90% of Seoulites exposed to passive smoking everyday

Nearly 91 percent of citizens in Seoul are exposed to second-hand smoking everyday with their daily exposure time averaging 13 minutes, a poll showed Monday.  According to the survey of 1,000 citizens aged 19 years or older, 90.8 percent experienced passive smoking each day as of end-December last year, down by 1.6 percentage points from four years earlier. They were exposed to second-hand smoking 1.4 times per day for 13 minutes on average.   While their involuntary exposure came more frequently in outdoor spaces with 0.9 times than in indoor facilities with 0.4 times, the duration was three times longer indoors with 10 minutes than three-minute outdoor experiences, according to the survey.  The No. 1 indoor places for passive smoking were bars with 61.1 percent, followed by restaurants with 18.7 percent, entrances of buildings with 9.2 percent and the inside of office buildings with 6.4 percent, the survey showed.  The poll was conducted by the Seoul Metropolitan Government last December to secure data needed for devising regulations to curb second-hand smoking and for launching campaigns to discourage the die-hard habit.  The municipal government has been pushing to completely prohibit smoking in all indoor facilities in the city by 2020 as part of efforts to promote public health and protect the environment. Currently, smoking is not allowed in facilities larger than 150 square meters.  "We will prioritize regulating indoor smoking to minimize inconvenience and the negative effects of second-hand smoking," a city official said.  According to the data analyzed by the Seoul Institute, some 23 percent of Seoul citizens aged 20 or older smoked as of 2012, down by 5.6 percentage points from 2003, with the amount of daily consumption falling from 15.2 cigarettes to 14.6.  Nationwide, 44.9 percent of the male population smoked an average of 15.3 cigarettes per day, and 4 percent of women smoked 10.8 cigarettes, according to the data.