How Passive Smoking Triggered Bans

by Angela Petterson

Covering passive smoking statistics, facts and effects

Passive smoking is also known as second hand smoke or side-stream smoking. It wasn't until the early 1980s that secondhand smoke became a health concern. The 1940s, 50s and 60s were a time of gross darkness concerning the effects of smoking beyond the individual smoker.

1981 gave the first conclusive evidence surrounding side-stream smoking dangers. This was through a research done by Takeshi Hirayama on lung cancer amongst non-smoking women in Japan.

Since then evidence continued to gather supporting the following dangers of secondhand smoke on both adults and children;

• Strokes
• Heart attacks
• Stinging and watery eyes leading to increased blinking
• Nose irritation
• Lung Cancer
• Exacerbation of pre-existing respiratory conditions
• Cot or crib death in children
• Possible brain tumors in children
• Middle ear infections in children

Sensing the impending negative market response, tobacco companies opposed this evidence by launching own studies to discredit these mainstream findings. This strategy long mastered by the tobacco industry is commonly known as "manufacturing doubt" in the public mind.

A dozen other studies confirming these dangers gave momentum to anti-smoking groups and concerned citizens to put pressure on law-makers to act. From a political perspective passive smoking had a long-term direct impact on the tax-payer pocket through a ballooning public health budget. Today, for example, the cost of smoking in the UK alone is as much as $200 billion a year.

Governments began to listen to the idea of tobacco control based on the strength of second hand smoke scientific studies which translated into an unsustainable cost of smoking. The most immediate tobacco regulations involved banning smoking in public places such as bars, restaurants, hotels, schools and hospitals.

Smoking laws became the order of the day albeit under intense tobacco industry and pro-smoking groups opposition. In the United States by 2009 over 35 states had banned smoking. The UN sponsored legally binding Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) of 2003 supported by over 165 governments worldwide was muted under heavy concern of the dangers of second hand smoke.

The FCTC gave further momentum to smoking bans across the world. Under the guidance of the convention tobacco control extended even to how the tobacco industry would be allowed to advertise. In South Africa, for instance, public advertising of tobacco cigarettes and products was altogether banned. Even use of tobacco and cigarettes on other product advertisements was outlawed.

Smoking bans resulting from secondhand smoke shock the tobacco industry. In a secret poll done for the Tobacco Institute in the United States in the 70s, The Roper Organisation was quoted as saying;

Passive Smoking Statistics

The following are some selected statistics by country showing children exposed to secondhand smoking at home;

• Cuba - 69%
• Agentina - 68%
• China - 53%
• Russia - 55%
• India - 34%
• Nigeria - 34%
• Peru - 29%

In the United States the following are annual statistics of second hand smoke effects;

• Lung cancer - 3000
• Ischaemic heart disease - 35000 to 62000
• Low birth weight - 9700 to 18600
• Cot Death (SIDS) - 1900 to 2700
• Bronchits or pneumonia in infants - 150 000 to 300 000
• Middle ear infection - 700 000 to 1 600 000
• New Asthma Induction cases - 8000 to 26000
• Asthma exacerbation 400 000 to 1 000 000

All these statistics and records have been instrumental in determined drives by governments and action groups to eliminate tobacco use in public places. Efforts by pro-smoking groups to pressure governments to consider "smokers rights" has essentially fallen on deaf ears.

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