[NYTr] World No Tobacco Day: Venezuela a Pioneer in anti-Smoking Efforts
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excerpted from VIO Venezuela Daily News Roundup - June 1, 2007
[Yesterday was World No Tobacco Day, and Venezuela's Anti-Cancer Society
carried out an awareness-raising campaign in Caracas. Venezuela was a
pioneer in banning cigarette and alcohol advertisements on TV and radio
-- a measure signed into law a quarter century ago -- and the country
is now in a process of phasing out smoking in public places. JesC:s
Mantilla recently became Venezuela's Health Minister, after his
predecessor erroneously stated that tobacco production would be halted,
the Inter Press Service reports.]
Inter Press Service - June 1, 2007
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=37984
More and More Countries Ban Smoking in Public Places
By Humberto MC!rquez
CARACAS - The 150 million smokers in Latin America and the Caribbean
are finding it more and more difficult to smoke in public spaces, as a
growing list of countries adopt measures aimed at protecting
non-smokers from second-hand smoke.
But activists say bans on smoking must be accompanied by
consciousness-raising and efforts at persuasion. "This is the tendency
that civil society has supported the most -- the route of information,
education and awareness-raising," Eva MartC-nez of Venezuela's
Anti-Cancer Society told IPS.
On Thursday, World No Tobacco Day, the Society distributed a poster
that shows an ashtray with an office inside it, to support the
international smoke-free workplace campaign.
The World Trade Organisation (WTO) has urged governments to make closed
public spaces and workplaces free of tobacco smoke, which contains 400
chemical compounds, 250 of which are toxic and 50 of which are
carcinogenic.
In Brazil, smoking has been banned in most public places since 1996,
including hospitals, classrooms, public offices, libraries, cinemas and
theatres, while specific smoking areas have been set up in other public
spaces.
Some 33 million of Brazil's 188 million people are smokers, and around
200,000 tobacco-related deaths are reported annually, equivalent to
one-third of the region's 600,000 smoking-related deaths, according to
the Pan-American Health Organisation (PAHO).
"Studies have shown over and over that not only smoking itself, but
second-hand smoke as well is a 'Group A' human carcinogen," PAHO
official Natacha Herrera told IPS.
Campaigns in the region take aim at cigarette advertising, ban sales to
minors, restrict smoking in public places, establish specific smoking
and non-smoking areas, and seek to completely eliminate tobacco smoke
from hospitals and even national parks.
Uruguay, whose president is a practicing oncologist, Dr. TabarC)
VC!zquez, became the first country in Latin America and the fifth in the
world to completely prohibit smoking in all enclosed public spaces in
March 2006. An average of seven people a day die in the South American
country of 3.3 million people of smoking-related causes including lung
cancer, emphysema and other illnesses.
And in Mexico, with a population 30 times bigger than that of Uruguay,
one person dies of tobacco-related illnesses every 10 minutes. The
government there has reacted by banning smoking in federal buildings,
schools, public transport and restaurants, except in specially
designated smoking areas.
In Chile, a law passed last year prohibited smoking in enclosed public
spaces, and in offices with less than 10 employees, while bars and
restaurants smaller than 100 square metres must decide whether to be
smoke-free or smoker-friendly establishments.
In Buenos Aires, the Argentine capital, smoking is banned in schools,
hospitals, workplaces, public transport, bars, restaurants, and
theatres with an all-age audience.
"It has been amply demonstrated that employees in places like bars,
discotheques or bingo halls, even if they themselves do not smoke,
suffer serious exposure every night to lethal amounts of tobacco
smoke," said Herrera.
Venezuela, meanwhile, has seen the adoption of a series of measures
over the years, such as the establishment of no-smoking areas in
restaurants, bans on smoking in health institutions, and most recently,
a prohibition on smoking in some public buildings and private buildings
open to the public.
A quarter century ago, Venezuela was a pioneer in prohibiting
cigarette, as well as liquor, advertising on television and radio. Two
years ago, it extended that ban to all media, and joined the growing
group of nations that print sometimes graphic images covering one
complete side of each cigarette package to raise awareness of the
dangers of smoking.
Early this month, then minister of health Erick RodrC-guez announced
that World No Tobacco Day would be celebrated this year by banning
smoking in all restaurants, even though the measure was supposed to be
phased in gradually, with deadlines set for maintaining smoking
sections.
RodrC-guez also said that Venezuela would gradually cut down on the
production of tobacco, a crop that has been grown in this country since
the 17th century, and even the manufacturing of cigarettes.
"Anyone who wants to smoke will have to import cigarettes," he said,
and to leave no doubt as to his anti-smoking credentials, he remarked
in an interview that: "I have never kissed a woman who smokes."
His announcement came like a bucket of cold water for the country's
9,000 tobacco farmers, who produce 5,700 tons of tobacco leaf a year,
and for the cigarette industry, which employs around 10,000 workers and
does an annual turnover of 700 million dollars, 55 percent of which
goes into the state coffers in taxes.
The biggest cigarette company in Venezuela, Bigott, is a subsidiary of
British American Tobacco.
RodrC-guez was replaced two weeks ago by Colonel JesC:s Mantilla, a
former president of the Social Security Institute. The authorities did
not explain the decision to remove RodrC-guez, but IPS was told by an
anonymous source that his most recent remarks merely accelerated a
decision that had already been reached.
On the eve of World No Tobacco Day, Health Ministry official Ernesto
Perdomo said the decision to curb tobacco and cigarette production was
still under study, but that "it is always preferable to begin with a
new awareness-raising campaign."
*
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