Achieving a smokefree society.

Abstract

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

Cardiovascular health and economic effects of smoke-free workplaces

“…Legislation is the best way to create smoke-free workplaces (21,22). Although this analysis addresses the hypothetical case of making all U.S. workplaces smoke free at once, action at the state or national level is least likely to provide strong smoke-free legislation due to the massive ability of the tobacco industry to make campaign contributions and hire well-connected lobbyists.…”

The defeat of Philip Morris' 'California Uniform Tobacco Control Act'.

“…[1][2][3] By 1994, local clean indoor air ordinances were passing at a rate of one or two a week in California. 340/6-had passed.21 '22) In its first section, the initiative stated that "current regulation of smoking in public in Califomia is inadequate" and that "there is a clear need for uniform statewide regulation of smoking in public to ensure that those interested in avoiding secondhand smoke have the same protection wherever they go in the state and that those who do smoke have fair notice of where smoking is prohibited."…”

Randomized Trial of Reduced-Nicotine Standards for Cigarettes

“…The work of non smokers' rights organizations is coeval with these legal, epidemiologic, and social changes. Sorting out cause and effect is difficult, but the nonsmokers' rights movement seems to have contributed to the changing social norm (Glantz 1987).…”