It's increasingly hard to find a bar in the U.S. where you can light up a cigarette, and most Americans are happy about that.
A Gallup poll finds that 58 percent of Americans support a ban on smoking in public places, roughly the same percentage that supported such a policy four years ago. Forty-one percent oppose a public places ban.
While there has never been a serious effort in recent history to ban all tobacco use, the Gallup poll shows that a quarter of Americans believe that smoking should be completely illegal. Although the number of Americans who support barring smoking entirely has doubled since 2007, it is hard to imagine that U.S. citizens will ever be barred entirely from enjoying tobacco in their own homes, particularly in the midst of growing support for the decriminalization or legalization of marijuana.
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Women are far more likely to support smoking restrictions, with 68 percent favoring bans in public places, compared to only 47 percent of men. Support for bans also increases with age: 64 percent of those over the age of 65 are supportive, compared to 58 percent of people aged 30-49 and 46 percent of adults under the age of 30.
Support for smoking bans coincides with a steady decrease in smoking over the past 40 years. The poll found that only 19 percent of Americans say they've had a cigarette in the past week, compared to 40 percent in 1974. In addition, today's smokers smoke fewer cigarettes on average than smokers of the past. Perhaps because there are fewer places they can smoke, only 24 percent of self-identified smokers go through at least a pack of cigarettes a day. In 1997, 51 percent of smokers smoked at least a pack a day.
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