Daily Doc: RJR, Oct 31, 1977: Public favors smoking restrictions
Daily Doc: Public favors smoking restrictions
Title: STATE SMOKING RESTRICTIONS
RJR, Oct 31, 1977
Bates #: 500006978 -6984 (PDF file)
April 24, 2000
This document gives advocates a rare look at how extremely effective public health campaigns are in the relative absence of large-scale efforts by the tobacco industry to fight such campaigns.
The mid-1970's were somewhat of a "magic moment." The efforts of voluntary health organizations, the government and GASPS to educate people about the dangers of tobacco had kicked in, but the tobacco industry did not yet have a highly-financed and well-orchestrated response to these efforts. During this time, the Tobacco Institute (TI) commissioned the Roper organization to poll people to get a sense of the public's attitude towards smoking restrictions. The TI's poll revealed that people (including smokers) favored restrictions on public smoking--by a wide margin. The poll further revealed that the number of people favoring such restrictions was growing steadily.
It is likely that by now, the year 2000, we would have far more widespread restrictions on pubic smoking if the industry had not mobilized its extraordinary wealth and power to bend public and legislative perceptions around this issue.
NOTE FROM DONALD SHOPLAND:
The Chilton Adult Use of Tobacco Survey mentioned below was not a TI sponsored survey but was a federally sponsored survey. This series of surveys were conducted by the National Clearinghouse for Smoking and Health (the predecessor agency to the Office on Smoking and Health) in 1964, 1966, 1970, 1975 and the last one was conducted while I was with the Office on Smoking and Health in 1986. No similar survey among adults to assess their attitude, knowledge and beliefs about smoking has been conducted since. These surveys asked a number of important questions, including the (at that time at least) growing believe among adults that passive smoking could harm nonsmokers. The Roper survey, however, was a TI sponsored survey, which they conducted every two years starting in 1974 or 1976 and continued for several years.
CITATION
Title: STATE SMOKING RESTRICTIONS.
Type of Document: Report
Author: N/A - ("State Legislative Relations")
Date: 19771031
Site: R.J. Reynolds Document Site http://www.rjrtdocs.com/
Page Count 7
Bates No. 500006978 -6984
URL: The RJR site still does not support transfer of document URLs. This document can be found on the RJR site by going to "advanced search" and entering the starting Bates No. with a wild card (*) after it (e.g., 500006978*), or, alternatively, I am attaching a PDF file of the document. Most people had no trouble opening PDF attachments.
QUOTES
Background - 1972-1977
Over the past 5 years, the extensive "educational" campaigns to "protect the rights of nonsmokers" and make smoking "socially unacceptable" conducted by the American Cancer, Heart and Lung associations and the Federal health agencies have greatly changed public attitudes, and the number of adults who agree that smoking in public should be restricted--men and women, smokers and non-smokers alike--is increasing each year.
According to the Chilton survey, "Adult use of Tobacco--1975," smokers who agreed that smoking in public places should be restricted increased from 42% in 1970 to 51% in 1975. Among former smokers, Chilton reported the increase was from 61% to 77%, and among those who have never smoked, the percentage increased from 68% to 82%.
The May 1976 study, "Public Attitudes Toward Cigarette Smoking and the Tobacco Industry," conducted by the Roper organization for the Tobacco Insitute, also found widespread support for segregation of smoking in most public places was continuing to increase. Roper summarized the increase as follows:
-- 8 in 10 people --and almost as many smokers -- favor separate sections for smokers in trains, planes, buses and theaters, and over three-fourths of all people, and almost as many smokers, continue to favor segregating smokers in libraries or museums.
-- Support for segregation of smokers at indoor sporting events is now 67%, much higher than in 1974 when it was 40% for all sporting events.
--Support for segregation of smokers in 3 types of places is up sharply since 1974 -- at public meetings, up from 57% to 62%; in eating places, up from 50% to 57%; and in train, plane and bus stations and terminals, up from 44% to 54%.
--Over half of all people and one-third of smoker favor separate sections for smokers in offices and other places of work.
This service is brought to you by the American Lung Association of Colorado ( http://www.alacolo.org/) and Smokescreen ( http://www.smokescreen.org)
To join Doc-Alert, go to http://tobaccodocuments.org/, scroll down to the bottom of the page, enter your email address in the box marked "Daily Document Newsletter," and click *subscribe.*
Visit the Daily Document Archives at http://www.smokescreen.org/list/viewmsgs.cfm?id=66, or, for quick and easy at-a-glance viewing, try Gene Borio's great new Daily Document Archive at http://www.tobacco.org/Documents/dd/dd.html
Anne Landman, Regional Program Coordinator
American Lung Association of Colorado, West Region Office
Grand Junction, CO
(970) 245-2120
afoxland@gj.net
***********************
Go To: Tobacco BBS HomePage / Resources Page / Health Page / Documents Page / Culture Page / Activism Page
***********************
END OF DOCUMENT