Question

what is your perspectives of the impact of smoking bans on smoking prevalence in the US?

Answer 1

There is a quote that says " Only a fool will put his lips on the other end of burning fire." Smoking is injurious to health, this slogan is heard and seen since childhood but still I find people lingering in the street with this lighted cigarettes. It seems as if people don't love their body when they are still healthy. Its when they are caught by diseases that they start screaming and thinking about health. This small act of enjoyment is pushing their lives towards lifelong complications. Its really surprises me because people chose to smoke willingly. Not only this, smoking also effects the person who is available in the surrounding area of a smoker which is called second hand smoking or passive smoking. This habit not only causes respiratory problems but also cardiovascular diseases and cancer.

Looking into the serious damages caused by smoking among people and the environment, many initiatives and act have beed adopted to help people quit smoking. The awareness about the harm effects of smoking is spread to people of all age groups especially among youngsters,adults including women through social media, televisions, banners,posters, hoardings, pamphlets, support group and campaigns. These interevntion for cessation of smoking has been adopted by almost all the nations and positive effects of the programs have been evaluated.

Likewise in United States too smoke free area and smoke free laws has been developed which have brought reduction in the number of cases of secondhand smoking, smokers and hospital admissions due to smoking effects. In an effort to reduce the exposure to secondhand smoking, many governments have enacted smoke-free laws in public places like workplace, restuarants and bars where 50% of general population is found. These laws have led to a change of perception, norms and attitudes about cigarette smoking and have reduced the prevalence of cigarette consumption. The state level comphrehensive indoor bans on smoking in U.S have reduced the prevalence to 2.35 to 3.29 percent. The employees who worked in places that implemented smokefree policies were nearly twice likely to quit smoking than those employees who worked in places where smoking was allowed. The smokefree worplace policy have reduced smoking prevalence by 3.8% among employees who smoke and daily smoking by 3.1 % cigarettes among employees who continue to smoke.

The researchers done in U.S since 2000 to 2012 shows that adopting smokefree laws and indoor smoking bans in public places and workplaces have caused decline in the heart disease morbidity, coronary events,cerebrovascular accidents and repiratory disease. Not only this implementation of these laws have led to decreased hospital admissions of these cases. Therefore, implementation and maintainence of these laws is important not only in U.S but also in other nations of the world so that we can generate a smoke free healthy world.