U.S. Surgeon General Antonia C. Novello says government should ban all smoking in federal buildings.
Novello - a former aide to Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah - told a House panel, "Cigarette smoking is the single most preventable cause of disease and premature death in the nation."She said she supports a bill by Rep. James Traficant, D-Ohio, that would ban smoking in all federally owned or leased buildings.
"The simple separation of smokers and nonsmokers within the same air space may reduce, but does not eliminate, nonsmokers' exposure to tobacco smoke," Novello said.
Traficant added, "It is apparent that the focus of the smoking issue has moved away from a simple smoker verses non-smoker rights issue to the arena of general public health, public accountability and liability."
Novello said the magnitude of the adverse health and economic consequences of smoking is enormous.
"Smoking affects every one of us: We know someone who smokes, and who will become ill or die as a result of smoking," Novello said. "We also are affected by breathing environmental tobacco smoke, known to cause lung cancer and other disease."
Under the bill anyone who wishes to smoke in a federal building - including buildings used by the U.S. House and Senate, as well as the U.S. Courts - must go outside.
Traficant noted that total smoking bans have been implemented in the White House, and the states of California, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio and Utah.
Novello said 434,000 Americans die each year because of smoking. This represents one out of every five deaths.
Although tobacco smoking has long been recognized as a major cause of disease and premature death for smokers, a growing body of scientific evidence has documented that nonsmokers are also at risk as a result of their exposure to tobacco smoke, Novello said.
Novello said studies conclude that worker exposure to secondary tobacco smoke is most efficiently and completely controlled by simply eliminating smoking from the workplace.