Anti-Smoking Legislation: The New Jersey Experience

Abstract

-Z a-\N*,ezG -HIS recounting of New Jersey's experience with antismoking legislation illustrates the difficulties which may befall any state, whether tobacco-growing or not. To place this effort in perspective, a review of the nationcwide campaign to prevent smoking indicates only mod*9<sesest results. In 1979 every state but Kentucky and Nevada had legislation introduced regarding smoking. A total of 346 bills were presented, and the number passed was 39. The enactment rate was 11.3 %. In only twenty-three states, or less than half, was legislation passed (i). Many of the measures passed concerned the tobacco tax, with some increasing and some decreasing it; others required or removed licensure requirements for tobacco dealers, restricted advertising, or limited sales to minors. New Jersey passed a bill in 1979 repealing the prohibition of sales to minors, but mandating education of school children with respect to the risks of alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, and other drugs. More significantly, the cumulative legislative record through 1979 indicated that only twenty-two states had passed what is known as a comprehensive "clean indoor air" law. Nebraska's law, for example, prohibited smoking in restaurants, retail stores, commercial establishments, public conveyances, educational facilities, hospitals and nursing homes, auditoriums, arenas, and meeting rooms. Michigan expanded its clean indoor air law in 1979 to prohibit smoking in employment except in designated areas, or where guaranteed through collective bargaining, and banned smoking of tobacco in any form in the chamber of its House of Representatives. None of the southeastern states where tobacco is a major crop has passed a "clean indoor air act," and most of the states lack stringent legislation to limit smoking (1).