Chapman S, Borland R, Hill D, Owen N, Woodward S
Department of Community Medicine, University of Sydney, Westmead Hospital, Australia.
Int J Health Serv. 1990;20(3):417-27. doi: 10.2190/YYKC-PGTC-VUMM-3A5P.
The tobacco industry has identified the passive smoking issue as the single most important problem confronting its economic future. During the 1980s, the industry has been engaged in an elaborate and expensive international campaign seeking to refute the evidence against passive smoking's effects on health and to position the issue as one essentially concerned with civil liberties and smokers' "rights." There are three main reasons for the industry's concern: first, the passive smoking issue allows a widening of the definition of smoking beyond its discussion as a personal habit, legitimizing it as a social problem; second, successful cases of litigation against employers by workers with histories of chronic exposure to environmental tobacco smoke have created an industrial climate of concern leading to workplace smoking restrictions and bans, and third, the proliferation of smoking restrictions reduces smoking opportunities and thus reduces total cigarette consumption and hence financial returns to the industry. Based on the results of a large Australian study of a workplace smoking ban, an estimated 654.88 million cigarettes with a retail value of $A6,549 thousand would be forgone annually in Australia alone if 50 percent of white-collar worksites were to ban smoking. Finally, the passive smoking issue can be considered a Trojan horse to its less discussed effects: the reduced morbidity and mortality likely to result in smokers from the significant reductions in smoking frequency that occur with the proliferation of smoking restrictions introduced in the name of concern for the health of nonsmokers.
烟草行业已将被动吸烟问题视为其经济未来面临的最重要单一问题。在20世纪80年代，该行业开展了一场精心策划且耗资巨大的国际运动，试图反驳有关被动吸烟对健康影响的证据，并将该问题定位为一个主要涉及公民自由和吸烟者“权利”的问题。该行业担忧主要有三个原因：其一，被动吸烟问题使吸烟的定义范围扩大，不再仅仅被视为个人习惯，而是将其合法化成为一个社会问题；其二，有长期接触环境烟草烟雾史的工人起诉雇主成功的案例，营造了一种行业氛围，促使工作场所对吸烟进行限制和禁令；其三，吸烟限制的增多减少了吸烟机会，从而降低了卷烟总消费量，进而减少了该行业的经济回报。根据澳大利亚一项关于工作场所禁烟的大型研究结果，如果50%的白领工作场所禁烟，仅在澳大利亚每年估计就会少消费6.5488亿支香烟，零售价值达654.9万澳元。最后，被动吸烟问题可被视为一匹特洛伊木马，带来较少被讨论的影响：即随着以保护非吸烟者健康之名实施的吸烟限制增多，吸烟频率大幅降低，这可能会降低吸烟者的发病率和死亡率。
