Who's in charge over there?

What do Scottish Parliamentarians do if they want to smoke at work?

It's all written down here, in a policy statement from the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body, the organisation that runs the Parliament building and its affairs. It tells you where and when you can smoke and what you must not wear while doing so. It tells you what will happen if you flout the policy. The sugar on the pill is an offer to cover half the costs of treatment to any employee who wants to give up smoking (what's in it for them – being known as Investors in People, perhaps?). (This looks as if it could add up considerably, but it is limited to £292 per person per year. We might never know why they don't just round it up to £300.)

I don't know what the Macedonian equivalent to the SPCB is but wouldn't it be fun if this situation kicked off here?

Turks disenchanted with smoking ban, while Dutch fighter speaks to the Sun

As if half measures by the Dutch and Bulgarians were not enough, recent reports show that Turkey is also less than happy with the smoking ban with over 70 per cent of those interviewed (including the non-smokers) finding fault. The report doesn't speak of non-compliance, however. The results contradict an earlier survey that found widespread support for the ban, but also find business losses on a large scale.

Authorities last year expected that the smoking ban would be implemented without trouble. The tobacco control expert interviewed there, Elif Dagli, expressed particular happiness about the short time-scale of implementation. She also denied that there was any hint of human rights violation involved in a smoking ban. This might explain why she feels it should be possible to implement such a ban without spending years trying to convince the population that black is white. She blames business failures under the smoking ban on a refusal to adapt to new conditions

Meanwhile Wiel Maessen explains his fight in the Netherlands to the Sun newspaper. Bars could not compete on an equal footing (in a so-called 'level playing field'), because they did not have to space to cater for people smoking outside, or the facilities to reorient their businesses. Claiming (credibly) that up to 80 per cent of Dutch believed smoking in public should be allowable, he states that the bans themselves are socially and psychologically damaging, and more so to 'the common man' (ordinary people) who felt excluded from social engagement by such a ban. Elif Dagli would have little sympathy with this argument, but I am sure most Turks would see exactly what he meant. 'Smoking kills' is a simple argument, but the issues around smoking bans are far from simple.

Wiel points out great disparities between penalties imposed in the UK and the Netherlands, and says that the Dutch have a different approach to enforcement in many areas.

The European Commission's current consultation on the 2001 Tobacco Directive includes questions in every area of tobacco regulation about whether laws and enforcement should be included in the directive or left to member states to regulate. The European Commission will not win itself many friends by insisting on Europe-wide conformity on smoking regulation.