Approximately 42 million (18.1% of population) people...

Approximately 42 million (18.1% of population) people smoke in the United States (CDC(a), 2014). Many public policies and initiatives have been launched to decrease the prevalence of smoking due to the harmful nature cigarette consumption has on overall health. Workplace smoking bans have been implemented over the past few decades to decrease cigarette consumption and to decrease secondhand smoke exposure to nonsmokers. These policies are implemented to increase worker health and productivity, and to save money for the firm through decreased healthcare costs. The main objective of this paper is to estimate the effect of workplace smoking bans on daily cigarette consumption. Introduction Health Effects of Smoking Smoking has long been†¦show more content†¦To reiterate this causal finding, a second CPS investigation took place in 1982 and found that the relative risk mentioned previously had risen to 22.36 for men and 11.94 for women (Thun, 2013). Smoking also causes other health problems like COPD. Data from the 1982 CPS shows that smokers have a relative risk of dying from COPD of 10.35 when compared to nonsmokers, and an updated cohort (2000-2010) finds that the relative risk increases to 22.35 among women (Thun, 2013). The same relative risks of dying from COPD among men are 9.98 in the 1982 cohort and 25.61 in the updated cohort (Thun, 2013). The existence of such high relative risks shows that smokers experience higher levels of adverse side effects due to cigarette consumption when compared to nonsmokers and establishes a causal relationship between cigarette consumption and COPD. Smoking has also been tied to many other forms of disease and cancer. The deadliest of all smoking related diseases is cardiovascular disease (HHS, 2014). Cigarette smokers are two to four times more likely to develop heart disease than nonsmokers, and smokers are twice as likely to have a stroke (CDC, 2012). These risks also manifest themselves to individuals who are exposed to secondhand smoke. Individuals exposed to secondhand smoke are 20-30% more likely to have a stroke than those not exposed to secondhand smoke (HHS, 2014). Secondhand smoke exposure has led to more than 2.5 million deaths since 1964, and