Smoke-Free Workplace Laws Decrease The Odds of Smoking Initiation By 30%

Anti-smoking laws make accessibility of cigarettes difficult and this has put many youngsters to curb the habit, says a new study.

A study was carried out by the researchers at Health Sciences Research Institute, Merced, University of California. Researchers found that the laws have decreased the rates of smoking in adolescents.

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“There was an effect of both smoking restrictions and cigarette taxes, and independent and additive effects,” said senior author Stanton A. Glantz of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education of the University of California, San Francisco.

Smoke-free workplace laws had an effect on smoking initiation equivalent to a $1.57 tax on cigarettes, according to the analysis.

According to the study, Smoke-free workplace laws had an effect on smoking initiation equivalent to a $1.57 tax on cigarettes and its also said that bigger increase in tax will have a bigger effect on smoking restriction and smaller increase will be equal to or lesser than smoke-free laws.

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Researchers used data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth from 1997 to 2007, following about 4,000 of the people in that study who were 12 to 18 years old.

Smoke-free bar laws did not affect the youth but smoke-free workplace laws decreased the odds of smoking initiation by 30 percent.

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“When you pass workplace laws it sends a strong message that smoking is out. Teenagers are looking to adults, and see adults rejecting smoking,” said Glantz.

“Youth were 20 percent less likely to be currently smoking in areas with smoke-free bar laws, and tended to smoke fewer days out of the month in these places. The proposed $2 cigarette tax in California, if passed, would decrease youth smoking by about 40 percent,” he added.

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Source-Medindia