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Federal law prohibits smoking in all federally-funded schools, libraries and health care facilities nationwide.
North Carolina law, GS 143-595-601, originally passed in 1993 and amended many times, allows smoking to be prohibited in the following buildings owned, leased or occupied by state government:
- Any library open to the public
- Any museum open to the public
- Any educational building primarily involved in health care instruction
- Any area established as a nonsmoking area, so long as at least 20 percent of the interior space of equal quality is designated as a smoking area. If that is physically impracticable, the smoking area must be within the facility, adequate and as near as feasible to 20 percent of the interior space.
- Any indoor space in a state-controlled building such as an auditorium, arena or coliseum or an adjacent building thereof; except that the lobby must contain a smoking area.
The following are exempt from the state law, which means smoking may be banned from the inside of:
- Any public school, including grounds and vehicles
- Any enclosed elevator
- Any hospital, nursing home, rest home or state facility dedicated to mental health, developmental disability or substance abuse
- Any local health department, up to 50 feet from the building
- Any local department of social services, up to 50 feet from the building.
- Any nonprofit organization or corporation whose primary purpose is to discourage the use of tobacco products
- Any NC state supported university, including dorms and most other buildings
- Any NC community college, including campuses
- Any tobacco manufacturing, processing and administrative facilities
Smoking has also been banned from the NC legislative buildings and NC state prisons.
Smokefree Workplace law prevents local governments from passing local laws or rules that are more stringent than the state law’s “20-percent rule” after October 15, 1993. Known as “preemption,” this aspect of the law promoted passage of 89 new local rules restricting smoking in various NC communities in the summer of 1993. Most of these rules, because they were adopted by appointed Boards of Health and not elected boards like county commissions, have been suspended due to a Court of Appeals ruling concerning Halifax County in December, 1996. Almost no North Carolina communities are protected by local rules restricting smoking. Most North Carolinians would support such bans. A 2006 Elon University poll shows that nearly 65 percent of respondents said they would support or strongly support a statewide law in North Carolina that would not allow smoking in public places.
North Carolina law allows any privately-owned worksite to have a smoke-free policy. Many do, according to the 2005 NC Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System survey (BRFSS) The survey found only 10.8 percent of NC workers are exposed to secondhand smoke in work areas, although more (20.7 percent) are exposed in public areas, such as lobbies. For the state as a whole, smoking allowed at work has declined by about four percentage points since 2002; however, it has increased for Hispanics and other minority groups, as well as for the youngest workers.
NC State Health Director Leah Devlin, DDS, stated in a news release that all workplaces in NC should be smoke-free, for the fair protection of all workers.
A smoke-free worksite policy should ban smoking from all indoor areas, as well as doorways, areas near windows that open and areas near fresh air intake vents. Employers that provide vehicles for employees to drive should also ban smoking from these vehicles.
Only policies that address all these possible areas of exposure can completely protect employees and customers from secondhand smoke.
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