Ban Workplace Smoking

• Around 200,000 workers die each year from exposure to tobacco smoke at work, the World Health Organization (WHO) said.

• Workplace smoking, especially the secondhand smoke, not only causes death, it causes long-term illnesses too. The direct medical costs for employers and schools include:

  * increased absenteeism
  * decreased productivity
  * higher insurance premiums (health, fire)
  * higher cleaning costs
  * increased property damage resulting from tobacco use by smoking employees
  

• Ban workplace smoking, since second-hand smoke clearly kills people (see above), the US Surgeon-General said in report that puts the Bush administration on the side of smoking restrictions.

• In England, smoking costs the National Health Service 1.5 billion pounds a year. Industry costs are estimated to be 5 billion pounds in lost productivity, absenteeism and fire damage.

• In the US, smokers cost $1,700 a year in extra medical bills, according to the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Added together with absenteeism and regular smoke breaks, and the annual cost jumps to $3,400 per worker.

• Banning smoking in the workplace could reduce the incidence of smoking-related illnesses in Europe by between four and 32 percent, according to research presented at the annual conference of the European Respiratory Society (ERS) in Munich.

• Employers should give staff members help to quit smoking, including information on local stop-smoking services and time off to attend smoking cessation clinics, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), the British government public health adviser said (April 2007).

• A record ¥7 million in damages was awarded to a 35-year-old man who was ostracized and then fired after complaining about being exposed to coworkers' smoke at a construction material maker in Takikawa, Japan.

• Employers are now escalating the war on workplace smoking. The new focus is on helping their workers kick the smoking habit, several recently released studies reveal.

• 31 US states ban smoking in private workplaces (Action on Smoking and Health, a nonsmokers' rights organization).

• 24 US states have implemented a smoking ban at bars and restaurants (American Cancer Society).

• Starting January 1, 2010, Tennessee state employees who smoke or are married to a smoker must pay a $600 surcharge to the employee health system. An estimated $3,400 per worker is lost productivity and smoking-related health claims annually and Tennessee would like to combat that. Discounts on smoking cessation aides such as prescription medications, nicotine gum and nicotine patches by the state begin on May 1, 2009.

• Two-thirds of Michigan voters favor a workplace smoking ban, restaurants and Detroit's casinos included, according to a poll commissioned by the Campaign for Smokefree Air and conducted by EPIC-MRA.

• Shanghai, China to extend its smoking ban from public venues to all indoor workplaces to clear the city's air of cigarette smoke by 2011.

• Super deal! Metropolis, Illinois will pay city workers $1,000 each to quit smoking. Random nicotine tests will be administered to catch cheaters. The Illinois state smoking ban went live on January 1, 2008.

• Since the 2007 Ohio smoking ban at most workplaces, many businesses, want smoke-free workers (not just at work).

  * Smokers add $4.4 billion to the Ohio's annual health-care bill.
  * About $4.7 billion a year in lost productivity happens because of smoking, accoding to the Ohio Department of Health.
  * 40 percent of employers offer workers some sort of smoking cessation plan, according to a survey by the Society for Human Resource Management.

• HealthSouth Western Hills Regional Rehabilitation Hospital in Parkersburg, WV joins at least 10 other hospitals statewide in the ban on smoking on its property starting May 1, 2009.

• South Korean steelmaker Posco requires all of its 16,000 employees to be smoke-free by the end of 2009. They may even use blood tests to see if employees have quit smoking.

• 97% of Irish workplaces are in compliance with smoking ban from more than 5 years ago, according to the Office of Tobacco Control.

• $50 a month and time away from work is what Mashpee, Falmouth and Bourne (upper Cape Cod towns) employees get to join a smoking cessation pilot program sponsored by the Cape Cod Municipal Health Group for a year. It seems to have found great success.

• Tribune Company employees must quit smoking or pay an extra $100 month for health insurance. Smoking cessation programs are now being offered to help employees become smoke-free starting in 2008.

• Clarian Health employees who smoke will pay $5 extra each pay-period for insurance copayments starting in 2008 (Clarian Health is a Midwestern hospital operator).

• Smoking workers suspended. The Whirlpool Corporation suspended 39 workers at its Evansville, Indiana, plant. The workers lied on their health insurance applications. They said that they were nonsmokers, but each was seen smoking outside the plant.

• A Canadian contractor who asked a federal employee who was smoking to obey the rules of the federal smoking ban and step away from the door to a government building claims he was fired because of it (Ottawa Citizen).

• One in five Wisconsin workers is exposed to smoke at work, according to a report from the Paul Carbone Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

• Fond du Lac, WI's work place smoking ban is in effect.

• Did you know that every dollar that the state of Florida spends on smoking cessation programs yields $1.90 to $5.75 in economic gains for Florida employers, insurers and government? That's according to a study conducted by the Washington Economics Group, Inc. funded by Pfizer, Inc.

• The largest private employer in Central Florida, Westgate Resorts, bans smoking. However, it goes much further, smokers will not be hired and employees who smoke (in their personal lives, not just at work) will be fired.

• Swedish companies pamper their employees hoping to end one of Europe's highest absenteeism rates. This includes programs to help people lose weight and stop smoking as well as free gyms and free breakfasts.

• Humana of Ohio to require all new employees who smoke to enroll in Breathe, a smoking cessation program, to help them quit smoking.

• 99 percent of Indians (India) are for restricting smoking in public places, including workplaces, restaurants and bars. They also want strict enforcement of the smoking ban, according to asurvey released by Voluntary Health Association of India (VHAI).

• India will now start to enforce a 2003 law which makes all workplaces in India smoke free.

• The Texas Attorney General's office claims stores that sell state lottery tickets and allow smoking may violate the Americans with Disabilities Act.

• Smokers 'waste 30 minutes a day' at work smoking, according to The Benenden Healthcare Society (UK).

• People with more education are less likely to be exposed to workplace smoking and men are more likely to be exposed to workplace smoke, accodrding to a study by the University of Wisconsin Comprehensive Cancer Center.

  Civil servants urged to quit smoking in Brunei and help reduce the deadly habit during the Tobacco Order 2005.

• "About 80 percent of people are nonsmokers, and they prefer to be in a smoke-free environment," Danny McGoldrick, vice president for research at the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids said.

• Workplace smoking ban supported by the European Union (EU) Parliament (October 2007).

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