Smoking Ban supported by Smokers

Published on December 4, 2009 7:51 AM

As all of us know, tobacco in enclosed places is very harmful even for smokers’ health. That’s why smoking ban in workplaces was accepted even by smokers, according to a recent study.

Anti-tobacco researchers from the institute RTI International and Harris Interactive investigated nearly 5,000 people and they found that almost three-quarters of workers smoke but 87 percent of employers support a smoke-free work environment. Michael Halpern, of RIT, said: "Although there were widespread variations among countries, overall the results demonstrate global support for workplace smoking bans. This study shows support for additional programs and policies to increase those bans and help employees with smoking cessation."

Researchers declared that the strongest support for smoking bans was in India where 85 percent of people voted for smoke-free workplaces, followed by Japan with 75 percent, but only one-third of Germans and 27 percent of Poles thought bans should be in place.

The researchers also explained that smokers spent too much time by puffing cigarettes.  For example they waste about one hour a day on smoking, although the majority of people polled did not think the habit had a negative fiscal influence on the company. "Several previous studies indicate that despite the beliefs of smoking employees and some employers in our study, smoking does have a substantial negative impact on a business's finance," Halpern added.

Workplace smoking ban was introduced by many countries like, France, Spain, Ireland and Portugal, in order to prevent workplace smoking, which affects the worker health. Statistics show 200,000 workers die each year due to exposure to smoke at work, while around 700 million children, around half the world's total, breathe air polluted by tobacco smoke. But according to the WHO almost one billion men and 250 women worldwide smoke some form of tobacco.

The workplace smoking ban is not the decision of non-smokers, for example South Korea, Japan, China, Taiwan, India, Britain, Italy, Sweden, France, Germany, Spain, Poland, Turkey and Brazil participated in the poll which involved 3,500 workers, smokers and non-smokers, and more than 1,400 employers in the 14 countries.