Translated material
The case is tobacco
In addition, from now on, it is impossible to smoke in all state institutions, in the premises of educational institutions, in sanatoriums and - everywhere - at the workplace, if only a good employer does not equip the smokers with an exhaust system.
It is unlikely that 44 million Russian smokers as one will be happy with all these restrictions, although it is difficult to find a person who would not know that it was harmful to smoke. Nevertheless, much of the proposed seems reasonable even for those who do not part with a cigarette for more than half an hour. Among the indisputable we will call the transformation of playgrounds into zones free from tobacco smoke.
But what about the norms that the violation of which needs to be fixed? For example, at a distance of 15 meters from the entrance to the metro you can not smoke, and on the 16th meter - you can. Who will count these meters? Police will be equipped with roulette?
Chairman of the Board of the International Confederation of Consumer Societies Dmitry Yanin refers to international experience:
- You are right. In a developed civilized country, clear boundaries can be set - 10 m, 15 m. Russia is an Asian country, so this norm is absolutely not working, not like Poland or Lithuania. There, similar prohibitions are respected.
It works very successfully in restaurants in Ukraine. In Russia, fortunately for tobacco companies, this ban enters into force only on June 1, 2014, but in Kyiv it has been operating since December. And there have been no orange revolutions since December 2012 in Ukraine. The smokers did not go outside. I do not dramatize or idealize this Russian law. Indeed, there may be too detailed requirements, which should also follow in detail Russian police. But to do nothing, we can’t offer at least some decision as a public organization and as citizens of Russia, because we all see perfectly what this lack of rights of non-smokers led to.
Eloquent statistics: the volume of sales of cigarettes 2000, when the most unsuccessful anti -tobacco law was adopted in the history of the world, the first law, and then the market was calculated 250 billion cigarettes, now it is 400 billion cigarettes. Over 12 years, when the population is reduced, the number of cigarettes in Russia increased. This suggests that everything that the state has done for the past 12 years was ineffective. Now another model is proposed, which has been worked out in 130 countries of the world, including countries such as Ukraine, like the Baltic countries, as the United States. If a person is in their right mind, an independent person will say that Russia has his own path, I do not agree with this. I do not think that all our idiocy can be justified by our Asian and our special mission in the history of mankind.
By the way, please excuse me for the "Asian". This is an inappropriate word, because Thailand, China, and many other Asian countries have taken very stringent anti -tobacco measures. We hope that until the end of June, fines for smoking in the wrong place will be adopted - 1.5 thousand rubles. Advertising of cigarettes will be prohibited completely. Because to advertise a product that kills is nonsense. We hope that when the price of oil falls to $ 70, the Russian Ministry of Finance will begin to increase excise taxes, and cigarettes will not cost 30 rubles and will become inaccessible to children.
- Is it really thanks to strict prohibitions that people in the countries you named began to quit smoking? Or are they just doing this disciplined only where it is allowed? You can, after all, getting home in the evening, in your own apartment to get what he limited to himself during the day? In other words, it will not work out that only the so -called passive smokers will win?
- Not only. No one got rid of smoking thanks to the opening of sports grounds and agitation "quit smoking, get on skiing", as tobacco companies promote now. The most effective measures to reduce tobacco consumption are repressive measures and price. You can see how the volumes of sales of tobacco, for example, in the USA continue to fall and continue to fall. You can see the experience of the Scandinavian countries. Everywhere the number of places where it is possible to smoke is reduced. And in the UK, for example, they went even further. Medical services for smokers are more expensive there. Medical insurance is more expensive for them. We do not have this. At the expense of taxes, everything is treated - and that is right.
So, due to the measures I have listed over the past 10 years, impressive results have been achieved. Other measures simply do not exist. This is a very serious drug - nicotine. Unfortunately, the brain really depends on the dose of the smoker. Almost all countries that have achieved tobacco consumption in recent years have achieved three measures: increasing excise taxes, smoking prohibitions in public places and a prohibition of advertising tobacco products. We hope that if other anti -tobacco initiatives are implemented sequentially, we can handle it. And the Russians will live longer, and smoke less.