Industrial disease can refer to a great many things. The best way to look at it, however, is as a collection of possible ailments which might spring from life within modern society. If one compares the typical life we think of when looking back to the hunting and gathering days of our species with the modern lifestyle, a lot of things are brought into contrast. In particular, one of the most distinct things is how much different our air quality is.
Industrial disease has a strong legal quality to it as well. And it’s perhaps most striking when looking at the above description of air quality. A classic case is that of air quality within one’s workplace. While one can’t easily improve the air quality of the standard workplace, it was noticed by many that removing smoking would do so far bars. This is mostly because of potential legal consequences of not doing so. It was becoming increasingly obvious that people working in a bar might be able to take legal measures for compensation if they turned out to develop cancer or heart diseases as a result of working there. The current count is thirty seven states in the US with some form of smoking ban for various workplaces.
At the moment, California is probably the showcase for the most extreme deployment of actual laws against smoking. Not only are there general bans in some workplaces, but there are actual cities where smoking in public places has been made a legal matter.
