http://www.boston.com/news/health/blog/2008/05/teenagers_who_l.html

Posted by Elizabeth Cooney May 5, 2008 04:03 PM

"Teenagers who lived in towns that banned smoking in restaurants were 40 percent less likely to become established smokers than their peers in towns with weaker restaurant smoking laws, Boston researchers report.

Writing in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, Dr. Michael Siegel of the Boston University School of Public Health presents final results from three waves of telephone surveys in 301 Massachusetts towns that began in 2001. More than 3,800 young people who were 12 to 17 years old at the beginning of the study were asked if they had ever smoked, if they had a cigarette in the past month, and if they had smoked more than 100 cigarettes.

In an earlier paper Siegel and his colleagues found that young people in towns with smoke-free restaurant laws perceived a lower level of smoking and a lower social acceptability of smoking than their peers in towns with weaker smoking laws, where smoking was restricted to designated areas in restaurants or not at all.

The current paper suggests that the anti-smoking laws may work by blocking the transition from experimenting with cigarettes to becoming established smokers. Massachusetts banned smoking in all workplaces, bars, and restaurants in 2004.

"The public health implications of this are that restaurant smoking bans are actually one of the most effective interventions to reduce youth smoking. While these policies are intended to protect workers and the public from secondhand smoke exposure, it turns out that an additional benefit of these laws is to reduce rates of youth smoking, thus making them a particularly powerful public health intervention," Siegel said in an interview. "There are not a lot of interventions out there which can produce a 40 percent reduction in youth smoking."

In towns that banned smoking in restaurants, 7.9 percent of the teenagers in the survey had smoked more than 100 cigarettes. In towns with weak laws, the rate was 9.6 percent, but after analyzing a variety of factors, such as age, race, and household income, the difference between the groups widened to 40 percent, the authors said. Having a parent who smoked was a factor in whether a child tried smoking, but not in whether the child continued to smoke, the authors said.

"Everyone talks about whether parents or friends smoke. This shows that a restaurant smoking ban is equal in power," Siegel said."

I want to know who the researchers are & exacttly HOW they came up with this claim.

I read this article yesterday somewhere else and am tired of this crap. I am well past the age of puberty, but when I was of the age the most popular restaurant at the time was Burger Chef. At that time these restaurants were a window on the street, customers were never within them. You bought your food, stood on the street, and ate it. Then you might lite a cigarette and continue on your way.

Also, at this time in my life, I was a non-smoker. I did not take up the habit until I was 21 and in college. I have done my most smoking while working at a terminal of a computer, by this time I was over 30. I was alone with my project, working after hours, after everyone else had left for the day. These were my most productive hours.

Later, I worked for a computer software company, but at home because of their smoking policy. I was totally unproductive while working at the business site and could not wit until I could return home to a productive enviroment.

I continue to work at home with my ash tray within arm's reach.

I feel the current software offerings are a direct result of the anti-smoking movement and have erased all my windows based machines.

quote:

Originally posted by Lori:

I want to know who the researchers are & exacttly HOW they came up with this claim.

Lori, go over to Siegel's blog, many there are asking the same question.
Siegel's Blog
Check into the comment section for Thursday May 1st - around half way down the inquiries start.

Thank you, I will.

I think any third grade class can do a study and get press these days.

What that study showed was 12 year olds were 40% less likely to smoke if there was a strong smoking ban in their town, but 18-21 year olds were more likely to smoke. I think 18%.

As age progresses so do smoking rates. They have created more smokers in my opinion. There aren't a whole lot of 12 year olds who would've smoked anyway, so that 40% reduction is on few children. But an increase of 18% on a much larger group, well, I believe the anti-smokers are shooting themselves in the foot if they use this study to ban smoking to cut smoking rates.

BTW, this isn't the 1st study to note this. I remember this argument back in 2000 when my city imposed a ban in restaurants.

there was a ticker on the bottom of my telly this morning about this topic while I was watching the morning news

How many twelve year olds are exposed to wealthy non-smokers each day compared to wealthy drug dealers who smoke?

As class distinctions become more evident in our society, these wealthy medical professionals are further and further isolated within a village they think they can control. What they do not seem to realize is their circle is shrinking and the barbarians will soon be at the gate.