Effect of Smoke-Free Laws On Youth Smoking Behaviors

Almost every organ of the body can be harmed by smoking, which will cause many diseases including heart disease, lung cancer, stroke, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). More importantly, smoking will not only harm smokers themselves but also people around them.

Cigarette smoking causes more than 480,000 deaths each year in the United States, as shown in the figures for 2014 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). More than 42,000 of these deaths came from secondhand smoke exposure. That is why governments around the world have tried all means to curb smoking. One way to do this is to implement smoke-free laws.

Smoke-free laws for public spaces initially aimed to prevent secondhand smoke exposure. But a 11-year study indicated that smoke-free laws in workplaces were linked to a lower likelihood that adolescents and young adults would start to smoke, and smoke-free bar laws were associated with fewer days of smoking for youth who had already started. The study was conducted by researchers from the University of California and published online September 8, 2015 in journal ‘JAMA Pediatrics’. The study was funded by grants from the National Cancer Institute and National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities.

Data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth from 1997 to 2007 was used to analyze the effect of smoke-free laws on individual smoking behaviors of 4,098 teens and young adults who aged between 12 and 18.

The youth were asked whether they had ever smoked in 1997, and in later years were asked whether they had smoked since the last interview. Those who were smokers reported on how many of the previous 30 days they had smoked. The answers obtained were compared to the state level cigarette taxes, and smoke-free laws at the state, county and city levels.

It seemed that smoke-free bar laws did not affect whether or not the youth would start smoking, but smoke-free workplace laws lowered the odds of smoking initiation by 34 percent. Taxes were linked to a lower percentage of new smokers but not current smokers among adolescents and young adults. Each 10-cent increase in cigarette taxes would decrease the likelihood that a youth would start smoking by 3.5 percent. Meanwhile, youths living in areas with 100 percent smoke-free bar laws were 20 percent less likely to be smokers and current smokers smoked 15 percent fewer days per month than those not covered by such laws.

There has been conflict between groups pushing for smoke-free laws and those concerned with youth smoking initiation. But the new findings indicated that there is really no conflict: Smoke free policies can be prevention policies too! According to researchers, policymakers should combine smoke-free laws and cigarette taxes so as to have the maximum effect.

Is Exposure To Secondhand Smoke Reduced?

Of more than 20 million smoking-related deaths in the United States since 1964, 2.5 million were non-smokers who died from exposure to secondhand smoke. And 100,000 babies have died because of parental smoking, including smoking during pregnancy. 

Also known as passive smoke or environmental tobacco smoke, secondhand smoke is actually a mixture of 2 forms of smoke coming from burning tobacco. One is sidestream smoke that comes from the lighted end of a cigarette, pipe or cigar, and the other one is the mainstream smoke that is exhaled by a smoker.

While the collective exposure to secondhand smoke among Americans actually decreased by half between 1999 and 2012, 1 in 4 American are (some 58 million) still exposed to secondhand smoke, according to a report released by CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) on February 3, 2015. It was estimated that 40 percent of children (about 15 million) aged between 3 and 11, including 7 in 10 African-American children, are still regularly exposed to secondhand smoke.

Secondhand smoke disproportionately affects African Americans, Hispanics and Native Americans. Exposure to secondhand smoke among African-Americans stood at 47 percent in 2012, compared to 74 percent 10 years earlier. But it was still more than twice the number of white American nonsmokers being exposed to secondhand smoke. Among children, the difference was even wider.

Decline in exposure, as indicated in the report, was attributed to statewide laws that were implemented by 26 states across the United States banning smoking in public places. Nevertheless, a third of the American population still lives in areas that allow smoking in bars and some restaurants.

Being a known cause of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, respiratory infections, ear infections, and asthma attacks in infants and children, secondhand smoke can also cause heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, and lung cancer in adult nonsmokers. Previous studies have even linked secondhand smoke to mental and emotional changes. A UK study reported that women exposed to secondhand during pregnancy were at greater risk for symptoms of depression during the pregnancy. In the United States, the costs of extra medical care, illness, and death caused by secondhand are over $10 billion per year.

There is no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke that contains over 7,000 chemicals, including about 70 that can cause cancer. Each year, secondhand smoke causes more than 41,000 deaths from lung cancer and heart disease among non-smoking adults and 400 deaths from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, as well as about $5.6 billion annually in lost productivity.

Do You Want Your Heart Disease Risk Doubled?

While cigarette smoking can induce numerous medical disorders to smokers themselves, people who are exposed to smokers’ tobacco smoke are also at a high risk of getting similar medical disorders. One of the disorders is heart disease, one of the leading killers in the world.

