Tobacco bans may encourage people to smoke less at home

2/15/2012

Employee wellness programs offer smoking cessation tips to help workers give up the potentially deadly habit. Although many public spaces now ban cigarette use, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that an estimated one and five Americans are smokers.

Recently, a study published in the journal Tobacco Control found that public smoking bans may encourage people to impose "home bans" on themselves. According to researchers, this finding dispels a belief commonly held by many opponents of laws that prohibit cigarette use.

"Opponents of workplace or public smoking bans have argued that smoke-free policies - albeit intended to protect non-smokers from tobacco smoke - could lead to displacement of smoking into the home and hence even increase the second-hand smoke exposure of non-smoking family members and, most importantly, children," said study authors, quoted by the Press Association.

Discovering that these laws actually encourage smokers to regulate cigarette use in their own homes is important, since this legislation was designed to reduce secondhand smoke exposure, not increase it.

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