Smoking bans help Europe to kick its nicotine addiction

By Aoife White

Date: 02/06/05

A wave of smoking bans is unfurling across Europe, a health conference in Luxembourg will be told today (2 June).

Sweden introduced new legislation to stop smoking in the workplace and eating and drinking establishments on 1 June, 15 months after Ireland led the charge with new health and safety rules to save workers from passive smoking. Norway celebrates its first smoke-free year in June while both Italy and Malta opted to cut out tobacco this year.

"Ireland was a pioneer and had a galvanising effect on all the European member states. It has certainly driven the issue to the top of the agenda," said Fiona Godfrey of the European Respiratory Society, one of the organisers of the Smoke Free Europe conference.

"If Ireland and Italy can go smoke-free practically anyone can," she said. "Italy, as in Ireland, had an extremely committed health minister who decided that this was something that had to be done."

The rules ban smoking in most public places, from bars and restaurants to offices and shops. Second-hand tobacco smoke has been linked to respiratory cancer and cited as a factor in heart disease. A ban is also supposed to help smokers as it forces them to cut the amount they smoke. Godfrey said the conference would present evidence that the Irish rules had caused an "immediate and quite dramatic improvement in the health of smokers" who became more aware of the effects of smoke on others and showed more willingness to quit.

European countries are eager to join the rush towards a ban on smoking in the workplace. Health ministers from all over Europe contacted the organisers and asked to speak at the conference. Ireland's Micheál Martin, Italy's Girolamo Sirchia and Sweden's Morgan Johansson will be joined by counterparts from Finland, Latvia, Poland, Malta, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Cyprus.

In France, cancer campaigners are pressing for moves to step up health and safety enforcement following talks with trade unions. The UK government has also said it plans to introduce a ban. Scotland will do so by the end of 2005.

Godfrey dismisses claims by Irish pub-owners that the smoking ban had hurt their business because it had stopped people going out to bars and pubs. She said the decline in alcohol sales in pubs started in 2001 as people chose to drink more at home. "We've looked at this in some detail. This is a European-wide trend. People are drinking less in bars and general alcohol sales are going down anyway," she said.

The European Commission has added its weight to the battle against tobacco with an EU-wide advertising campaign to mock smokers and smoking from 7 June. New EU legislation will also introduce optional picture warnings on cigarette packs in the hope that pictures of blackened lungs and rotten teeth will convince smokers to drop the habit. Belgium, Ireland, Latvia and the UK have already expressed interest in adding the pictures to cigarette packs. A stop smoking website (www.help-eu.com) offers practical help to nicotine addicts who want to give up.

Article reports on the Smoke Free Europe conference 2005, held in Luxembourg, 2 June 2005, and takes a look at anti-smoking legislation recently introduced in a number of European countries.

Smoke Free Europe 2005: Homepage http://www.smokefreeeurope.com/

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