[Smoking ban at the workplace--the order of the hour (author's transl)].

Smoking is by far the most important inhalation noxa at the workplace and is probably to be considered most harmful to the workers generally during working hours. Tobacco smoking at the workplace also endangers the health of non-smokers through passive smoking. From this it is deduced that a general ban on smoking at the workplace is to be considered the order of the hour and as the most important aim of occupational medicine and industrial legislation at the present time.