How To Say No

Saying No at Work

The person next to you smokes all day long, and you go home with itchy, watery eyes. You cough and sneeze after your regular office meetings because a few of your coworkers smoked.

When smoking is allowed at the workplace, non-smokers cannot avoid secondhand smoke. Often, the ventilation system brings other people's smoke into your breathing space.

A report from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) recommends that employee exposure to ETS be reduced to the lowest possible amount.

If your company still allows smoking, you can help limit your exposure by taking steps like these:

• Give your employer copies of the EPA and NIOSH reports on the harmful health effects of environmental tobacco smoke.
  
  
• Ask to work near other nonsmokers and as far away from smokers as possible.
  
  
• Ask smokers if they would not smoke around you.Thank those who care enough to stop.
  
  
• Use a fan and open windows to keep the air moving.
  
  
• Hang a "Thank You For Not Smoking" sign in your work area.
  
  
• Talk to your employer about the company's smoking policy. Be sure your management knows that medical leaders think secondhand smoke is a serious problem that can make the workplace unsafe for nonsmokers. Give them a copy of this brochure or the EPA report.
  
  
• Volunteer to help develop a fair company policy that protects nonsmokers.

Public Policies Restricting Smoking
Studies dating from the early 1970s have consistently shown that children and infants exposed to ETS in the home have significantly elevated rates of respiratory symptoms and respiratory tract infections. These findings prompted recommendations that ETS be eliminated from the environment of small children.

In adults, ETS can worsen existing pulmonary symptoms for people with asthma and chronic bronchitis, as well as for people with allergic conditions. Even individuals who are not allergic can suffer eye irritation, sore throat, nausea, and hoarseness. Contact lens wearers can find tobacco smoke very irritating.

Following the release of the 1986 reports by the Surgeon General and the NAS, many new laws, regulations, and ordinances were enacted that severely restrict or ban public smoking. With the release of new studies such as the 1999 NCI monograph, many more such laws can be expected:

On the Federal level, the General Services Administration issued regulations restricting smoking to designated areas only in Federal office buildings. Many agencies within the Public Health Service, which includes the National Institutes of Health, have banned smoking completely.

  
 

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