"The Economist"

At the beginning of the year, Spain became the latest European country to ban smoking in many public places. As one can imagine, the smokers are not taking this very well. The Socialist government decided on the ban, because smoking is the number one killer in Spain. About 30% of Spain's population smokes, they are also the European Union's second-biggest consumer of tobacco per head. This all leads to about 50,000 deaths per year related to illnesses caused by smoking. Restaurant's are not the only place smoking is banned; it is banned in offices, shops, schools, hospitals, public transport and theatres. If you are an owner of a bar or restaurant that is bigger than 100 square meters you only have eight months to install separate smoking areas. These separate areas must also have ventilations systems. Places that are smaller than this are required to put up signs saying whether or not they are smoke-free. Also, many of the county's civil servants have had the ash trays removed their workplaces. This has resulted in the streets being littered with cigarette butts. To prevent this problem, the Bilbao town hall has distributed 20,000 ash trays.

There have been similar bans imposed in Italy, Ireland, and Norway. In 2007, Britain plans to ban smoking in restaurants and pubs, except for those pubs that do not serve food. There is some speculation that it will have very little effect because, the Spanish law is quite liberal when compared with other European countries.

In a government-sponsored poll back in November, more than 77% of the people backed the ban on smoking. But 69% of the people polled believe the ban will be hard to enforce. When asked why they believed it would be so hard to enforce they answered: whoever makes the law, makes a loophole. The Spanish hotel federation has pointed out that 90% of small bars are continuing to allow their costumers to smoke. There is also much disagreement over what is considered a workplace. There have been many calls to the health ministry from people wanting to know where they can smoke. A small cafeteria located inside a government building ended its initial ban after many of its regulars quite coming to eat there. There may be very little change for the determined smoker and most Spanish bars will probably stay full of stale cigarette smoke.

This is a very important decision the government has made, although a lot of people may think that a ban on smoking in public places is not a very big deal. Smoking has a very large impact on the economy and health of a society. If cigarettes are banned, does the economy falter a little bit? Would it cause people to lose jobs or lose some of those important tax dollars? Even if some of these things happened a country could benefit so much from the positives that could come from it. There would probably be a large reduction in people breathing in second-hand smoke. That being said, one would have to figure out a way to enforce the ban, and this could prove very tough. People are going to smoke; there is no question about that. The question is how to keep non-smokers safe from second-hand smoke, but allow people who do smoke the available places to light up when they need to.

"Smoking in Spain." The Economist 21-27 Jan. 2006, 51.