Impact of the proposed smoking ban on the restaurant trade - Essay Example

Smoking Ban Introduction To protect environment and nonsmokers, many county, and municipal governments have imposed clean indoor air laws that prohibit smoking in the majority indoor public spaces. In restaurants, long considered a support of resistance to voluntary restrictions, recent news accounts suggest significant changes. Although this proof is clearly subjective and can at best symbolize a developing phenomenon, the fact that changes are occurring at all indicates how much smoking policy has changed in current years. For example, fast food chains such as Wendys, Burger King, and McDonalds have banned smoking. Government regulation for smoking can be vindicated in most ways. Smoking is linked with market failures such as negative externalities and flawed information among market participants, and these failures provide one basis for government intervention. Another is the huge health care cost linked with the health consequences of smoking. The cost of medical treatment for smokers and second-hand smokers drives up health insurance premiums for everyone, despite smoking participation; in addition, many of these expenses are paid from public funds. "Cigarette smoking may be hazardous to your health" (Public Law 89-92, 15, USC) For anti smoking forces, the requisite that cigarette maker comprises a warning on the packages of their product was the opening barrage in their campaign against cigarette smoking. The underlying principal behind this warning label was only to remind cigarette smokers constantly that cigarette smoking was dangerous and therefore the cigarette smokers have to consider giving up the habit. Although the warning obligation was considered exceptionally mild, another benefit, at least from the viewpoint of the anti smoking groups, was that the government had finally consigned itself to an official position on the hazard of smoking. The issue had been brought to the congressional agenda and a victory had been won. For the first time, the tobacco lobby had been defeated. The enduring effect of this victory was to legitimize the smoking and health issue as an object for dynamic public policy experimentation and public debate. Main Body The strongest opponents of restrictions on smoking in public places have been bar and restaurant owners. Many restaurant and bar employees claim that say theyve lost customers. The below figure shows that how smoking banned effects business of restaurant, bar and beverages. Despite such opposition, some recent state legislation and local ordinances have banned smoking in restaurants and required strict ventilation systems in bars. These laws represent a key test in the continued expansion of clean indoor air laws and policies, and remain highly contentious; we treat them separately in this section. (Robert L. Rabin, Stephen D. Sugarman, 2001: 230) However, Studies examining implementation show that the law had little impact on the dining out patterns of consumers, did not result in job losses for the citys restaurant industry, resulted in high rates of compliance, and did not have a detrimental effect on business. (Robert L. Rabin, Stephen D. Sugarman, 2001: 230) The initial studies of smoking bans in restaurants suggest that there are no economic upheavals when smoking is banned in public places. Summarizing the existing data, Glantz (1999) notes convincingly those studies of sales tax data from 81 localities in six states (67 of which are entirely smoke-free) demonstrate that ordinances restricting smoking in restaurants have no adverse effect on revenues. In an important and related finding, Glantz and Charlesworth (1999) extend Glantzs previous work to consider the effects of restaurant smoking bans on tourism, which the tobacco industry has used as another argument against smoking bans. Their study examined tourism revenues in eight locations where the tobacco industry raised the issue of reduced tourism revenue in opposing restaurant smoking bans. The authors conclude that four localities show substantial revenue increases, four show no significant changes, and one saw a slower rate of increase. According to the authors, restaurant smoking bans had no adverse impact on international or domestic tourism (Robert L. Rabin, Stephen D. Sugarman, 2001: 231). Basically, the use of public smoking bans as a measure to put off cigarette smoking is a recent phenomenon. Initially, these public smoking laws were passed to lessen the annoyance or nuisance of cigarette smoke for nonsmokers. Such restrictions normally regulate smoking in locations such as restaurants, retail stores, and at times the workplace. In 1998, the government set a target to reduce the proportion of the adult population that smokes from 28 per cent to 24 per cent by 2010 - with a fall to 26 per cent by the year 2005. The government also aims to reduce the proportion of pregnant women who smoke from 23 per cent to 15 per cent by 2010 (Smoking Kills, Tobacco White Paper, December 1998) The support for smoking restrictions has been increasing since 1996. The percentage in favor of restrictions at work rose from 81 per cent in 1996 to 86 per cent in 2002, in restaurants, from 85 per cent to 88 per cent, in pubs, from 48 per cent to 54 per cent, and in other public places (such as banks, post offices etc.) from 82 per cent to 87 per cent (Office for National Statistics, Smoking Related Behavior and Attitudes 2002) In 2003, 50 per cent of workplaces were completely smoke-free, and 88 per cent had some form of smoking restriction in place (Source: Public Health White Paper 2004) An estimated 1,000 people die every year as a result of passive smoking (BMA, The human cost of tobacco, November 2004) Moreover, smoking ban is also necessary for overall environment. People are getting affected of passive smoking, especially children. Children who are regularly exposed to second hand smoke face up to treble