Smokers, including civil servants, have to think twice before you light the next year the majority of government buildings and areas.

Executive Order Governor John Kitzhaber last week, prohibits public officials and persons from using tobacco products in public agency buildings and grounds – a ban which will be phased in over the next 17 months.

There are several exceptions to the ban, including recreation areas, roads, sidewalks and public beaches.

Last week I talked with a handful of government officials on Capitol Street NE, where smokers are common – along with discarded cigarette butts.

Some were skeptical that the ban will force smokers to quit, which raised the issue of smoking bans and restrictions in the workplace works.

Katherine Cushing, who works in the public health division of Oregon Health Authority, said the research is clear: smoking laws help smokers quit.

“The reason why smoking in the workplace helps quite simple,” she said.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also refers to studies that show smoking bans and restrictions may reduce the amount of daily smoking among workers and increase the number of employees to stop smoking. Calling into question the perception of smoking as a normal adult behavior, this change also flows on the behavior of young people, the Internet bulletin said.

For example, in the 2005 study, published in The American Journal of Public Health, found that employees who worked in places that are supported or implemented smoking policies are twice as likely to quit smoking, how employees who worked in places where they were smoking is permitted.

In Oregon, about 9 percent of the 50,000 or so state employees are smokers. This figure is lower than the average to 16 percent of the population as a whole.

Smoking-related illnesses are estimated at Oregon costs about $ 2.5 billion a year – and $ 13 million directly from the government of higher insurance costs and lost productivity.

Cushing said the new restrictions will help to reduce the number of smokers in the country and reduce the spread of second-hand smoke.

Office of Oregon Health and smokers surveyed after the Department of Human Services in 2008, a ban on smoking in their offices and bases. Several employees brought smoking in the workplace as one of the reasons why they leave.

“I just quit smoking after 31 years, and one of the reasons I left because the building will become smoke-free. So thank you for being smoke-free workplace,” said the officer with the Department of Social Services.