Russian parliament votes for public smoking ban
Russia took a step towards clamping down on the tobacco industry on Friday as a bill to ban smoking in public spaces and to restrict tobacco sales sailed through its first reading in parliament.
Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has said that 44 million Russians, nearly one in three, are hooked on smoking, and almost 400,000 die every year of smoking-related causes.
Under the draft legislation tobacco advertising will be outlawed and smoking in public places such as restaurants, bars and hotels will be phased out. It will also ban kiosks and outlets in stations from selling cigarettes, much to the consternation of the kiosk owners who say they could be put out of business.
Deputies in the Russian Duma, the country’s lower house of parliament, voted overwhelmingly in favor of the bill at its first reading, with 429 votes in favor and two abstentions.
Deputy Health Minister Sergei Velmyaikin said in the Duma that the purpose of the bill was not to reduce the number of smokers, but to prevent that number growing.
Foreign tobacco firms, including British American Tobacco, Imperial Tobacco, Japan Tobacco, and Philip Morris, control more than 90 percent of Russian sales and have been lobbying to soften the proposed legislation.
Russia is the largest tobacco market after China. The cigarette market was estimated at be worth around $22 billion in 2011 by Euromonitor International.
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev announced that the government will begin considering a new bill to help the country cut back on its heavy smoking habit. It would include a ban on smoking in public areas by 2015, a clampdown on tobacco advertising and new excise taxes to raise the price of an average pack.
Medvedev, who does not smoke, alerted viewers to the potential benefits of the legislation in a video-blogged address.
“Higher excises on cigarettes will give a possibility to get additional money for the budget of health care, as well as for aid programs for those who want to give up smoking and for social advertising of a healthy lifestyle,” he said, according to Russian news agency Itar-Tass.
The real challenge is a cultural one. In Russia, cigarettes have been easy to get and widely tolerated for decades - by now, they’re a fixture.
The average price per pack is less than US$2. Smoking is allowed both outdoors and inside - even in children’s environments, public transport and health care facilities. What few restrictions do exist are poorly enforced. For instance, the legal cigarette purchasing age is 18, but minors often buy packs and smoke cigarettes in public.
As a result, Russia is the second-largest tobacco market on Earth, after China. Medvedev said that 44 million citizens are hooked on smoking, and his estimation is in line with statistics from the World Health Organization. About 40 percent of Russians smoke, and one-third of the entire population lights up on a daily basis.
That gives Russia one of the world’s highest rates of smokers per capita.
Of those 44 million smokers, added Medvedev, about 400,000 die from the habit each year. It’s a serious problem in a country where births have not kept pace with deaths for the last decade and population growth currently stands at zero, according to World Bank estimates.
Lawmakers had initially thought that the legislation might come into force early next year but following delays the second reading is not now expected until spring 2013. If passed, the restrictions will be phased in and are expected to be fully in force by 2016.
Russia’s Finance Ministry has previously announced plans to increase the excise duty on tobacco by around 40 percent for 2013 and 2014, and by 10 percent a year after 2015. The Health Ministry supports a greater increase in duty.
Smoking bans by country
Armenia
A law went into effect in March 2005 prohibiting smoking in hospitals, cultural and educational and mental institutions and on public transportation. On 1 March 2006 new rules came into effect requiring all public and private institutions, including bars and restaurants, to allow smoking only in special secluded areas. Absence of any legal sanctions against those who violate the smoking laws have made them completely ineffectual.
Canada
In Canada, indoor smoking is restricted by all territories and provinces and by the federal government. As of 2010, smoking bans within each of these jurisdictions are mostly consistent, despite the separate development of legislation by each. The federal government’s workplace smoking ban applies only to the federal government and to federally regulated businesses, such as airports. Smoking rooms are available in select hotels and motels in most jurisdictions. Manitoba, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Ontario have also prohibited smoking within vehicles with children under 14.
Estonia
Smoking has been restricted in indoor public areas and workplaces since 4 June 2005, except in restaurants. Subsequently, a ban on smoking in bars, restaurants, coffee shops and nightclubs started on 5 June 2007 (although smoking is still allowed in isolated smoking rooms).
Germany
With some of Europe’s highest smoking rates, Germany’s patchwork of smoke-free regulations continues to be controversial. In February 2009, Der Spiegel reported that bans on smoking in bars were being very weakly controlled by the authorities, and that in some places the ban was not being observed at all.
Italy
Italy was the fourth country in the world to enact a nationwide smoke-free law. Since 10 January 2005 it is forbidden to smoke in all public indoor spaces, including bars, cafe’s, restaurants and discos. However, special smoking rooms are allowed. In such areas food can be served, but they are subjected to strict conditions: they need to be separately ventilated, with high air replacement rates; their air pressure must constantly be lower than the pressure in the surrounding rooms; they must be equipped with automatic sliding doors to prevent smoke from spreading to tobacco-free areas; they may occupy at most 50% of the establishment. Only 1% of all public establishments have opted for setting up a smoking room. Smoking is also forbidden in all enclosed workplaces – this includes also trains and underground stations. It is indeed allowed to smoke outdoors, which means that since Italy has sunny weather more than half of the year, people can still smoke at restaurants and bars as long as they sit on the outside tables and people still smoke there.
(Additional reporting by Maria Kiselyova and Natalia Ishchenko; Editing by Greg Mahlich)
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(Reuters)