With the smoking ban announced for all regions of the United Kingdom and brought into force in 2006 for Scotland and 2007 for the rest on the UK, the end of smoking in public buildings is finally here.

The law aims to protect workers and the general public from the harmful effects of passive smoking. It is estimated that exposure to second-hand smoke increases the risk of lung cancer in adult non-smokers by 24 per cent and heart disease in adult non-smokers by 25 per cent.

Passive smoking also causes respiratory disease and asthma in non-smoking adults and children. The UK Scientific Committee on Tobacco and Health concluded in 2004 that second-hand smoke is a serious public health risk.

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with its emphasis of looking well, eating well and being well, is all too aware of the connection between illness and disease and maintaining a healthy lifestyle.  It’s fairly well understood there is a connection between smoking and cancer; obesity and diabetes; eating the wrong foods and cardiac disease, high blood pressure and lack of exercise.  Most people make the connection between maintaining a healthy lifestyle and a healthy immune system.  Worker-related injuries and illnesses heal faster the healthier the worker is overall.

workplace injuries can be aggravated and recovery from them delayed by poor lifestyle habits.  Much in the same way a pre-existing condition such as spinal stenosis can delay and aggravate a back injury.

We’re always hearing that we learn from our past, and one thing that smokers know of the past and often wish was still true is that smoking tobacco cigarettes is still as mainstream as it used to be, and that it still had the same kind of acceptance as it did years ago. More laws began to forbid cigarette smoking in places, the arguments from doctors about the dangers of cigarette smoking became more charged, and non-smokers wanted change immediately.