expenditures. CDC recommends that Texas spend $266 million on tobacco prevention to have an effective and comprehensive tobacco prevention program. In 2012, Texas will spend a paltry $6 million in state funds on tobacco prevention.83
So far, 30 states have passed smoking bans in restaurants and workplaces. About 40 percent of the Texas population is protected by 100-percent smoke-free local ordinances. Thirty-three Texas cities and towns prohibit smoking in all bars and restaurants and non-hospitality workplaces (2011), but many areas of Texas do not have a smoking
ban.84
Texas communities that implemented these
bans are, in effect, subsidizing health care services in those areas that have not adopted similar bans.
Almost three-fourths (70 percent) of Texans favor a statewide ban on smoking in the workplace and public buildings.85
Personal liberty arguments
against such ordinances ignore and overlook the rights of nonsmokers and Texas taxpayers who are burdened with the poor choices of some. Texas must be freed from this unnecessary cost and addiction.
Texas Cities With Smoking Bans in All Bars, Restaurants, and Non-Hospitality Workplaces
University Park Vernon
Flower Mound Southlake
Abilene
El Paso Socorro
San Angelo Benbrook Granbury Woodway
Copperas Cove
Austin San Antonio Eagle Pass Victoria Portland Laredo Corpus Christi Alton
Missouri City Pearland
Robinson
College Station Nacogdoches
Beaumont Houston Baytown
Dallas Plano McKinney
Ennis Tyler Marshall
70 TEXAS MEDICINE November 2012
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