Major surprise in the Interterritorial Health Council, which debated the 2024-2027 anti-smoking plan. After days in which it seemed that the communities led by the PP were completely distancing themselves from the aforementioned plan (which their own technicians had prepared) alleging that everything was very hasty, that it had no financing and other similar reasons (it was even said that the plan had not listened to the tobacco industry), the PP councilors showed their unwavering support for this plan, which aims to reduce the consumption of tobacco and its products and, above all, stop the introduction of smoking among the youngest . Catalonia, the Basque Country, Asturias, Navarra and the Canary Islands were the only ones that had said yes in advance.
So much so that the counselor of Galicia, Julio García Comesaña, described yesterday as “important for the fight” against this addiction.
What has changed for this support to occur now? Well, according to Comesaña, who has become spokesperson for the PP councilors on this occasion, that Minister Mónica García’s team has included in the text that the money collected when tobacco taxes are raised to the levels of the majority of European countries (around 8 or 10 euros per pack) will go towards the fight against smoking.
And that the minister has also listened to another of their demands, that when the rule establishing the new smoke-free spaces is drafted, it will take into account the actions carried out in the autonomous communities and that not everything will be “prohibit and prohibit.” The PP is in favor of self-regulation, but the minister defends that the evidence shows that self-regulation does not work in public health.
The PP councilors now recognize that the plan is everyone’s work, including the communities, and as proof of this, more than 90 percent of their allegations have been included. A surprising satisfaction because hours before the rejection of a plan that already included the allegations of the autonomous communities was chewed.
Be that as it may, the reality is that the anti-smoking plan is underway and that, from now on, it is in the hands of the Government to develop the laws that come with it: new smoke-free spaces, equating the electronic cigarette with traditional ones, and working with Treasury to clearly increase taxes on these products and that this increase is allocated to smoking.
And, according to García, it will not take long for these rules to begin to be drawn up and go to public hearing. The objective is for them to be approved as soon as possible to “give life to life,” he indicated.
From this moment, the plan begins to depend, as far as regulations are concerned, in the hands of the Government and Parliament, that is, the communities will have little to say and the discussion will focus on the political parties. They are the ones who will finally decide if the terraces will be smoke-free spaces.