Researchers from the University College London reported that people who are around smokers and breathe in a lot of smoke are twice as likely to die from heart disease as those who are exposed to lower levels of secondhand smoke. Their study, which covered more than 13,000 people in England and Scotland, was published on June 29, 2010 in the ‘Journal of the American College of Cardiology’.

A saliva test was used to measure the amount of secondhand smoke people have been exposed to and the participants were followed for an average of 8 years, keeping track of who developed heart disease and who died.

It was found that 32 out of about 1,500 people who had never smoked but were exposed to high levels of secondhand smoke died of heart disease. In comparison, only 15 out of about 1,000 people who never smoked but with low exposure. Their analysis, which was restricted to never-smokers only, showed that high secondhand smoke exposure was linked to more than a 2-fold increased risk of dying from heart disease.

High level of exposure, according to the definition set by the researchers, would be equivalent to living with a smoker and exposed to secondhand smoke almost every day.

This is definitely not the first study to reveal such association. In a 10-year study published in 1997 in the journal ‘Circulation’, researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health reported that women who never smoked but regularly exposed to other peoples’ smoking in home or work had their risk of heart disease almost doubled.

More than 32,000 healthy women who never lighted up a cigarette were tracked. These women, aged between 36 and 61 when the study began, suffered 152 heart attacks, 25 of them fatal.

In order to prevent heart disease, smokers are urged to give up this unhealthy and selfish habit for the sake of their loved ones. Meanwhile, people staying with smokers should strive to help them quit smoking so as to lower the risk of heart disease for all in the house.

A Child's Cardiovascular System May Be At Risk By Secondhand Smoke!

Parents may want to consider giving up their smoking habit as this will harm not only their own bodies but also their children's arteries.

A study, conducted by the Research Centre of Applied and Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine at the University of Turku in Finland, measured levels of continine in blood of 400 children between the ages of 8 and 11. Continine is a substance that the body produces when it breaks down nicotine in tobacco smoke. The participants were divided into 3 groups: low, high and non-detectable continine groups.

The researchers reported that exposure, even a little, to secondhand smoke at home or in public can actually harm the function of the cardiovascular system of the healthy children. This is because children who were in the high continine group were found to have a significantly lowered endothelial function. As a measure of arterial health, endothelial function is the blood coagulation and platelet adhesion in the blood vessels.

Parental smoking is also associated with an increased occurrence of asthma and respiratory illness in children. Statistics showed that asthmatic children who are exposed to cigarette smoke at home have a 4.5 times greater risk of respiratory-related absence from school, thus affecting their learning.

Besides cardiovascular disease and asthma, cancer, especially of the lung, is another disease that is strongly associated with secondhand smoke.

Smoking Mothers Could Risk Their Babies Of Heart Disease!

Smoking has long been regarded as a risk factor of heart disease. But now, women who smoke and want to have baby may need to think twice because cigarettes may cause heart defects to their babies.

A report presented at a meeting of the American Heart Association in Chicago revealed that pregnant women who smoke just before pregnant and shortly thereafter may increase the risk of their babies of getting a congenital heart disease by 60 to 80 percent. Exposing to second-hand smoke in the workplace or at home may also raise the women's risk of bearing infants with such defects by 30 percent.

This is the finding provided by a study conducted by the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.

Congenital actually means existing at or dating from birth. Congenital heart disease refers to a kind of problem with the heart's structure and function due to abnormal heart development before birth. Congenital heart disease can cause more deaths in the first year of life than any other birth defects. Some of these defects may heal over time, others will need treatment. For more information on congenital heart disease, you can want to check out at MedlinePlus.

The actual causes of most of defects are not known, but scientists believe that genetic susceptibilities and exposure to environmental toxins, such as alcohol, infections, various chemicals and some medications, may be the culprits.

Cigarette smoke contains about 3,000 chemicals and sad to say, their potential to cause heart defects is still unclear till now.

The heart's basic structure develops early in pregnancy. During this period, chemicals or infections may easily interfere with the genetic blueprint resulting in abnormalities. Even if pregnant women stop smoking 6 weeks after conception, the foetus can still be exposed to the chemicals in cigarette smoke. The most common problem caused is ventricular septal defect, which is a hole between 2 chambers of the heart.

It is estimated that some 2,000 congenital heart defects could be prevented every year if women stopped smoking before they try to become pregnant. Or better still, do not start smoking at all and this could be good not only for you but also to the people around you!