ASH calls for smoking ban in all workplaces

摘要

A new report from Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) has called for the extension of smoke-free environments to three types of workplaces where smoking is still allowed. With the government's current five year strategy, Healthy Lives, Healthy People: a tobacco control plan for England, ending in 2015, ASH claims that England "urgently" needs a replacement, along with new targets for reducing the numbers of smokers. Although most of the report focuses on reducing smoking in domestic and other non-workplace situations, it also calls for new legislation to extend the current ban on smoking in enclosed public spaces to: 1 all merchant shipping, including boats that are leaving UK ports, as well as inland waterways. Merchant ships, adds ASH, can be extremely confined workplaces where workers may be exposed to high levels of second-hand smoke; 2 prisons where, with the increasing availability of alternative products such as electronic cigarettes, "the exposure of prisoners and prison staff to second-hand smoke is no longer acceptable". ASH also points to survey results that show 49% of adults in England agree, and 24% disagree, with a policy to ban smoking in prisons; and 3 performances in theatres where "audiences should not have to suffer ... second-hand smoke when the creation of a persuasive performance can easily be achieved without actors being required to smoke".