The Smoking, Health and Social Care (Scotland) Act 2005 prohibits smoking in certain public places which are wholly or substantially enclosed, including the majority of workplaces. There are, however, certain exceptions to these rules, including:
It should be noted that private member clubs are not included under these exemptions, and hotel rooms could be designated by the proprietors as smoking rooms, but are under no obligation to do so, and if they did not, the Act would apply to those rooms as any other space. It will be an offence to smoke in no smoking premises or to knowingly permit smoking in no smoking premises.
Smoking is the biggest single cause of preventable premature death in Scotland, claiming around 13,000 lives each year. Passive smoking, that is breathing in other people’s tobacco smoke, kills and causes diseases. Other people’s tobacco smoke is also known as second-hand smoke, or Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS). Second-hand smoke is a mixture of over 4,000 chemicals, 200 of which are poisons and 50 are known to cause cancer.
There is also substantial evidence that ventilation and air filtration systems in enclosed public places, including workplaces, pubs, clubs and restaurants, do not eliminate the health risks associated with passive smoking. The estimated effect of eliminating exposure to passive smoking in public places is a reduction of over 400 deaths per annum. In addition, research evidence suggests that bans on smoking in public places cause smokers to reduce the number of cigarettes they smoke or encourage them to quit altogether.
