Smoking bans represent public policies, including occupational safety, criminal laws and health regulations, which forbidden smoking tobacco in workplaces and/or other public spaces.
Legislation may also characterize smoking in a general way as being the possessing or carrying of any tobacco product.
Smoke-free laws are very rationale because there are made to protect all the people from the effects of second-hand and third hand smoke, which include a big risk of cancer, heart disease, emphysema, and other diseases.
Laws that are implementing bans on indoor smoking were introduced by many countries in many forms in the past years, with a few legislators citing scientific evidence that sustains that tobacco smoking is harmful to the smokers themselves and to people that are inhaling second-hand smoke.
Such laws may lower health care and improve work productivity, and lower the overall cost of labor in a community, so that it could make the community more attractive for the employers. In
Another rationales for smoking restrictions include a reduced risk of fire in areas where it is possible explosions; cleanliness in places where pharmaceuticals, food, precision instruments and machinery are produced or semiconductors; decreased legal liability; reduced quantities of litter; giving smokers possibility to quit, and healthier environments.
The World Health Organization thinks that smoke-free laws have a big influence to reduce the demand for tobacco products by making an environment where smoking cigarettes for example is more difficult. Together with cessation measures, tax measures and education, smoking ban policy is now seen as an important part in making the smoking rates lower and promoting public health. When all of these are made correctly and strictly and are also implemented right it is considered as one important, useful policy agenda goal to change or at least transform human habits away from unhealthy behavior and towards a healthy lifestyle.
Some of the most important laws are presented: