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Services of Wfead' Data Central, Inc. LEVEL 1- 47 OF 55 STORIES Copyright (c) 1986 McGraw-Hill, Inc.; Business Week PAGE 163' December 29, 1986 SECTION: TOP: OF THE NEWS; Social Issues; Pg. 40 LENGTH: 820 words HEADLINE: WARNING: IN MORE AND MORE PLACES, SMOKING CAUSES FINES BYLINE: By Lois Therrien in Boston BODY: After Mar. 10, it could cost you $ 25 or more to light a cigarette in any Cambridge (Mass.) store, theater lobby, or office building. That's when the city's ban on smoking in public places and offices goes into effect. The strict Cambridge law is the latest in a growing number of restrictions imposed by local and state governments, as well as by companies, to protect the health of their citizens and employees. For employers, the prohibitions may turn out to be in theiir ownibest interests. On Dec. 8, a Washington State appeals court ruled that Helen McCarthy, a nonsmoker with a debilitating lung disease, could sue her former employer, the state health department, for negligence in exposing her to cigarette smoke in the office. In the first suit of its kind, McCarthy is seeking $ 370,000 in damages. The ruling comes amid mounting evidence that "passive," or environmental, smoke Is a health risk to nonsmokers. On Dec. 16, inihis strongest statement yet on the subject, U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop issued a report concluding that passive smoke "can cause lung cancer in nonsmokers." A November study by the National Academy of Sciences estimates that passive smoke is responsible for 2,400 lung cancer deaths a year In the U.S. "To fail to act now on the evidence we currently have would be to fail in our responsibility to protect the public health," Koop says. GROWING MOVEMENT. Already, about 150 cities and towns, from San Francisco to Aspen,- Colo:, to Newton, Mass., have passed smoking restrictions of varying severity. Forty states, the District of Columbia, and federal departments such as the U.S. Army and the Merit Systems Protection Board have instituted antismoking policies. Most of these restrictions have been imposed during the past two years, and other federal agencies and state and local governments are debating similar controls. In early Decenrber the General Services Administration instituted restrictions covering its 7,000 federal buildings, which will affect 890,000 out of a total of 2.3 million federal civilian employees. Senator Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) is also preparing~a bill that would ban smoking on commercial airplanes and other forms of public transportation. At first, doubters said smoking bans wouldn't be enforceable. But experien ce has proven otherwise. "People are realizing these restrictions do work," says John F. Banzhaf III, executive director of Action on Smoking & Health, a Washington nonsmokers' rights group. Ralston Purina, Texas Instruments, Pacific Northwest Bell, and many other comparties restrict smoking at work. A JUne study of 660 companies by the Bureau of National Affairs found that 38% had some tct LEXIS`NEx 1s0LEx e s"r1Ex 1s'

Services of Mead Data Central, Ina PAGE 164 (c) 1986 McGraw-Hill, Inc., Business Week, December 29, 1986 controls on smoking. An additional 21% were considering,them.. Proponents argue that companies can save money by restricting smoking. If a company adopts a strict smoke-free policy, i't can save up~to $ 5,00 P4u1IP4'0FL- e thro 0 h~lower absenteeism, reduced cleanin 0 oa costs, and discounts an oe 1ife, disability, fire, an6 industrial accident insurance, says William, L. Weis, a di'rector of the Smoking Policy Institute in Seattle. Cigarette smoke has f her costs as well, he arAues. It can eas y damaqe ard-disk drives in microcomputers, for example, and replacing a hard disk costs S 1,000. OUTNUMBERED. Robert D. Tollison, a George Mason University professor who has done research on behalf of the Tobacco Institute, the trade association for UI.S. cigarette manufacturers, disputes Weis's findings. He says that smoking restrictions actually cost companies about $ 900 annually per smoking employe e because of lost time spent in smoking lounges. The Tobacco Institute claims that no scientific studies, i'ncluding the Surgeon General's report, prove a link between passive smoke and nonsmokers' health problems. "It's a pretty poor idea to base a policy on science that won't support it," says Walker C. Merryman, Tobacco Institute vice-president. Opponents of the bans also claim that they infeinge on smokers' rights. The AFL-CIO and several individual unions argue that policies that control smoking at the workplace should be established through collective bargaining rather than by corporate or legislative fiat. Some minority organizations have argued that controls are discriminatory because nonwhites, as a group, smoke more than the general population. Those opposing smoking restrictions are clearly outnumbered. Only 30% of Americans smoke, and the percentage of workers who smoke is even lower. Even smokers disagree on the issue. Weis, who has surveyed employees at several dozen companies, says: "In every instance, a majority of smokers favored strict restrtctions" -- in part, to force them to quit smoking. More prohibitions seem inevitable. After all, the nonsmokers have Surgeon General Koop on their side,, and he's calling for a smoke-free society by the year 2000. GRAPHIC: Illustration, no caption, MARC ROSENTHAL W LEX15'11GEXI5'LEXIS'N,"E,X15'