The Minister of Health, Mónica García, yesterday showed the support for her anti-tobacco project from scientific societies, organizations promoting public health, youth groups and organizations dedicated to the protection of children. “The next few weeks will be key” for the launch of the 2024-2027 Comprehensive Smoking Prevention and Control Plan, he said. The autonomous communities have until next Wednesday to present the proposals. The package of measures will be debated at the beginning of April in an extraordinary meeting of the public health commission and the interterritorial council.
The minister’s appearance at the end of a meeting with scientific and social organizations began with a forceful enumeration of the harms of smoking. “We cannot afford to lose 140 people a day to tobacco,” he said. “We cannot afford for 460 boys to start smoking every day”, he continued. He then recalled that smoking causes 50,000 deaths a year in Spain, is directly related to 15 types of cancer and that passive smokers are not exempt from lethality: 450 deaths in 2020 of non-smokers exposed to tobacco. A frightening picture to try to prevent the autonomous communities governed by the Popular Party (11) from falling into the temptation to boycott part or all of the project (tobacco on the terraces is prefigured as a new standard of freedom) at a moment’s notice of strong tension between the parties.
“Beyond the noise and the political tension, the autonomous communities are responsible for the protection of health”, argued García. “I would be very surprised if, after all the scientific evidence and the anti-tobacco plans [applied by PP autonomies such as Galicia, Madrid or Valencia], this issue was used to make another political front”.
Although the minister emphasized that the anti-smoking plan is not a law, but a road map, and the legislative measures will have to be approved in the coming years, she assured that the situation deserves “forcefulness”. “15 years ago in this country we were at the vanguard of the fight against tobacco, in favor of health, and we want to once again be benchmarks in Europe and the world”, he proclaimed.
In general terms, the government project proposes to expand the number of smoke-free spaces, to prevent minors from starting to smoke or to help smokers who want to quit the addiction. “We will urge the autonomous communities to be part of this fight in favor of public health and in favor of the health of our minors”, proclaimed García.
