Press Release Summary: A recent Massachusetts study suggests that restaurant smoking bans may play an important role in preventing teens from becoming smokers. Teens who lived in towns with strict smoking bans were almost 40 percent less likely to become regular smokers rather than their counterparts who live weak bans or no bans.
Press Release Body: A recent Massachusetts study suggests that restaurant smoking bans may play an important role in preventing teens from becoming smokers. Teens who lived in towns with strict smoking bans were almost 40 percent less likely to become regular smokers rather than their counterparts who live weak bans or no bans. This study is reported in the May issue of the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.
Led by Dr. Michael Siegel, of Boston University School of Public Health, the study backed up the idea that smoking bans discourage tobacco use in teens by giving negative impression smoking and reducing exposure to smokers in public places. \"When kids grow up in an environment where they don\'t see smoking, they are going to think it\'s not socially acceptable,\" he said. \"If they perceive a lot of other people are smoking, they think it\'s the norm.\"
Siegel and the researchers tracked 2,791 children between ages 12 and 17 who lived in the Massachusetts area. The teens were scrupulously studied for four years to find out how many tried smoking and how many became regular smokers. In the end, about nine percent became regular smokers. In addition to this, the study adds that the rate for towns were smoking was restricted to a specific area show that the rate was nearly 10 percent. However, it was under eight percent in places with tough restaurant bans. But becoming more exposed to strong bans reduced the chances of becoming smokers by up to 40 percent. \"There is really no other smoking intervention program that could cut almost in half the rate of smoking,\" Siegel said.
Smoking bans also had a greater effect on younger teens than on older ones. The researchers did not conclude whether the effects of strong bans on Massachusetts have the same effect in other states since these states have different restrictions and levels of aggression against smoking.
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2012