the risk of developing lung cancer as adults Former smokers face twice the risk of developing respiratory conditions as a result of passive smoking than those who have never smoked (British Medical Journal paper, based on research carried out at Imperial College, January 2005) http://www.politics.co.uk/issues/smoking-in-public-places-$1996391.htm Votes on the Health Bill, and its provisions to ban smoking in workplaces, Liberal Democrat Shadow Health Secretary Steve Webb MP said: "The Governments approach to a smoking ban has been farcical. It has admitted that its exemptions have nothing to do with improving health. "The public will witness a Government in disarray as Cabinet Ministers and backbenchers divide and vote in both lobbies. "I will be voting for a complete ban on smoking in workplaces, as a clear commitment to protect the health of all workers." http://www.libdems.org.uk/news/government-in-disarray-over-smoking-ban.html Efforts at tobacco control have focused stratagems to lessen the toll of smoking that is averting the initiation of smoking by children, reducing nonsmokers instinctive exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), and supporting adults who smoke to stop. The first of these is essential to evade future smoking-produced illness in the youngest generation and to break the apparently endless cycle of childhood addiction tracked by premature adult death. The following is also essential to protect the innocent, nonsmoking victims of ETS. The last is crucial to lessen the near-future damage on smoking adults caught in the cycle of addiction and disease decades ago. Overall, tobacco control policy has focused on the first two objectives, with comparatively little policy directed at adult cessation, at least little overtly identified as motivated, even in part, by the objective of supporting adults to quit smoking. Because of these facts, concern in expanding access to smoking cessation services and in exploring nontraditional means of reducing smokers risks has proliferated in current years. Armed with effectual new pharmaceuticals, members of the smoking ending community, physicians, nurses, psychologists, and other professionals who work with smokers needing to quit show a revitalized optimism that they can and should make a divergence in the disease burden of smoking. At the similar time, cessation professionals know that even the most effectual treatments succeed with only a minority of patients. They are familiar with, too, that many smokers distinguish barriers to the receipt of treatment (financial and otherwise) and that others are not ready or eager to try to quit, though wanting to lessen their risk of experiencing tobacco-produced disease. As a result, smoking cessation professionals are calling for extended access to services and products, mainly in the form of insurance and health plan coverage of cessation treatment. A detachment of the cessation community is as well calling for activist consideration of additional means of reducing risk. The most usually mentioned means entail encouraging continuing smokers to lessen the number of cigarettes they devour and urging the development of more consumer attractive nicotine-delivery systems without the tars and carbon monoxide that make cigarettes so treacherous. More contentious are recommendations that smokers must switch to fewer perilous forms of tobacco consumption, such as smokeless tobacco, and that cigarette manufacturers must be encouraged to develop and market authentically fewer hazardous cigarette-like products. Proponents of tobacco control have borrowed the term “harm reduction” from the debate concerning societys response to elicit drug use. Sean Parnell is among them. According to her “harm reduction frequently comes up is tobacco use. The discussion largely centers on comparisons between smoking and the use of smokeless tobacco, although issues related to filtered vs. unfiltered cigarettes and low-tar cigarettes are also about the idea of harm reduction.” Harm reduction concerning illicit drugs is posited as a more caring and pragmatic alternative to the conformist “just-say-no” approach to dealing with drugs. The just-say-no approach relies greatly on the expectation those law enforcement prohibitions of drugs at the nations borders, arrest and trial of users and sellers can lessen the amount of drug use and its toll. Further, the approach pays positive lip service to the idea that education can avert drug abuse in the next generation. Though, besides many efforts by government, harm a reduction advocate insist that much drug use be unavoidable. The letter, which appears in The Times (25 September), argues that, "To smoke, to associate with smokers, or to operate a venue in which smoking is allowed should all be matters for individual choice. Smoking is legal, and in pubs and clubs it is fanatical smoke-haters who are the minority." Signatories include Bob Geldof, pop mogul Simon Cowell, artist David Hockney, TV presenter Chris Tarrant, playwright Ronald Harwood, publisher Felix Dennis, singer Lisa Stansfield, writer Simon Gray, musician Joe Jackson and restaurateur Antony Worrall Thompson. Jackson, a member of FORESTs Supporters Council, said, "If you are going to make smoke illegal, makes it illegal. Otherwise we have a right to smoke and have social places where we can smoke." Antony Worrall Thompson, patron of FOREST, said, "Restaurants should have been smoking and no-smoking areas and there should be certain levels of ventilation, extraction and air movement, but there is no justification for a total ban." Simon Clark, director of FOREST, said, "We are grateful that so many well-known people have chosen to speak out. It shows how strongly people feel about this issue and we hope others will be encouraged to join them." Clark, who this week had a 30-minute meeting with Health Secretary John Reid, added, "We urge the government not to be bullied by the antics of the anti-smoking lobby that has wildly misrepresented the dangers of passive smoking and is out of touch with the silent majority who want choice not a total ban. http://www.forestonline.org/output/page274.asp It is also observed that by making prohibiting policies of Government smoking an overall rate is decreased. As Peter Bardsley and Nilss Olekalns in their journal, ‘Cigarette and Tobacco Consumption: Have Anti-Smoking Policies Made a Difference?’ that Tobacco consumption Since that date consumption has fallen by about 60 per cent, the price of tobacco products (including taxes) has increased by 174 per cent, real income has increased by 39 per cent, and the baby boomers have moved through into middle age. Government has increasingly intervened to discourage tobacco consumption. Where as Caroline Daniel in her article Smoke without Fire: The Governments Anti-Tobacco Campaign May Deliver Less Than the Build-Up Suggests” that despite of efforts by government, rate is continuously mounting. There are 120,000 such deaths a year. While smoking was in decline for 20 years, falling from 45 per cent of over-16s in 1974 to 26 per cent in 1994, that trend seems to have bottomed out. Worse, smoking is on the increase among young people, in particular among girls, of who one in three aged, 15 smokes. She asserts that an advertising ban has two great merits: it is popular and it is low-cost. Beyond the advertising ban, the other main focus of the white paper will be underage smoking. About 90 per cent of smokers start smoking before the age of twenty, so it makes sense to get in there early. Nevertheless, experience offers little encouragements that anti-smoking initiatives - generally education-based - make much an era dent in teenage smoking. Nine in ten pupils already know those smoking kills. So, rather than flog the education message, Labor has floated the idea of rising the age of legal smoking from sixteen to eighteen (Caroline Daniel, 1997) Thus, entering of tobacco controls version of harm reduction. Due to understanding of the harmful effects of tobacco, millions of people desire to end their addiction to nicotine but believe they are unable to do so. Nearly three-quarters of the smokers see themselves as would-be quitters, yet hardly three percent succeed in giving up in any given year. Until lately the whole effort to ease addicted smokers has rested on supporting them to quit, severing their ties to nicotine totally. However, this approach denounces millions of them to an early and avoidable grave. Among the alternatives to giving up smoking for those who cannot quit, and for those who do not want to quit but do wish to reduce risk, are reductions on a daily basis consumption of cigarettes and replacement of fewer harmful nicotine delivery systems for cigarettes. Further, more contentious possibilities Comprise substitution of fewer perilous tobacco products for cigarette smoking (e.g., smokeless tobacco or cigarettes modified to be less toxic) and the use of novel cigarette-like products developed by the cigarette manufacturers marketed as reducing risk. Every time, compared with the dangers caused by the unaltered smoking pattern, the alternative holds the prospective of reducing the smokers risk. The idea of encouraging such substitutes to the just-say-no philosophy is itself quite contentious, however. Conclusion In conclusion I must say that the framework of the illicit drug debate, harm reduction has obviously come to imply alternatives to the strict law enforcement model of dealing with the suppliers and consumers of drugs. By expansion, harm reduction has been used, slackly, in the tobacco control field to refer to alternatives to quitting, in detection of the just-say-no strategys failure to conquer the giant disease burden resultant from widespread addiction to nicotine. Rationally, however, this implication of harm reduction is improper, or at least incomplete. Evidently, the most successful method to diminish harm is complete abstinence: quitting smoking together. Alternatives such as less exhaustive smoking or substitution of fewer dangerous nicotine-yielding products can as well reduce harm if the smokers had sustained their established smoking behaviors otherwise. Thus, rationally, harm reduction must encompass all means of reducing the risks caused by smoking and nicotine use, both the old standard and the more novel approaches that stop short of whole abstinence. Work Cited Peter Bardsley and Nilss Olekalns in their journal, ‘Cigarette and Tobacco Consumption: Have Anti-Smoking Policies Made a Difference?’ Journal article by Economic Record, Vol. 75, 1999 Caroline Daniel; Smoke without Fire: The Governments Anti-Tobacco Campaign May Deliver Less Than the Build-Up Suggests Magazine article, New Statesman, Vol. 126, July 18, 1997 Sean Parnell, Harm Reduction as Public Health Strategy Published In: Heartland Perspectives, Publisher: The Heartland Institute, Date: April 7, 2005. http://www.libdems.org.uk/news/government-in-disarray-over-smoking-ban.html http://www.politics.co.uk/issues/smoking-in-public-places-$1996391.htm http://www.forestonline.org/output/page274.asp Glantz, S. A. 1999. Smoke-free restaurant ordinances do not affect restaurant business. Period. Journal of Public Health Management Practice 5: vi-ix. Glantz, S. A., and A. Charlesworth. 1999. Tourism and hotel revenues before and after passage of smoke-free restaurant ordinances. JAMA 281 (20): 1911–18. Robert L. Rabin, Stephen D. Sugarman; Regulating Tobacco Oxford University Press, 2001 References: Berridge, V. (1998) ‘Science and policy: the case of post-war British smoking policy’ in S. Lock et al. (eds) Ashes to Ashes , Amsterdam/Atlanta: Rodopi Copas, J.B., Shi, J.Q. (2000) ‘Reanalysis of epidemiological evidence on lung cancer and passive smoking’, BMJ, 320: 417-18 Booth, C. (1998) ‘Smoking and the Royal College of Physicians’ in S. Lock et al. (eds) Ashes to Ashes , Amsterdam/Atlanta: Rodopi. Read More