Document Actions
Most North Carolinians support law to eliminate tobacco use on school campuses
CHAPEL HILL – Ninety percent of North Carolina adults support the passage of a statewide law mandating a 100 percent tobacco-free policy in all N.C. school districts, according to a survey conducted in April and May by the Tobacco Prevention and Evaluation Program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
June 7, 2007
Photo: For a photo of Goldstein, click on http://www.unc.edu/news/pics/faculty/goldstein_adam.jpg
Most North Carolinians support law to eliminate tobacco use on school campuses
CHAPEL HILL – Ninety percent of North Carolina adults support the passage of a statewide law mandating a 100 percent tobacco-free policy in all N.C. school districts, according to a survey conducted in April and May by the Tobacco Prevention and Evaluation Program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
In addition, more than two-thirds (67.6 percent) of North Carolina adults support a statewide law that would eliminate smoking in all public enclosed areas, such as restaurants, bowling alleys, shopping centers, and indoor stadiums, the survey found.
“In both cases, support for these proposed laws was widespread and did not vary according to age, gender, ethnicity, parental status, or educational level,” said Adam Goldstein, M.D., program director and an associate professor of family medicine in the UNC School of Medicine.
Other key findings of the survey include:
- Regarding the law to mandate a 100 percent tobacco-free policy in all N.C. school districts:
o Support was very high among both non-smokers and smokers: 94 percent of non-smokers supported this type of law while 78.4 percent of smokers supported it.
o Support was high in a heavily tobacco-dependent county without a current 100 percent tobacco-free policy. In Johnston County, the number one tobacco-producing county in North Carolina, 79 percent of adults supported this legislation.
o Five times as many adults (28.9 percent) who regularly attend sporting or other events at local schools say that they would be more likely to attend school events if a 100 percent tobacco-free school policy were passed than those who say they would be less likely to attend (5.8 percent).
- Regarding the statewide law to ban smoking in all public enclosed areas:
o Support for a statewide law to ban smoking in public enclosed areas is very high among non-smokers, with 81.5 percent supporting such a bill.
o People who believe that secondhand smoke could cause lung cancer and heart disease were more likely to support the law, with 83 percent in favor of such a law.
o Support for the statewide ban was high in Johnston County, the number one tobacco producing county in North Carolina, with 60 percent of adults favoring the law.
The Tobacco Prevention and Evaluation Program, together with the UNC Survey Research Unit, conducted telephone surveys with a random statewide sample of 251 North Carolina adults, as well as a random sample of 277 adults in Johnston County, as tobacco-free legislation was introduced in the N.C. General Assembly. The two surveys’ results were weighted to be representative of N.C. adults at the state and county level.
In North Carolina, there currently is no statewide legislation mandating protection of children and adults from secondhand smoke exposure in most public places. Policy activity has occurred predominantly at the local, rather than statewide, level. For instance, three-quarters of North Carolina’s school districts (86 of 115) have now locally adopted a 100 percent tobacco-free school policy. Under such policies, no one can smoke anywhere or at any time on school property or at school-sponsored events. Most of these school districts (71 of the 86) have adopted such a policy since the North Carolina Health and Wellness Trust Fund began to focus on the issue in 2003.
The N.C. Senate passed legislation in April that would require all school districts in the state that have not yet adopted a 100 percent tobacco-free school policy to do so. The N.C. House of Representatives is expected to vote on similar legislation this month. In addition, a bill that would have required most restaurants in North Carolina to become smoke-free was narrowly defeated (66-59) in the House of Representatives last month.
“North Carolina has made great strides in passing smoke-free policies in the past decade because of the tireless work of advocates across the state,” said UNC research associate Shelley Summerlin-Long, who oversaw the survey. “The results of this survey clearly show that North Carolinians are now ready for all schools and public indoor areas to be smoke-free.”
Summerlin-Long said increased interest in this type of legislation, both nationally and in North Carolina, has followed on the heels of the 2006 release of a report by U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona, which concluded that secondhand tobacco smoke causes thousands of premature deaths each year and many other serious health problems.
The surveys were funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Substance Abuse Policy Research Program.
UNC Tobacco Prevention and Evaluation Program Web site: http://www.fammed.unc.edu/TPEP
Note: Goldstein can be reached at (919) 966-4090 or adam_goldstein@med.unc.edu.
School of Medicine contact: Tom Hughes, (919) 966-6047 or tahughes@unch.unc.edu; Les Lang, (919) 843-9687 or llang@med.unc.edu
News Services contact: Becky Oskin, (919) 962-8596 or becky_oskin@unc.edu