
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 25, 1990                   TAG: 9004250152
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CHICAGO                                LENGTH: Short

NON-SMOKERS REPORTEDLY SUFFER SILENTLY

Common courtesy often does not exist when it comes to smoking: Half of the smokers surveyed said they light up indoors without asking if anyone minds.

And non-smokers are reluctant to ask smokers not to puff despite the habit's declining social acceptability, according to a federal study.

"The bottom line is that most non-smokers are suffering in silence," said Dr. Ronald M. Davis of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, in noting the center's support for work-site smoking policies.

The U.S. Agriculture Department reported this month that cigarette use dropped 5 percent in 1989, the largest decrease in six years.

A survey published in today's Journal of the American Medical Association found that although about 90 percent of non-smokers consider secondhand smoke annoying and harmful, in both 1974 and 1987 just 5 percent asked people to put out their cigarettes.

The study also found that if others are smoking already, 26 percent of smokers will light up immediately and 21 percent will smoke without hesitation.

Brennan Dawson, spokeswoman for the Tobacco Institute, said the researchers' comments were "a self-serving interpretation of numbers that can show other things."

by CNB