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Sat, May 26 2012
Poland: smoking ban economics
Photo: Reuters
This month, Poland will become the 11th EU member state to ban indoor smoking in areas of work, following in the footsteps of the UK, Ireland, Holland, France, Italy, Slovenia, Latvia, Sweden, Finland and Bulgaria. The law is the result of an EU initiative that seeks to ban smoking within the EU in workplaces by 2012.
The national smoking ban in Poland was voted into the law registry on May 14 by the Sejm after undergoing a series of revisions. It goes into effect after six months in the law registry, on 15 November 2010. The first version was a complete ban on indoor smoking in workplaces; the fourth version, which passed with 217 votes for, 165 against, and 48 withheld, allows for smoking exceptions in designated, enclosed areas.
The ban encompasses many former smokers’ havens, like bars, pubs, cafes and nightclubs. The exception: in places with two or more rooms, smoking can occur in one of them, so long as the area is separated from the other room(s) and has an adequate ventilation system (which bar owners have said cost between 20,000 and 50,000 złoty). In places of mass transit or service vehicles (such as taxis and buses), public places used for relaxation, children’s playgrounds, or at mass transit stops and stations, the smoking ban is in full effect...
Read the full article at the Krakow Post
The national smoking ban in Poland was voted into the law registry on May 14 by the Sejm after undergoing a series of revisions. It goes into effect after six months in the law registry, on 15 November 2010. The first version was a complete ban on indoor smoking in workplaces; the fourth version, which passed with 217 votes for, 165 against, and 48 withheld, allows for smoking exceptions in designated, enclosed areas.
The ban encompasses many former smokers’ havens, like bars, pubs, cafes and nightclubs. The exception: in places with two or more rooms, smoking can occur in one of them, so long as the area is separated from the other room(s) and has an adequate ventilation system (which bar owners have said cost between 20,000 and 50,000 złoty). In places of mass transit or service vehicles (such as taxis and buses), public places used for relaxation, children’s playgrounds, or at mass transit stops and stations, the smoking ban is in full effect...
Read the full article at the Krakow Post
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The Sofia Echo
If anything, it must be the 12th because Malta was one of the very first EU member states to ban smoking at work and in public places.
No wonder there is a worldwide epidemic of childhood asthma. It is obvious that the childrens lungs in this smokefree world do not know how to function.
When the majority of parents smoked childhood asthma hardly existed.
A ban on places outside? Seems like the reds have made a bit of a comeback in Poland. Not that Europe ever got rid of them - the undemocratic EU has long to carried the totalitarian torch
It makes no difference whether the risk is real or imagined. What IS real is the aggravation to many of smoke. When in a restaurant with others eating I NEVER light up if those around me were still eating. As an ex smoker I actually enjoy the smell of smoking (although not the after smell when stale) but I am with the anti smoking brigade becausr I do believe, on the whole, it is anti-social. What I do believe also though is that smokers should be allowed inside, in their own "smoke" (as we used to call smoking rooms in [...]
Read the full comment pubs in the UK), their own carriages on trains etc.
What a joke, who is kidding who? A friend of mine has "no smoking" signs up in her office and no-one take any notice. As for the ban in public places that is a farce.
They have created a fear that is based on nothing’’
World-renowned pulmonologist, president of the prestigious Research Institute Necker for the last decade, Professor Philippe Even, now retired, tells us that he’s convinced of the absence of harm from passive smoking. A shocking interview.
What do the studies on passive smoking tell us?
PHILIPPE EVEN. There are about a hundred studies on the issue. First surprise: 40% of them claim a total absence of harmful effects of passive smoking on health. The [...]
Read the full comment remaining 60% estimate that the cancer risk is multiplied by 0.02 for the most optimistic and by 0.15 for the more pessimistic … compared to a risk multiplied by 10 or 20 for active smoking! It is therefore negligible. Clearly, the harm is either nonexistent, or it is extremely low.
It is an indisputable scientific fact. Anti-tobacco associations report 3 000-6 000 deaths per year in France ...
I am curious to know their sources. No study has ever produced such a result.
Many experts argue that passive smoking is also responsible for cardiovascular disease and other asthma attacks. Not you?
They don’t base it on any solid scientific evidence. Take the case of cardiovascular diseases: the four main causes are obesity, high cholesterol, hypertension and diabetes. To determine whether passive smoking is an aggravating factor, there should be a study on people who have none of these four symptoms. But this was never done. Regarding chronic bronchitis, although the role of active smoking is undeniable, that of passive smoking is yet to be proven. For asthma, it is indeed a contributing factor ... but not greater than pollen!
The purpose of the ban on smoking in public places, however, was to protect non-smokers. It was thus based on nothing?
Absolutely nothing! The psychosis began with the publication of a report by the IARC, International Agency for Research on Cancer, which depends on the WHO (Editor's note: World Health Organization). The report released in 2002 says it is now proven that passive smoking carries serious health risks, but without showing the evidence. Where are the data? What was the methodology? It's everything but a scientific approach. It was creating fear that is not based on anything.
Why would anti-tobacco organizations wave a threat that does not exist?
The anti-smoking campaigns and higher cigarette prices having failed, they had to find a new way to lower the number of smokers. By waving the threat of passive smoking, they found a tool that really works: social pressure. In good faith, non-smokers felt in danger and started to stand up against smokers. As a result, passive smoking has become a public health problem, paving the way for the Evin Law and the decree banning smoking in public places. The cause may be good, but I do not think it is good to legislate on a lie. And the worst part is that it does not work: since the entry into force of the decree, cigarette sales are rising again.
Why not speak up earlier?
As a civil servant, dean of the largest medical faculty in France, I was held to confidentiality. If I had deviated from official positions, I would have had to pay the consequences. Today, I am a free man.
Le Parisien
Unfortunately, Bulgaria has not passed such a law and what Bulgaria passed is inadequate.