WHO demands general smoking ban in Germany

It is harder now for European authorities to claim that smoking bans are universally popular. Germany has failed to enforce its ban, Spain has protested vigorously, and Belgian café proprietors and customers have also protested about a ban due for implementation in food establishments on 1 July, three years earlier than planned. The Netherlands has also thrown off its ban for bars without employees.  


Demands not just for a full implementation of the ban in Germany but for the law to be enforced centrally instead of in its federal states have appeared, of all places, in the British Medical Journal.  I only have access to the abstract but already the Heidelberg branch of the World Health Organisation gets its say, claiming that the German people are exposed to dangerously high levels of smoke in their restaurants and pubs.


(Clearly he seems to be under a misapprehension that people are forced to allow smoking in pubs and that unwilling customers are forced to go into them.) 


People seem happy to tell priests to keep out of politics and stick to religion: not a view I would necessarily agree with – everybody should have a say in politics. I would only agree to limiting religious interference in politics if religion wanted to keep secular interests out of politics. Why don't people realise that health is the new religion? Why do people tolerate health officials who are so steeped in politics that they happily recommend interfering with German legislation in order to achieve their smoke-free agenda? 


The study is entitled 'Full smoking ban is needed in Germany as four out of five pubs flout regulations'. What size of budget is needed to report what is common knowledge: that people can smoke in German public houses? 


The Netherlands didn't get off scott-free either. Tobacco control has no respect for national boundaries. 

Anti-ban protest reported in Palma

Hotel, bar and gaming industries forget their differences and protest the smoking ban in Palma, demanding modifications to the comprehensive smoking ban which they claim has cost some establishments up to 40 per cent of their takings and caused lay-offs and closures.

Has anyone been telling them that smoking bans don't cause a 40 per cent drop in trade – those that have witnessed it happening to them over the course of a few weeks – or that supermarket prices are to blame?

Bans are reversible if the will is there: don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

Contra la ley antitabaco

My Spanish is very poor but I like what's happening here. More at La ley del tabaco mata a la hostelería (Facebook)

WHO warns Spain to enforce smoking ban

Coordinator for the World Health Organisation's Tobacco-free Initiative Armanda Peruga (which produced the study behind this blog late last year) has addressed a conference in Spain. His message was that the authorities in Spain must be seen to enforce the smoking ban, and that ‘It is just as important that people believe the law is being complied with, as is actual compliance’.

He had some critical words for some of the media in Spain. ‘Reading the headlines,’ he said, ‘could make you think that the country is up in arms’. In Peruga’s view, compliance with the law is very good, with a marked contrast between what is reflected in the media and the reality of the situation.

This man understands why the media is so important to the government. Whether people observe an unpopular law depends in part on whether people think it is generally observed: whether it is in fact enforceable. This is certainly true of the smoking ban. The UK press told of the success stories and high compliance levels. Almost certainly the same degree of observance is not evident in Spain.

How symptomatic of our times that a World Health Organisation representative, an official of global governance, should address a national conference in Spain in such terms: that the law must be seen to be enforced. Only a law that is likely to be resented by large numbers of people would be discussed in such a manner.

We need to ask, what the need for a law that will clearly cause economic damage, and what the need for a WHO delegate (at whatever level in the hierarchy) to insist on the importance of enforcing such a law? The government of Spain is elected and can be blamed for the economic fallout of its policies. No one can touch anyone in the World Health Organisation.

And what is actually happening in Spain?  

Come to the Carnival!

Tenerife bar owners will close their pubs and take to the streets on 9 March, the day of a local carnival, in protest at smoking ban legislation.

Spain intensifies smoking inspections

The Spanish Director of Public Health has announced plans to step up enforcements of the smoking ban, following widespread reports of floutings.

He said, 'he had received no indications that financial losses, claimed by businesses as a result of the smoking ban in enclosed public spaces, were generalised, and asked for time to make "relevant evaluations."  "No other country has suffered economic losses after applying a law like this," he concluded.' [emphasis added]

I have to say that surprises me.

Trouble in Spain, and they don't like the smoking ban either

There appears to be rebellion in Spain against the smoking ban. Faced with austerity measures for the sake of stabilising international markets, the authorities there couldn't let the public take solace in a smoke and a drink, but the austerity measures had to include a ban on public smoking too. There are reports that some licensees will not enforce the law.

The unhappiness shows itself in a fight over smoking, resulting in a hotelier needing stitches. I remember hearing about a bar tender in Leith who was hit by a glass in the early days of the ban in Scotland: reported here. Such incidents have been rare in Scotland, at least not widely reported. A landlord in Bolton was rewarded by a broken leg for enforcing the smoking ban. Bar staff should not have been used to police a ban against their customers that must have been soul-destroying for thousands of people on both sides of the bar.

Feelings about watching Spain go through what we've already been through are inexpressible ... their ban is worse because it applies to certain outdoor areas.

The Dutch example could help them. What can the rest of us do?

Spain bans smoking, but rebels resist

Spain will ban smoking from 2 January next year both in bars and workplaces and in some outdoor areas as well.

But although the mainstream media sings its usual song, there is another form of reporting represented by Spiked. Here we learn of a rebel group, Club Fumidores por la Tolerancia, with their slogan Prohibido Prohibir (forbidden to forbid), dating from 1995: not three publicans like we had in the UK (and Scotland didn't manage any), but an organised group with 100,000 members. I am going to add its blog to the blogroll here (my computer managed to translate it to English so it can't be difficult). The group's introduction states that they believe conflicts between groups such as smokers and non-smokers can be resolved through negotiation.

Spiked has a history of publishing anti-ban posts. This one points out that the move to ban smoking in Spain runs against the national grain: smoking is still popular with some of Spain's rulers and the smoking rate is still going up. Passive smoking, it says, can be expressed as a metaphor: smoking offends people who don't like to see the social enjoyment associated with smoking. Smoking is being banned in Spain as a political gesture, because it is expected of all countries.

Thankfully Prohibo Prohibir sets out to articulate another view. People are capable of negotiating public space and indeed such negotiation is the way ahead. You can support the group on Facebook.