More than 40 years after former U.S. Surgeon General Jesse Steinfeld first exposed the potential health risks of secondhand smoke (SHS) in 1971, 1 and nearly 30 years after a subsequent Surgeon General’s report stated that SHS causes lung cancer and other diseases,2 all U.S. workers still do not have the right to breathe smoke-free air. In the late 1980s, 91.7 percent of Americans had an indicator of SHS exposure in their bloodstream3 and, at that time, only 3 percent of workers nationally reported a “no smoking” policy at their place of employment.4 Soon thereafter, laws prohibiting smoking in workplaces and other public venues began to be enacted at the local, state, and national levels to minimize the impact of SHS. In 2006 and again in 2010, two Surgeon Generals concluded unequivocally that there is no safe level of exposure to SHS. 5 6 Today, smoke-free policies have effectively reduced the number of people exposed to SHS in the workplace.7,8,9,10 The proportion of nonsmokers with detectable levels of a SHS indicator has dropped to 40 percent. 11 This level of exposure is still too high, and unfortunately, not all workers have the same level of protections. Currently, 65 percent of the U.S. population is covered by 100 percent smoke-free state or local smoke-free workplace laws, 77 percent is covered by 100 percent smoke-free restaurant laws, and 65 percent is covered by 100 percent smoke-free bar laws.12 However, only about half of the population (49 percent) is covered by 100 percent smoke-free laws covering all three of these types of venues.
