Abstract
Background: Existing evidence has shown that most smoking uptake and escalation occurs while smokers are teenagers or young adults. Effective policies that reduce smoking uptake and escalation will play an important role in curbing cigarette smoking. This study aims to investigate the effect of smoke-free air (SFA) laws in bars on smoking initiation/relapse while controlling for other confounders. Methods: The national longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97) from 1997–2009 was linked to state-level scores for the strength of SFA laws in order to carry out the analysis. Results and Conclusion: We find that SFA laws in bars with exemptions significantly reduce (p ≤ 0.01) the probability of smoking initiation (one-puff, daily, and heavy smoking initiation). The 100% SFA law in bars without exemption significantly deters smoking relapse from abstinence into daily smoking (p ≤ 0.05) or relapse from abstinence into heavy smoking (p ≤ 0.01) among people age 21 or older. The reduction of one-puff and daily smoking initiation is larger among ages 20 or younger than ages 21 or older, while the reduction in relapse does not differ by whether respondents reach the drinking age. Results also indicate that higher cigarette taxes significantly reduce daily smoking initiation and relapse into nondaily and light smoking.
Highlights
Existing evidence suggests that smoking initiation often occurs at an early age and develops into regular smoking through dependence or addiction later [1,2,3,4,5,6]
We find that smoke-free air (SFA) laws in bars with exemptions significantly reduce smoking initiation among all ages and smoking relapse into non-daily smoking among ages 20 or younger
We find that SFA laws in bars with some exemptions significantly reduce (p ≤ 0.01) the probability of smoking initiation with one puff, daily smoking initiation, and heavy smoking initiation among people younger than age 21 by 4, 4 and 2 percentage points, respectively; and among people age 21–30, the probability of smoking initiation with one puff (p ≤ 0.1), daily smoking initiation (p ≤ 0.01), and heavy smoking initiation (p ≤ 0.01) are reduced by
Summary
Existing evidence suggests that smoking initiation often occurs at an early age and develops into regular smoking through dependence or addiction later [1,2,3,4,5,6]. Studies of the effects of smoke-free air (SFA) laws on reducing smoking initiation and escalation are very limited and almost all supporting evidence is suggestive [16,17,18,19,20,21]. Among all the venues where SFA laws are imposed, SFA laws in bars merit more attention regarding their potential impacts on smoking initiation and escalation. This study aims to investigate the effect of smoke-free air (SFA) laws in bars on smoking initiation/relapse while controlling for other confounders. The 100% SFA law in bars without exemption significantly deters smoking relapse from abstinence into daily smoking (p ≤ 0.05) or relapse from abstinence into heavy smoking (p ≤ 0.01) among people age 21 or older. Results indicate that higher cigarette taxes significantly reduce daily smoking initiation and relapse into nondaily and light smoking
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