Lonely future forecast for U.S. smoker

Press, 25 October 1985, Page 26

Lonely future forecast for U.S. smoker

NZPA-AP Washington The smoker of 1995 was likely to be segregated from society and forced to practice his habit alone or outdoors, as United States rolled toward a smoke-free society by the year 2000, the Surgeon-General, Dr Everett Koop, has predicted. Dr Koop, after his nomination by President Reagan for a second four-year term, said that the Government would not attempt to ban smoking, despite his campaign to rid society of smoking by the end of the century. “This is not a prohibitive society,” he said. “We’re not going to tell people they can’t smoke. We learned that we can’t tell people they can’t drink. “But the whole grassroots movement of militant non-smokers already has made smoking more difficult.” Almost all states had smoking restrictions, ranging from simple smoking

bans in elevators to Minnesota’s comprehensive Indoor Clean Air Act. The movement would go further, he predicated. Dr Koop planned more pressure. His report on smoking and health this year would deal with smoking in the workplace, he said, and tell corporate officers that smoking bans in the office and factory meant healthier workers and less sick-leave.

The next phase would emphasise the danger of passive smoking — nonsmokers who breathed the smoke that drifted through the air.

“The more evidence we get, the more we see that sidestream smoke actually contains more noxious stuff than mainstream smoke inhaled by the smoker,” he said.

Dr Koop was so confident of the smoke-free society goal that he believed it was time to start thinking of how to mitigate the damage to people dependent on the industry.