Smoke ban 'of benefit to everyone'

DUBLIN - Ireland's ban on workplace smoking has cleaned the air in pubs and restaurants and improved worker health, a study says.

Since Ireland became the first country in the world to impose the ban in March 2004, other countries and cities have followed its example.

Professor Luke Clancy, an expert in respiratory disease at Trinity College, Dublin, has shown that particulate matter in pub air, a feature of smoke pollution, has decreased and workers are breathing better.

"This is the first time that we have measured the pollution and measured the effects," Clancy said.

"There is something like a 70 per cent decrease in particles and that makes it quite similar to outdoor air in Dublin, which is quite good."

Clancy and his colleague Dr Patrick Goodman tested more than 40 pubs before the ban was enforced and a year afterwards to gauge its impact.

In research presented at the European Respiratory Society meeting in Copenhagen, they said levels of two types of particles, PM2.5 and PM10, had fallen by 53 per cent and 87.6 per cent over the course of a year.

They also recruited 81 male bar workers and measured their lung function before and a year after the ban was made law.

"We found a 30-40 per cent decrease in symptoms, both respiratory and irritant," said Clancy, referring to shortness of breath, coughs and water eyes.

Lung function in the non-smoking bar workers also improved.

A study of workers in Norway showed similar improvements in health after a smoking ban was introduced there.

Sweden, Italy, Malta, Cuba and Bangladesh have also introduced bans on smoking in public places.

- REUTERS