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Smoking Ban Could Save State Millions

Indiana could save a cool $74 million in health-care costs over the next five years by banning Hoosiers from lighting up at work, according to a first-of-its-kind report Wednesday from the American Cancer Society.

State legislators have failed to pass a comprehensive smoke-free workplace law, but if they had, it also could have led to 65,300 adults kicking the habit and kept 27,300 Indiana youths from starting, said the report from the Cancer Action Network, the society's advocacy group.

The first-ever state-by-state report details how each of the 27 states lacking a comprehensive workplace smoke cigarettes ban would benefit in lives and dollars saved. Fifteen states, including Indiana and Kentucky, have no laws on workplace smoking cigarettes.

"Probably the biggest fight right now is going on in the states, and that's one of the reasons that this report is relevant," said Christopher Hansen, president of the Cancer Action Network.

Raising cigarettes taxes also will decrease smoking cigarettes's toll, the report said. If Indiana passed a $1 increase in its $0.995 per-pack tax, the number of smoking cigarettes-related deaths would go down by 41,400 in five years. State revenue would increase by more than $280 million.

Indiana State Department of Health officials were not available for comment Wednesday.

However, it's not clear how much of an impact the report will have in Indiana.

For the past five years, Rep. Charlie Brown, D-Gary, has tried to pass a smoke-free workplace law. Each year Brown presents his colleagues with reams of studies showing the benefit of a smoke-free workplace. And each year the studies fail to persuade enough of his peers.

This year, the bill made it to the Senate Public Policy Committee with exemptions for bars and casinos. The American Cancer Society withdrew support and the bill died.

"I'm hoping that with this information, we can whittle away at those kinds of exemptions that my colleagues still want to put in the legislation," Brown said. "My druthers is a comprehensive bill. But the whole legislature is about the friendly art of compromise, and I have tried to get that across to the advocates."

Many states, including Ohio and Illinois, have comprehensive laws. Even some states with rich cigarettes histories have laws. North Carolina recently enacted a bill prohibiting smoking cigarettes in restaurants and bars that did not include all workplaces.

Indiana could have joined the states with comprehensive workplace laws this year had the American Cancer Society not opposed this bill, said Sen. Ron Alting, R-Lafayette, chair of the Public Policy Committee.

Only about 5 percent of Hoosiers visit casinos and bars, so a bill that exempted those two locales would cover about 95 percent of the state's residents, Alting said.

"We should have passed that bill as is, which would have been a struggle but I think we would have the votes," Alting said. "That would have been a step in the right direction."

But at Wednesday's news conference unveiling the report, anti-smoking cigarettes advocates reiterated their opposition to partial laws.

Experience shows that states that pass weak laws don't later strengthen them, Hansen said.

"If we pass a law that's a very watered down law, we give the state an illusion that they actually did something about the problem," he said. "We have a tendency to hold out for something that is good legislation."


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