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Under Threat: Smokefree Laws
No states met the American Lung Association’s Smokefree Air Challenge in 2011, leaving the number of states plus the District of Columbia that have passed comprehensive smokefree laws stalled at 27.
Lawmakers in Texas, where national public health advocates had set their highest hopes, failed to pass a comprehensive law again – despite widespread public support for the law. Because the legislature only meets every two years, many Texans will continue to be exposed to secondhand smoke unless they live in cities where comprehensive laws protect them.
Indiana lawmakers also failed again to pass a comprehensive smokefree law, as did the Mississippi legislature.
The American Lung Association in California and other public health advocates have been trying for a number of years to eliminate exemptions in the nation’s oldest smokefree law. Efforts in 2011 were again unsuccessful.
Two states attempted to weaken smokefree laws this year and—for the first time ever—one succeeded. Lawmakers in Nevada actually agreed to move backward and expose more people to deadly secondhand smoke. Just hours before the legislative session ended, lawmakers voted to allow smoking in any bar that serves food – despite more than 83 percent of voters’ supporting the existing smokefree law.1
A study from the University of Nevada at Reno showed that since the enactment of the Nevada Clean Indoor Air Act, heart attacks and strokes declined, resulting in $33.3 million in healthcare savings.2
Illinois, however, was successful in beating back threats to its comprehensive law that would have allowed smoking in casinos. During the 2011 legislative session, four major efforts were launched in an attempt to weaken Illinois’ four-year old law, including one that would have allowed local liquor commissions to sell smoking licenses.3
- American Lung Association – Nevada Chapter. PowerPoint presentation on statewide poll results on NCIAA/Secondhand Smoke Issues. Accessed on December 13, 2011.
- Pritsos C, Yang W, Packham J. Cost Saving Analysis of Reduced Hospital Admissions for Acute Myocardial Infarction and Stroke after Implementation of a Statewide Partial Smoking Ban in Nevada. Unpublished (submitted for publication to journal Tobacco Control). May 2011.
- http://www.smokefreeillinois.org/. Accessed July 27, 2011.
