Airport smoking rooms don't work.
OBJECTIVE
To document tobacco industry involvement in thwarting enactment of a smoke-free airport policy at Lambert-St Louis International Airport (Lambert Airport) in the 1990s; and to test whether smoking rooms at Lambert Airport protect non-smokers from exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke (SHS) in adjacent non-smoking areas.


METHODS
Tobacco industry document websites were searched for previously secret documents relating to efforts to maintain smoking in Lambert Airport. Testing of SHS contamination in non-smoking areas adjacent to a designated smoking room was conducted at Lambert Airport in 1997-98 and again in 2002. A 1998 comparative test was also performed inside nominally smoke-free Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (Sea-Tac Airport). Tests were performed using either static or active nicotine monitors.


RESULTS
Industry documents show that the tobacco industry promoted the construction of designated smoking rooms as a way to sidetrack efforts to make Lambert Airport entirely non-smoking. Nicotine vapour air monitoring in a non-smoking area of the airport, adjacent to a smoking room located in Terminal C, reveals elevated levels of ambient nicotine vapour in excess of what would be expected in a completely non-smoking environment.


CONCLUSIONS
This study shows that airport smoking rooms expose non-smokers in adjacent non-smoking areas to a significant concentration of nicotine vapour from SHS.
Pion
M
M
Missouri GASP, St Louis, Missouri 63135-1213, USA. mpion@swbell.net
Givel
M S
MS
D000337:Aerospace Medicine; D000393:Air Pollutants / Q000032:analysis; D016902:Air Pollution, Indoor; D001294:Attitude to Health; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods; D009538:Nicotine / Q000032:analysis; D016134:Organizational Policy; D000074606:Smoking Prevention; D019460:Tobacco Industry; D014028:Tobacco Smoke Pollution / Q000032:analysis*
D000393:Air Pollutants; D014028:Tobacco Smoke Pollution; D009538:Nicotine