LATIN AMERICA:
More and More Countries Ban Smoking in Public Places
Humberto Márquez

CARACAS,  (IPS) - 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 Martínez 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. Tabaré Vázquez, 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 Rodríguez 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.

Rodríguez 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.

Rodríguez was replaced two weeks ago by Colonel Jesús Mantilla, a former president of the Social Security Institute. The authorities did not explain the decision to remove Rodríguez, 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."