The Illinois General Assembly also found secondhand tobacco smoke to cause an estimated 2,900 deaths of Illinois citizens each year, an increased risk of premature death in Illinois workers exposed to secondhand tobacco smoke, and cause the following in children and adults; Heart disease, stroke, cancer, sudden infant death syndrome, low-birth-weight in infants, asthma and exacerbation of asthma, bronchitis and pneumonia.
Enforcement, fines, and proprietor responsibilities are outlined per the Illinois Municipal League Newsletter dated December 13, 2007.
These agencies may assess fines to any corporation, partnership, association or other entity violating the no smoking provisions of the act.
(410 ILCS 82/20) Rather than an immediate fine for violating the smoking ban, several county health departments opted to work with businesses to provide education as a first response.
Over the first year of the ban being in effect, health departments in Peoria, Tazewell, Woodford, and Fulton counties received hundreds of complaints.
[11] From 1993 to 1996, the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Medicine decided to run an experiment partially funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF),[12] which has a national program known as the Tobacco Policy Research and Evaluation Program.
The researchers began to test if the new smoke-free restrictions put on hospitals would hinder or help the facility's employees.
However, the new amendments specify that the agency, the Illinois Department of Public Health, does not have the authority to pass rules or regulations under the new statute without first gaining approval from the Legislature.