The British Medical Association Wales (BMA) is launching a petition calling on the government to give powers to the National Assembly for Wales to ban smoking in public places.
The BMA has placed copies of the petition in GP surgeries and hospitals across Wales.
Welsh Secretary of the BMA, Dr Richard Lewis said: “It is imperative that Wales has the power to ban smoking in public places – if that is the wish of the assembly, as soon as possible.
“While waiting for the English Public Health Bill to wind its way through the Westminster processes, Welsh men and women are dying of cancer,” he said.
“There are men and women who are subjected to such smoke in their daily lives: bar workers, waiters and waitresses in restaurants, croupiers in clubs: they too have a human right to have a workplace free of smoke.”
On 12 January Julie Morgan, MP for Cardiff North, will launch a private member’s bill which would give the National Assembly for Wales the power to end smoking in all workplaces and enclosed public places.
