco Morbidity and Mortality Trend Report in the Data and Statistics section of our website or call the American Lung Association at 1-800-LUNG-USA (1-800-586-4872).

Sources:

1.      Action on Smoking and Health. The Benefits of a SmokeFree Workplace 2000.

2.      Ibid.

3.      Ibid.

4.      Gerlach, KK; Shopland, DR; Hartman, AM; Gibson, JT; Pechacek, TF. Workplace Smoking Policies in the United States: Results of a National Survey of More than 100,000 workers. Tobacco Control 1997; 6:199-206.

5.      Ibid.

6.      Ibid.

7.      U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Respiratory Health Effects of Passive Smoking: Lung Cancer and Other Disorders. December 1992.

8.      CDC. Annual Smoking-Attributable Mortality, Years of Potential Life Lost, and Economic Costs-U.S., 1995-1999. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 2002; 51(14): 300-303.

9.      Boffetta P, Agudo A, Ahrens W et al. Multicenter Case-Control Study of Exposure to Environmental Tobacco Smoke and Lung Cancer in Europe. Journal of the National Cancer Institute 1998; 90: 1440-1445.

10.  California Environmental Protection Agency. Health Effects of Exposure to Environmental Tobacco Smoke. September 1997.

11.  American Lung Association. State Legislation Actions on Tobacco Issues, 2003.

12.  Shopland D. et al. State-Specific Trends in Smoke-Free Workplace Policy Coverage: The Current Population Survey Tobacco Use Supplement, 1993 to 1999. Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine 2001; 43(8).

13.  Sargent RP, Shepard RM, Glantz SA. Reduced incidence of admissions for myocardial infarction associated with public smoking ban: before and after study. BMJ. 2004;328:977-980.

14.  Bureau of Economic and Business Research. The economic impact of Florida's smoke-free air law. June 2004. Available at: http://www.smokefreeforhealth.org/pdf/economic%20study.pdf.

15.  Unpublished 2003 data from Delaware Department of Public Health and the Alcohol Beverage Control Commission.

16.  New York City Dep't of Finance, New York City Dep't of Health and Mental Hygiene, New York City Dep't of Small business Services, New York City Economic Development Corp. The state of smoke-free New York City: a one-year review. March 2004. Available at: http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/pdf/smoke/sfaa-2004repport.pdf.