Smoking ban on flights?

Press, 9 April 1988, Page 4

Smoking ban on flights?

PA Wellington The Government should ban smoking on all internal air services, the New Zealand Committee of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians says.

The committee's chairwoman, Dr Karen Palmer, called on the Government to follow Australia’s recent example and ban smoking on all internal flights. The college did not believe recent suggestions from the tobacco industry that tobacco smoke was an insignificant cause of indoor pollution, Dr Palmer said. It wanted to remind smokers and non-smokers ; that many diseases had been shown to be associ- i ated with exposure to i other people’s cigarette • smoke, known as passive, smoking. These included eye, nose and throat irri-l tations, asthma attacks, serious lung infections; and a possible increase in the .risk of developing;

asthma in children, and lung cancer in nonsmokers subjected to prolonged exposure to cigarette smoke.

Many non-smokers also found ; other people’s cigarette smoke offensive and | unpleasant, Dr Palmer said.

The college had found that the majority of adult New Zealanders were non-smokers and recent surveys showed most people, including smokers, wanted smoking banned in enclosed Indoor areas, she said.

“This is especially relevant in very small and cramped quarters such as an aircraft cabin.

"Whilst it would probably be commercially worthwhile for airlines to voluntarily adopt a nonsmoking approach (since the majority of customers are non-smokers), overseas experience shows this has not often happened,” Dr Palmer said.