The Gestapo are about. I go to Greece every year -- and I will smoke despite the American tourist protesting. Remember Sparta - "Eliftheria ne thanatos" -- this means F**** all yor P**** that are trying to take freedom away.

Tina - that is why smoking control laws are so necessary. Many smokers are oblivious to the damage and irritation they cause others. They just want to smoke, and smoke anywhere they please. This is reinforced socially. In more modern countries, it is smokers who are socially isolated. In Greece, it is non-smokers who are isolated. Recently I attended a function where, as usual, everyone was smoking. I as an asthmatic non-smoker had to spend the entire night outside. People just laughed about it. In fact to have any social life at all in Greece, you have to breathe quite a bit of other people's smoke even if it makes you ill. It's not just Greeks either. Expat Brits in Greece smoke as heavily as the Greeks, despite the fact that they understand the dangers more fully. The law can effectively change health behavior, that has been proven in other countries. But it can't work without enforcement.

If people had just an ounce of respect for other peoples health, they would obey the laws, just like everywhere else in the world and stop smoking in public places. It has been proven for years now that second hand smoke kills, so smokers, a little respect please.

Of course they are not complying with the ban, since no-one ever comes and fines them. No enforcement.

The current law might be ok if it was properly enforced. The problem is Greece has great difficulty with enforcing anything. It's a backward country, let's be honest, with weak institutions, weak governance, high corruption and almost no health promotion. Think Africa.

Greece is a signatory to the WHO treaty concerning tobacco control, which legally obliges Greece to prevent exposure to secondary smoke. I've never seen this referred to in the media.

For anyone coming recently from a developed country, the level of ignorance concerning the dangers of passive smoking in Greece is astonishing. People assume that the smoking bans are their to frustrate their personal desire to smoke. That is not the case. The purpose of bans is to protect non-smokers including children. The government does not seem to have explained this.

People pulling out a few isolated studies that seem to show how "good" passive smoke is for children do not understand that it's the weight of the bulk of research that counts, and there is no doubt at all that this comes down very heavily against passive smoke. Every major health body in the world has supported this view (see the wikipedia article).

As for loss of business in tavernas and cafes - other countries have dealt with this. (In Australia business actually went up after a few years). Many bars and cafes in sane countries have built pleasant little outdoor gardens with shelter for people to smoke in. And there have been widespread and successful campaigns to explain the law and the extreme dangers of smoking. Most Greeks are unaware that smoking damages the entire circulatory system as well as the lungs, heart, stomach and numerous other organs, hugely increases the risk of sudden death, and decreases average life expectancy by 10+ years.

The law here has not been a total failure. Chain stores, banks and government offices have largely followed the ban and it is a welcome improvement. The problem is with small businesses, tavernas and cafes where the police do not seem to be doing anything to enforce the law.

Greece can solve a lot of problems at once by simply, perhaps somewhat gradually, imposing bans on non-tobacco cigarette adulterants such as: pesticide residues, radiation from certain phosphate fertilizers, dioxin-creating chlorine (some pesticides, and the bleached paper), kid-attracting sweets and flavors and soothing substances, untested and often toxic non-tobacco additives of all kinds, and fire-causing burn-accelerants.

The government might also mandate natural nicotine levels so that one would not need to smoke so much to get the effects. If one wants a lighter smoke, put the cig in a filter.

This step would cut smoking rates, make cigarettes less appealing to young people, remove some very bad industrial toxins and carcinogens from the products, lower illness rates, cut public health expenses, cut risk of fires, and make the legal burdening of the victims (smokers and bar owners etc) unnecessary.

Search up "Fauxbacco" for plenty of references to justify taking this path...rather than the Blame the Victims Smoking Bans, and the scapegoating of the natural tobacco plant.

Of course, officials who are economic friends with the industries involved (pesticides, chlorine, pharmaceuticals, paper/pulp, etc, or their insurers and investors) will not be interested in this tactic.

@Fast Forward Frank

So you have just pitched up in a foreign country and you deign to tell the Greeks how to live their lives?

