The cost of smoking has gone through the roof. An out of court settlement last year saw casino worker Michael Dunn £50,000 better off after he claimed he had developed asthma as a result of passive smoking. Some employers warned the case would set a costly precedent and have reacted with innovative schemes to persuade smokers that stopping is in their best interests, even paying bonuses for stopping.
They have moved quickly because, in many ways, employers are already counting the cost. Smokers take more sick days than non-smokers - 34m are lost to British industry every year, according to charity Action on Smoking and Health (ASH).
Where they are prevented from lighting up on the job, smokers can spend up to one day of every week cowering against the side of the office building (based on nine ten-minute breaks every day). A Canadian study in 2002 estimated the extra expense incurred by each smoking employee, in terms of productivity and illness, at an annual £1,000.
Smoking rooms and smoking workplaces mean more redecoration, special ventilation and higher fire insurance premiums and life assurance rates.
Not for long, perhaps. A ban on smoking in public places is likely to become part of Labour's third term manifesto, according to draft policy documents leaked to the Guardian.
The probable ban, in the wake of Ireland's ban on tobacco in all public places from March, will cover pubs, bars and restaurants. It will breathe fresh air into Britain's tobacco-infused workplaces - mainly the preserve of manufacturing and the hospitality sector. Sixty thousand employees in pubs, bars and restaurants are exposed to second-hand smoke, according to Imperial College of London.
The British Medical Association claims that 1,000 people die from second-hand smoke in the UK every year, while last week new figures published on bmj.com, linked passive smoking by non-smokers to a 50%-60% risk of coronary heart disease.
In the meantime, some companies are tackling employee rather than customer smoking on their own terms. Tracey Webb, human resources and communications director of north London-based St Pancras and Humanist Housing Association, says that cost was not the catalyst for a scheme to pay staff to kick the habit. "It was health reasons," she says. "Costs are difficult to quantify.
"We know it's one of the hardest habits to kick and wanted to offer support. Rather than just issuing nicotine patches and saying 'This is how you should give up', we decided to offer £100 after three months and a further £100 after six months. That way, people could choose what to spend it on - patches or treat themselves."
Nineteen smokers signed up last year, with a fall-out of 10 by the end of six months. Halfway through the six months in the second course, there are now seven quitters, down from 13 at the outset.
"At the three-month stage, we give an informal interview and ask them to confirm whether they're still smoking," says Ms Webb. "It's based on trust, although at the launch we include names too, with a tongue-in-cheek suggestion that course-members should be grassed up if seen smoking."
But the use of financial rewards for a habit that previously took some smokers away from their desks for five minutes of every hour has not gone unnoticed.
Complaints from non-smoking colleagues led to quitters donating their first £100 to a charity of their choice, Ms Webb explains.
Building surveyor Savin Lytrides says: "I joined the scheme on national no-smok ing day in March. When you join up, it's really the idea that you're part of something. Our support system was very informal - there were just three of us doing it from our office. I was expecting more tabs to be kept but there was a lot of trust.
"I haven't been sick this year and I feel in a better state of mind, too. Before, I'd go outside to make a work call from my mobile and have a cigarette at the same time. I'm more focused, although I'm worse off in a different way - I'm looking at the computer screen more."
Other organisations are using less costly techniques. CICA, the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority, pays for its employees to attend weekly cessation courses, spanning six weeks, and lasting up to two working hours a time. It also pays for nicotine patches.
The Scottish Executive offers an interest-free loan for employees to attend on-site lectures by counsellors from guru Allen Carr's school of non-smoking. Punters are offered a loan of £145, a knockdown from the normal £200 course price, which covers a five-hour seminar during working hours and two booster sessions. Seventy-four people have risen to the challenge since the scheme started in May.
The project forms part of a clear anti-smoking policy from the Scottish Executive, which, in August, will remove all 15 smoking rooms. "It's not credible to promote people giving up smoking and then give them a room to smoke in," says a spokesperson. Meanwhile, as the prospect of a ban on all workplace smoking seems more likely, there are voices of caution from the hospitality industry.
Adam Collett from pub owner Greene King, says: "It's a balance between the pub as a place of leisure and as a workplace; consumer choice and the health of the nation. We are running businesses for the enjoyment of a broad church of people and that makes it a dilemma."
For Mark Hastings, spokesperson for the British Beer and Pubs association, it's less of a grey area: "Pubs are places where people lead their social lives. They're not like an office. Why should government put our industry at the frontline of a campaign on public health? If it really believes smoking is bad it should ban it."
And while a ban augurs well for staff health - a study in Hong Kong last year revealed that non-smoking men exposed to passive smoking at work for more than a year were twice as likely to take time off sick - it might not be so good for their pay packets. Mr Hastings warns of job cuts if a British ban takes the course of Ireland's, where there has been a 15% post-ban slip in profits for Dublin pubs, according to the Licensed Vintners Association of Ireland.
But support has come from unlikely corners. Peter Linacre, managing director of Massive Ltd, which owns 40 central London pubs, says: "There will be challenges and some people will go out of business. There will be pluses and minuses. But where employee health is at stake, it's the only option."
