Smoking - call for ban on smoking in public places to be extended

The Royal Society for Public Health has just released a report which suggests that the existing smoking ban in public enclosed spaces should be extended to beer gardens, al fresco eating areas of restaurants, parks, and outside school gates.

The Society said smoking should be seen as "abnormal" and more controls are needed to cover areas where people gather.  The report also encourages the use of e-cigarettes as an alternative to normal cigarettes.

The full Royal Society for Public Health report can be found here.

Key claims within the report include:

• Smoking kills an estimated 100,000 people each year
• Tobacco contains many harmful carcinogens and toxicants, as well as the highly addictive chemical, nicotine
• There is considerable confusion surrounding nicotine, with 90% of non-smokers and 78% of smokers believing it is harmful to health
• We have seen a proliferation of non-tobacco nicotine containing products (NCPs) offering much safer sources of nicotine

Calls to action include:

• Introduction of a ‘smoking exclusion zone’ around schools, bars and restaurants
• Mandatory sale of non-tobacco NCPs in all outlets selling combustible tobacco products
• Greater utilisation of e-cigarettes by smoking cessation services
• Licensing of all purveyors of combustible tobacco products
• Stop calling the product an e-cigarette

On the headline proposal of a ‘smoking exclusion zone’ the paper asserts that:

“the introduction of a smoking ban for all enclosed public places in 2007 was a landmark in Government interventions to reduce smoking levels, reducing the public’s exposure to harmful second-hand smoke, and acting as a catalyst for many smokers to ‘kick the habit’. A survey found that in the year following the smoking ban a staggering 400,000 people were motivated to give up smoking.  This led to appreciable improvements in the public’s health including a 12.3% reduction in the number of children admitted to hospital with asthma symptoms and a 2.4% reduction in emergency heart attack admissions in the 12 months immediately after the ban.

Alongside the health benefits, this legislation was crucial for de-normalising smoking. The appearance of individuals smoking combustible tobacco products in public places arguably gives the deeply misleading impression that smoking is a largely safe activity to be universally enjoyed. By reducing the prominence of smoking in public locations, particularly those visited by children, we can ensure that smoking is no longer seen as a normal or safe activity. The RSPH therefore calls for the smoking ban to be extended further to include school gates, the outside areas of bars and restaurants and also, all public parks and squares, mirroring the calls made by Lord Darzi in the 2014 report by the London Health Commission.  This could be achieved through legislation to introduce smoking exclusion zones, in which smoking combustible tobacco products is prohibited, but the use of an e-cigarette in this zone is permitted. This would significantly reduce the convenience of smoking, with the potential to encourage a greater number of smokers to move to safer sources of nicotine. It would also reduce the visibility of cigarette usage and serve to further denormalise smoking….”

Update 14 August 2015 – The PMA is today reporting that the Department of Health has indicated that there is ‘no plan’ to extend the smoking ban to eternal areas outside pubs etc. Indeed there will not even be a consultation on the proposals set out above.  This will be a source of some relief to operators.