@Jay

So people with bad body smells and halitosis should have the "odour" police sent round to their homes to make sure they know how to use a toothbrush, deodorant and a washing machine?

If people fail to comply what sanctions under law should be passed into law?

Ignorant, fascist bigot.

@Fast Forward Frank

So you have just pitched up in a foreign country and you deign to tell the Greeks how to live their lives?

@Jay

So people with bad body smells and halitosis should have the "odour" police sent round to their homes to make sure they know how to use a toothbrush, deodorant and a washing machine?

If people fail to comply what sanctions under law should be passed into law?

Ignorant, fascist bigot.

It isn't working, because the people find it unpopular. So the answer is to stamp down harder on the people? How is this responsible government?

The world is becoming crazy.

Don't like smoke?
Simple. Stay out of my bar.
Problem solved.

I accepted all the rules about no smoking areas long ago. What I would like to see now is an equal inflexibility from governments and people against drugs and all related problems. As you all know, drugs are the favoutite business of most criminal organizations and drug addicts are a social problem. Tobacco is also a drug? Yes but I have never heard of a smoker stealing or killing for money to buy a packet of sigarettes.

As a 'new resident' of Greece, I'm very dissapointed with the (non) implementation of the smoking ban, especially in bars and restaurants. Its time for Greeks to leave the Bad Balkan Habits behind and really join the civilized world in completely banning smoking in public and semi-public spaces. If Greece wants to be celebrated asthe craddle of democracy, it would suit to enforce its democratic laws.

People's right to breathe clean air should trump smokers' filthy habit every time.

No smoke = No go = I'll keep my own dough.

One day the truth of who has paid for the years of negative research, paid for the bans and how they did it WILL come out. Those who know, get it out there!

Right on Kuhn. Here in most parts of Canada there is no smoking anywhere indoors in public or business or within several meters of doors or in cars with children etc. We had all the same silly arguments about business being killed, human rights etc. Now most people have no problem with the laws. Anyone who tries to claim smoking has no effect on health has absolutley no medical knowledge. Just go study about COPD. Anyway, why should any non smoker ever have to be subjected to even the smell of smoke? You are subjecting someone else to your bad habits, that's a violation of human rights!

I am constantly amazed that everyone, and I mean EVERYONE who does NOT OWN a bar or restaurant think they have a right to make a decision that impacts OUR ABILITIES TO FEED OUR FAMILIES. The bottom line is..all of you whining non-smokers who wanted it all YOUR WAY do NOT patronize our businesses and we're losing our businesses because you stomped your feet and wanted it your way. Had you gone out and actually PATRONIZED these businesses, they wouldn't be complaining. Here in the US, Winter is upon us. We need a LOT of you anti-smokers to come in and keep our businesses open until the smokers come out in the spring.

I USALLY ASSESS A PERSONS INTELLEGENCE BY ASKING DO YOU SMOKE.

yes, Mariliza Xenogiannakopoulou is a real name.

I just heard a commercial for the ALA on the radio about quitting smoking. Now the spiel is that quit ATTEMPTS are necessary in quitting for good! Unreal! You know, by wiping out the populations' risky behaviors, the pharmas no longer have to find any cures because there will be perhaps less people getting diseases, thus less people demanding any kind of cure. The focus will be then solely on drugs to ease the patient into oblivion. For smokers, keep trying to quit, eventually you will give in, give up, or go insane from the constant bombardment from the behavior control pharmaceutical companies! Enough is enough!

Mat - yes, I wondered about that too.

Xenogiannakopoulou

is that a real name?

Smoking around your kids will not harm them

More ill informed smoker bashing. I do not think the authors would argue with me that smoking over the last 60 years smoking has more than halved (UK 1948 66% of the population, 2009 22.5%) but asthma has risen by 300% (again in the UK). So smoking is not the primary cause of asthma and atopy, I assume the doctor's cars and industrial pollution. The inconvenient truth is that the only studies of children of smokers suggest it is PROTECTIVE in contracting atopy in the first place. The New Zealand study says by a staggering factor of 82%.

