Smoking will be banned at bus stops, taxi ranks, playgrounds, public sports grounds, and swimming pools and outdoor dining areas under tobacco reforms announced today by the NSW government.
Health Minister Jillian Skinner said a pre-election promise to the clubs industry prevented the bans from being implemented in outdoor commercial dining areas until March 2015, but bans in the other areas would take effect immediately.
She said the government would honour its memorandum of understanding with ClubsNSW.
Mrs Skinner said smoking-related illness accounted for 5200 deaths and 44,000 hospital admissions each year in NSW - costing NSW $8 billion each year.
The head of the NSW Cancer Council, Andrew Penman, said he was "pragmatic" about the government's decision to delay introduction of the smoking bans as far a clubs' outdoor dining areas until 2015.
"The history of tobacco control has been a history of compromise," Dr Penman said.
Mrs Skinner said reducing the harm "which tobacco inflicts on our community is a key priority for the O'Farrell government".
"The distress and cost that smoking inflicts on families, and the burden this imposes on NSW's health system, is simply not acceptable," she said.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/smoking-in-pu ... z1mz5O0vH3
Smoked out
Smoked out
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
Re: Smoked out
Normally I would be against this kind of intrusion but evidence (presented here a while back) shows that there is a very large decrease in heart attacks and other problems after banning outdoor smoking in public places. Much more than I would have thought.
I have to go with the facts.
yrs,
rubato
I have to go with the facts.
yrs,
rubato
Re: Smoked out
Balderdash.
Your collective inability to acknowledge this obvious truth makes you all look like fools.
yrs,
rubato