Issue link: https://hi.iaq.net/i/630729
Managing Buildings for Good IAQ 41 Smoking areas must be separately ventilated, negatively pressurized in relation to surrounding interior spaces, and supplied with much more ventilation than non-smoking areas. The NIOSH Bulletin also recommends that the air from the smoking area should be exhausted directly outdoors and not recirculated within the building or vented with the general exhaust for the building. ASHRAE Standard 62- 1989 recommends that smoking areas be supplied with 60 cubic feet per minute (60 cfm) per occupant of outdoor air; the standard also recognized that using transfer air, which is pulled in from other parts of the building, to meet the standard is common practice. Both EPA and NIOSH advise that building owners or facility managers considering the introduction of smoking restrictions should implement smoking cessation programs. In addition, employ- ees and labor unions should be involved in the development of non-smoking policies in the workplace. (Refer to Appendix G for citations on all the publications mentioned in this section. See especially NIOSH Current Intelligence Bulletin (#54), Environmental Tobacco Smoke in the Workplace: Lung Cancer and Other Health Effects. Additional resources on ETS, including an assessment of respiratory disorders in children and lung cancer risks in adults, and a guide to developing effective smoking policies, will be available from EPA early in 1992.) PRODUCTS OF THE ASSIGNMENT OF RESPONSIBILITIES AND REVIEW OF TRAINING ■ job descriptions and/or contracts, work procedures, and schedules revised to reflect indoor air quality concerns ■ procedures for reviewing purchases of supplies, new projects, contracts, and policies in relation to indoor air quality ■ smoking policy revisions, if necessary ■ plans for educating occupants and training staff training in relation to indoor air quality smoke from the burning end of the cigarette, pipe, or cigar and the exhaled mainstream smoke from the smoker. ETS contains over 4,000 chemicals; 43 of which are known animal or human carcinogens. Many other chemicals in ETS are tumor promoters, tumor initiators, co-carcinogens (i.e., chemicals that are able to cause cancer when combined with another substance), or cancer precursors (i.e., compounds that can make it easier to form other carcinogenic chemicals). In 1986, The Health Consequences of Involuntary Smoking: A Report of the Surgeon General on Environmental Tobacco Smoke concluded that ETS was a cause of lung cancer in healthy non- smokers and that "the scientific case against involuntary smoking as a public health risk is more than sufficient to justify appropriate remedial action, and the goal of any remedial action must be to protect the non-smoker from environmental tobacco smoke." In the same year, the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences issued a report, Environmental Tobacco Smoke: Measur- ing Exposures and Assessing Health Effects, which also concluded that passive smoking increases the risk of lung cancer in adults. In June 1991, NIOSH issued a Current Intelligence Bulletin (#54) on ETS in the workplace that dealt with lung cancer and other health effects. In its Bulletin, NIOSH concluded that the weight of evidence is sufficient to conclude that ETS can cause lung cancer in non-smokers (i.e., those who inhale ETS). It recommended that the preferable method to protect non- smokers is the elimination of smoking indoors and that the alternative method is to require that smoking be permitted only in separately ventilated smoking areas. The NIOSH Bulletin emphasized that provision of such isolated areas should be viewed as an interim measure until ETS can be completely eliminated indoors. According to a 1986 report of the Surgeon General, "the case against involuntary smoking is more than sufficient to justify appropriate remedial action to protect the non-smoker from environmental to- bacco smoke."