Published 11 December 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a2806
Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a2806

Head to Head

Should smoking in outside public spaces be banned? Yes

¹ University of Otago, Wellington, Box 7343, Wellington, New Zealand, ² University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland, New Zealand

After success in stopping smoking in public buildings, campaigns are turning outdoors. George Thomson and colleagues argue that a ban will help to stop children becoming smokers but Simon Chapman (doi:10.1136/bmj.a2804) believes that it infringes personal freedom

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Legislation to ban smoking indoors in public places is now commonplace, driven mainly by the need to protect non-smokers from exposure to secondhand smoke. A new domain for tobacco control policy is outdoor settings, where secondhand smoke is usually less of a problem. However, the ethical justification for outdoor smoking bans is compelling and is supported by international law. The central argument is that outdoor bans will reduce smoking being modelled to children as normal behaviour and thus cut the uptake of smoking. Outdoor smoke-free policies may in some circumstances (such as crowded locations like sports stadiums) reduce the health effects of secondhand smoke¹; will reduce fires and litter²; and are likely to help smokers’ attempts at quitting.

There is no simple answer to the question of what causes children to take up smoking.^{3 4} We know, however, that children tend to copy what they observe and are influenced . . . [Full text of this article]

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