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  3. Municipal bans on smoking in restaurants and bars are highly controversial, but history shows they can also be highly effective.

Municipal bans on smoking in restaurants and bars are highly controversial, but history shows they can also be highly effective.

admin2015-09-26  35
问题     Municipal bans on smoking in restaurants and bars are highly controversial, but history shows they can also be highly effective. But are all smoking bans equally successful?
    The barkeep and blogger who writes as "Scribbler50" was outraged when, in 2003, New York City enacted one of the first comprehensive smoking bans in bars and restaurants-. "How can a guy and some board just kick us in the teeth like this? This smacks of fascism. " If people are aware of the consequences of smoking or visiting places with lots of secondhand smoke, should the government really have to tell us what to do? Won’t people just vote with their feet and smoke even more when they’re at home and away from restrictions?
    Scribbler50’s post inspired the physician who blogs as "PalMD" last week to look up the research on the effectiveness of smoking bans. He found several studies showing that not only did workers in restaurants and bars show improved health shortly after the bans were put in place, but smokers themselves also reduced the number of cigarettes they smoked.
    Overall, however, smoking rates remain persistently high, despite the common workplace smoking bans. Can other government measures help these smokers live healthier lives, or at least prevent people from taking up the habit?
    In the U. S. , warning messages have been in place on cigarette packages for decades. But the messages are rather clinical, for example: "Smoking Causes Lung Cancer, Heart Disease, And May Complicate Pregnancy. " What if packages contained more dramatic warnings? In January, psychologist and science writer Christian Jarrett looked at a small study of smokers’ reactions to cigarette warnings. The researchers measured self-esteem in student smokers, then showed them cigarette packages with either death-related warnings("Smokers die earlier")or esteem-related warnings("Smoking makes you unattractive"). Students who derived self-esteem from smoking and saw the death-related warnings later viewed smoking more positively than those who saw the esteem-related warnings. For students whose smoking wasn’t motivated by self-esteem, the effect was reversed.
    So not all anti-smoking messages are equal; Depending on who the message is directed at, a morbid(病态的)warning on a cigarette label may actually backfire.
    Scribbler50, for his part, is now a convert favoring smoking restrictions, at least in his narrow limits as a bartender. His patrons who haven’t quit smoking say they smoke a lot less now that they have to go outside to get a nicotine fix. He doesn’t miss emptying ashtrays, or the holier-than-thou(自以为是的)customers who complained every time a fellow patron lit up, or working in a smoke-filled bar all night and going home "smelting like you put out a three-alarm".
    Would it be right to enact even more restrictions on smoking in the interest of public health? It’s hard to deny that banning smoking in public, indoor spaces has been a huge success. Why not try out some stronger smoking bans? Parents in some areas are already restricted from smoking in cars with children, but I haven’t seen a study that evaluates the success of those measures. Perhaps a state or municipality could try extending the ban to homes, with provisions for studying the results. It’s also possible that stronger measures would be counter-productive, like the stronger warnings on cigarette labels. Maybe we’ll decide that at some level deciding whether or not to smoke should still be an individual choice. Or maybe in a few generations, it won’t be necessary to regulate smoking: There won’t be any smokers left.
What’s the assumption of the author about smoking restriction according to the last paragraph?
选项 A、People can try out some gentler smoking bans.
B、The municipality could try extending the smoking bans to homes.
C、It will not be a personal choice to decide whether or not to smoke.
D、It must still be necessary to restrict smoking after several generations.
答案B
解析 细节题。最后一段是作者关于禁烟的设想，其中第五句提到也许国家或市政府可以尝试将禁令的有效范围扩展到家中，所以[B]为正确答案。本段第三、四句提到为什么不尝试一些更严厉的禁烟令?有些地区已经限制和孩子在一起的父母在车内抽烟，但是还未看到评估这些措施的报告。这表明作者建议尝试一些更为严厉的禁烟令，所以[A]“人们尝试更为温和的禁烟令”是错误的表述，故排除；本段第七句提到，我们可能会决定在某种程度上抽烟是否仍是个人选择，所以[C]“是否抽烟不会是个人的选择”是错误的阐述，故排除；最后一句表明可能在几代人之后不需要禁烟了，因为没有吸烟者了，由此可推出[D]“几代人之后肯定还需要禁烟”也是错误的阐述，故排除。
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