(A) The United States Surgeon General and other authoritative public health authorities have determined that involuntary inhalation of tobacco smoke:
(1) Is a cause of numerous diseases in healthy non-smokers;
(2) Is a major contributor to indoor air pollution;
(3) Places children, unborn children of pregnant women, elderly people, and individuals with cardiovascular and/or respiratory disease at special risk;
(4) Is a trigger for acute episodes of respiratory distress and myocardial infection;
(5) Increases the lifetime exposure to carcinogenic tobacco smoke of both smokers and non-smokers;
(6) Burdens the health care system by increasing the number and frequency of required hospital admissions and emergency visits thereby increasing the public and private expenditures required for the treatment;
(7) Reduces the life expectancy of persons consistently exposed to secondary smoke; and
(8) Causes substantial losses in productivity through smoking related absences from work and school.
(B) Excerpted from the December 2, 2003 State Supreme Court Decision Foundation for Independent Living, Inc. v. Cabell-Huntington Board of Health, 214 W.Va. 818, 591 S.E.2d 744 (W.Va. 2003).... “In attempting to minimize the effects of tobacco smoke on the general public in public places, the regulations of [boards of health] address a serious health issue which the Legislature has recognized. Based upon the foregoing observations, we find that clean indoor air regulations of local boards of health that place restrictions on smoking in enclosed public places (1) are consistent with the findings of the Legislature “that smoking may cause lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema and other serious health problems”, (2) advance the legislatively prescribed public policy “to provide the state with a citizenry free from the use of tobacco” and (3) fall within the bounds of authority granted by the Legislature to such boards.....” Id, 591 S.E.2d at 753.
(C) Accordingly, the purposes of this chapter are:
(1) To protect the public health and welfare by prohibiting smoking in public places;
(2) To prohibit smoking in places of employment;
(3) To recognize that where the need to breathe smoke-free air conflicts with the desire to smoke, the need to breathe smoke-free air shall have priority;
(4) To facilitate smoking cessation by active smokers; and
(5) To discourage non-smokers from taking up the habit and thereby developing a nicotine addiction.
(Regulation eff. 9-1-2012)