Greece pushes to move ahead smoking ban by summer
Health News
Dec 4, 2008, 11:23 GMT
Other features coming soon.
Talkback
page: 1
Anyone who thinks that they can keep friends in small neighborhood bars 'where everybody knows your name' from smoking is living in LaLa Land. After nealy a year, the bars in my area of Chicago that ignore the ban have had no customer or worker complaints. The only places in Illinois where enforcement takes place is in small quiet areas where real crims in not an issue and bored cops have lots of time to harass local small bar patrons.
Well as a bar owner I have found an alternative to ALL the smoking bans. This company has saved my business in so many ways not only that but ive actually made news headlines.
www.Crown7.com
While I commend the decision to move implementation forward, I have this to say. For this to work, Greece needs to adopt an aggressive public information campaign designed to terrify and wake Greeks up to the extreme hazards of smoking (I'm talking for eg showing pictures of cancerous human organs and people disfigured by smoking to everyone, including little children - other countries have done this), coupled with an unrelenting enforcement program. Both will be met with considerable resistance. Greece is unbelievably bad at public health promotion. Most Greeks have no idea just how lethal cigarettes are, and have no concept whatsoever of passive smoking. The level of ignorance is astonishing. Women smoke during pregnancies and doctors tell them this is ok. Few Greeks are aware, for example, that it is entirely possible to lose a limb though heavy smoking or that dying from pulmonary disease is about the worst and slowest way to go - dying takes 10 years in the case of emphysema. The same goes for air pollution generally, there is no 'clean air' mindset.
Other countries have been educating their populations for the last 20-30 years to stop smoking (and why), in most cases way in advance of introducing bans. The mode of best practice here is Australia, where smoking has now become almost completely socially unacceptable in many places.
The existing Greek bans on smoking in taxis, buses, hospitals and workplaces are widely ignored on the islands and probably on the mainland. I have had taxi drivers refuse to take me because I asked them not to smoke. Staff and visitors smoke in hospitals right next to sick patients. There is no enforcement. No-one does anything. Why should they, they want to smoke too! It's not as if police are stopping taxi drivers they see smoking in the car. The 50% rule in tavernas and so forth was silly to begin with and, I think, a rather cynical compromise that was fully intended to fail from the outset.
My question is: isn't this just another hollow Greek law that is absolutely intended to fail while the government cries: well, we tried? If not, what is the plan for enforcing this law? They don't have enough police in all of Greece to enforce this, and most of the police smoke anyway. Is there are plan for mobilizing well-trained non-police enforcement squads, whose main objective actually is education on the streets about the law, as in India? My guess is that there is no concrete plan whatsoever on how the Athens government intends to clamp down on this law.
I would like to be corrected on this, as a long-suffering asthmatic in Greece I hope I am wrong.
A new law banning smoking even in bars will be introduced in Greece in 2010. Will that work? As a Greek i can tell you in all honesty, no. The reasons are:
1. THE STATE TELLS YOU: Greeks mistrust their corrupt state and laws cause they think laws are made for the elite few, disregarding the rest. In general Greeks hate 'don't's, especially those away from mainland cities who feel neglected
2. LAW ENFORCEMENT: In general very difficult in Greece. Police is undermanned and untrained. We would need one policeman per citizen to enforce laws.
3.CULTURE: Smoking is an integral part of Greek culture, contained in about 80% of its music and arts. Its a given thing, a way of life. The non-smoker has to put up with the environment around him/her and not ask the environment to change in his/her favour. There is a constitutional law about respecting one's culture and I'm sure, good lawyers are sharpening their knives for 2010.
4.THE MONEY THING:Tobacco tax revenues aside, health costs are the same, tobacco or not, cause they are (mis)calculated differently than the rest of Europe. The bitter truth however is that: Were the tobacco victims to live longer and claim pensions, the pension fund system would collapse.
5.THE ANTI-SMOKING IDEA IS AMERICAN: Big subject, needs whole forums to be discussed.
