New Year’s Resolutions Blog

France Joins the Stop Smoking Campaign

Friday, February 9th, 2007

On Thursday, February 1, France became the latest country to ban smoking in public places. Fearing a change that may alter the image of a country defined in part by its smoky cafes and cigarette-puffing intellectuals, some are not impressed!

 

France’s 15 million smokers will be banned from lighting up in workplaces, schools, airports, hospitals and other “closed and covered” public places. More than 175,000  agents are to enforce the ban, handing out fines of $88 for smokers and $174 for employers who look the other way.

 In a year, the ban will extend to cafes and restaurants - sure to be the moment of truth for a certain image of France, where writers like Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre are remembered with cigarettes dangling from their mouths.

Statistics, like 66,000 smoker deaths per year in France, and changing norms are snuffing out the romance along with the cigarette. Italy, Spain, Belgium, Britain and Ireland are all ahead of France in enacting broad smoking bans.

Nearly a quarter of French people are smokers. Yet, a day before the “no smoking” signs go up, there was no sign of panic in the streets. So far, smokers are calm, with no pre-ban rush for smokers’ aids like nicotine patches. However, two companies that make ventilated smoking rooms for offices say they are gearing up for a rush in orders.

For those lacking sufficient inner strength to break the habit, the government will help by reimbursing up to $65 per person per year for stop smoking aids. It will also allow companies to invest in strictly regulated special smoking rooms inside the workplace. I don’t think we have those here, do we?

I was curious about the ventilated smoking rooms and here is what Ameraicans for Non-Smokers Rights has to say on the subject:

“Providing for separately ventilated smoking rooms - There is no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke, and there is no known ventilation system that will prevent secondhand smoke from permeating nonsmoking areas and adversely affecting people in those areas. Moreover, separately ventilated smoking rooms offer no protection for employees who work in those rooms and may even exacerbate their situation by concentrating all the smoking into one place. Even if no employee is required to work in a separately ventilated smoking room, the people who clean it will be exposed to the secondhand smoke.”

We now know that 53,800 people die every year from secondhand smoke exposure. This number is based on the midpoint numbers for heart disease deaths (48,500), lung cancer (3,000) and SIDS deaths (2,300) as calculated in the 1997 California EPA Report on Secondhand Smoke.

The 2006 Surgeon General’s report on The Health Consequences of Involuntary Exposure to Tobacco Smoke confirmed the known health effects of secondhand smoke exposure, including immediate adverse effects on the cardiovascular system, and coronary heart disease and lung cancer. The report concluded there is no safe level of exposure.

Secondhand smoke kills. Knowing the science behind it, as well as how smokefree policies protect the public from secondhand smoke, will help cement this in the minds of the pubic.