Smoke free legislation in public and workplaces prompts smokers to smoke less or even establish total smoking bans at home, according to new research.

"Opponents of workplace or public smoking bans have argued that these policies-albeit intended to protect non-smokers from tobacco smoke-could lead to displacement of smoking into the home and hence even increase the second hand smoke exposure of non-smoking family members and, most importantly, children..

On the contrary, our findings strongly support the premise that smoke free legislation does not lead to more smoking in smokers’ homes and smoke free legislation may stimulate smokers to establish total smoking bans in their homes."

Note that the findings are based on two waves of the International Tobacco Control Policy Evaluation Project Europe Surveys.

These surveys involved 4.634 smokers in four countries with smoke free legislation (Ireland, France, Germany and the Netherlands) and 1.080 smokers in UK (control country).