In December 2009, Virginia became the first Southern state to ban smoking in bars and restaurants. A similar law recently took effect in North Carolina, the nation’s leading tobacco producer. A more moderate, college-educated batch of newcomers is changing the cultural landscape across the South. According to Ferrel Guillory of the Center for the Study of the American South at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, “They don’t want their kids to smoke, they don’t smoke, and they are not tied to the tobacco economy.”

Anti-Smoking laws and campaigns to reduce public smoking are considered by some to be one of the top medical advances of the decade. Such measures have cut exposure to secondhand smoke, contributing to a reduction in heart attacks and death from heart disease. While public smoking bans protect people from secondhand smoke, they also motivate people to quit.

Sources:

Los Angeles Times January 3, 2010

Huffington Post January 1, 2010

Medpage Today December 17, 2009