My personal assessment of the situation is that the smoking percentage in Greece will be steadily diminishing but it will take time. More and more are giving up by the day. Public ban is respected in the big cities. Contrary to popular belief, not all Greeks are ignorant. The ignorant will perish and that serves them right, myself included.
Thank you for this article. As an epidemiologist, I welcome this ban. I recognize the complexities of laws restricting a most common practice when enforcement of laws is often absent. Nonetheless, there needs to be a big public health marketing campaign and a sincere attempt to enforce the ban. It's important to look at countries like Italy (in many ways similar to Greece culturally) where the ban has been for the most part successfully implemented.
'The anti smoking idea is American?'
I suppose the 'good health' and 'let's not die from slow awful preventable diseases' ideas are also American. In point of fact, the US has very uneven smoking laws - it depends on the particular state.
The first country to implement an unequivocal 100% total ban on smoking in places such as restaurants and bars was - that's right, in Europe - the Republic of Ireland. See the Wikipedia article. However, parts of Australia had begun banning smoking in certain places (such as all eating places in pubs in South Australia) way back in the 1990s, and had already banned smoking in workplaces many years before that. A complete national ban on smoking in bars and restaurants came later. The Australians gradually increased the bans via different mechanisms, closing loopholes. This gave non-smokers some places to go to get away from smoking, while allowing the smokers to get used to the idea. And meanwhile there was a vigorous anti smoking campaign on television and in the schools that started as long as forty years ago, heavily backed by pressure on the government from the Australia Medical Association, which there is a pwwerful lobby group.
It should be remembered that Ireland joined the EU at about the same time as Greece and, like Greece at the time, was a very poor country with an agricultural economy. But look at the difference now. Ireland is way ahead of Greece.
If Greeks want a better life, then they have to accept change. If they don't want their children to get sick and die painfully before their time, then they have to change their smoking habits. Trying to reduce this to some weak argument about American imperialism is really, well, goofy.
Greece's health minister says the new ban will be strictly enforced with heavy fines as of 1 July (see UPI news website 2009/06/12 'Greece-prepares-EU-style-smoking-ban').
Let's hope the government backs up this tough talk with action.
Looking around me on Crete, where everyone smokes except me it seems, I remain hopeful but it is difficult to believe that these people will go along with this without calling in the army and implementing martial law.
I am still looking for details on how the government intends to get the police to implement this law, since the police all smoke and have ignored and continue to ignore all previous smoking laws.
I am still battling with taxi drivers to get them to put out their cigarettes, yet smoking in taxis is already illegal. All the taxi drivers smoke like crazy, I have never seen a policeman pull them over and issue a fine. Never.
all this talk about health issues is all well and good , anyone who does not know smoking is bad for them must have arrived from another planet,no one ever says anything about the foul stench and filth that smoking creates and someone who lights up in the middle of a crowded room obviously does not give a hoot for all the other people around. the only recompense for putting up with this stink is the fact that one day the smokers will probably die a lingering death because of it.
not before time in my book
www.quit-smoking-aid.net
the answer to all addict of smoking
Smoking has been use by most of the people. The government should introduce how to stop smoking product so that people will be encourage to stop smoking.
If the government always give post, flyers, or any additional info how to stop there is no 100% users will follow.
Use www.quit-smoking-aid.net product to stop smoking forever.
I use it already!
page: 1
Similar articles
- Greece launches anti-smoking campaign ahead of July ban
- Smokers in Greece face high pulmonary disease rates
- Seeing is believing: Greece to ban smoking in 2010 (News Feature)
- Greek government plans to ban smoking by 2010
Latest Headlines in Health
- 1. US House passes major health reform (2nd Roundup)
- 2. US House passes major health reform (Roundup)
- 3. House passes major health reform (1st Lead)
- 4. House passes major health reform (Urgent)
- 5. Lawmakers set for major vote on US health reform
USA
Your Talkback on this Story