SMOKING STATISTICS

Anti Smoking Laws in USA

In the United States, smoking is prohibited in all federal buildings. Aside from that, the only other federal law pertaining to a smoking ban which was enacted during the Clinton administration is the ban on smoking on commercial airline flights. There are no anti-smoking laws that are uniform for all the states, though many states have common bans on smoking in restaurants, bars, and the workplaces. More states joined in these bans after the Surgeon General's 2007 report revealing that second-hand smoke is more injurious than had been previously recognized.

This report caused all the states to look more closely at smoking in public areas with a different attitude. The United States has always been a champion of the freedoms and rights of individuals, but this report called attention to the rights of non-smokers to be safe from the hazards of second-hand smoke in the workplace and eating and drinking establishments. When the rights of individuals infringe on the rights of other individuals, the law moves to protect the rights of the violated. Before the 2007 report, there was not enough evidence that second-hand smoke was a violation of rights of others in the company of smokers in public places.

Currently, the bans on smoking in the United States that have been put in place by state laws and city ordinances are mostly concerning enclosed areas, but there are also some laws that prohibit smokers from lighting up in a proximity of 20 feet from the entrance to an establishment. Calabasas CA goes down in history as the first city in the United States to ban smoking in any outdoor area. Presently, only thirteen out of fifty states do not have statewide smoking laws. Oklahoma remains the only state that has no anti-smoking laws at all.

In June of 2009, Barack Obama signed a bill that allows the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) to regulate tobacco just as it regulates food and pharmaceuticals. The agency will actually be able to control what constitutes tobacco products, and it will be interesting to see whether cigarettes, as smokers know them today, will change composition enough to even be recognized by them with the new FDA controls.

Although this isn't a bill that pertains specifically to where smokers can and cannot smoke, it is an attempt to regulate the sale of tobacco and the way it is advertised. It will, no doubt, work in tandem with the anti-smoking laws that are in effect, and will serve to call more attention to the whole issue of the negative aspects of tobacco use throughout the country.

Although avid smokers remain, and some restaurants have built additions with enclosed areas to accommodate that valuable portion of their patronage, with the President’s newest bill and the rising taxes imposed on the sale of cigarettes making their cost prohibitive, it appears that the United States is doing everything it can short of making uniform federal laws to curtail smoking in the country. Anti-smoking laws are getting more and more attention, and it may only be a matter of time.