"Participants with atopic parents were also less likely to have positive SPTs between ages 13 and 32 years if they smoked themselves (OR=0.18), and this reduction in risk remained significant after adjusting for confounders.

The authors write: "We found that children who were exposed to parental smoking and those who took up cigarette smoking themselves had a lower incidence of atopy to a range of common inhaled allergens.
"These associations were found only in those with a parental history of asthma or hay fever."

They conclude: Our findings suggest that preventing allergic sensitization is not one of them."

http://www.medwire-news.md/.../...gic_sensitization_.html

This is a Swedish study.

"Children of mothers who smoked at least 15 cigarettes a day tended to have lower odds for suffering from allergic rhino-conjunctivitis, allergic asthma, atopic eczema and food allergy, compared to children of mothers who had never smoked (ORs 0.6-0.7)

CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrates an association between current exposure to tobacco smoke and a low risk for atopic disorders in smokers themselves and a similar tendency in their children."

http://www.medwire-news.md/.../...gic_sensitization_.html/ 11422156

In conclusion let's have a balanced debate and not characterise smokers as race akin to the devil.

I smoke a cigar now and then but I will say that smoking about 20 fags a day is a killer after a few years your lungs look like the bottom of a coal pit. I must agree with Kuhn we should not subject our children to our habits and force them to breath second hand smoke.

WOW the truth has no place on this board......how long has anti-tobacco owned you guys here.


Outdoor bans are even crazier than indoor bans. The chemical make-up of shs is nearly 94% water vapor and A SLIGHT AMOUNT OF CARBON DIOXIDE with about 3% being carbon monoxide AND 3% CONTAINING THOSE SUPPOSED KILLER CARCENOGENS.........

n-nitrosomines which you hear so much about is actually arsenic..what they dont tell you is that the measurements they took match the naturally occuring arsenic in the air outside everywhere.
they measured levels at 0-29 picograms....which is totally safe...the amount has to be 5 million times that to be harmful to humans........you see how they switched it. Trying to blame shs for what is actually a natural thing. The levels of other things in shs if they can be measured at all are millions if not billions of times smaller than the amounts needed to harm anyone......just remember this second hand smoke is a joke within nano seconds from the burn it turns into WATER VAPOR.....Even the exhaled smoke is loaded down with water vapor...osha has said nothing in shs/ets is going to harm you or anyone else.....what shs will do is irritate those with weak immune responces.......thats why shs is classified as a class 3 IRRITANT BY OSHA AND THE EPA.....Remember this a prohibition movement must rely on scare tactics and big money in order to succeed to the level of getting legislation....These outdoor regulations are even crazier than the first claims made for indoor bans.......

As for secondhand smoke in the air, OSHA has stated outright that: "Field studies of environmental tobacco smoke indicate that under normal conditions, the components in tobacco smoke are diluted below existing Permissible Exposure Levels (PELS.) as referenced in the Air Contaminant Standard (29 CFR 1910.1000)...It would be very rare to find a workplace with so much smoking that any individual PEL would be exceeded." -Letter From Greg Watchman, Acting Sec'y, OSHA, To Leroy J Pletten, PHD, July 8, 1997
-harleyrider1978

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained off-topic content

What a bunch of power hungry fanatics. Hitler would be proud.

Kuhn - that's a bit extreme ! Even in the UK, outside terraces in pubs are permitted as "smoking zones". If the law is too strict, people will find ways of evading it. That's a lesson throughout history (look at "Prohibition" in the USA and what happened there !)

Stand fast on an all out ban. No compromises. I as a non smoker by choice (and my young kids) are continually being subjected to the smokers FILTHY habit to the detriment of our health. Not to mention our constitutional right to a clean and healthy environment.
It's so bad now that there is nowhere for us to go. The solution is to ENFORCE THE LAW USEING NON SMOKING PERSONNEL AND HEAVY, AND I MEAN, HEAVY FINES.
PLEASE NOTE: terraces outside are considered public non smoking areas too!!