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Action on Smoking and Health
A National Legal-Action Antismoking Organization Entirely Supported by Tax-Deductible Contributions
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New Study: Smoking Bans Motivate Smokers to Quit [06/03-2]
Excerpts from: Smoking bans help quitters
By Andre Picard The Globe and Mail [06/02/04]
As Toronto becomes the latest, and biggest, Canadian city to extend its
smoke-free bylaws to bars and restaurants, new research shows that such
regulation provides powerful impetus for smokers to quit.
The study found that 36 per cent of people who quit smoking cited bylaws as a prime motivation. And smokers who tried to quit were three times more successful when there was a ban in place, and found it far easier to remain abstinent, researchers found.
"There's no question these regulations provide a powerful incentive to quit," David Hammond, a researcher in the psychology department of the University of Waterloo, said in an interview.
"The stronger and the more extensive the ban, the more bang you get for your buck in terms of public-health benefits."
Mr. Hammond, a doctoral candidate, said the bans on smoking in the workplace, and in bars and restaurants in particular, have an impact because they "de-normalize" smoking.
He said leaving the table at a bar or restaurant to go outside and smoke is an inconvenience, especially in bad weather, and "smokers don't look cool doing this, they look like losers."
The research was conducted in the Waterloo region of Southern Ontario, where an extensive smoking ban took effect on Jan. 1, 2000. Smoking was banned in all bars, restaurants, nightclubs and recreational facilities. The bylaw, one of the most comprehensive in the country, is also strictly enforced by public-health officials.
Toronto's bylaw, which took effect yesterday, bans smoking in bars, taverns and restaurants, but allows them to have a separately ventilated smoking room. About 6,500 businesses are affected by the new regulations.
The former smokers cited five principal reasons for quitting: personal health, concern for the health of others, the cost of smoking, smoking bans or bylaws, and warning labels on cigarettes. (The graphic labels that appear on Canadian cigarettes became mandatory in December 2000.)
Virtually everyone cited health as the principal reason for quitting. But, as bylaws became more extensive and warnings became more explicit, they became far bigger motivators, according to the research.
Prior to the strict bylaw, Waterloo had a partial ban on smoking, one that required establishments to be 50-per-cent smoke-free. The laxer rules were cited as a factor for 22 per cent of smokers who quit, but that jumped to 40 per cent in 2001.
Similarly, prior to new packaging, 23 per cent of smokers cited health warnings as a motivation to quit; that jumped to 44 per cent when the graphic packages were introduced.
About 5.1 million Canadians are regular smokers -- roughly 20 per cent of the population aged 15 and older, according to the Canadian Tobacco Use Monitoring Survey.
About 48 per cent of Canadians support a total ban on smoking in restaurants and bars, according to polling conducted for Health Canada.
Smoking kills about 45,000 Canadians annually, and costs the economy an estimated $24-billion.
There are about 1.15 billion smokers worldwide, one-third of the planet's adult population. Globally, more than 10,000 people a day die from smoking, more than those who die from AIDS, tuberculosis, motor-vehicle collisions, murder and suicide combined.
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