About Smoke-Free Tennessee

Smoke-Free Tennessee is a campaign of the Campaign for a Healthy and Responsible Tennessee (CHART) and its partners, including the Tennessee Restaurant Association, American Heart Association, American Cancer Society, American Lung Association, Tennessee Medical Association, Tennessee Public Health Association, and AFL-CIO among others dedicated to creating smoke-free workplaces for all Tennesseans.

Smoke-Free Tennessee is working to pass comprehensive smoke-free workplace legislation this session.

Making all workplaces smoke-free would result in a more productive work force and lower health care costs for all. Public support has been growing for this issue over the last couple of years as more and more states have made their workplaces smoke-free. Tennesseans are ready for this legislation because they’ve been calling for it for years. In fact public support for this issue is clear. According to a poll conducted in October 2006 by the American Cancer Society, more than 73 percent of Tennessee voters indicated they support a smoke-free law that would make all workplaces, including restaurants and bars, smoke-free.

In the 2006 legislative session, we saw an unprecedented 27 bills filed in the Tennessee General Assembly regarding tobacco control. CHART and its partners were integral to the passage of the landmark legislation which made all state owned buildings smoke-free last year. That debate opened new doors to the possibility of a more comprehensive smoke-free bill during the 2007 session.