On the flip side, 69.1% would oppose such a law, 52.2% strongly, 16.9% somewhat. (2.5% don't know). But to see more than a quarter of people in the heart of the tobacco belt suggesting they'd be ok with making tobacco use illegal was surpising. Our personal guess before the survey (and again, it was just a wild guess) was about 12% would support a ban. But with all the legislation coming down on tobacco use, we'd not seen anyone who'd asked the question of who would ban it. So we asked.
The majority of people in the state did support a ban on smoking at bars and restaurants (61%) and a ban on smoking in all indoor public places (64%).
But before we say the survey shows strong sentiment for action on tobacco, other questions suggest people don't think smoking is our greatest concern. In fact, when asked to pick the greatest public health threat in the state from four choices (obesity, smoking, alcohol abuse or drug abuse--and yes, the order they were asked in rotated...), the largest percentage chose drug abuse as you can see in the press release.
That suggests to us that second hand smoke may still be seen as more of an annoyance than a significant health threat. There is increasing evidence that second hand smoke can be a health problem, but that message doesn't seem to have permeated quite yet. In fact, we did a campaign about that (you can read more about the research on it here).
And, full disclosure, we did a campaign for the state of NC trying to educate people about the dangers of short term exposure to second hand smoke. You can watch the TV spot from that campaign below, if you're interested.
What do you think:
- Great idea to outlaw tobacco because of the health risk?
- Or would that be government intrusion into private affairs?
- Is it an idea that will happen in North Carolina someday, or will it never happen
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