Give it another nine years or so and every state will have implemented an indoor smoking ban. At least that s what the CDC predicts will occur based on the current pattern of anti-smoking laws. Currently, 26 states have adopted comprehensive indoor smoking bans, while another ten have banned the practice either from workplaces, bars or restaurants but not all three. Only seven states have no indoor smoking restrictions, something Dr. Tim McAfee, director of the CDC s Office on Smoking and Health is bullish about changing come 2020.
Such bans are definitely a positive public health measure, says ACSH's Dr. Gilbert Ross. It protects workers, to some extent, from certain secondhand smoke-related illnesses, while protecting children from well-documented adverse health effects. And of course aesthetically, it s a no-brainer. Claims that secondhand smoke is linked to chronic diseases, however, are much more dubious. Studies that trumpet a rapid decline in heart attacks within just months of instituting a smoking ban are guilty of poor data collection or skewing the numbers, as such results make no medical or epidemiological sense.